Problem Statement

In today’s post-Cold War world, security covers numerous areas to include: religious-cultural, socio-economic, and politico-military concerns. Some of the positive aspects of the post-Cold War world are the increased economic integration of free markets, technologies, and even countries (as in the European Union). Some negative aspects include the idea that the security environment is enduring an “unstable peace” and a certain amount of chaos exists caused by a myriad of political instabilities and folks seeking to cause more destabilization.

Continuing global economic integration is clashing with global political violence. General causes of instabilities tend to be exploited by bad guys such as rogue states, insurgents, terrorists, political actors, drug traffickers, organized crime syndicates, militant fundamentalists, and many others with a cause and will to impose their self-determined desires to change a society, nation-state, or other perceived source of power, in an image that fits their ideology.
To ensure their survival nation-states like Bangladesh have to wield their power, through many different means; some states, obviously, are more capable having more means than others. Determining how best to wield powers of state and against whom to wield power is one of the main tenets of security policy. Leaders of states have to determine what are the interests of the state vis-à-vis the people it represents and take into consideration threats the state faces. With the security of the state, and hopefully more so the security of the people, being paramount, a brief survey of the types of threats confronting nation-states seems rather appropriate.
Threats to nation-states will most likely come from one or more of three types: internal (locally disaffected persons), external (hostile neighbors) or asymmetric (Weapon of Mass Destructions, Cyber/Infrastructure attacks, Drug traffickers, ultra-criminals, and terrorists). Threats Bangladesh is likely to face over the coming decades fit within this construct. Notable are: proliferation of drugs and arms, growth of organized crime, disenchanted minorities (ethnic and religious) resulting in insurgency, foreign intelligence services using Bangladesh to their advantage, insurgents from neighboring north-east India attempting to hide-out, and the rise of religious fundamentalism attempting to win power through revolution. Arrayed against Bangladesh are robust threats that should concern its leaders. Leaders should consider how these threats are more or less likely to arise, and how to combat or, even better; prevent these threats from becoming immediate dangers.

One main cause of concern currently being focused on throughout the world is the view that globalization is a security threat to the state and permits the proliferation of the threats stated above. It seems easy to just throw the woes of the world, all the security concerns at the feet of a newly contrived word--globalization. “At times, it reaches a level where all the ills of the country, including pollution and deforestation, even minority bashing and the sale of gas, are explained by finger pointing at the forces of globalization.” Essential to being able to blame this new word would be a tacit understanding of what is meant by it.

Bangladesh as a developing country is not immune to the challenges of globalization. In the era of globalization, she is confronted with threats emanating from both external and internal sources. Under the impact of globalization, development and economic security perception in Bangladesh has undergone some perceptible changes over the past few years. Bangladesh faces vital challenges in terms of ecological integrity, financial stability, identity and social cohesion from national, regional and global levels. The country needs to protect her socio-economic, political and environmental interests to face the challenges in the era of globalization. There is a cogent need to broaden the scope for prosperity through the creation of a modern and efficient economy. The challenge before the country is how to attain this goal in an environment where major economic decisions affecting national life are often determined by the international market.

Economic globalization is a process of rapid economic integration between countries that is driven by the increasing liberalization of international trade and foreign direct investment. Liberalization of the economy in Bangladesh seemed an inevitable measure to meet the economic challenges of globalization. Whether it has derived benefits for the country or not remains a point to be analyzed

Global developments

Over the period 1950-1973, the volume of world trade (in goods and services) increased at an annual rate of nearly 8%, while world GDP rose annually by 5% in volume. In the decade following the abandonment of the Breton Woods fixed exchange rate regime and the first oil price shock, the rate of expansion of both world trade and world GDP slowed down substantially.
Since 1983, the pace of world trade has accelerated again, reaching an average annual rate of 5.7%. This well outpaces the expansion of world GDP, which has risen at an average of only 3.4% per year. However, the pace of world trade has been slower than the pace of FDI, which has risen at 14% per year since 1985.In 1996, world merchandise exports accounted for $5.1 trillion and commercial services exports $1.2 trillion. The respective figures for imports were $5.2 trillion (merchandise) and $1.2 trillion (services). (World Trade Organization (WTO) Secretariat, Report on Trade Developments 1997) In 1996, global trade (based on exports) rose 3.3% from the previous year. This represented a major slowdown compared with the 20.4% rise seen in 1995. (Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), White Paper on International Trade 1997)
Developed and developing countries
With regard to the role of individual regions in the growth of global trade, there was a remarkable drop in the contributions of the EU and East Asia to export growth, compared to the previous year. The EU's contribution to trade growth was down from 8.9% to 0.9%, and East Asia's fell from 3.7% to 0.7%. Furthermore, Japan's contribution to worldwide export growth was negative in 1996. Even its contribution to import growth came in at a low 0.3%. Latin America, meanwhile, had little effect on overall trade growth since the region originally represented only a minor part of global trade.
One of the reasons for the sluggish growth in global trade as compared with the growth rate of the global economy was a shift in the countries driving economic growth, both in industrialized and developing countries. Specifically, Japan became the major driving force among the industrialized countries in 1996, rather than the EU (with the growth rate of the EU falling from 2.5% to 1.6%, and that of Japan rising from 1.4% to 3.6%). Among developing countries, the growth rate in Asia slowed a bit, but this was made up for by faster growth in Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa. However, the trade of Japan and these other countries and regions did not grow commensurately. (JETRO, White Paper on International Trade 1997)

Measurement

Looking specifically at economic globalization demonstrates that it can be measured in different ways. This center around the four main economic flows that characterize globalization:

• Goods and services, e.g., exports plus imports as a proportion of national income or per capital of population
• Labor/people, e.g., net migration rates; inward or outward migration flows, weighted by population
• Capital, e.g., inward or outward direct investment as a proportion of national income or per head of population
• Technology, e.g., international research & development flows; proportion of populations (and rates of change thereof) using particular inventions (especially 'factor-neutral' technological advances such as the telephone, motorcar, broadband)

As globalization is not only an economic phenomenon, a multivariate approach to measuring globalization is the recent index calculated by the Swiss think tank KOF. The index measures the three main dimensions of globalization: economic, social, and political. In addition to three indices measuring these dimensions, an overall index of globalization and sub-indices referring to actual economic flows, economic restrictions, and data on personal contact, data on information flows, and data on cultural proximity is calculated. Data is available on a yearly basis for 122 countries, as detailed in Dreher, Gaston and Martens (2008). According to the index, the world's most globalized country is Belgium, followed by Austria, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. The least globalized countries according to the KOF-index are Haiti, Myanmar, the Central African Republic and Burundi.

A.T. Kearney and Foreign Policy Magazine jointly publish another Globalization Index. According to the 2006 index, Singapore, Ireland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Canada and Denmark are the most globalized, while Indonesia, India and Iran are the least globalized among countries listed

History

Extent of the Silk Road and Spice trade routes blocked by the Ottoman Empire in 1453 spurring exploration.
The historical origins of globalization are the subject of on-going debate. Though some scholars situate the origins of globalization in the modern era, others regard it as a phenomenon with a long history.

Perhaps the most extreme proponent of a deep historical origin for globalization was Andre Gunder Frank, an economist associated with dependency theory. Frank argued that a form of globalization has been in existence since the rise of trade links between Sumer and the Indus Valley Civilization in the third millennium B.C. Critics of this idea point out that it rests upon an over-broad definition of globalization.
An early form of globalized economics and culture existed during the Hellenistic Age, when commercialized urban centers were focused around the axis of Greek culture over a wide range that stretched from India to Spain, with such cities as Alexandria, Athens, and Antioch at its center. Trade was widespread during that period, and it is the first time the idea of a cosmopolitan culture (from Greek "Cosmopolis", meaning "world city") emerged. Others have perceived an early form of globalization in the trade links between the Roman Empire, the Parthian Empire, and the Han Dynasty. The increasing articulation of commercial links between these powers inspired the development of the Silk Road, which started in western China, reached the boundaries of the Parthian empire, and continued onwards towards Rome.[16] With 300 Greek ships a year sailing between the Greco-Roman world and India, the annual trade may have reached 300,000 tons.

INTRODUCTION OF GLOBALIZATION

Globalization in the broadest sense implies integration of economies and societies across the globe through the flow of technology, trade and capital. It basically refers to a process that enables people, goods, information, norms, practices and institutions to transcend national jurisdictions through markets, technologies, interests and information flows. Four types of changes characterize globalization. First, it involves a stretching of social, political and economic activities across frontiers, regions and continents. Second, it is marked by the growing magnitude of interconnectedness and flows of trade, investment, finance, migration, culture, etc. Third, it can be linked to a speeding up of global interactions and processes. And fourth, the effects of distant events can be highly significant elsewhere and specific local developments can have considerable global consequences. Thus the boundaries between domestic matters and global affairs become increasingly fluid. Globalization, in short, can be thought of as the widening, intensifying and growing impact of worldwide interconnectedness. It causes an expansion in the volume and variety of cross border transactions in goods and services.

Globalization is a long-term process of change. It has economic, political and cultural dimensions, all of which can have a social impact. The different dimensions of the process are interrelated and mutually reinforcing. There are, undoubtedly, significant potential benefits of globalization. Openness to foreign direct investment can contribute to growth by stimulating domestic investment, improving efficiency and productivity, or by increasing the knowledge applied to production. Increased access to the domestic financial system by foreign banks may raise the efficiency of the banking process thereby lowering the cost of investment and raising growth rates. Trade openness may facilitate the acquisition of new inputs, less expensive or higher-quality intermediate goods and improved technologies that enhance the overall productivity of the economy.

Conversely, the process of globalization entails significant risks and potentially large economic and social challenges, particularly to the developing countries. Openness to global capital markets has brought greater volatility in domestic financial markets, particularly in countries whose financial systems were weak to begin with and whose economic policies lacked credibility. Similarly trade liberalization has led in some countries to reduced demand for unskilled labour, lower real wages, job losses and income declines which have often resulted in higher poverty rates. As a result, there have been growing concerns about the negative effects of globalization, and an increasingly polarized debate on the plight of the worlds poorest.

It is very clear that the phenomenon of globalization has come to stay. In fact, globalization has been described as a fast moving train that waits for nobody.1 Intended passengers either jump onto it or risk of being left behind. Like every journey, every passenger must be prepared to board at the right station, with the necessary kits and with a clear knowledge or vision of his destination. There are obvious indications that Bangladesh is ill prepared to start this journey and cope with the developments. Apart from the fact that most developing countries lack the basic infrastructure to embark on industrialization drives, the inability to make sound economic policies, unpredictability of changes in laws and pervasive corruption are critical obstacles to development. Therefore, one of the greatest challenges faced by Bangladesh in this century is how to strengthen its participation in the global economy in a manner that will bring widespread and sustainable benefits to its people.

Introduction

—Globalization has a very far-reaching effect on almost every sphere of life. In the question of economic development and growth it is even more being in this era of globalization. Developing country take the advantages of globalization and attempt to improve her economy. Friedman’s concept of golden straitjacket can work as a good start point in this wise effort with special emphasis on the relevant four issues discussed in this paper. As I find thru my research, Bangladesh’s potentials to economic globalization is highly promising. I believe that the recommendation made in this paper if implemented well will take Bangladesh to a point of sustained economic growth and development Globalization in the broadest sense implies integration of economies and societies across the globe through the flow of technology, trade and capital. It basically refers to a process that enables people, goods, information, norms, practices and institutions to transcend national jurisdictions through markets, technologies, interests and information flows. Four types of changes characterize globalization. First, it involves a stretching of social, political and economic activities across frontiers, regions and continents. Second, it is marked by the growing magnitude of interconnectedness and flows of trade, investment, finance, migration, culture, etc. Third, it can be linked to a speeding up of global interactions and processes. And fourth, the effects of distant events can be highly significant elsewhere and specific local developments can have considerable global consequences. Thus the boundaries between domestic matters and global affairs become increasingly fluid. Globalization, in short, can be thought of as the widening, intensifying and growing impact of worldwide interconnectedness. It causes an expansion in the volume and variety of cross border transactions in goods and services.