ABSTRACT
IF ONE were to conduct a poll among journalists, social scientists,policy analysts (and public intellectuals, more generally) asking them to identify the most widely discussed issues over the last few decades, the likelihood is that three topics – democratization, globalization(s) and now, after the World Trade Center attacks, terrorism – would be mentioned most frequently. The volume of books, professional and popular journals, newspapers, television programmes and academic conferences devoted to these subjects has become enormous.2 What we intend to do in this paper is: (1) define each of these three terms; then (2) investigate what, if anything, they have to do with one another; and (3) seek an explanation of the dynamics of their interaction: what causes what to occur, and why?
