Intellectual fashion currently focuses on us as consumers, but the world of production and services still needs us as workers. While globalisation has, in part, been driven over the past two decades by the transnational corporations' search for cheap labour in new regions of the South, scholarly research and the mass media have paid remarkably little attention to the consequent changes that are happening in the world of work. This book is the first to deal comprehensively and analytically with labour's response to globalisation. It provides a critical overview of the main challenges facing workers and trade unions worldwide. Its author argues that what may be described as the national period in labour history is decisively over. Now the labour movement is itself acting increasingly in a transnational manner. This holds out the hope of its playing a major role in the social regulation of a global economic system which is largely out of control. The author explains how globalisation is foisting flexibilisation and feminisation on working people, but in the process also making them conscious of their transnational links. The 'old' internationalism of the trade union movement is now showing signs of developing into a 'new' internationalism where workers develop a sense of common interest and new ways of organizing that transcend national boundaries. Drawing his evidence from what is happening to workers and trade unions in a wide range of countries in both the industrialized North and the developing South, Professor Ronaldo Munck suggests that we may be on the brink of a new version of what Karl Polanyi, many years ago, strikingly called 'the great transformation'. The implications for workers, trade unions and their transnational corporate employers could be profound.

This book guides the reader through the many complications and contradictions that characterize popular contestation today, focusing on its socio-political, cultural, and aesthetic dimensions. The volume recognizes that the same media and creative strategies can be used to pursue very different causes, as the anti-gay marriage Manif Pour Tous movement in France makes clear. The contributors are scholars from the humanities and social sciences, who analyze protests in particular regions, including Egypt, Iran, Australia, France, Spain, Greece, and Hong Kong, and transnational protests such as the NSA-leaks and the mobilization of migrants and refugees. Not only the specificity of these protest movements is examined, but also their tendency to connect and influence each other, as well as the central, often ambiguous role global digital platforms play in this.

We offer in this book a collection of chapters that reflect a broad range of issues linking globalization to education in an accessible yet theoretically grounded and detailed form. The authors analyze phenomena on the global plane, in local spaces, and in the connections between the global and the local. New developments such as the growing impact of technology on education, the emergence of new policy actors, the growing expansion and segmentation of higher education, the salience of human rights, among others, are emerging as powerful agendas shaping all levels of education. In fundamental ways, the forces of globalization challenge the previous approaches and theories of national development. Recognizing the areas of convergence, dissonance, and conflict should help us grasp with greater clarity the implications of globalization for education and knowledge in the XXI century. The contributors to this book include both well-known scholars in the field of comparative education as well as young scholars. The chapters present a balanced geographical coverage in terms of authors and the countries/regions examined. The second edition has been thoroughly updated throughout and contains seven new chapters. The expanding interest in the intersection of education and globalization has brought up several new topics, including: the salience of global education policies, notably EFA; the expansion and differentiation of higher education; the emphasis on work-related training; the increasing role of non-state actors such as the transnational corporations; and greater attention to human rights. Also in this new edition is a chapter on qualitative methodologies especially suitable to the understanding of the intersection of globalization and education.

This exciting book, available in paperback for the first time, provides an illuminating account of contemporary globalisation that is grounded in actual transformations in the areas of production and the workplace. It reveals the social and political contests that give 'global' its meaning, by examining the contested nature of globalisation as it is expressed in the restructuring of work.Rejecting conventional explanations of globalisation as a process that automatically leads to transformations in working lives, or as a project that is strategically designed to bring about lean and flexible forms of production, this book advances an understanding of the social practices that constitute global change. Through case studies that span from the labour flexibility debates in Britain and Germany, to the strategies and tactics of corporations and workers, the author examines how globalisation is interpreted and experienced in everyday life. Contestation, she argues, is about more than just direct protests and resistances. It has become a central feature of the practices that enable or confound global restructuring.This book offers students and scholars of international political economy, sociology and industrial relations an innovative framework for the analysis of globalisation and the restructuring of work.

Emphasizing the social processes that underpin the global economy and demonstrating how the uneven effects of global economic integration impact upon actors this book also underlines the reciprocal effects that reconfigure the terrain of global accumulation.

Global governance is fast becoming a ubiquitous phrase, succeeding globalization as the latest buzz term. But exactly what does it mean? For many scholars and policymakers the term captures important aspects of world politics. This unique volume delivers and compares the key perspectives of the leading thinkers in the area, equipping the reader with an excellent understanding of the debate now defining and mapping the future of this term. This comparative approach is underpinned by a lucid theoretical framework which guides the reader towards building a clear sense of the debate and its complexities. A wide range of empirical issues are covered, including those of Security, International Political Economy, Environment, Human Rights, Social Movements and Regulation. Including theorists of social constructivism, liberal imperialism and realism, this is an essential book for students and scholars which stimulates discussion and presents a fully rounded picture of global governance.

"A new generation of truly global sociology, grappling with the contemporary world through the lenses of critique, contestation, and social movements. A significant contribution." - Göran Therborn, University of Cambridge "This is a truly global and politically challenging book, bringing together top level researchers and sharply tackling its themes. People from every corner of the planet and from all walks in the social sciences will surely profit from reading it." - Carolina Mera, University of Buenos Aires How can we link contemporary social processes – which have typically been theorized in terms of the concept of modernity – with contemporary social movements, conflicts, and mobilizations which aim at social change? This text: links the social theory of modernity to critical theory and to recent class and citizenship politics as well as to identity politics uses concrete social processes to illustrate theoretical discussion with relevant empirical studies and applies theoretical analysis to different interactions, tensions and possibilities to provide an integrated understanding of global modernity and social contestation includes contributions from distinguished international scholars working in sociological theory and modernity, as well as social movement studies and political contestation, with a strong emphasis on global issues This is a key resource for research in both social theory and the sociology of modernity, as well as social movements and social contestation, and readers interested in globalization and global studies.