1. Interdependence
(i) All the countries of the world are dependent on each other for one reason or the other. However big, prosperous or developed a nation may be, it can never be self-sufficient to fulfill all its needs.
(ii) Even big nations have to depend upon other big and small nations. Thus, interdependence is an important feature of the international system, i.e. today’s global system.
2. Bipolarisation
During the Cold War, most countries of the world joined either of the two super power blocks. Such a division of the nations of the world in two groups is bipolarisation.
Globalization
(i) After the end of the Cold War, trade and economic relations between countries became more open. As it has been mentioned before, capital, labour, markets and information began circulating globally.
(ii) The give and take of ideas among people all over the world grew.
(iii) Due to the revolution in information technology, different events and developments began to be known everywhere.
(iv) The boundaries between nations did not remain as sacrosanct as they were before. All these processes are together called globalisation.
(v) Just as globalisation has brought us benefits, it has also caused losses.
For example, as the economies of different countries got linked with each other, trade increased, economic unification grew, plenty of products became available in the markets; but (at the same time) the gap between the poor and rich nations did not reduce.
