What Is Globalization? The Definitional Issue - Again
Jan Aart Scholte
December 2002
Abstract:
Knowledge of globalization is substantially a function of how the concept is defined. After tracing the history of ‘global’ vocabulary, this paper suggests several principles that should inform the way globality (the condition) and globalization (the trend) are defined. On this basis four common conceptions of the term are rejected in favour of a fifth that identifies globalization as the spread of transplanetary – and in recent times more particularly supraterritorial – connections between people. Half a dozen qualifications are incorporated into this definition to distinguish it from globalist exaggerations.
Keywords: globality, globalization
Address for correspondence:
Jan Aart Scholte
Department of Politics and International Studies
University of Warwick
Coventry CV4 7AL
United Kingdom
Email: scholte@warwick.ac.uk
