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Building on feminist International Political Economy scholarship, my paper traces the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the trade and health nexus, taking into account the global productive economy and the realm of social reproduction. I argue that COVID-19 has exacerbated the socio-economic inequalities, including the crisis in social reproduction, that characterised the trade and health nexus prior to COVID-19. However, no ideational shift has taken place during the pandemic whereby trade policy communities conceive of trade as a tool for equitable and sustainable forms of social reproduction, as advocated by feminists, environmentalists, and others. This leaves the exploitative nature of global trade relations and their ambivalent relationship with health and social reproduction intact. I conclude that building back better from COVID-19 requires an ambitious redrawing of global trade relations and discuss a number of reforms that could be applied by global trade institutions today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the international activities of trade unions in Turkey and the influence of the AKP government policies on these activities between 2002 and 2018. It addresses the question of the limits of the influence of international organizations in social mobilizations in an authoritarian context. The first part puts forward the conceptual framework and discusses existing literature. The second part explains how the international relations of the Turkish trade unions are influenced by government policies. The third part focuses on the sectoral level in order to analyse the concrete consequences of this transformation in different industries. This paper is based on the fieldwork conducted between 2012 and 2016 in Turkey composed of 111 interviews with trade union representatives and observations at the three main Turkish trade union confederations, completed by 12 interviews with IndustriAll, ETF, EFFAT, ETUC representatives in Brussels in April 2018. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Globalizations is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In view of the broad scope of literature on globalization, this paper provides a synoptic reading of some of the globalization literatures, organized as ‘discourses’. The analysis of the discourses on globalization is confined to three overlapping discourses, namely, regional, ideological and economic discourses. Specific references and examples of local uptake of globalization will be drawn from Singapore and the wider Asia pacific region, as Beck (2002) has reminded us that we cannot even think about globalization or discuss it effectively without the reference to specific locations and places. Hence the subtitle of this paper, ‘A View from the East’, is deliberate to signal the often forgotten fact that Singapore, as well as the wider Asia Pacific region, is ‘part of the “global” sphere that the West has dispersed itself into’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper documents the commitment of the OECD from its creation in 1961 to the continuous development of the world market along liberal lines. In doing so, it details a significant effort to promote what might be called proto-strategies of deep marketization across its 'Northern' advanced economy membership. These were articulated at key junctures: in its earliest years, then in response to the rise of the NICs (Newly Industrialized Countries) in the 1970s, again in the context of what it diagnosed as the crisis of the welfare state in the 1980s, and in a clutch of studies in the mid-1990s that anticipated and welcome the rise of China and other emerging economies. The argument made was always that sustainable growth in the advanced countries and the continued development of the world market as a whole could best be achieved if OECD members would abstain from protectionism, embrace competition and reform labour markets and social welfare in order to maintain and enhance their competitiveness in the global economy. Particular attention is drawn to the 1994 Jobs Study, which addressed the need for welfare and labour market reform in terms that foreshadowed the universal policies of deep marketization in evidence today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Globalizations is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

A conflict between the local and the global is built into the contradiction of being a linguistic animal, at once bound by one's bodiliness to the local and able to conceptualize (and therefore to act) far beyond it. The paper considers some of the effects of this conflict, before proceeding briefly to examine four interrelated but distinct terms: universal, international, cosmopolitan and global. This paper was originally delivered as a lecture given at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology's conference ‘Navigating Globalization: Stability, Fluidity and Friction’, sponsored by the NTNU Globalization Programme held in Trondheim, Norway, August, 2005. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of 'civilization' has been employed in contradictory ways--as an ideological tool, as an analytical category and in reference to a long historical journey. In light of its ideological abuses, is 'civilization' as an analytical category capable of salvation? This paper takes a fresh look at an old problem. If 'civilization' is still a useful category of analysis, are such partitions as the East and the West valid in the context of an emerging global civilization? If not, how can we reconceptualize the common journey toward a more civilized world order? The paper argues that human civilization is an imaginary fuelled by changing technologies, mythologies and communication carriers. The transitions from nomadic to agrarian, commercial, industrial and informatic civilizations may be considered as higher orders of differentiation, complexity and integration. If so viewed, the journey appears as a single but uneven and self-contradictory movement. In our own epoch, the global reach of informatic technologies necessitates an integrating myth such as the Gaia Hypothesis, viewing the Planet Earth as a single living organism transcending all boundaries. That myth would teach us to value human unity in diversity. However, the current pathologies of commodity and identity fetishism, expressed in state and opposition terrorism, are obstructing peaceful globalization. 'We are the finest race in the world, and the more of the world we inhabit, the better it is for the human race' Cecil John Rhodes (1853-1902), quoted by Bentley and Ziegler (2003, p. 933) 'Today backward and deprived, we face an economic and military giant with the moral and spiritual scruples of a flea. It is not a pleasant encounter.' Sadeq al-Mahdi, Prime Minister of Sudan (1966-1967) 'Civilization as we know it, is a movement not a condition, a voyage and not a harbor'. Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975), 1948 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although reproduction involves deeply private choices among individuals, state actors have long intervened in shaping their citizens' procreative choices through regulations, incentives, technologies, and services. Reproductive tourism has emerged as a phenomenon in which people go abroad for assisted reproductive technology services, demonstrating the globalization of procreation and childbearing. While some people engage in reproductive tourism to access cheaper, more efficient, or a wider range of services, others do so to bypass regulations and laws in their home countries. This paper examines the tensions between national regulations and the global marketplace for assisted fertility services, paying attention to the patchwork of national policies regarding reproductive technologies in the face of multilateral trade agreements, regional confederations, technological development, the forces of global capital, and consumer desire. A pesar de que la reproduccion implica profundas preferencias privadas entre los individuos, los actores estatales han intervenido desde hace tiempo en perfilar las preferencias procreativas de sus ciudadanos a traves de normas, incentivos, tecnologias y servicios. El turismo de reproduccion ha emergido como un fenomeno en el que la gente va al extranjero para recibir servicios de tecnologia reproductiva, demostrando la globalizacion de la procreacion y la maternidad. Mientras algunas personas emplean el turismo de reproduccion para tener acceso a un rango de servicios mas eficiente o mas amplio, otras lo hacen para saltarse las normas y leyes en sus paises de origen. Este articulo examina las tensiones entre los reglamentos nacionales y el mercado global para los servicios de ayuda a la fertilidad, prestando atencion a la tela de retazos de las politicas nacionales referentes a las tecnologias reproductivas contra los acuerdos multilaterales de comercio, confederaciones regionales, desarrollo tecnologico, las fuerzas del capital global y el deseo del consumidor. [image omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Globalizations is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Globalizations is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Globalizations is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper argues that the legitimacy of the global order depends not on economic progress alone, but on the progressive naturalization of its epistemological foundations, through 'new solutions' to old problems by states and development agencies. New solutions become methods of social control through which the dominant visions of what count as viable futures are reproduced. We critique efforts to humanize development (e.g., by the World Bank, Amartya Sen) as evidence of development's epistemological crisis. Deploying Karl Polanyi's distinction between formal and substantive economy, we consider examples of substantive economy, which realize equality through strategic sovereignty and representational power, in collective and individual terms. These represent practical and epistemological 'spaces of hope' for critique of the crisis of the market epistemology that infects development studies and international relations. Este documento sostiene que la legitimidad del orden global no depende solamente del progreso económico, sino de la naturalización progresiva de sus fundamentos epistemológicos, a través de 'nuevas soluciones' a problemas antiguos mediante estados y agencias del desarrollo. Las nuevas soluciones se convierten en métodos de control social, a través de los cuales se reproducen las visiones dominantes de lo que cuenta como futuros viables. Criticamos los esfuerzos de humanizar al desarrollo (p.e. Banco Mundial, Amartya Sen) como evidencia de la crisis del desarrollo epistemológico. Utilizando la distinción de Kart Polanyi entre economía formal y economía sustancial, consideramos ejemplos de una economía sustancial, la cual realiza la igualdad por medio de una soberanía estratégica y un poder representativo, en términos colectivos e individuales. Estas, entre otras iniciativas, representan 'espacios de esperanza' prácticos y epistemológicos para criticar la crisis de la epistemología de mercado que infecta a los estudios de desarrollo y las relaciones internacionales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several concepts and arguments have become an indispensable part of the standard discourse shared by globalization theorists and they point convincingly to real and deepening processes in global life. The paper suggests, however, that it is misleading and ultimately unproductive to assume that the vast majority of the world's non-elite population possess an equal grasp of these concepts, and the processes which they are designed to illuminate, or that they are able or willing to take appropriate actions in response. With this in mind, and drawing on some recent theoretical critiques and empirical studies, the discussion interrogates ideas about interconnectivity, mobility, de-territorialization and globality. In doing so it argues that we need to pay much more attention to the everyday subjective lives of ordinary people since these continue to be locked into affiliations and obligations constructed, inevitably, as much around place as flows and which remain partly dependent on co-present, primordial socialities despite their exposure to multiple globalizing influences. ..LAN-FR Varios conceptos y argumentos se han convertido en parte indispensable del discurso convencional compartido por teóricos de la globalización, los cuales señalan en una manera convincente los procesos reales y cada vez más profundos en la vida global. El documento sugiere, sin embargo, que no es productivo asumir que la gran mayoría de la población que no pertenece a la élite posea un entendimiento equivalente sobre estos conceptos, así como de los procesos que se diseñaron para ilustrarlos, o que sean capaces o deseen tomar las acciones apropiadas como respuesta. Con esto en mente, y basándose en algunas críticas teóricas recientes así como en estudios empíricos, la discusión interroga sobre interconectividad, movilidad, desterritorialización y globalidad. Al hacerlo, argumenta que debemos prestar mucha más atención a la vidas diarias subjetivas de la gente común, puesto que éstas continúan ligadas a afiliaciones y obligaciones elaboradas inevitablemente, tanto alrededor del lugar como de los flujos y que continúan permaneciendo parcialmente dependientes a socialismos copresentes y primordiales a pesar de su exposición a diversas influencias a favor de la globalización. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently several proposals for more effective, democratic and just forms of global governance have been put forward. In this paper I compare the proposals by the United Nations Development Programme, the International Labour Organization and cosmopolitan democrats like David Held. I assess to what extent they are in accordance with cosmopolitan views of global justice and I critically evaluate to what extent they may be feasible interim steps. The conclusion is that even though some proposals are more radical than others, they all leave in place the current institutions of an international order based on sovereign nation-states, global capitalism and its resulting inequality, and models of development as based on maximizing economic growth. If cosmopolis is to replace empire in the international system, then these certainties need to be open for discussion, too. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, much has been made of the idea that under conditions of globalization, more and more people in different parts of the planet conceive of themselves as part of a 'global society' or 'global culture'. Often it has been alleged that forms of consciousness centred around a disposition to see one's own life as a single part of the 'world as a whole' are relatively recent products. In this paper we argue that such tendencies, or something very much like them, in fact were present in the ancient Mediterranean world. We examine how ways of thinking and feeling, that bear in certain ways close correspondence to modern ideas as to 'globality', were prevalent amongst certain social groups in the Roman empire. Those persons regarded themselves as part of a world that was rapidly shrinking through increasing levels of political, commercial and other modes of interconnection between its geographically disparate parts. By examining these ancient attitudes, we demonstrate an important aspect of the pre-history of modern sensibilities as to the nature of a 'globalizing/globalized world'. Moreover, by attending to ancient evidence as to 'global' attitudes and 'global consciousness', one may begin to overcome the presentism implicit in many contemporary accounts of globalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In arguing for the twin projects of globalizing history and historicizing globalization, this paper locates the development of historical scholarship in its own historical context. For the most part, professional historical scholarship has focused on the experiences of national communities and has taken European modernity as the principal guide to the understanding of the world's various societies. In the interests of enhancing understanding of the world and its development through time, there is a clear need to globalize history and historicize globalization. From ancient to contemporary times, several distinct interests--notably those of empire, business and mission--have driven or at least informed efforts to understand the larger world. Since World War II, the production of knowledge about the larger world has come largely through area studies scholarship, which itself has clearly reflected the interests of contemporary states. While area studies projects have experienced remarkable success in developing reliable information and constructing meaningful knowledge about the larger world, it has become clear that scholarship focusing exclusively on individual states or local communities is inadequate for purposes of understanding large-scale globalizing processes that have touched many peoples and influenced the development of individual societies, as well as the world as a whole. Following up on this recognition, recent scholarship in world history suggests that globalization has a very long history indeed. In combination, the projects to globalize history and historicize globalization promise to yield an enriched understanding of the world and its development through time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stressing that the shrinking of time and distance has led to multiplying boundary-spanning activities in diverse realms of life around the world, this paper suggests that unfortunately long-standing disciplinary habits and professional orthodoxies inhibit inquiries into the multidisciplinary nature of globalization. It argues that, in effect, there are many globalizations, but only one international relations in the sense that investigators of world affairs are too rooted into treating the state or the society as bounded and terminal entities to explore the full range of phenomena that presently mark world affairs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Socially progressive globalization in a post-neoliberal era must recognize the centrality of gendered and other social hierarchies to the deeper workings of the global political economy and actively seek to dismantle them. In practice, this involves: (i) redefining the purpose of global trade in ways that value, prioritize and support progressive forms of social reproduction; (ii) centreing trade policy on a holistic understanding of the economy; and (iii) democratizing global trade relations. In this article, we outline a feminist International Political Economy theoretical perspective for understanding global trade, take stock of a range of gender and trade initiatives pursued by various trade actors and organizations to show where progressive reforms have already been taken and where these fall short, and make concrete suggestions on how to formulate trade policies in line with globalist, feminist prerogatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we explore what a programme of 'reglobalization' could look like for the governance of global trade. Our focus is on the centrepiece of the current commercial order, the World Trade Organization (WTO). Our aim is to illustrate the potential value of a reformulated WTO not just for commercial relations globally but also for other areas of social concern. We seek to be both practical and challenging. We seek to be practical by establishing what a programme of WTO reform might look like in the near-to-medium term, including changes to the negotiating process and opening up the WTO to non-state actors. We seek to be challenging by setting the transformation of global trade governance within the context of a thorough process of reglobalization wherein the primary public mechanisms of global governance are reoriented towards the delivery of progressive social and environmental outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on the global complexity framework. It emphasizes the world system theory which provides an approach for cross-national differences in political and economic capacities explanations. The author relates her first experience with the world system theory and discusses conversations she had with the agents and actors on the subject of the global complexity perspective.

The rise of the BRICS countries - Brazil, Russia, China, India, and South Africa - has called into question the future of Western dominance in world markets and geopolitics. However, the developmental trajectories of the BRICS countries are shot through with socio-economic fault lines that relegate large numbers of people to the margins of current growth processes, where life is characterized by multiple and overlapping vulnerabilities. These socio-economic fault lines have, in turn, given rise to political convulsions across the BRICS countries, ranging from single-issue protests to sustained social movements oriented towards structural transformation. This article presents an innovative theoretical framework for theorizing the emerging political economy of development in the BRICS countries centred on neo-liberalization, precarity, and popular struggles. It discusses the contributions to this special issue in terms of how they illuminate the intersection between neo-liberalization, precarity, and popular struggle in Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hedge funds exemplify complex finance in the global economy and are appearing in diverse national settings. One question that follows is whether hedge funds in the Asian region have been localized and exhibit significant differences to their US/UK counterparts or whether there is predominantly one global model. The analysis here point to the importance of what is called replica localization, wherein local control has entailed little deviation from the practices of Anglo-American hedge funds. Evidence generated from databases and interviews confirms the largely equivalent structures and strategies found in the new Asian hedge fund sector. The significance is that a small but growing Asian financial space has been carved out that is funded by Asian capital and managed by Asian elites but matches external models. To further delineate globalized finance, comparative research is needed to determine when and why complex finance is either present or absent outside of Anglo-American economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Leave camp and prominent Brexiteers typically present regaining political control over international trade policy after Brexit as one advantage of leaving the European Union. A newly autonomous UK government, so the argument goes, will be free to negotiate wide-reaching and ambitious trade agreements with the world and will not be restricted by the compromise-culture inherent in supranational, Brussels-based deliberations. In the absence of clear formulations of Britain’s post-Brexit trade political agenda, much of the debate remains hypothetical at this point. Yet, from a global governance perspective, it is clear that the institutional and legal architecture for international trade cooperation is currently fragmented. Given WTO negotiating deadlocks, the institutional strain resulting from parallel country-by-country negotiations, regulatory clash in the existing network of preferential trade agreements, and the UK’s new position as a middle power in the trade regime, this essay argues that Britain may find it more difficult to push its own trade agenda internationally than is currently conceded in the debate. With the global trade regime currently shifting back towards more power-based forms of international interactions, regaining trade policy autonomy post-Brexit may turn out to be a pyrrhic victory for the new trade middle power Britain. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Globalizations is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Globalizations is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Globalizations is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Globalizations is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The author discusses the theory of Nederveen Pieterse on his work regarding globalization studies. He mentions that Pieterse explores three significant factors on his work such as one on the use of global data, one concerning the flexibility of global studies, and one on the sociology of knowledge of global studies. Moreover, he says that Pieterse was correct on his argument that global studies is spreading, is making progress, and has the potential to be the leader in the field of study.

Copyright of Globalizations is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In the last ten years we have been witnessing an essential change within what we might call the ‘international approaches towards globalization’. This change is not to be considered only as being incremental but rather fundamental as it consists not merely in a strategy-oriented shift but in one of principle. From the ‘worst enemy of the poor’, globalization turned into a ‘phenomenon that we all have to take profit of’. This essay will analyze the turning point in the anti-globalization attitudes by using the study of one of the most recent and important international programmes on globalization, the Helsinki Process on Globalization and Democracy, under the aspects of the historical reform of the international approaches towards globalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the "Empire," versus the "Cosmopolis," concepts of the nature and future of globalization. Argument that the contest between the two concepts, and the forms of consciousness and action they animate, is at the very heart of the globalization debate; Underlying defining element of the politics of the post Cold War era; Classical theories of imperialism.

During the final two decades of the twentieth century, development theory and practice were dominated by a neoliberal 'Washington Consensus'. This article analyzes the shifting debate over that Consensus. The article focuses on the current 'elite' debate about the Consensus in an attempt to gauge the extent of change. It does so by coding primary research materials according to specific Consensus tenets to analyze (1) the individual and collective positions of several prominent, elite actors termed the 'break-aways'; and (2) the editorial positions of leading publications that serve as key, elite 'voices'. Washington Consensus tenets are broken into five categories: trade liberalization, deregulation, privatization, financial liberalization and debt-crisis management. This analysis of primary texts leads to the Conclusion that the 'Washington Consensus' no longer prevails as an elite northern Consensus, and we are presently not only in a period of debate, but in the midst of a paradigm shift. † Robin Broad is associate professor, International Development Program, School of International Service, American University. Her most recent book-- Global Backlash: Citizen Initiatives for a Just World Economy (Rowman and Littlefield, 2002)--combines her analysis with 45 excerpts to demonstrate that opponents to the current corporate-led globalization present viable, sophisticated alternatives. Her earliest book-- Development Debacle: The World Bank in the Philippines , co-authored with Walden Bello and others in 1982 --was one of the first books to present a case-study of World Bank lending. She is author as well of Plundering Paradise: The Struggle for the Environment in the Philippines and Unequal Alliance: The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Philippines. Dr Broad is widely published and has received numerous grants and awards for her writing and teaching. She has previously worked as an international economist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the US House of Representatives and the US Treasury Department. She has lived and worked in the Philippines. She received her PhD in development studies from Princeton University. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women are rarely to be found in the elite international corporate structure of the globalizing economy. They are, however, an important component of the new mobile global labor force. This article examines the pros and cons of economic globalization for women; in particular, why so many women are disproportionately disadvantaged by the globalizing forces associated with the neoliberal international economy. It also outlines some ways in which women's organizing at the grassroots, national and international levels is working toward efforts to diminish gender hierarchies which have the effect of disempowering women and contributing to economic inequalities more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resistance is not only a response to, but also an integral component of neoliberal globalization. Public debates and most scholarly discourse have focused on macroresistance, which signals a new dynamic in globalization, but to the neglect of microresistance. Macroresistance may be best grasped as a political intervention by a coalition of heterogeneous citizens' groups in a globalizing economy, often in the guise of movements, networks and even state policies. Not surprisingly, the least understood type of resistance is the more latent, often undeclared, diffuse and sometimes localized, micro variant. Microresistance is constituted by countless diverse acts and beliefs that send forth streams of doubt and questions concerning the viability and sustainability of neoliberal globalization. Studying microresistance suggests that a large part of the resistance to neoliberal globalization is scattered and differentiated, private and intimate, personal as well as public, as evidenced in Japan after the bubble burst. In so far as this resistance is local yet parallel to responses in different countries and regions, the emergent pattern is potentially freighted with macrosignificance. The analytical challenge is to come to grips with the interplay of micro- and macroresistances. Fundamentally, a priority in research is to uncover the whole series of mediations among resistances, which are central to the historical transformation known as globalization. † From 14 August to 21 December 2004 : Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, Fabianinkatu, FIN-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comments on imbalances in the workings of the global economy, included in the Report of the World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization. Increase of income gap between the poorest and richest countries; Decrease in the number of countries who could claim a per capita growth rate; Growth of unemployment rate worldwide.