GLOBALIZATION refers to the spread of new forms of nonterritorial social activity. Since the vast majority of human activities is still tied to a concrete geographical location, the more decisive facet of globalization concerns the manner in which distant events and forces impact on local and regional endeavors. In popular discourse, globalization often functions as little more than a synonym for one or more of the following phenomena: the pursuit of classical liberal or free-market policies in the world economy; the growing dominance of Western forms of political, economic, and cultural life; the proliferation of new information technologies; as well as the notion that humanity stands at the threshold of realizing one single unified community in which major sources of social conflict have vanished.

Globalization is ...