ABSTRACT
Globalization appears unstoppable, according to The Economist, despite the collapse of the Doha round of the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) trade liberalization negotiations in 2006. After five years of serious and difficult negotiations, the inability to reach an agreement among the world’s wealthiest countries was severely criticized by the champions of globalization, not least because it slows the march toward their vision of a fully integrated global economy. What is worse, according to globalization’s supporters, it is unlikely that new global trade talks will begin any time soon. But despite this pessimism, almost no one considers the failures at Doha as a substantial deviation from either accelerating global trade or the neoliberal policies that structure it. According to The Economist, ‘the seas of world trade are calm’, and trade continues to grow faster than world GDP (29 July 2006: 11). Trade liberalization certainly is not the only marker of globalization’s success, but it is a touchstone for a global adherence to its philosophical underpinnings. Economic globalization shows no sign of abating in the restructuring of either domestic or international institutions.
