ABSTRACT
The issues of inclusion/exclusion tend to be discussed as changes within a given, usually national, context that is assumed to be constant. Globalization presents the challenge of examining these same issues as part of the transformation of territorial social organization encompassing the entire range of units and levels, from the local to the global. This can contribute to understanding of the processes of inclusion/exclusion, both on the geographical (horizontal) and hierarchical (vertical) dimension, even though globalization itself still needs to be conceptualized and embedded theoretically. It has been shown (Mlinar 1995) that growing accessibility entails both ‘expanding territories’ and ‘flattening hierarchies’.
