ABSTRACT
A common interpretation of globalization is that technology-fueled networks and interdependencies generate disjointed, differentiated global fields. The extensive scholarship in political sociology and international relations (IR) theory on international norm diffusion focuses on why states create and accept norms. A norm commonly is understood to be a rule about behavior that actors construct and adopt. The establishing of a model globally can be viewed as a global event. Models are institutionalized globally and elements of them are adopted by particular states. Scholarly resistance to considering the presence of a global consciousness or world culture is reinforced by prevalent theoretical conceptualizations of modernity and globalization. The categoric identity nation-state constituting state authority and raison d'état is embedded in world cultural contexts. If theories rooted in methodological rationalism and individualism were able to explain patterns of globalization, there would be little room for critiquing global rationalism.
