A second area of contention is causation. The central issue here is
whether the process is mono- or multi-causal. Many accounts have
reduced the phenomenon to the expansionist and, sometimes, imperial,
tendencies of capitalism (see Harvey, 1989); others, for example,
view technology as the driving force (see Ohmae, 1995). More recent
literature has argued that a multiplicity of interlocking factors in the
realms of culture, politics, economics and technology are relevant
(Held and McGrew, 2002; Robertson, 2003). As the collection of
readings assembled by Roberts and Hite (2000) attests, this debate
relates to an older one concerning the diffusion of modernization. Should
globalization be seen simply as the expansion of Western modernization,
as world systems theory might argue, or is it something more complex
that has different root causes and expression across the world? In brief,
is globalization more than simply westernization?
A third controversy is whether globalization should be conceived
of as something new, and this debate forms the focus of Chapter 3.
Writers are divided on the periodization of the process. Some see it as
a post-1970s phenomenon, some as a twentieth-century process, and
others as beginning with the earliest human migrations. Held et al.,
(1999) argue that growing evidence of global trade and cultural links
in the pre-modern age force us to be more sensitive to history in our
explanations and characterizations of the process. Defining the historical
shape of globalization, of course, is as much an exercise in definitions
as it is in teasing out complex historical geographies. Ultimately, as
with many of the other controversies, it boils down to what we mean by
globalization.