Globalization signifies which of the following:

Concept

Globalization is not captured by any single dimension. Standard accounts in geography and the social sciences treat it as one process running along three intertwined strands: a spatial-temporal strand, in which distance and time are compressed; an economic strand, in which separate national economies fuse into one interdependent market; and a social strand, in which human relations are organised beyond fixed territorial borders. A workable definition therefore has to accommodate all three strands rather than privilege one.

Application

Each description offered in this question names one of those strands:

• Time-space compression — David Harvey's term for the way accelerating transport and communication shrink the effective distance between places, so far-apart events are experienced almost simultaneously. This is the spatial-temporal strand.

• The integration of the world economy — the knitting of national economies into a single interdependent market through trade, capital flows and cross-border production networks. This is the economic strand.

• The growth of supra-territorial relations between people — Jan Aart Scholte's characterisation of social ties that are organised beyond fixed territorial borders, such as worldwide networks and instant communication. This is the social strand.

All three descriptions are recognised facets of the same process, and none of them rules out the others. The description that takes in every strand at once is therefore the accurate answer: All the above.

Cross-check

Settling on any one of the three descriptions would define globalization by a single strand and leave the other two unexplained, which is why the combined description is the one that holds.