ABSTRACT
Since the latter half of the twentieth century, globalization has been one of the most widely discussed issues in the Western world and beyond. It has become a buzzword for politicians, journalists and social scientists alike and it has even become a part of the lexicon of popular discourse. This is because the globalization is thought to be the consequence or driver of many key social transformations such as the spread of new information and communication technologies, the rise of new forms of social identity, the acceleration of certain types of economic, cultural, and political activity, and the development of new environmental hazards such as anthropogenic global climate change. This chapter reviews the debate over globalization by exploring the distinct possibility that the optic of globalization is a flawed theoretical paradigm. It concludes that there are some views of globalization that are able to generate new and valuable insights about the conditions of contemporary social life, even though there are also some articulations of the concept that are less analytically sound.
