ABSTRACT
At the heart of contemporary debates on globalization is the question of the role of politics and the possibility of shaping our present and future, no more so than on the political left where the question of the possibility of a “third way” is on the political agenda (Massey 1997; Weiss 1997). It is striking how exchanges, for example in Monthly Review in the United States (Du Boff and Herman 1997; Tabb 1997a, 1997b; Wood 1997; Piven and Cloward 1998), or in major books and articles in Britain (e.g. Archibugi and Held 1995; Held 1995; Hirst and Thompson 1996; Goldblatt 1997; Goldblatt, Held, McGrew, and Perraton 1997; Gray 1998) grapple with questions similar in many respects to those posed by Gramsci in the 1930s in a very different context. The important task of considering the category of globalization historically-in connection with changes in the state and in the international order, and hence of developing a
critique of concepts as they develop over time-and concretely as part of rethinking social and political theory more generally is parallel to Gramsci’s own work in rethinking politics, even when it is not particularly influenced by his ideas (David Harvey, ch. 1, this volume; Peterson 1996, 1997; Kilminster 1997). Globalization may be formulated in terms of economic tendencies, financial deregulation, or technological and cultural change, as a description of a process or as a project (Massey 1997; Scott 1997b). However it is defined, the analysis of differentiated impacts on national realities and the possibility, or lack of possibility, for specific types of political intervention are, on the one hand, deeply rooted historical trends and, on the other hand, a function of more immediate political developments. As such, this has important points in common with the themes that Gramsci was considering in the 1920s and 1930s when he was confronted by a version of “there is no alternative.”
