ABSTRACT
Globalisation is subject to talk of extremes. Whereas bestselling authors like Friedman discuss globalisation in highly beneficial terms (e.g. Friedman, 1999, 2005), others, like Nobel-prize winner Stiglitz (2002) refer to it as an ‘unmitigated disaster for many’ in the way it currently plays out. Much is made of the benefits of globalisation but within criminology the focus is understandably most likely to be on its adverse consequences (e.g. Nelken, 2011; Waquant, 2009; Brown, 2011), and to be sure, these are varied and many. For the purposes of this chapter an apt description of globalisation is provided by Sjolander: ‘Globalisation needs to be understood (…) as an economic, political, social and ideological phenomenon that carries with it unanticipated, often contradictory and polarizing consequences’ (Sjolander, 1995: 604). By now this is a familiar characterisation. Rather than conceiving of globalisation as a singular, one-way flow towards global connectivity, Giddens in fact already in 1990 referred to it as a set of dialectic and contradictory processes.
