Posted: December 28th, 2014

globalisation

globalisation

ESSAY QUESTIONS
1. Do you think globalisation can be reversed?
2. Why could globalisation be seen as an European originating phenomena?
3. Is it too Euro-centric to identify globalisation with the expansion of the West?
4. In what ways might modern technology be the key to the expansion of globalisation?
5. What is the connection between globalization, fragmentation, and war?
6. Is globalisation a product of industrialisation and capitalism?
7. Is globalisation a product of the world unifying with the end of the cold war?
8. What are the differences between ‘globalist’ and ‘sceptical’ perspectives?
9. What are the limits of sceptical, transformationalist and discourse theory perspectives?
10. Is globalisation as an idea more important than globalisation as a reality?
11. Compare and contrast Bourdieu and Bauman’s views of globalisation.
12. In what way have technological changes have led to cultural globalisation?
13. How have structural and institutional changes to the media industry affected the globalisation of culture?
14. Is the globalisation of culture leading to homogenisation or increasing heterogeneity?
15. How are global cities both global and local?
READING LIST AND BOOKS
There are two essential textbooks for this module that you should use as reference texts:
Martell, L., The Sociology of Globalization (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2010).
Sholte, J.A., Globalization: A Critical Introduction (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillian, 2005)

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The readings listed below (under the lecture topics) are divided into two categories: essential and supplementary.
• Essential readings – everyone should read these items each week for the seminar.
• Supplementary readings – items that will provide broader background and should be read particularly when preparing seminar questions or essays.
The weekly essential readings will normally include one or two more basic chapters from textbooks (mainly from Martell 2010) and one more advanced article/chapter. You

should approach the more advance piece of scholarship only after reading the more introductory chapters from the textbooks.
This is a list of introductory textbooks to Globalisation Studies:
Castels, M., The Rise of the Network Society (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000)
Clark, I., Globalization and Fragmentation: International Relations in the 
Twentieth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997)
Dower, N., and Williams, J. (eds), Global Citizenship (Edinburgh: Edinburgh 
University Press, 2002)
Falk, R., Predatory Globalization: A Critique (Cambridge : Polity Press, 1999)
Gilpin, R., Global Political Economy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University 
Press, 2001)
Glyn, A., Capitalism Unleashed: Finance, Globalization, and Welfare 
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006)
Hayden, P., Cosmopolitan Global Politics (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005)
Held, D., Democracy and the Global Order: From Modern State to Global 
Governance (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995)
Held, D., and McGrew, A., Globalization/Anti-Globalization: Beyond the 
Great Divide (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007)
Held, D., McGrew, A., Glodblatt, D., and Perrator, J., Global Tranformations: 
Politics, Economics and Culture (Cambridge: Polity Press,

1999)
Moghadam, V.M., Globalization and Social Movements: Islamism, Feminism, and the Global Justice Movement (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield,

2009)
Kennedy, P. et al., Global Trends and Global Governance (London: Pluto, 
2002)
Rosenberg, J., The Follies of Globalisation Theories: Polemical Essays 
(London: Verso, 2000)
Sassen, S., Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global 
Assemblages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008)
Stiglitz, J., Globalization and its Discontents (London: Penguin, 2003)
Stiglitz, J., Free Fall: Free Markets and the Sinking of the Global Economy 
(New York: Allen Lane, 2010)

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Important website:
Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation, Warwick University, website: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/csgr/
Seminar Themes, Questions and Reading
Seminar themes and critical questions are indicated below. A range of relevant reading is provided for each theme and related questions, and is essential for acquiring

a more thorough understanding of topics, key themes and debates:

Week 1 – Introduction: concepts and definitions of globalisation
Essential readings:
L. Martell (2010). The Sociology of Globalisation, Introduction.
J. A. Sholte (2005). Globalization: A Critical Introduction, chapter 1 & 2. Supplementary readings:
R. J. Holton (2005). Making Globalization, chapter 1 & introduction. Available online at: http://www.palgrave.com/pdfs/1403948674.pdf
D. Held et al. (1999). Global Transformations, Introduction.
J. Osterhammel and N. P. Petersson (2005). Globalization: A Short History, chapter 
1 & 2. Seminar questions:
In your view, what are the main characteristics of globalisation?
How would you define this process?
What are examples of globalisation? What makes them globalisation?
In what way has globalisation affected your life? To what extent are the things you are 
thinking of globalisation?
What makes ‘globalisation’ different from ‘internationalisation’?
In what ways is globalisation ‘westernisation’? 
Week 2 – History: premodern, modern and postmodern globalisation 
Essential readings:
L.

Martell (2010). The Sociology of Globalisation, chapter 3. 
J. A. Sholte (2005). Globalization: A Critical Introduction, chapter 3. Supplementary readings:
D. Held et al. (1999). Global Transformations, 1999, chapter 3 & 4.
K. H. O’Rourke and J.G. Williamson (1999). Globalization and History: the 
Evolution of a Nineteenth Century Atlantic Economy, chapter 1 & 2.
C.A. Bayly (2004). The Birth of the Modern World, chapter 1 & 2.
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Seminar questions:
What have been the Eastern inputs into Western globalisation?
Why could globalisation be seen as a European originating phenomena?
Is it too Euro-centric to

identify globalisation with the expansion of the West?
In what ways might modern technology be the key to the expansion of globalisation? What developments or

institutions of modernity facilitated globalisation?
How did modern globalisation spread?
Week 3 – Critical Perspectives on globalisation: sceptical, transformationalist and discourse theories
Essential readings:
L. Martell (2010). The Sociology of Globalisation, chapter 1.
David Held et al. (1999). Global Transformations, Introduction 
http://www.polity.co.uk/global/PDF/Intr.pdf 
Supplementary readings:
J. A. Scholte (2005). Globalization: A Critical Introduction, chapter 4.
Cameron and R. Palan (2004). The Imagined Economies of Globalization, 
Introduction and chapter 1.
P. Hirst and G. Thompson (1999). Globalization in Question, chapter 1. 
Seminar questions:
What are the differences between the various waves of globalisation theories – in terms of method, view of economy/politics/culture, view of

global stratification, predictions for the future, and political prescriptions?
What are the differences between ‘globalist’ and ‘sceptical’ perspectives?
What are the differing political implications of their perspectives?
What evidence or arguments do the sceptics put against the globalists?
How do sceptics differ from globalists on the extent of globalisation? 
Week 4 – Globalisation and its critics: Zygmunt Bauman and Pierre

Bourdieu 
Essential readings:
Z. Bauman (1998). Globalization: The Human Consequences, chapters 1, 3 and 4.
P. Bourdieu (2002). ‘The Politics of Globalisation’ Open Democracy, 2002, 
http://www.opendemocracy.net/globalization-

vision_reflections/article_283.jsp 
Supplementary readings:
P. Bourdieu (2008). Political Interventions, chapter 12
P. Bourdieu and L. Wacquant (2001). ‘Neoliberal Newspeak: notes on the new

planetary
vulgate’, Radical Philosophy, 108, http://sociology.berkeley.edu/faculty/wacquant/wacquant_pdf/neoliberal.pdf
2001

P. Bourdieu (1999). ‘On the Cunning of Imperialist Reason’, Theory, Culture and
Society,
16, 1,

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http://sociology.berkeley.edu/faculty/wacquant/wacquant_pdf/CUNNINGIMPREA SON.pdf
Seminar Questions:
What does Bauman think about freedom in the so-called global age?
Is Bauman pessimistic or optimistic regarding the process of globalisation?
What does Bourdieu

say about ‘the invisible hand of the powerful’?
What does he say about neoliberalism and what has this got to do with globalisation? Who/what is behind

globalisation, according to Bourdieu?
Week 5 – Culture: forms of cultural globalisation – homogenisation or hybridity?
Essential readings:
L. Martell (2010). The Sociology of Globalisation, chapter 4.
T. Flew (2007). Understanding Global Media 
http://www.palgrave.com/PDFs/1403920494.Pdf 
Supplementary readings:
T. Rantanen (2005). The Media and Globalization, 2005, chapter 1 & 2.
M. Kraidy (2002). ‘Hybridity in Cultural Globalization’, Communication Theory, 12, 
3, 2002.

http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/1770_reg.html
J. Friedman (1999). ‘The Hybridization of Roots and the Abhorrence of the Bush’, in 
M. Featherstone and S. Lash, eds, Spaces of Culture:

City-Nation-World. Seminar Questions:
Is the globalisation of culture leading to homogenisation or increasing heterogeneity?
Is the globalisation of culture really just Americanisation?
What inequalities are there in cultural globalisation?
Has the rise of religious fundamentalism got anything to do with the globalisation of 
culture and, if so, what?
How might cultural globalisation lead to greater nationalism or the revalidation of 
local or national cultures? 
Week 6 – Global cities

Essential readings:
S. Sassen (1991). The Global City, chapter 1, 2 & 10. 
Supplementary readings: 
N. Brenner and R. Keil, eds. (2006). The Global Cities Reader,

chapter 1, 2 & 3. S. Sassen (2006). The Sociology of Globalization, chapter 4.
D. Massey (2007). World City, chapter 1 & 2.

Seminar Questions:
What is a global city?
What is the difference between a big or mega city on one hand and a world or global 
city on the other?
What is ‘global’ about global cities – economically, politically, culturally, socially?
What does globalisation have to do with global cities?
What do global cities have to do with: post-fordism, post industrialism, economic 
restructuring; migration; cultural hybridity; identity and

community; changes in 
politics.
What shape do these take in global cities?
What does Sassen say about global dispersal and centralised command being 
combined in relation to global cities? 
Week 7 – Global migration:

patterns and effects 
Essential readings:
L. Martell (2010). The Sociology of Globalization, chapter 5 & 6. 
Supplementary readings:
S. Castles and M. J. Miller (2006). The Age of Migration: International Population Movements in the Modern World, chapter 1 & 2.
A. M. Messina & G. Lahav (2006). The Migration Reader, chapter 5.
P. Legrain (2007). Immigrants: Your Country Needs You, chapter 1, 2 & 3. 
Seminar Questions:
Is international migration a cause or an effect of globalisation?
Is international migration a problem or a potential force for European countries?
In your view, what are the main causes of international migration? What are its 
effects?
What is the relationship between migration, inequality and globalisation? 
Week 8 – Economy and inequality: trade and global inequality

Essential readings:
L. Martell (2010). The Sociology of Globalization, chapter 7 & 8. 
Supplementary readings:
D. Held et al. (1999). Global Transformations, chapter 3, 4 & 5.
UNCTAD. World Investment Report 2013, http://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/wir2013_en.pdf
D. Held and A. Kaya (2007). Global Inequalities, chapter 1, 2 & 3. Seminar Questions: 
Is globalisation increasing global inequality? If

so, how? 8

Is globalisation increasing economic growth and trade? If so, how? Is globalisation a solution for poverty?
Is global economy making the world richer and

healthier?
Is globalisation a capitalist-driven phenomenon?
Week 9 – Politics: global politics and cosmopolitan democracy
Essential readings:
L. Martell (2010). The Sociology of Globalization, chapter 9 & 10.
Supplementary readings:
D. Held et al. (1999). Global Transformations, chapter 1.
C. Crouch (2004). Post-Democracy, chapter 1 & 2.
D. Held (1995). Democracy and the Global Order, chapter

1, 2 & 3.
Seminar Questions:
What happens to politics in a globalised world?
Is the nation-state threatened by globalisation?
What does the idea of a cosmopolitan democracy imply?
Is a word

state a foreseeable outcome of globalisation?
Do you agree with the neo-kantian idea of a cosmopolitan global society?
Week 10 – Global social movements and anti-globalisation
Essential readings:
L. Martell (2010). The Sociology of Globalization, chapter 11.
Supplementary readings:
D. Graeber (2002). ‘The New Anarchists’, http://newleftreview.org/II/13/david- graeber-the-new-anarchists
S. Gill (2000). The Post-Modern Prince, http://mil.sagepub.com/content/29/1/131.full.pdf+html
T. Mertes (2004). A Movement of Movements: Is Another World Really Possible? Many contributions: http://books.google.co.uk/books?

id=T_4re1_HAu0C&printsec=frontcover&hl=it&so urce=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false 
Seminar Questions:
To what extent do transnational actors of all kinds actually participate and change world politics? Is their effect enough to refute the

long-held claims of the state- centric/realist approach?
What is the political impact of anti-global movements? Give some examples.
What are the political goals of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement?
What are the key concepts and activities associated with the behaviour of transnational movements?
Is a Global Civil Society a feasible political project? 9

Week 11 – The Global Legal Space
Essential readings:
D. Zolo (2008). Globalisation: An Overview, chapter 6.
Supplementary readings:
Ralf Michaels (2013) Globalization and Law: Law Beyond the State available at: http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?

article=5540&context=faculty _scholarship
B. De Sousa Santos and C.A. Rodriguez-Garavito (eds., 2003) Law and Globalization from Below. Available at:

http://www.ces.uc.pt/bss/documentos/law_and_globalization_from_below.pdf 
Seminar Questions: 
What is the relation between globalization and law? Is law becoming

“global”?
How does globalisation change law? 
Week 12 – War and globalisation 
Essential readings:
L. Martell (2010). The Sociology of Globalization, chapter 12 &

13. 
Supplementary readings:
D. Held et al. (1999). Global Transformations, chapter 2. 
T. Barkawi (2006). Globalization and War, chapter 1 & 2.
P. Hirst (2001).

War and Power in the 21st Century, chapter 1, 2 & 3. 
Seminar Questions: 
How does globalization challenge traditional understandings of war? How important is the

“Revolution in Military Affairs”?
What is different about “post-modern” war?
Is the character of war changing? How? 
What is new about ‘new wars’?
Is identity or

territory a more important cause of conflict today? Why? 
Week 13 – Living in a Global Age: Personal Reflections 
Workshop: Open discussion

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