ABSTRACT
What is the impact of globalization on the national political community? Does “globalization” hasten social disintegration and exacerbate social conflict? And if it does, what are the potential coping mechanisms that might mitigate its role in social disintegration? The global imperatives of “state shrinking,” economic liberalization and fiscal reform have clearly affected social integration throughout the world, from hate crimes in Germany associated with rising unemployment, to rising violence in Egypt with the end of Fordism, to war in the former Yugoslavia as Communism collapsed (Leslie, 1998; Lubeck, 1998; Crawford, 1993). Particularly throughout the post-Communist world, the transition to the market and the pressures of liberalization have weakened the state’s capability to allocate resources and threatened social conflict. In those places where ethnicity and religion had been previously politicized, struggles over declining resources often resulted in communal violence as old institutions were dismantled and old social contracts broken. Yugoslavia, Abkhazia, and Georgia are prominent examples.
