NCCR North-South Dialogue No. 4

by Norman Backhaus Bern, NCCR North-South 2007

Globalisation is often regarded as something that comes from the outside and that is mostly driven by economic factors. This paper argues that globalisation is more than just that: it has much to do with everybody’s daily lives and is shaped by everyday actions. Globalisation is not simply a topical concept: it has become a discourse that is shaped by different and sometimes conflicting threads: optimism versus pessimism, homogenisation versus fragmentation, the global versus the local, or universalism versus relativism.
There are also different theories that try to grasp the discourse. Three of them – world society, global modernity and reflexivity – are briefly described in the present publication. As an example of the globalisation discourse in the South, the debate in India is analysed and considered in light of the theoretical approaches presented before.

Backhaus N. 2007. The Globalisation Discourse. NCCR North-South Dialogue No 4. Bern, Switzerland: NCCR North-South.

Language
English

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