ABSTRACT
The term “globalization” has undergone an amazing career over the last decadeand-a-half, both in the academic and public discourse.1 There hardly seems to exist a facet of public life that cannot be linked to this term: be it domestic conflicts regarding the need for political reforms and the necessity of redesigning social security systems; structural economic change and the shift of economic power to the emerging economies of South and South East Asia; debates about the fairness of global trade or its increasing de-materialization; the threat to cultural diversity presented by global media power and tourism – all this is mentioned in one breath with “globalization”, even if that link is often more one of mashing things together than of providing proper explanations.
