Global Order or Divided World? Introduction

Abstract

The title of this session dramatizes a basic contradiction of the present, but could be rephrased as global order and divided world, since the social world at the beginning of the 21st century is both globally interconnected and globally fragmented according to the dimensions we consider: global economic and technological interdependence and social interconnectedness, on the one hand, and cultural fragmentation and political division, on the other. The world can be conceptualized as a single system, but a world society does not yet exist, and widespread conflict and fragmentation are more evident than global integration and governance. First, this introduction discusses the main conceptualizations of globalization, which are arranged in a conceptual space described with reference to three major axes: (a) hyperglobalizers vs skeptics, where the key distinction concerns the degree of novelty of globalization and its impact on nation states; (b) neo-liberals vs neo-marxist and radicals, where the key points are the balance between positive and negative impacts of globalization and its truly global or western hegemonic character; and (c) homogenization vs heterogeneity and hybridization, which focuses on the cultural dimension of globalization. Second, the introduction criticizes the demise of the nation state as one major instance of oversimplification in theorizing about globalization.