Search

This paper aims to describe the overall pattern of flows of international students and to determine the factors that can explain the variation of countries' attractiveness. In a second step, it assesses the position of the European Union as a whole in these flows at the global level. Is the EU strong enough in the global competition to attract the best brains? Besides, it shows how attractiveness factors can vary according to the profile of a sample of European Union member countries. In the third section of the paper, we raise some reflexions on the relations of the EU with its neighbourhood with respect to the flows of international students. In fact, the EU may not be able to maintain its status as a major power if it does not better regulate its relations with neighbour countries, especially in the domain of higher education and students' mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A viable citizenship program is pivotal for state development, and to let official policy determine politics as taught by T. J. Lowi. National states based on national-state citizenship are weaker and weaker before the key challenges of our times. That is why citizenship programs are more and more focused on innovation policies to integrate ius sanguinis, ius soli, citizenship on investment and citizenship on performance. This paper provides a strategic innovation policy by linking development and global citizenship. Innovative law-making, citizenship policy innovation, and development are dramatically interconnected to evolve a scenario in which citizenship represents a key intangible asset to generate tangible wealth in open horizons where free circulation of tangibles or intangibles is strategic and linked to downsizing the bureaucratic burdens, the local power centers by evolving a much leaner and higher organizational standard of citizenship: legally, isotropically, and socially. This results in a new theory of social systems as a useful tool for the management of the complexity of social relations, breaking territorial boundaries, and making them cosmopolitan (Beck, 2006. The cosmopolitan vision. Cambridge: Polity Press). In order to achieve this, the present study will be approached and related with cosmopolitism and development, aiming to bring new contours of study to this subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the question of when generalizations risk compromising the utility and accuracy of a theory and seeks to show how a balance can be struck between generalized and context-specific analyses in disciplines like international sociology, political economy, and comparative politics. For this purpose, the paper reviews three theoretical approaches to agri-food system change, placed at different levels on the ladder of generality. It then considers these approaches in relation to India's changing agri-food system. Finally, the paper discusses the general and the particularistic features of the Indian case and examines their implications for theories relating to global governance and international political economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines four international fashion magazines - Elle, Harper's Bazaar, Marie Claire and Vogue - published in five countries around the world. Based on content analysis, publishers' marketing data, and interviews with editorial and publishing staff, the paper argues that the field of magazine production is structured by a double- or multiple-audience property which leads to structural homology in the fields of media production generally. Precisely because fashion magazines are simultaneously commodities and cultural productions, in which the not-entirely-separate interests of advertisers, the fashion world and readers come into play, all kinds of contradictions emerge to affect their contents. Focusing on international edition launches and magazines markets, the paper also engages with the meaning of journalistic independence and gives its own Gallic twist to globalisation theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the strong criticism by Elias against the nation-state paradigm in sociology. Elias pointed his attention on sociologists of the twentieth century but particularly criticizes the analytical model of Parsons (AGIL), which seems to him an abstract combinatory of variables (pattern variables) without any references in social contexts. The sociology in the twentieth century is an apologetic of nation-state and, in Parsons, of the hegemonic role of the United States in the world. In fact, during the twentieth century many authors (historians and sociologists) tried to overcome the nation-state paradigm in the social sciences. The author of the paper analyses the contribution of Toynbee, Braudel, C. Schmitt, Huntington, Wallerstein and Hard-Negri. These attempts are based on different unit analysis: the civilization and its clash in the case of Toynbee and Huntington, the world economy in the case of Braudel and Wallerstein, and power in the case of C. Schmitt and Negri-Hardt. The author appreciates these attempts but his conclusion is that the concept of global society can better serve as unit analysis for a construction of a new paradigm in the social sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relying on a review of recent literature (and, sometimes, older publications), this paper attempts to highlight issues relating to the ‘spatial turn’ in religious studies. It outlines a series of developments in the study of religions related to issues in space, location and territory that have been enhanced by the intellectual framework of globalism and the empirical context of globalization. The challenges of such a geographic focus on religions are epistemological, theoretical and methodological. An examination of new and not-so-new issues in geographic approaches to religion shows how topical the perspective is, and how necessary it is to think the geography of religion beyond the boundaries of geography. In what ways do these new regimes of territoriality, these new concepts of religious space, and these new methods to understand the changes of material and cultural expressions of religion, whether wide-scale or local, partake on a paradigmatic shift? And how promising is it? [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The aim of this essay is to analyse social inclusion from two distinct points of view. On the one hand, in order to underline the complex nature of the paradigm of social inclusion, we will sketch a critical approach to the notion of exchange, a notion which has had an enormous influence on the field of social relations at large. On the other hand, we wish to explore also the ethical concept, and jurical practice, of ‘hospitality’. This is particularly important today because of the growing magnitude of globalisation and migration, phenomena which define the ways in which ‘outsiders’ relate to each other in many contemporary societies. The paper analyses the issue of social inclusion under two distinct headings. The first, which involves a critique of the economic idea of exchange, attempts to highlight the limits and contradictions that beset this paradigm, which has become such an intrinsic aspect of our lives today, when it imposes itself onto the entire range of social relationships. Under the second heading, which re-examines the ethical and juridical topic of ‘hospitality’, we try to take another look at the problem of migratory movement and all its paradoxical aspects in the light of current processes of globalisation of markets. These two issues have never been so interconnected as they are today, especially if it is the case that the problem posed by the growing phenomenon of migration in democratic and multi-ethnic societies, which are more and more involved in difficult relationships with ‘outsiders’, is bound to reappear, for good or for ill, on the level of social inclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human mobility is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon. While labour migration has been widely and deeply investigated – through theoretical and empirical analysis – other forms of mobility have received much less attention. Students' mobility is a peculiar form of temporary movement that can be considered as neither migration nor tourism. It is rapidly growing: in the period 1975–2005 the number of tertiary education students abroad increased fourfold, from 0.61 million to 2.73 million, following the trend of the internationalization of economy and globalization of culture. In 2009 almost 3.7 million tertiary students were enrolled outside their country of origin, an increase of more than 6% from the previous year. In this paper we analyse the international mobility of university students, using a unique data set built through surveys conducted at the Sapienza University of Rome. The data collected cover a rich array of information on students' characteristics and backgrounds, provenance places, family conditions, individual aspirations, and job preferences. The empirical analysis of those data offers an opportunity for understanding a relevant part of mobility decisions of (prospective) highly qualified workers. The Sapienza University, moreover, is at present the largest university in Europe for number of students and a pole of attraction for both European and non-European students. This allows us to enlarge our analysis at a global level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political changes related to globalization apparently produce similar effects on old and new democracies. All over the world, comparative research on democratization has showed that political distrust is a common variable affecting the whole of the State and the relationship between citizens and democracy. Nevertheless, political discontent in old democracies has stimulated citizens to adopt new attitudes and modes of political participation, while in newly democratized countries citizens tend to withdraw from politics as a consequence of institutional distrust. In fact, in many new democracies, although adhering to the normative meaning of the democratic regime, distrust of democratic institutions is associated to citizens' negative feeling about political efficacy, low levels of political interest and political participation, and also preference for democratic models which exclude political parties and/or parliaments. This paper evaluates the meanings and consequences of the contemporary phenomenon of political discontent in Brazil and Latin America and discusses its implications for democratic theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the issue of reflexivity in the different spheres of society, affected by the processes of globalization. The author argues that each sub-system of society is more or less differentiating itself according to a (prevailing) code or register of reflexivity. Global contextualism changes the way people manage the distinction between the particular and the universal (i.e. their perceived 'different identities') according to a plurality of reflexive processes. A differentiating universalism emerges within the different spheres of society (the market, the political system, the associational or third-sector system, and the system of families and informal primary networks). In principle, within these spheres many different codes of reflexivity can be detected. The four types of reflexivity detected by M.S. Archer can be correlated with the different spheres/sub-systems of society in order to see how the latter change their operations and overall configuration. In conclusion, it is shown that the thesis of 'reflexive modernity' is a reductive and an undifferentiated way of looking at what is happening in our globalizing society. The differentiation of reflexivity does not represent a further stage of modernity but, rather, it generates an 'after-modern' society through what the author calls 'relational reflexivity'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globalisation has affected the industrial trajectories of developing countries, producing an increasing disarticulation between the management of production and regimes of labour control. While production regimes have been projected into the global arena, labour regimes have remained apparently anchored to regulatory mechanisms provided by local social structures, and gone through increasing processes of informalisation. Examining the case of the Indian garment sector, this paper argues that the informalisation of labour should not be conceived as necessarily taking place 'in the shadow of the state'. In fact, in the case presented here, the state was a strong active agency behind the process of informalisation, which it supported through formal policies and through its progressive alignment with the interests of capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay's aim is to explore the potential for relieving suffering with which clinical sociology can provide social actors. The author carries out a theoretical reflection of culture's function in human societies. Culture is an instrument for social actors, to give a meaning to what is happening at each moment. If culture does not grant an effective interpretation of reality, phenomena of disease can arise. This can happen for many different reasons, such as incoherent cultural representations or conflicts between different cultural issues. The paper outlines the kinds of cultural disease that can occur, as well as the possible causes of each. It also sets a link between cultural disease and the contemporary, general lack of cognitive references, due to historical changes - such as globalization - that have been happening too fast to be fully accepted by all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many have argued that one of the reasons for the irresistible trend of liberal democracy is the irreversible process of globalization. The logic assumes that globalization is not only an inseparable prerequisite for promoting economic development but also the dynamic to transform political structures into liberalism in less democratic countries, because economic development within countries creates new middle classes around the world, with their natural demands for more participation in decision and political pluralism. In other words, all societies will evolve to a point where they will adopt liberal democratic institutions. In turn, the resulting new world order will be characterized by international cooperation through market economies and liberal democracy. This paper investigates the ideological origin of globalization by inspecting Fukuyama's theory of the 'end of history'. It argues that this belief is a continuance of modernization theory and reminiscent of functionalist concepts by Western scholars concerning the development of less developed countries. The difference is that globalizers cleverly cover their ethnocentrism with Hegel's philosophy, as it implies that the Western system is some perfect theory that all people will eventually accept as their cultures and societies evolve into a Western superior state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To understand the content and the historical forms of violence, it is necessary to define it in relation to the different notions that dot its path of meaning (power, domination, strenght, order, sovereignty, etc.). Moreover, this allows us to grasp its new configurations connected to the systemic upheavals that characterize the globalised world. In contemporary society violence now shows a double face, which is a combination of renewed forms of traditional violence and 'new' forms that derive from processes of social differentiation. These 'new' forms of systemic-molecular violence are linked to a biotechnological domain that opens up a new scenario to the possibility of violating freedoms and rights in the globalised world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emerging globalization policies are underlining the key importance of international and supranational regulations and standards. Digitalization has reframed the free circulation of intangible assets such as intellectual property rights (IPRs) on a global scale, technologically speeding up what the legal norms sometimes had not considered yet. Digitalization has dramatically helped to improve the linkage between production, distribution and their location, as virtual venues have also become virtual markets. Innovative digitalization and innovation and taxation policies are strongly interconnected. In this scenario, the emerging role of the EU as a connector not only among itself, but also with Canada, Japan and eventually Mercosur is a key piece of evidence that borders become weaker as long as digitalization evolves. It is clear that digitalization leads to a paradox for tax, business and wealth evolution system: the more digitalization, the more horizontalization of tax law and a speed up in verticalization from international to supranational can be seen. And this is the next turbulent challenge before us. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the anxieties and uncertainties relating to the process of globalization. Anxieties and uncertainties have become constitutive features of the modern era, so that, perhaps, a deep sense of insecurity is permeating all areas of the so

In the last decade several Western countries have been updating the law concerning the relationships between State and Churches. This clearly testifies that many legal instruments, created for carrying out secularism in societies dominated by a single culture and tradition, are not any longer adequate to meet the needs of today's multicultural communities. In fact, those legal instruments were tailored on the requirements of traditional creeds; therefore, they are not able to accommodate the demands coming from diverse religious denominations. The author will point out some specific legal approaches (namely the French laïcité as well as the dual-system and joint governance approaches), which have traditionally carried out secularism in some Western countries. He will try to demonstrate that in contemporary democracies, as has occurred in the past, secularism has to find a balance between the universal need for a peaceful coexistence and the protection of religious-cultural rights – not only the rights of a group to be different, but also the rights of individuals within these groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modernization, in the sociological tradition, was usually understood as increasing differentiation. Theorists as different as Marx, Durkheim, Weber and Parsons all shared the view that modernization meant the opening of new horizons. The publication of Lyotard's The Postmodern Condition transformed the discursive universe: contrary to the tradition of differentiation theoretical sociology the pamphlet interpreted modernization as a process in which the plurality of local cultural traditions was destroyed and their various narratives were rearticulated into a unified modern canon under the repressive meta-narratives of science, progress and the Enlightenment. At first, sociologists were at odds with this new interpretation until Beck, Giddens and Lash brought up the idea of modernity in two phases in their Reflexive Modernization (1994) and related publications. According to them, 'traditional modernity' was based on cultural closures, such as unified class-identities, nationalities and fixed gender-identities, but it was followed by a 'second' or 'reflexive modernity', where several traditions lived side by side, just as the postmodernists claimed. An intense debate emerged. The article asks: did we learn anything from the debate on reflexive modernization and if so, can the learnt lessons be used fruitfully in the study of contemporary society? The answer seems to be negative for the most part. However, the modernization theoretical approach can still be seen as a useful tool for framing research questions and contributing to the diagnosis of the era. This is how it can still provide a point of departure for research, but not deliver all the answers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Certain authors have drawn attention to the fact that competition between businesses has taken the form of competition for the power over regulation and the imposition of a particular style of production. The dominant businesses can thus create barriers to those entering the market, which can either be cultural or legal. The strategies employed essentially consist of establishing norms of production which prevent competitors from entering the market in such a way that competition, as Simmel refers to it, never takes the form of direct fonflict. By examining the French wine industry, the aim of this work is to investigate how this form of market control, which is only favourable for a certain number of businesses, can be brought into question. Given that it is usually technological innovation which is responsible for the transformation of the market forces involved with industrially produced products, the wine market is very interesting to study as such innovation is often excluded through the institutionalisation of scarcity. This institutionalisation is constructed on the valorisation of 'traditional' methods and the delimitation of certain privileged zones of production. How can such rules which attribute the principle of non-reproductibility to history and nature be brought into question? Firstly, we can investigate the specificity of newcomers to the market who are capable of destabilising the current norms of production. We can also investigate whether we should attribute such questioning of the dominant norms to the particular distinctive properties of said norms, or whether we need to take into account other relevant transformations occurring in a wider social context. Notable examples of such transformations are the increase in standing of oenology from mere knowledge to the status of a science with its recognised professions, the reorganisation of rural space and the reorganisation of market structures, in particular the social composition of demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article comments on effects of globalization on Muslims in Oriental Asia. The article states that globalization is criticized in a Muslim-centered consumerist society. The article raises question of loyalty and continuity in the Muslim world to promote globalization. The article states that Islamic globalization has enabled the phenomenon of re-Islamization to improve the knowledge and practice of Islamic matters.

This article, which is part of a broader attempt to construct a 'Baedeker' to IR's cultural journey, contributes to the contested debated on the (ir)relevance of cultural diversity to the study of international relations by providing a picture of where we come from, of where we are now situated and of some of the suggestions as to where we should be going in order not to get lost in this almost uncharted landscape. The first main section discusses why questions pertaining to cultural diversity traditionally have held a surprisingly marginal position within IR and shows how IR before the Cultural Turn was more 'culture-blind' than 'cultureblank'. The second main section turns attention to IR during the Cultural Turn and examines how two influential bids for a culturalist alternative have been better at posing good questions than providing attractive answers, placing IR's cultural journey in a 'blind-blinded stalemate'. Against this background, the last main section asks where the cultural journey should head after the Cultural Turn and identifies and evaluates four different suggestions for 'routes' to proceed by. While they may be at variance when it comes to the specific direction suggested, they all represent attempts to set a course between the culture-blind Scylla and the culture-blinded Charybdis, and indicate in this way that it would be premature to let the problems associated with the Cultural Turn lead to an expulsion of questions relating to cultural diversity from the IR agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anomie is one of few social scientific terms with a wide claim to explain aspects of social change, in different cultures at different stages of modernization not to say globalization. In the early 1990s the Scientific Board of the Swiss Academy of Development commenced a research project which is still continuing with most of the same researchers but under the name of The International Network for the Assessment of Social Transformation (INAST), based in the Institute of Sociology, University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland. The work was importantly influenced by Robert K. Merton, an honorary member of the group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concepts of quality of life, anomie or marginalisation and social capital are introduced in the context of the impact of the post-modernising forces of globalisation, urbanisation, and mass migration on societal structures. Empirical relationships between the three concepts were explored using data derived from a study undertaken in south east Queensland, Australia in 2003. On the basis of descriptive statistics and a path analysis using LISREL procedures it was shown that although the majority of people did not feel marginalised and reported good quality of life, reduced quality of life was associated with low prestige occupations mediated by marginalisation or anomie. In addition social capital was found to improve quality of life both directly and by ameliorating marginalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze globalization impacts on changes in income inequality, focusing on the top and bottom of the income distribution. Data are for all US metro areas from 1980 to 1990. Income polarization has risen. The international flow of labor polarizes earnings by depressing wages among low-income workers. Producer services increase earnings at the upper levels, but, in contrast to the main theories, are unrelated to polarization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two central characteristics of globalization are individualization and destabilization of political life. These trends express themselves through political cleavages around which new social groups are mobilized. Some of them are suppliers of knowledge and create a power base through their competence and creativity. In a study based on 15 years surveys we show that this new social group, the Free Logotypes, is two: Self-improvers and World-improvers. Self-improvers have their social base in production of economic values. World-improvers have their social base in production of social values. These differences affect the potential for democratic citizenship and globalized political actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globalisation is affecting global space in various ways. One of its most dramatic effects is the creation of large spaces of exclusion. But also the privileged spaces ought to pay the cost of adjustment: they have to create a special image of themselves which differentiates them from other places, and in order to achieve a distinct image they have to reinvent themselves. They thus become (hyperreal) ‘imagined localities’ which more and more lose the connection to the ‘lifeworld’ of people. Along with other processes of social disembedding, this creates, on the level of the individual, a sometimes backward-oriented, sometimes utopian-transcendent longing for reembedding. This is also reflected in the (metaphorical) imaginations of people about their social (group) contexts. We may find both reflexive and ‘deflexive’ ways of social imagination as the examples, which are analysed here, show. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides information about movement, globalization and supranational institutions at the First European Social Forum. The author uses data from a survey carried out during the first European Social Forum, held in Florence, Italy in November 2002. It is noted that the new global movement is redesigning political boundaries through participation, claiming spaces for democracy and universal rights of citizenship. In fact, there is an important connection between participation, democracy and citizenship, which are all concepts enriched with new meanings by the action of the global movements.

Sustained by the dominant systems of techno-science and popular capitalism, the rise of globalized consumerism has been massive and sudden. Although their discourses are distinctly different, the two systems conspire to offer local products at the global level, and global products at the local level. This article argues that we have no single holistic and coherent language by which to understand economics in the context of the ecological, or vice versa. Despite the emergence of green consumerism' and other environmentalist developments, in the last few decades, net consumption continues to rise across the world. It has been argued that consumerism evolved as a convenient way to decentralize, and to extend capitalism's self-regulation of the supply of goods and services to an increasing number of individuals within democratic societies. The idea of economic growth has been a vital psychological feature of this system. In 1989, communism in the soviet bloc collapsed and, at the popular level, capitalism was implicitly identified as the only realistic option. This development coincided with a change of ecological ideology in which, for example, the term alternative became obsolete, and terms such as green consumerism and eco-friendliness seemed more appropriate.

The article analyses the challenges and opportunities for sociocybernetics with increasing globalization and social development. The rapid consolidation of a new global economy and its impact upon social organization, political structures, and world cultures constitute one of the major issues in the social sciences today. Economic and social changes are well underway, led by the expansion of world markets, concentration of international financing, and a more powerful presence of transnational corporations. Global capitalism is generating, however, severe conditions of income inequality, new environmental risks, social conflicts, and challenges to world development. According to the author the social and political consequences of a single, powerful, and unregulated world market will be marked by increasing insecurity, poverty, and economic injustice. This article examines the major trends and characteristics of the globalization process and its impact on general conditions of social development. Special attention is given to the increasing concern about the consequences of globalization and patterns of uneven development in third world countries.

Regional development policies in many developed countries aimed at attracting new or established firms to disadvantaged areas have become increasingly less successful in recent years. One reason is that a very important push factor in job migration, a shortage of labor at existing production sites disappears in times of economic recession and unemployment and is slow to reappear. But many areas of industrial production requiring low- or inter-mediate-level skills have been eliminated by improved production technologies or have been transferred to countries with low wage levels. Transportation and communication technologies enable firms to flexibly relocate their component functions. These are manifestations of economic globalization. The major component of globalization is, however, financial and is comprised of global investment and security markets. In Europe, most economists and politicians concerned with regional development look to the U.S. as an example of what flexibility in taxation, finance and subsidization policy and what deregulation measures could contribute to economic growth and improvement of the labor market.

This article analysis that present day Western society may best be conceived of as an ultramodern society, characterized by various new contradictions that did not beset the preceding modern society. And a major, core, process of this society is a new elite connection on the one hand, accompanied by a new elite desertion of the disadvantaged classes and groups on the other hand. In ultramodern society in the throes of globalization, this relationship among elites, and between elites and the disadvantaged, has been affected by the tyranny of merit, and by the fact that capitalists have created cross- national alliances, while workers/employees are involved in growing cross-national competition over employment. The resulting imbalance of power between business elites and employees, the new consensus of elites on the merit of merit, on the beneficial effects of globalization, of competition and the free market, together with the erosion of class boundaries, all this makes it more difficult for elites to organize the disadvantaged for collective action. For this and other reasons the political space is but sparsely populated with elites that do so, and push for greater equality. The new elite connection and the divorce between elites and the disadvantaged help create the paradoxical situation that in the midst of plenty, just as class boundaries are eroding, there is growing polarization between the overprivileged and the underemployed.

The deregulation of labour markets is said to be a crucial condition for success in the global marketplace and national profession are widely viewed as obstacles to free trade in services. However if national professions are under pressure, is arguable that the logic of global markets will stimulate the rise of global profession. The moral dimension of professions as a class of occupations is further emphasized in the discussion of competition policy when the scholar wonders whether it is "indecent" to compare the pay of a curate or explain to that of a "journeyman in any common trade," although the actual figures are similar. The management of related problems of trust and uncertainty is a crucial functional issue for market societies. One of the particular contribution of the Scottish Enlightenment to social thought was its proposed alternative to the idea that social order rested on fictive compact, contract or convention. Order in society didn't emerge from an agreement to create an authority or an explicit body of rules which everyone would obey.

Policies and politics are more and more affected by globalizing trends. Caused by multinational companies, financial networks, new technologies and industries, the nation-state has already lost part of its sovereignty. Political leaders are finding it difficult to respond appropriately to global political challenges. National governments and political parties are occupied with managing the social consequences of anonymous economic and financial developments which cannot be influenced by them. They are losing traditional competences. Political thinking and acting is floating in a space of which both boundaries and perspectives cannot be defined very clearly. Western democracy loses parts of its political instruments. What if parliaments cannot control governments anymore? The main goal seems to keep going on. The most important issue in that debate is the consequences which ongoing changes will have on the body politic and on the welfare state. The European tradition presupposes that representation is incomplete without direct participation. While the body politic is based on principles of representation, voters tend to identify democracy more with direct forms of participation.

The article focuses on uncertainties relating to globalization, and dangers associated with international money. Those who write of globalization in terms of the erosion of nation-state sovereignty over money are concerned with the regulation of money--hitherto the task of nation-state government and with the possibility that, in the case of international monetary networks, no equivalent form of regulation exists, leaving us all exposed to the vagaries of `free markets'. In a monetary context, weak inductive knowledge entails rationally assessing information in order to make transacting decisions: for example, regarding future prices, the rate of unemployment, and even the political outlook. For this reason, the response of transactors to, say, rising inflation cannot be accurately predicted without reference to their expectations or aspirations regarding the level or stability of inflation. The kind of uncertainty associated with international money in some of the more alarmist accounts of globalization are of a systemic kind, held to be integral to the way in which international markets operate.