ABSTRACT
In the last few decades, the idea that we are living in an interconnected world has become increasingly familiar to people in many contemporary societies, and ‘globalization’ has acquired wide currency as one of the key terms of our time. Not unexpectedly, there is no general agreement on what globalization should mean, and references to this term are often marked by ambiguity and a tendency to take it as self-explanatory. As Jan Scholte puts it, ‘if asked to specify what they understand by “globalization”, most people reply with considerable hesitation, vagueness, and inconsistency. Moreover, much discussion of globalization is steeped in oversimplification, exaggeration and wishful thinking’ (Scholte 2005: 1).
