INTRODUCTION

Occasionally the sharing or equalizing of power begins with an act or attitude of generosity on the part of the individual or group holding more power. This, it has been argued, is the promise of human intelligence. In these cases, hierarchy is flattened from above, so to speak. More often, however, power is equalized through subversion or violence, two tools that have been historically useful to the disenfranchised. In some cases power is redistributed through global forces apparently beyond the reach of individual or groups strategies. As articulated in the recent book The World is Flat, global economic forces-acting through a complex set of mechanisms including international finance and multinational corporations, nations’ policies, and cultural and environmental predispositions-are redistributing global power in ways apparently both unpredictable and uncontrollable.3