Globalisation was the 1990s buzzword. It attained almost universal currency in media, business, political, and academic circles as shorthand for an emerging era of transnationalisation made possible by new computer and communications technologies. Used most often in relation to developments in the economic sphere, it also applied to the worldwide spread of ideas such as democracy, capitalism, and basic human rights. Scarcely can one pick up a major newspaper or watch television today without coming across the term in a news story. The business world is now overflowing with 'global' jargon, from companies' annual reports to the latest management publications, and from journalism to the MBA programmes where tomorrow's aspiring leaders are equipped. Globalisation also permeated the political world to its highest echelons, headlining the G-7 Lyons Summit of June 1996 and figuring prominently in subsequent meetings. I In the academic world it became the hot, fin de siecle topic for debate and research, as evident just from the proliferation of books using the term in their titles.2