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There are many who not only associate globalization with Westernization, but who see the two as more or less coterminous (Bozkurt 2012; Sen 2002). This, of course, is closely related to equating globalization with Americanization (see below), but the latter in this case is subsumed under the broader heading of Westernization, largely by adding its influence to that of Europeanization (Headley 2008, 2012). It is also common, especially today as a result of globalization, to ascribe a negative connotation to Westernization (as it is to Americanization) if one lives in other parts of the world (although critics in the West also view Westernization negatively), especially the South. Specifically, it is tied closely to the notions and earlier periods of Western imperialism and colonialism. Much of the world now blanches at the idea of Western imperialism or colonialism of any kind… and for good reason. However, in rejecting them, what tends to be ignored or excluded is the best of what the West has had to offer, and can still offer, to other parts of the world.

Claims of the Westernization of the world are supported in various ways, but it is important to recognize both differences within the West, as well as differences between the West and other parts of the world, even those that seem to adopt Western ways (Gray 2000). For example, political democracy is closely associated with the West and the effort to democratize many other parts of the world is linked to Westernization. However, there are great differences between the nature of democracies in the West (e.g. between the US and Great Britain) and, more importantly, between Western democracies broadly conceived and those that have arisen elsewhere. This is reflected in Turkey, which is widely considered to have become a democracy after World War II when they legalized opposition political parties and required the election of future presidents. But the military was given the responsibility of enforcing its secular structure, which has regularly been contested by conservative Muslims in Turkey. As a result, there have been a handful of military coups, after which rule was return to elected leaders. In recent decades, however, President Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) has reversed many democratic gains and become more authoritarian (Çınar 2018). After an attempted military coup in 2016, the government detained thousands of soliders and judges suspected for their involvement in the coup, and also shut down dozens of media outlets. In 2019, President Erdoğan overturned the election of Istanbul’s mayor when his party’s candidate lost (Reuters 2019). Critics contended that the moves damage Turkey’s fragile democracy, but its political system has always functioned with an unusual mix of democratic and non-democratic institutions. Democracies that are periodically subject to such military and authoritarian rule are very different from the long-lasting democracies in the West. Furthermore, the nitty-gritty of the way democracy works on a day-to-day basis is wildly different from one part of the world to another. There are also non-Western areas of the world – most notably China – that have been able to resist democratization totally and remain totalitarian. Finally, even electoral democracies vary greatly in how well they represent the broader population. For example, while the US is a democracy, there is much empirical evidence that shows it is largely dominated by wealthy elites (Domhoff 2013). Examples like this have led some critics to question to what degree such a form of democracy should be exported throughout the world.

Similarly, the market economies of the West are seemingly triumphant throughout much of the non-Western world, but the ways in which those markets function elsewhere differs greatly from one location to another. In the West in general (although there is great variation within the West, as well) the market is typically quite open and free (hence the term the “free market”), but in other parts of the world such a market is partly or greatly circumscribed. The best example is China in the early twenty-first century which in some cases has an open market, but in others the market is dominated by state-run enterprises and/or controlled by the state.

Westernization goes beyond politics and economics to include a wide variety of other exports to the rest of the world including its technologies, languages (English as the lingua franca [see Figure 3.2 for map showing significant use of “Global English” in the world today] in much of the world; French is still spoken in many places in the world), law (this is especially important in Hardt and Negri’s view of the origin of the Empire’s “constitution” in the West, especially the US Constitution), lifestyle (the centrality of consumption), food (the global proliferation of Western-style fast food), and so on. Some of the latter is associated more specifically with the US and therefore with Americanization, but before we deal with the latter we will discuss a process with the same magnitude as Westernization, at least in terms of point of global origin, “Easternization.”

Figure 3.2 Global English. Places where English has one or more of the following roles: as the national or as an official language, as a language in which more than 50% of the general population has fluency, as the lingua franca of government, higher education, and commerce in plural societies, and as an outpost dating from colonial times. Source: Data from English Speaking Countries 2020. Retrieved from: http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/english-speaking-countries/.

However, we close this section with three broad criticisms of Westernization. First, globalization is much more complex than the one-way flow implied by Westernization. Instead, it must be understood “as a process of mutual, if uneven, infiltration: with West permeating the rest and vice versa” (Inda and Rosaldo 2008: 24). Second, Westernization implies homogenization, that the rest of the world comes to resemble the West, but globalization involves both homogenization and heterogenization. Finally, Westernization “neglects those circuits of culture that circumvent the West – those which serve primarily to link the countries of the periphery with one another” (Inda and Rosaldo 2008: 25). Thus, for example, for Taiwan, the links with China and Japan may be far more important than those with the West. The growth of other power centers (such as the East, especially China) leads to the view that “there is not just one global cultural power center but a plurality of them, even if the West stands out among these” (Inda and Rosaldo 2008: 29).