The Encyclopedia of Global Studies has been created to be the standard reference work for the emerging field of global studies. It covers the entire range of transnational topics and the diverse intellectual approaches that have been marshaled by scholars in order to analyze all aspects of the global and globalizing world—including the globalization of economies, societies, cultures and polities; the diasporas of ethnicities and religious groups and the dispersions and migrations of peoples; the transnational aspects of social and political change; the global impact of environmental, technological, and health changes; and the organizations and issues related to global civil society.

This publication is the first encyclopedia of and for global studies and, indeed, the first attempt to map this emerging field in its entirety. Its objective is to take stock of the concepts, approaches, theories, and methodologies that make up global studies. It also tries to cover the entire scope of events, activities, ideas, processes, and flows that are transnational or that could affect most regions of the Earth. Although scholars have analyzed these phenomena for many decades, as an academic field, global studies blossomed largely after the turn of the 21st century. It has expanded rapidly since the first programs in global studies were founded in Asian, European, and American universities in the 1990s. Since then, new undergraduate and graduate degree programs and new centers of research have been created every year.

What, then, is this field called “global studies”? Some scholars argue that it is unique, that the phenomena are new, and that therefore new scholarly approaches must be created that are distinctly appropriate to studying transnational subject matter. But most scholars accept the notion that, although the current age is more global than ever before, transnational and global phenomena have always been a feature of the world's physical, social, and cultural life. For this reason, they analyze transnational phenomena utilizing established approaches in the social sciences and humanities. In that sense, the field of global studies is interdisciplinary. It includes the work of disparate scholars over the decades who have attempted to understand the interconnected relationships among societies, polities, economies, and cultural systems on a global scale. The results of their inquiries are found in this encyclopedia. Most of the entries herein are by topic—global religion, economic development, pandemics, or the Internet, for instance. Some focus on analytic approaches to global studies, and a few spotlight significant ideas such as Marxism, capitalism, and world-systems theory. Others address events such as September 11, 2001, or the Nuremberg trials, places like London or Tokyo, or organizations like the United Nations or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. All these entry titles are grouped under broad headings, a dozen or so areas that define the field of global studies. This listing of entry titles by topic area can be found in the Reader's Guide, located immediately after the alphabetic listing of entries in the front matter.

How were these major headings determined? In the initial planning stages for this project, a series of workshops with scholars was held in London, Tokyo, and Santa Barbara, California, to help frame the central themes that are shaping the field of global studies. The editors established an editorial board of some of the world's most significant scholars in the field and formed an advisory committee representing most of the leading academic centers of global studies in the world. Members of the editorial board and advisory committee helped suggest both topics and appropriate authors and played an important role in crafting the encyclopedia.

These workshops and advisory committees established the following major areas covered by [Page xxxviii]the entries in this Encyclopedia of Global Studies. These areas are diverse—from the more obvious aspects of globalization, such as economic and demographic transformations, to the more subtle cultural and ideological aspects—but they are also interrelated. Thus, entries under one heading could also be listed under others. The major areas we identified cover problematic aspects of global change, such as environmental and health issues and transnational inequalities, but they also include the movements and organizations that have been mobilized to confront and mitigate these problems on a global scale.

Global Studies. One important set of topics the encyclopedia considers are the very terms and concepts scholars use to conceptualize and study global themes. Entries under this heading include global concepts, globalization, hyperglobalism, proto-globalization, as well as entries on the academic field of global studies. Also included are entries about the history of the field, its organizational development, and some of the leading intellectual issues and ideas current within it.

Global Economic Issues. Perhaps the most apparent aspect of contemporary globalization is economic and financial, including the transnational ownership, production, and distribution of goods and services, and especially financial flows. The entries related to this area also include global recessions, consumerism, labor issues, the illegal economy of sex and drugs, and global economic actors from Google and Walmart to the World Trade Organization.

Global Demographic Change. The dynamics of a global era are shaped by demography. Some regions of the world have rapidly growing populations, whereas others are aging and even shrinking. In some regions like Europe, almost everyone can live anywhere, and it seems that increasingly they do. Many countries in the world today have become multicultural and have to deal with immigrant communities from around the world. In other regions, migration is either restricted or involuntary, with millions of displaced persons in refugee camps. The entries in this category cover diaspora communities, refugees, overpopulation, migration, the effect of Baby Boomers, and the emergence of global cities such as Los Angeles and Dubai.

Global Communications, Transportation, Technology. The emergence of global communities and, indeed, the massive globalization phase in recent decades have been made possible by new and more efficient forms of transportation and by new communication technologies. The entries related to this area cover automotive and air transport, global positioning systems, computers, email, and the Internet. They include an entry on handheld devices including iphones and androids and an entry on new developments in communications such as Twitter and Facebook.

Global Culture, Media. New Internet social networking, as well as television, video, and more traditional forms of communication and interaction, have given rise to a global culture—common artistic forms of literature and the visual arts and shared values and sensitivities. Entries in this area include the Academy Awards, blogs, and transnational television networks such as the Cable News Network (CNN), the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), and Al Jazeera. It also includes entries on global cuisine, soccer and other transnational sports, and the concept of global art and architecture.

Global Religions, Beliefs, Ideologies. Religious traditions and ideologies have always been global in that they move beyond state boundaries, but as cultural groups and individuals are dispersed around the world, so are the ideas and beliefs of their communities. The entries related to this area include the global aspects of major religious traditions like Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism; smaller traditions such as Sikhism and Baha'i; new sects such as Hare Krishna; an entry on religious movements that includes organizations such as Scientology, Falun Gong, and others; and secular ideologies, including Marxism and nationalism. It also includes the emergence of new global ideas such as cosmopolitanism and the concept of global ethics.

Identities in Global Society. As the global community becomes more tightly knit, old social identities such as nationality and religious affiliation are being modified, however slowly, and recombined. [Page xxxix]Importantly, new ones emerge; these are based less on nationality and ethnicity and are more related to regional, racial, sexual, and multicultural associations. Entries in this section include ethnic identities such as Hispanic and Asian American and multicultural, cosmopolitan, and gender identities.

Global Civil Society. Since the mid-1970s, a plethora of new movements, groups, and organizations have emerged that cross traditional national boundaries. Human rights movements and nongovernmental organizations of many kinds have created a global civil society. Entries in this area include movements for women's rights, indigenous peoples' rights, and gay and lesbian rights, as well as antiglobalization movements and transnational activism such as the democratic movements of the Arab Spring.

Global Environmental and Energy Issues. The future of life on the planet depends on developing adequate energy needs and controlling a host of new global environmental problems, from global warming to the pollution of the air, water, and seas. Often issues of energy and environment are linked, that is, in the efforts to develop environmentally sound forms of energy production. Entries in this area include climate change and global warming, acid rain, biofuels, tsunamis, sustainability, oil and natural gas production, and the Kyoto Protocol.

Global Health and Nutrition. Associated with environmental issues are matters of global health and nutrition. The availability of healthy food is the most basic global health issue; on the more extreme side are the problems of malnutrition and pandemics. The entries in this area include HIV/AIDS, abortion, birth control, food, and drugs.

Global Conflict and Security. Since the end of the Cold War, a host of new conflicts have emerged, both within national borders and, more frequently, transnationally. The rise of transnational terrorism organizations creates a set of new security concerns for individual nations and for collaborative intelligence and security networks on a global scale. This area deals with issues of global security and new forms of global conflict and includes entries such as terrorism, 9/11, civil war, genocide, failed states, conflict resolution, military alliances, and peace activism.

Global Governance and World Order. The future of world order is tied to forms of transnational cooperation and global governance. Although a single world government is unlikely to emerge in the foreseeable future, there are a variety of institutions and movements that help adjudicate differences, resolve tensions, and enable the continuation of the global community. The entries in this area include the United Nations, the European Union, the Arab League, and the global South. It also includes concepts of democracy and legitimacy and the ideals of world government.

Global Justice and Legal Issues. One of the central features of the emerging world order is the protection of human rights and the provision of legal and regulatory infrastructures for transnational cooperation. The entries under this heading explore a variety of movements for rights, from animal rights to labor rights, and from gay rights to free speech. It also includes Interpol, international tribunals, systems of law relating to the seas and transnational crimes, and concepts of law from dharma to shari'a, as well as legal systems designed to be applicable as world law.

Global Historical Antecedents. Finally, the encyclopedia includes entries that recognize that globalization and the transnational forces shaping the present age have historical precedents. Entries related to historical periods of globalization and incidents with a global impact are scattered throughout the major areas covered in the encyclopedia, from colonialism, the slave trade, and Malthusian ideas to the great empires and caliphates of history. There are also entries specifically on the historical antecedents to globalization and on the growth of the field of global history as opposed to regional history and world history.

In sum, the Encyclopedia of Global Studies covers new ground in two ways: No other encyclopedia covers all of these topics in a systematic and comprehensive fashion, and no other covers them from the specifically global [Page xl]perspective reflected in the way each of the entries is written and presented. Thus, this encyclopedia is different from other reference sources available online or in print. Also, unlike publically accessible online resources, this work is authoritative—the entries were written or supervised by the most learned and competent scholars in the field. The major entries were written by these scholars; other entries were written by younger scholars under the guidance of senior colleagues to gain the participation of the future generation of scholars in global studies. When invited to write the entries for this encyclopedia, the authors were instructed to be specific—that is, the essays are written specifically for the field of global studies. Each essay has undergone a rigorous editorial process, and some were re-written several times to make sure they accurately covered the essential features of the global studies field. Every article illuminates some aspect of global studies or a subject related to it, such as globalization, transnational activity and themes, and elements of global society.

The creation of an encyclopedia of this magnitude is an enormous undertaking involving hundreds of colleagues over several years and across all continents. The editors and managing editor worked together as a team, meeting in person in Berlin, London, Los Angeles, and Santa Barbara, and in audio and video conference calls frequently in between meetings. The staff of graduate assistants who worked diligently over the years—and frantically in the final several months—were based in Santa Barbara, Heidelberg, and Berlin, and at times worked from locations as remote as Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, London, and Cambridge, England. The process of the encyclopedia's creation, therefore, was as global as its subject matter. The Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, served as the project's home base, and the Orfalea Center's program director, Victor Faessel, served as the managing editor.

We wish to acknowledge the enormous contributions of those who supported and labored on this publishing venture, beginning with our colleagues at the University of California, Santa Barbara, the University of Heidelberg, and the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin. Our diligent editorial support staff at Santa Barbara included graduate students Barbara Morra, Erica Mesker, John Soboslai, and Cecilie Fenger and, at an early stage in the development of the project, undergraduate student Meredith Bailey. Our colleagues at Santa Barbara went out of their way to assist with the project; we appreciate especially the support of Giles Gunn, Richard Appelbaum, Richard Falk, Oran Young, Dean Ernst von Weizsäcker, and Dean Melvin Oliver. At Heidelberg, we wish to thank Michael Hoelscher and Martin Hölz in the Sociology Department, as well as the Centre for Social Investment staff, in particular Georg Mildenberger and Norman Spengler. At the Hertie School of Governance, thanks go to Regina A. List, Markus Fliegauf, Zora Chan, and Saskia Kyas. The editors and staff of SAGE Publications were consistently supportive and encouraging. We thank especially Rolf Janke, James Brace-Thompson, Jane Haenel, and Carole Maurer and, at a critical moment late in the project's development, Geoff Golson. Perhaps most of all we thank the many colleagues who contributed entries to this project, knowing that their primary reward would be the satisfaction of having helped create an enduring fountain of information about an emerging field of studies to which they and we are deeply committed.

Finally, we want to honor the memory of S. N. Eisenstadt, one of the world's great sociologists, who has pioneered the study of multiple modernities and whose intellectual vision has always had a global dimension. His essay on modern identities written for this encyclopedia is likely one of his last publications. In tribute to his formidable intellectual legacy and in recognition of the high standard of scholarship and insight that he has set for us all, we gratefully dedicate this project to his memory.