Page 75 - ثقافة قانونية العدد الخامس للنشر الإلكتروني

Cultural and Legal Globalization – Socio-economic and Legal Phenomenon

Judge Dr Mohamed A.M. Ismail
LLB, LLM, PhD (Cairo), FCIArb (London)
Judge at the Supreme Administrative Court and Vice President of the Egyptian Conseil d’État

Cultural Globalization Phenomenon
Cultural globalization is a cultural socioeconomic phenomenon. The first element that was influenced by globalization was culture. Cultural
interaction is the main outcome of the flow of ideas and values into developing countries. Culture represents a set of practices, values, beliefs
and customs acquired by individuals as members of a distinctive society and resulting from interaction among people.(1)

Culture has reacted to globalization in two contrasting ways:

Acceptance of a new global culture, and

Rejection of a total loss of cultural identity as each distinctive group of people strengthens localization.(2)

In fact, globalization, according to many authors, has two faces. As stated above, with respect to the economic dimension of globalization,
Stiglitz(3) referred to the understanding of globalization in some parts of the world:

The current process of globalization is generating unbalanced outcomes, both between and within countries. Wealth is being created,
but too many countries and people are not sharing its benefits. They also have little or no voice in shaping the process. Seen through the
eyes of the vast majority of women and men, globalization has not met their simple and legitimate aspiration for decent jobs and a better

future for their children. . . . Even in the economically successful countries, some workers and communities have been adversely affected by
globalization. Meanwhile, the revolution in global communications heightens awareness of these disparities. . . .
are morally unacceptable and politically unsustainable. [T]hese global imbalances

It is true that ‘Those who are discontented with economic globalization generally do not object to the greater access to global markets or to

the spread of global knowledge, which allows the developing world to take advantage of the discoveries and innovation made in developed
countries’.(4)

It is argued that globalization is a debate with two different views, Universalism versus Territorialism or Globalization versus Globaphobia.

However, from the economic perspective of globalization, economists used to refer to ‘international economic integration‘ when discussing

the growth of overseas transactions. Today, they refer to ‘globalization’, which has become the popular term. For example, in his article ‘The
Globalization of Markets’, published in the Harvard Business Review, Levitt (1983) stated that a powerful force drives the world towards a

converging commonality; that force is technology, and the direct result emanating from that is a new commercial reality.(5)

Culture is a very complex entity that is seen to be torn in the age of globalization between two powerful forces: ‘a centrifugal force’ and ‘a
centripetal force’. The latter force works to facilitate cultural homogenization and the formation of a true global society that has dissolved

all differences, while the ‘centrifugal force’, under the influence of national movements and the fear of loss of identity, mitigates the impact

of globalization by preserving local identities.(6)

In modern and civilized systems, it is common to find high degrees of differentiation.
As society expands and increases in complexity, the degree of social and cultural differentiation develops to the point that, even for members

of the same society, the only commonality is their humanity.(7)

It has been argued that cultural globalization is a form of cultural imperialism, as it tends to associate cultural cosmopolitanism with

Westernization or Americanization. Yet, the process of cultural interaction and globalization does not mean, in its true sense, that the world
should be dominated by a single logic or culture. The process is one that aims to achieve mutual respect and trust and to search for common
interests, values and principles. It is not a one-way process, but rather, a two-way interaction.
The Clash of Civilizations: Is It Real or Is It Co-ordinated?
In his famous thesis, Samuel Huntington pointed out that the world is far from being dominated by a single logic. He added that the great
divisions where humans are concerned are cultural, rather than ideological or economic. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics.(8)
Huntington divides the world into eight civilizations that are in potential conflict. These include Western, Confucian, Japanese, Islamic,
Hindu, Slavic Orthodox, Latin American and African. He predicts that conflict and clash will occur among these civilizations in general and
between the West and the Islamic–Confucian axis in particular.

(1)Joseph E. Stiglitz, Globalization and Its Discontents (W.W. Norton & Company Inc., 2004). See also Stiglitz, Making Globalization
Work (W.W. Norton & Company, 2007); Brian Snowdown, Globalization, Development and Transition (Edward Elgar, 2007); Mo-
hamed S. Wahab, Cultural Globalization and Public Policy: Exclusion of Foreign Law in the Global Village (Oxford: Oxford Universi-
ty Press, 2005) Vol. 8, 306.

(2) Wahab, supra, note 1, 364.

(3) Stiglitz (2007), supra, note 1.

(4) Ibid.

(5) Snowdown, supra, note 1.

(6) See Wahab, supra, note 1, 364.

(7) Wahab referred to Durkhein’s opinion cit. M. Featherstone, Global Culture: An Introduction, Global Culture Nationalism, Global-
ization and Modernity (London, 1990).

(8) Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilization and the Remaking of World Order (London, 1996). Henry Kissinger described the

75 book as ‘one of the most important books to have emerged since the end of the cold war’.