ABSTRACT
The stimulus for the enthusiastic embrace of the concept of globalisation in the early 1990s was due less to the spread of particular cultural practices, or the recognition of the global commercial interests in major sports events such as the Olympics and the soccer World Cup, and more to the collapse of communism and the end of global political and economic bipolarity. The apparent triumph of capitalism, and the economic and social turbulence experienced by many former communist states, created a new social science agenda in which the concept of globalisation took centre stage. Political scientists,1 economists2 and international relations theorists3 all perceived a need to frame their consideration of the post-Cold-War world in terms of, or at least with direct reference to, globalisation. Such was the enthusiastic embrace of the concept that Hirst and Thompson were moved to comment that ‘globalisation has become the new grand narrative of the social sciences’.4 Yet just at the time when globalisation was assuming paradigmatic status, unease began to be expressed about the utility of the concept, its descriptive accuracy and its explanatory potential-‘a fad word fast turning into a shibboleth’.5
