The social-scientific discussion on globalization has produced several versions that reflect tension and ambiguity in the object itself: global society. A number of polarities operate within the literature to express this tension, among them the distinction between global and local, modern and traditional, postmodern and modern, system and life-world, West and non-West, and so forth. The article uses the difference between instrumental system and cultural model to outline both the basic structures of global society and how the various polarities, while appearing as oppositions, are actually better seen as mutually conditioning ways of constructing difference and identity in global society. The examples of such relations between nations and state and between religions and religion serve to illustrate the argument. A short conclusion points to possible research projects for refining and testing the macrotheoretical model.
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