Abstract
This article critically examines the challenges to the globalization paradigm observed throughout the world in the twenty-first century. While empirical evidence suggests that the policy-oriented globalization project of the 1990s has been superseded by different tendencies and policies, social-scientific scholarship in areas other than economics has not engaged with the notion of ‘post-globalization’. The principal reason appears to be the employment of different conceptual lenses, whereby globalization appears as a long-term process largely unaffected by short-term shifts. The article interrogates the conceptual terrain of globalization scholarship, arguing that several important developments require the adjustment of theoretical lenses and a greater flexibility in the use of globalization as a master concept. In order to perform such a task, the article outlines a series of ideas that could facilitate the development of a perspective capable of addressing the question of how we should think about globalization in a post-globalization era.
Introduction
‘Globalization is over’ is a mantra that has become ubiquitous. The COVID-19 pandemic brought into sharper focus a series of reactions and responses that have further accelerated counter-globalization trends. Subsequent world crises in Ukraine (2022) and the Middle East (2023) have greatly contributed to this sentiment. But even prior to the pandemic, scholarly and journalistic interpretations cast grave doubts over the extent to which the pre-Great Recession status quo – or the economic, (geo)political, techno-social and cultural regimes usually aggregated under the rubric of ‘globalization’ – is sustainable (see Crouch, 2019; King, 2017; O'Sullivan, 2019; Pieterse, 2018). For example, Cave's (2020) pointed question of whether local is better than global would have been considered completely heretical in the popular press of the 1990s. All the above have prompted the rather predictable question of whether the very notion of globalization has withered away (see Featherstone, 2020). Escobar (2019) proclaimed, ‘the global doesn’t exist’. Is it true, then, that ‘we are living in The Great Implosion’ (Gills, 2020), with only feeble hopes for a possible Great Awakening?
Some widely circulated policy-oriented arguments have called for a post-Great Recession or post-pandemic ‘great reset’. Beyond popular futurology, scholarly arguments suggest a multi-polar globalization (Pieterse, 2018) or a renewed vision for globalization (Steger and James, 2019), and/or cosmopolitanism (Cicchelli, 2018); others suggest a revival of localism (Livesey, 2018; Roudometof, 2019) or glocalization (Roudometof, 2016a; Roudometof and Dessi, 2022). The late Robertson (2020) has gone as far as to formally endorse the notion of a ‘glocal turn’ (originally suggested by Roudometof, 2015a). Even Sachs (2020) suggests that globalization is a long-term process and consequently implicitly accepts that the current historical conjuncture is far from ideal for globalists. Furthermore, post-globalization has been introduced as a notion in debates about governance regimes in communications (Flew, 2018, 2020; Roudometof, 2023a).
As the above viewpoints aptly show, a bifurcation is visible in scholarly discourse. While some declare that globalization is dead, others suggest that prevailing counter-globalization tendencies represent solely the current moment. The challenge for scholarly engagement on globalization during the ‘unsettled times’ (Steger and James, 2019) of the twenty-first century or the current phase of uncertainty (Robertson, 1992: 99) must be addressed. This article explores this problematic at length and creatively reframes existing concepts to address current challenges. Its underlying assumption is that over-simplistic arguments suggesting ‘either/or’ options are not productive. Instead of attempting to convince readers of the righteousness of either hardcore position in this debate, this inquiry reframes unexamined assumptions and asks them to re-think or ‘un-think’ (to use Wallerstein's, (1991) expression) at least some of the notions that constitute conventional wisdom within the scholarly community. Moreover, as the very title suggests, the main goal is to frame the question – as opposed to rushing to deliver the right answer. This journal's format, then, becomes a means to explore how scholars can reframe their inquiries.
A post-‘globalization’ era
Since the early 1990s, globalization has been an extremely popular notion across the social sciences. Its popularization is attributed to diverse factors: the collapse of the Soviet Bloc and the end of the Cold War; an accelerated period of growth in international trade, investment and mobility; the emergence of digital communication networks; and an increase in international laws and treaties. Even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the current historical conjuncture has been interpreted as signifying the end of ‘hyper-globalization’ (usually identified with the glory days of the 1990s) or post-1492 (post-Columbus) globalization (King, 2017). Several years prior to the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, ‘the end of the end of Cold War’ (Ioffe, 2016) had already been announced. It is widely acknowledged that, in the twenty-first century, globalization has entered a more cautious and regulated phase, resulting in a ‘gated globe’ (Shamir, 2005) or an ‘enclave society’ (Turner, 2007). Walls have been constructed to obstruct the free flow of trade, money and people as governments become more selective about their trade partners, the capital that is welcomed within their borders, and the individuals deemed fit for inclusion in their societies. In a 24-nation survey conducted by Pew Research Center (Wike et al., 2023), most respondents report that they feel close to people in their countries and their local communities but are more ambivalent about others across the globe. In fact, the prevailing view in most nations surveyed is the need to focus on problems at home.
This stance features prominently in anti-liberal (Inglehart and Norris, 2019) or defensive nationalisms (Rabinowitz, 2023) that have gained popularity even among established Western democracies. A cottage academic industry has turned the examination of these (often right-wing) movements into a major focus of scholarly attention. The prevailing scholarly tendency fails, however, to acknowledge that such movements are not exclusively located on the right (Axford, 2021; Roudometof, 2020a) nor are they historically unprecedented – on the contrary, as Rabinowitz (2023) shows, there are clear historical precedents.
To sum up, the empirical record appears challenging to arguments that favour post-nationalism and/or actually existing cosmopolitanism. Such arguments suggest that globalization paves the way for increasingly cosmopolitan and/or post-national identities (e.g., see Beck, 2000, 2014; Castells, 2008; Habermas, 2002; Held, 2016). In turn, these identities contribute to a broader transformation that transcends nationalism and the nation-state in favour of global civil society, global governance and cosmopolitan democracy. This interpretation rests on the underlying assumption that every single person's identity is equally malleable. While information communication technology (ICT) is often seen as contributing to such a malleability, empirical research does not vindicate the post-national thesis: transnational and national broadcasting coexist, and ‘simplistic arguments about the “withering away” of the “national filter” in broadcasting are highly inaccurate’ (Norris and Inglehart, 2009: 300). Instead of levels of greater cosmopolitanism, ICT fills in the gaps between in-person get-togethers, assists with the preservation of weak ties and contributes to strengthening them (Papacharissi, 2010; Rainie and Wellman, 2012). Information communication technology might amplify cultural effects but does not necessarily erase differences among national cultures (see the overview in De Mooij, 2014). The processes of glocalization and localization play key roles in the transference and adoption of ICT across different cultural contexts (Roudometof, 2023b). The result is that local ties are renewed and strengthened – instead of withering away.
In the aftermath of the Great Recession, the above trends contributed to criticisms against the so-called globalization paradigm in international politics and economics – with arguments in favour of post-globalization (Flew, 2018, 2020). By early 2024, Google produced more than 95 million search results for ‘post-globalization’. It appears that, at least in international trade, the world economy has entered a phase characterized by trends running counter to the 1990s era of unrestricted trade, liberalization of markets and global finance (Antràs, 2021). In such approaches, globalization is understood primarily in terms of volumes of cross-national trade or as a policy regime. As a term, ‘post-globalization’ expresses the duality originally meant by the prefix ‘post’ in earlier engagements over post-modernism. In debates over post-modernity, the ‘post’ meant a phase after the modern that simultaneously negates key features of modernity. Similarly, post-globalization suggests a phase or stage whereby the policies of neo-liberal globalization come under intense scrutiny; as well as a phase whereby hitherto unrestricted flows of money, trade and goods are reversed.
Yet, one is hard-pressed to find sociological engagements that explore post-globalization conceptually. 1 By March 2024, searching for the term on Google Scholar returned fewer than 5000 results. A major reason for this curious silence is that many sociological engagements understand globalization as a long-term process (for an overview of the different temporal frames see Pieterse, 2012). Subsequently, the current phase or stage may well represent a specific historical conjuncture that does not affect long-term processes (see Held et al., 1999; Steger and James, 2019). Solutions have been developed to reconcile this divergence. The solution adopted here follows Flusty's (2005: 58–9) early attempt to differentiate between ‘the “top heavy vertical circuit” of social integration and the “lateral circuit of global formation” involving the “hyperextending practices of everyday life”’. Flusty defined the former as ‘Globalisation’ (with a capital G) and the latter as ‘globalisation’ (with a lowercase g). To avoid such a clumsy solution and in order to incorporate the popular idea of ‘post-globalization’, the current stage might as well be called a post-globalization or, more accurately, a post-‘globalization’ era – in the sense that ‘globalization’ (in quotation marks) is understood primarily as a policy regime closely identified with economic neo-liberalism.
This suggestion leads to the formulation implicit in this article's title – we actually live in a post-‘globalization’ era. It is worth considering its inauguration. Several dates are potential candidates. The Great Recession (2008) might be the most important economic event – while the historic failure of an EU Constitution (2005) might be the most important political event in Europe. But it seems that the most iconic date for its inauguration might be 9/11. In a single day, international and domestic politics were altered not only in the US or Western Europe but globally (for a discussion, see Roudometof, 2009). The US response to 9/11 increased the gap between US unilateral interventionism and EU multilateral cosmopolitanism. The US-sponsored ‘War on Terror’ offered further justification for increased surveillance and bypassing conventional protections afforded to citizens in Western democracies. The theme of surveillance has further played an important role in the increased commodification of cyberspace, especially with the proliferation of media giants (Facebook/Meta, Google, Amazon, etc.), prompting the emergence of ‘surveillance capitalism’ (Zuboff, 2018). Increased restrictions over physical mobility have been combined with increased volumes in cross-border business (facilitated by ICT), a trend labelled ‘disembodied globalization’ (Steger and James, 2019). In international affairs, the US invasion of Iraq (2003) as well as the 1999 NATO-led bombing of Serbia over the Kosovo crisis empowered Russian unilateral interventionism in post-Soviet republics, as Russian leadership sought to emulate the US. In other words, we have been living in a post-‘globalization’ era since the dawn of the twenty-first century. The scholarly question is how we re-think our notion(s) of globalization in such a historical moment. This approach insinuates that the opposition between those who declare that ‘globalization is dead’ and those who oppose such an idea is more apparent than real. The issue has less to do with the contents of empirical reality and more with our thinking about it. 2
Beyond global modernization?
To understand the current challenge, it might be relevant to go back to the formulations that have generated the current debate. Across the social sciences, a defining feature of globalization is its polysemous nature. Globalization was initially a shorthand expression for ‘global modernization’ or the ‘modernization of the whole world’, as Robertson's (2014) autobiographical reflections confirm: ‘Modernization is not just about … the modernization of the world. So if it is clumsy to call it “modernization of the whole world”, so what should I call it? So I called it “globalization”’ (Robertson, 2014: 447).
In contrast, public policy debates and discussions in the media have conventionally evoked the ‘globalization of [capitalist] markets’ (Levitt, 1983) or used globalization as merely a catchword that is sufficiently known to guarantee a broader audience (or outside funding). In the post-‘globalization’ era and in sharp contrast to the heyday of globalization in the 1990s, the intellectual tracks of academic scholarship and policy-oriented (and usually prescriptive) research increasingly diverge; policy debates are about formulating present or future policy solutions and strategies while, in contrast, sociologists are more concerned with the interpretation of social relations and cultural meanings, both in the present and in the past. While both intellectual tracks evoke ‘globalization’ as their catchphrase, the actual desideratum is quite different.
Substantively, academia has the following dilemma. On the one hand, it is possible to concede that globalization equals global modernization. Giddens (1990: 64), for example, has defined globalization as ‘a stretching process, in so far as the modes of connection between different social contexts or regions become networked across the earth's surface as a whole’. This ‘stretching’ is what Giddens means when he calls modernity ‘inherently globalising’ (1990: 63). In turn, modernity refers to ‘modes of social life or organization which emerged in Europe from about the seventeenth century onwards and which subsequently became more or less worldwide in their influence’ (Giddens, 1990: 1). It becomes clear, then, that Giddens adopts an explicitly Eurocentric view of globalization. If such a view is accepted, globalization becomes a term that expresses what in past centuries was the Europeanization of the ‘world’ (in the first instance of Europe's colonies) or what in the twentieth century was called ‘Westernization’ or ‘Americanization’. Such an interpretation was popular in the 1990s, an era marked by arguments about the ‘end of history’ (Fukujama, 1992). Characteristically, Rosenberg (2005: 7) notes that, in the 1990s, ‘instead of acting as interpreters to the spirit of the age’, social theorists ‘became its ideological amplifiers’. Such a reading of globalization surrenders the concept to the critiques levelled against the prescriptive and often West-centred modernization perspectives that have proliferated in the post-World War II era. Such a reading further invites the predictable criticism that globalization seems to denote an effort to revive the modernization theory of the 1950s and 1960s (Joas, 2004). Moreover, it makes globalization a legitimate target for politically motivated critiques stemming from post-colonial and critical or neo-Marxist viewpoints. Oppositional readings of global modernization routinely paint a negative image of globalization and its impacts upon developing societies of the South.
On the other hand, it is entirely legitimate to consider the emergence of the very notion of globalization as an intellectual breakthrough that offers a new and different conceptual template for the interpretation of human affairs. It is important to note that the above dilemma is fundamentally theoretical and not an issue that can be addressed through retreat to historical accounts. In fact, this dilemma is reflected in the disagreements between historians’ accounts of globalization. For example, Sterns (2010) considers connectivity, not institutional factors, as the key indicator of globalization; and that leads him, just like Sachs (2020), into antiquity and even the prehistoric eras. In contrast, Osterhammel and Petersson (2009) suggest that globalization's emergence is tantamount to the post-sixteenth-century breakthroughs of Western European modernity. In order to be consequential, the authors argue, globalization must be seen in terms of enduring structures that were absent from the world before the emergence of European modernity. What this comparison demonstrates is that historical approaches in and of themselves cannot be used to escape fundamentally theoretical questions.
Instead of picking a side, it is better to reflect on the evolving contours of the problematic. Since its proliferation over the post-1989 period, use of the term ‘globalization’ has expanded to address a bewildering variety of often distinct processes and topics. While the explosion of scholarship reflects the necessity of understanding the collapse of the Soviet Bloc (Alexander, 2007), it is most definitely true that, thanks both to the voluminous scholarly literature and its continuing use in journalism and the popular press, the concept has gained a key position within the conceptual vocabulary of both lay and scholarly communities. In so doing, the concept has acquired a generic meaning initially absent in its early formulations. Rosenberg (2005) implicitly captured this conceptual slippage when he noted that invoking globalization as such does not actually say anything about what is being globalized. This observation may be accurate, but far from being a criticism, it is an acknowledgement of the fact that globalization has gained acceptance as an important addition to the social-scientific vocabulary. To play devil's advocate, the opposite reading would imply that the hundreds of books and thousands of articles on this topic have been a giant waste of time for the academic community.
Hence, it might be best to acknowledge that globalization has, or at least it has acquired by the twenty-first century, a generic meaning. It can refer and has been applied to numerous processes, cultures, themes, transactions and other relationships and human actions. To openly acknowledge, this use means that globalization – at least in the social sciences – has become a term that indicates a process or sets of processes, whereby X – whatever that X may be (a specific topic, process, condition, artefact, etc.) – becomes worldwide or global (Roudometof, 2020b). This general definition vindicates the application of this notion to a multitude of instances, fields and areas of interest. Moreover, such a definition is restrictive. Given the overuse and abuse of the term – especially during its heyday in the 1990s – it may be quite appropriate. From the perspective adopted here, globalization applies solely to those instances in which phenomena, practices, ideas, models or in general any specific theme or domain of human action spreads throughout the globe or comes reasonably close to justifying such a claim. This approach facilitates the analytical differentiation between globalization and its outcomes, while it remains agnostic over the consequences or end state of globalization – thus, making the issue of the end state (or telos) a matter of empirical investigation not over-determined by theoretical a priori.
From within these lenses, then, the voluminous literature on this topic has not been futile. The best manifestation of the new horizons implicit in the generalized use of globalization might be the fact that globalization has been a useful and relevant concept for scholarly research that goes beyond modernity – and into older or pre-modern historical eras or even in archaeology (see Conrad, 2017; Hodos, 2017). When global becomes a template for understanding human affairs at large, (Western) modernity and the subsequent ‘rise of the West’ are seen as phenomena that take place within the broader context of world-historical globalization (Hobson, 2004). Such a perspective enables researchers to break with the past consensus that views the rise of West as a matter of progressive development that privileges Eurocentric histories. Instead, it empowers scholarship to critically examine the interconnections between different world regions even beyond conventional temporal frames. In this respect, the approach suggested here accepts Bhambra's (2016: 962) critical remarks about the misleading privileging of internal factors in the rise of the post-1492 transatlantic West and the necessity to incorporate the connections between Europe or the West and the rest of the world.
But the use of the global template cannot be restricted to its application in post-colonial approaches. Susen writes that the ‘key premise underlying the plea for a global sociology’ is living ‘in a global society—that is, in a society that is characterized by an increasing degree of interconnectedness at multiple levels’ (2020: 55). For Susen (2020), interconnectivity becomes almost a synonym for incorporating post-colonial and anti-colonial approaches to sociology. This fusion between interconnectivity and colonial experience is empirically unsubstantiated; for humans have lived connected lives for millennia, whereas colonialism (or, more accurately, coloniality, see Quijano, 2007) pertains to the last five centuries. For a concrete example, one can point to Alexander the Great as a founder of globalization in antiquity (for a discussion, see Liebert, 2011).
Hence, a broader vision needs to extend beyond accounts – even post-colonial or anti-colonial ones – that remain centred on the problematic concerning the transatlantic West. Such a vision could lead to inquiries into globalization without modernity, which brings forth the crux of the issue. For modernity is not solely a descriptive category but also normative. In the West, ‘modern times’ (temps modernes) emerged as a term in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries to mark the preceding three centuries. But it is more than a matter of chronology: The ‘modern age’ was also a philosophical–historical perspective that was in turn shaped by the changes that the Age of Discoveries, the Renaissance and the Reformation brought to Western Europe and its transatlantic territories (Habermas, 1987: 5–11). Modernity reflects the Western organization of history and its centrality in sociology reflects precisely the discipline's roots in the West. In contrast, the category of globalization is considerably less biased at least from an axiological point of view – but only insofar that it does not view globalization as global modernization or a historically recent phenomenon (or a stage in the development of global capitalism), but instead as a long-term process that invariably entails decentring the narrative of Western modernity (O’Brien, 2006).
From this perspective, globalization (before or) without modernity is important and consequential (e.g., Hobson, 2004; Hopkins, 2002; Robertson, 2002). Within the discipline of history, the genres of transnational, global or world history and connected history (Douki and Minard, 2007) have been introduced; and these represent related yet distinct approaches that attempt to explore the theoretical rationale outlined here (see Conrad, 2017). Just as the study of interconnections can shed new light onto the past of Asia (Subrahmanyam, 1997), so has my own study of Orthodox Christianity (Roudometof, 2014) attempted to shed light into the articulation of this religious landscape and the manner (as well as the reasons) that it has been excluded from the West (or ‘the Latin West’, as it was referred to in medieval times).
Transcending the impasse
Thus far, I have argued that the opposition between affirmative and negative views on the heuristic value of globalization is more a matter of theoretical lenses – as opposed to a disagreement over facts and empirical trends. The position adopted is that it is entirely plausible to reconcile the two; indeed, that is implicit in this article's title. But the theoretical impasse of precisely how to accomplish this task has yet to be addressed. As a first step, I have argued that, since its introduction into scholarly discourse, globalization has acquired a generic meaning and thus has become a portable term that has been used to examine human affairs even prior to Western modernity. Insofar as globalization is not reduced to an extension of Western modernization, it liberates researchers from the Western bias implicit in traditional or conventional accounts of the rise of the West and enables the examination of cross-cultural interactions beyond and before the crystallization of what (in due course of historical time) became the West.
In this final section, the following three questions problematize some underlying assumptions of the discourse on globalization in order to bring forth possible new avenues for theoretical exploration. In so doing, I use Robertson's (1992) classic work as the major point of reference for several reasons: it is a book that has been cited over 14,000 times (according to Google Scholar); its substantive and sophisticated arguments offer excellent points of departure; and lastly, due to the proliferation of ‘globalization’ in post-1989 academic writing, it is a work often cited without due attention to its actual content.
Is globalization still the central concept?
This not a rhetorical question – for it is precisely the title of (and the strong claim put forth in) Robertson's (1990) chapter in the highly influential and classic volume Global Culture: Nationalism, Globalization and Modernity (Featherstone, 1990), in itself one of the key texts that helped popularize the notion of globalization in the social sciences. Google's Ngram Viewer offers a visual representation of the spectacular rise in mentions of ‘global modernity’ since World War II. In the 1990s, debating global modernity (Albrow and King, 1990; Featherstone, 1990; Featherstone et al., 1995) allowed space for different interpretations of globalization. For example, consider the emergence of ‘multiple modernities’ (Eisenstadt, 2002; for a critique, see Bhambra, 2007) or the arguments put forth in favour of a single world or global culture (Lechner and Boli, 2005). But no single perspective or theory was ever so persuasive as to gain intellectual hegemony.
Different disciplines engaged with the notion of globalization using a variety of temporal frames. While historians and sociologists might consider globalization to be a process of the longue durée, in economics or political science, far shorter periods of time are popular (for an overview and comparison, see Pieterse, 2012). To make sense of these differences, disciplinary modifiers have been customarily used but these mislead researchers to read their own disciplinary lenses for actual dimensions (Pieterse, 2009). Perhaps the best strategy is to escape the disciplinary restrictions altogether and adopt a trans-disciplinary perspective – an approach that figures prominently in global studies (see Steger and Wahlrab, 2016). When seen from such a perspective, it becomes rather apparent that the academic notion of globalization is in fact part and parcel of a new conceptual vocabulary that has been emerging in the social sciences over the last 40–50 years (see Roudometof, 2021). This new vocabulary encompasses a fairly well-known list of concepts that include cosmopolitanism (Delanty, 2018), post-colonialism (Go, 2016; Young, 2016) or post-coloniality (Quijano, 2007), transnationalism (Hannerz, 1996; Levitt and Khagram, 2007) and its fellow traveller of translocality (Datta and Brickell, 2011), glocalization (Roudometof, 2016b) and hybridity (Bhabha, 1994; Pieterse, 2009).
Because of its high visibility in the public domain, globalization has been the term most readily recognizable to stakeholders across diverse areas of social life. However, it is the emergence of this new vocabulary, as such, that is an important development for the social sciences and the humanities. The significance and broader function of globalization is precisely that it often serves as a stage or arena that makes it possible for scholarship to articulate and negotiate the issues that accompany the emergence of this new vocabulary. But if globalization is part of this new vocabulary, it might not be necessarily the central concept in the sense that other, related concepts also put forth their own claims to knowledge domains.
What are the implications of self-limiting globalization?
The question relates to the use of globalization as an overreaching new master narrative that overtakes modernization. According to Robertson (1992), one-world scenarios that see the world increasingly unified under a single polity or unified culture are simplistic and inaccurate. Rather, globalization involves ‘the interpenetration of the universalization of particularism and the particularization of universalism’ (Robertson, 1992:100). In the text, nationalism is specifically mentioned as a relevant example, whereby the universal success of the nation-state as the legitimate form of polity is accomplished by making room for expressions of each nation's locality or particularity. Instead of greater levels of supra-territorial attachment, Robertson suggests a ‘both/end’ solution to the universalism-particularism issue. Hence, ‘global’ does not necessarily insinuate ‘universal’. Robertson's approach introduces a major twist in the conventional modernization perspective, which traditionally viewed modernization in terms of universalism overcoming particularism. It further echoes the enduring influence of Parsons’ (1971) evolutionary perspective on the spread of universals across the world.
It is possible to read Robertson's interpretation as indicative less of a theoretical commitment to Parsons’ evolutionary perspective and more as an impressionistic insight into actual social and cultural dynamics (resembling in this regard Simmel's (1978) approach to the study of social and cultural life). In this regards, the idea of a self-limiting process suggests a departure from conventional theories of modernization. As argued elsewhere (Roudometof, 2015b) globalization can be both integral (i.e., signifying a trend or movement towards a complete unit or a whole) and interactive (i.e., involving multiple interactions among local actors). My own suggestion is that these should be seen as two distinct dimensions, for they signify different outcomes. When globalization operates integrally it leads to the construction of new layers or meanings or new ‘social facts’ (as Durkheim would have called them). It creates new institutions, regulatory regimes, practices and outlooks that transform the status quo. It leads to new realities on the ground. However, globalization might also be merely interactive – whereby the multitude of interactions might be transnational or trans-cultural or hybrid or glocal or trans-border; yet these interactions do not necessarily lead to new layers or strata or new empirical realities. When globalization is self-limiting, then, it is best to think of it as interactive (and not integral).
In all cases of ‘the globalization of X’, then, globalization indicates a process or set of processes that leaves open the issue whether this process entails merely an exchange (i.e., interactive) or transference among the interacting units; or whether this transference necessitates a process of transformation that inexorably leads to the formation of new objects or levels of analysis or new units (i.e., integral). 3 This theoretical choice allows one to contemplate different outcomes without making an a priori commitment to either of these eventualities. In fact, different authors have focused on different eventualities. Albrow (1997), for example, suggests that the ‘global’ supersedes the ‘modern’ – and consequently that the ‘Global Age’ supersedes the ‘Modern Age’. In contrast, Turner (2007) suggests that globalization may deliver further fragmentation and not a new singularity. From the perspective adopted here, a gated globe is equally an option, just as the ‘borderless world’ that used to be popular in the globalist vision of the 1990s. That, in turn, suggests that transference or exchange between units (e.g., states, cultures, organizations, individuals, etc.) does not invariably lead to a unitary outcome. While globalization refers to many different levels of (micro- or macro-)social action, it is communication, interaction or transference that provides its essential ingredient. In contrast, systemic transformation or the creation of a new end state or new supranational units remains a potential.
To draw an analogy with past theorizing, we might consider the situation analogous to Marx's description of circuit of exchanges, whereby money and commodities are in a process of continuous circulation and exchange (usually represented in an M-C-M line). As Marx, and later on Simmel (1978), observed, at some point in time, this continuous circulation creates the foundations for a qualitative change, whereby goods are no longer the object of the exchange, but money becomes an end in itself. The distinction between integral and interactive globalization registers precisely this difference. It might also be relevant to recall in this context that, as Marling's (2006) analysis has shown, the ‘things’ that are successfully globalized tend to be technical and their globalization is merely the pragmatic adoption of best practices by local actors. In contrast, cultural and generally more complex phenomena are not globalized, as each local culture reinterprets and reimagines the imported ideas to fit local demands. As Gluck and Tsing (2009) have successfully demonstrated, the cross-cultural migration of words (and the ideas that these words convey) facilitate differential processes of world-making: new ‘things’ emerge because of this process of cross-cultural borrowing. It is consequently quite fair to state that integral globalization has not been characteristic of the post-‘globalization’ era – unilateralism has increased, the strength and effectiveness of global institutions has been questioned, and geopolitical factors have re-entered the world stage, leading to considerable ruptures in international relations. 4
How to relate global to glocal and local?
To establish the theoretical connections among global, glocal and local is a major desideratum in the scholarly conversation about globalization. In Robertson's (1992; also Robertson 1995) interpretation, globalization becomes glocalization and bridges the gap between global and local. Over time, Robertson's argument has been extended to a more general perspective. According to Khondker (2005: 187), the main elements of this perspective are: diversity is the essence of social life; globalization does not erase all differences; history and culture operate autonomously to offer a sense of uniqueness to groups (whether cultures, societies or nations); glocalization removes the impression that globalization is a tidal wave erasing all differences; and glocalization offers a more historically grounded and pragmatic worldview.
The above interpretation looks upon ‘globalisation as glocalization’ (see Roudometof, 2016a). The two are analytically conflated, or to put it differently, glocalization is reduced to a mere facet of globalization; and consequently, it has been interpreted as top-down processes of adjustment and accommodation. This does not, in effect, allow sufficient theoretical space for an analytical difference between glocal and local. The theoretical conflation between the two has not gone unnoticed: Ritzer (2007: 6) points out that ‘Robertson and White [(2007)] … imply that glocalisation is globalisation’. In Robertson's (1995) original interpretation of glocalization, Radhakrishnan (2010: 27) notes: We are confronted with the dilemmas of theorizing a phenomenon that contains at once a spatial component … but also a temporal one. … Yet, in … attempts to reconcile the local and the global in a coherent theory of cultural globalisation, the opposition … persists. How are ‘local’ and ‘global’ cultures to be identified as analytically separate if they are completely enmeshed in one another, as the same theories claim?
The juxtaposition between global and local trends is a leitmotif of Castells's trilogy (1996–1998) on the rise of the ‘network society’. He argues that ICT leads to the proliferation of de-localized practices and information flows, and that the interconnectivity of different ICTs binds actors to each other without requiring physical co-presence. These networks create a ‘space of flows’ that restructures contexts around the globe but does not replace traditional geographical space; rather, by selectively connecting places with each other, it changes their functional logic and social dynamics. Although the space of flows is a new spatial model, people continue to live in places, that is, in condensations of human history, culture and matter (see also De Blij, 2009). Resistance to the space of flows arises in the form of communities oriented around places. These communities are often based on fundamentalist or (neo-)tribal identities (Maffesoli, 1996) or more broadly ‘localist’ identities that claim a special relationship vis-à-vis a particular place. The ones left behind or those excluded by affluent global cosmopolitanism naturally gravitate (or are relegated) to such identities of communal resistance – for ‘electronic networks at large … tend to reinforce the cosmopolitanism of the new professional and managerial classes, living symbolically in a global frame of reference, unlike those of the population in any country’ (Castells, 1996: 364).
Contemporary globalization creates zones of inclusion and exclusion. The zones of exclusion become new zones of marginality, war, famine, disease, trafficking in drugs and human beings, terrorism and chronic precarity. Their localization and the new forms of localism that emerge intrude into the very fabric of contemporary societies by creating new movements and political parties that affect the manner people imagine their respective nations (for a discussion, see Roudometof, forthcoming).
Conclusion
This article's objective has been to address the debate over globalization's demise. The disagreement between those who declare that ‘globalization is over’ versus those who insist that this is not the case is predominantly an issue of theoretical lenses. While this discussion is concerned with the aforementioned issue, it should be clear that the theoretical exploration of the different terms (counter-globalism, anti-globalism or localism) used to describe anti-globalization tendencies is a topic that lies beyond this article's scope. In this article, I have argued that we live through a post-‘globalization’ era, at least since the dawn of the twenty-first century. But globalization as a policy perspective or project is far from its working definition within academia. Unlike economists, most sociologists employ large time frames and are therefore predisposed to see contemporary developments as fluctuations that might not overturn long-term trends.
The substantive issue under consideration is whether sociologists (and social scientists more broadly) understand globalization as global modernization; or whether a different meaning can be imprinted upon the notion of globalization. The former viewpoint does not truly break with the broader narrative of Western modernity; the latter can offer a perspective far less tainted by modernist predispositions. The importance of connectivity throughout human history suggests that the latter is the far superior perspective.
In the last section, I posed three questions to inquire into background or taken-for-granted theoretical assumptions within the intellectual debate on globalization. I suggested that globalization might not necessarily be the central concept, as was the case in the 1990s. Rather, it might be viewed as part of a new conceptual vocabulary for the social sciences that slowly emerged during the second half of the twentieth century. The self-limiting nature of globalization raises the issue of whether it is possible to determine if globalization is integral or interactive. I have argued that both might be valid options; but they lead to different outcomes. Lastly, I suggested that glocal and local should be seen as analytically autonomous concepts from the generic notion of global. In other words, adequate explanations of developments in the real world should not be pursued solely or exclusively through the notion of global but through the combinations of glocal, global and local.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
