Critical Theories Of Globalization

This accessible text provides a comprehensive overview of globalization and its consequences from the perspective of social and political critical theory. Thematic chapters provoke student inquiry and the book shows how the views of critical theorists are crucial to understanding the global processes shaping the world today.

This accessible text provides a comprehensive overview of globalization and its consequences from the perspective of social and political critical theory. Thematic chapters provoke student inquiry and the book shows how the views of critical theorists are crucial to understanding the global processes shaping the world today.

Theories of Globalization offers students and scholars a comprehensive and critical introduction to the concept of globalization. Barrie Axford expertly guides readers through the full range of perspectives on the topic, from international political economy to geography, global anthropology to cultural and communication studies. In so doing he draws out the common threads between competing theories, as well as pinpointing the problems that challenge our understanding of globalization. Key terms such as 'globalism' and 'globality' are carefully explained and central themes like capitalism, governance, culture and history explored in full. In assessing the contribution made by globalization theory, Axford's account also sheds new light on several crucial current issues. These range from the changing shape of democracy and citizen engagement with governance, to issues surrounding 'just war' and humane intervention, and problems relating to empire and post-colonialism. This wide-ranging and detailed new book will be essential reading for students and scholars of international politics, sociology and any area where the concept of globalization is discussed and disputed.

In recent years, under the impression and the burden of globalization and neoliberalism, debates about the relationship between the theory and practice of progress - including the theory and practice of social critique - have gone through an unexpected and momentous revival, renewal and rejuvenation.

Theorizing Globalization offers a reassessment of mainstream perspectives on globalization, a topic that has become enormously popular in social sciences and cultural studies. Instead of recycling common arguments, Ampuja critically examines the works of key globalization theorists such as Manuel Castells and Arjun Appadurai to demonstrate their excessive fascination with recent changes in media and communications technology. The author argues that these and many other theorists’ media-centric and unhistorical treatment of globalization stands in the way of a critical understanding of how the global media and modern capitalist societies have evolved. Ampuja concludes with a provocative account of how the hegemony of neoliberalism has affected the positions of globalization theorists and, by extension, the development of social theory in general.

This book provides a definitive account of resistance movements across the globe. Combining theoretical perspectives with detailed empirical case studies, it explains the origins, activities and prospects of the 'anti-globalization' movement.

A discussion about production, state and cultural identity as important concepts in the international relations theory. This book also describes and analyzes the theories of globalization, state and identity/difference which constitute and inform this field of critical theory.

There is at present much disenchantment with the rules governing international investment. Conceived as a set of disciplines establishing thresholds of tolerable state behaviour, dissatisfaction has precipitated acts of resistance in various parts of the world. Resisting Economic Globalization explores the magnitude of the legal constraints imposed by these rules and institutions associated with the worldwide spread of neoliberalism. Much contemporary theorizing has given up on national states as a locus for countering the harmful effects of economic globalization. Though states provide critical supports to the construction and ongoing maintenance of transnational legal constraints, David Schneiderman argues that states remain crucial sites for resisting, even rolling back, investment law disciplines. Structured as a series of encounters with selected critical theorists, the book contrasts theoretical diagnoses with recent episodes of resistance impeding investment law edicts. This novel approach tests contemporary hypotheses offered by leading political and legal theorists about the nature of power and the role of states and social movements in facilitating and undoing neoliberalism's legal edifices. As a consequence, the foundations of transnational legality become more apparent and the mechanisms for change more transparent.