This volume offers a clear presentation of the big questions about globalization.

"Globalization" is one of the key concepts of our time. It is used by both the right and the left as the cornerstone of their analysis of the international economy and polity. In both political and academic discussions, the assumption is commonly made that the process of economic globalization is well under way and that this represents a qualitatively new stage in the development of international capitalism. But is there in fact such a thing as a genuinely global economy? Globalization in Question investigates this notion, providing a very different account of the international economy and stressing the possibilities for its continued and extended governance. The new edition of this best-selling text has been thoroughly revised, updated and expanded to take into account new issues which have become salient in the period since the first edition was published, including the impact of the internationalization of economic relations on the welfare state; the various debates about the concept of "competitiveness"; the Asian crisis; and the relationships between the North and the South in terms of their effects on wage rates and living standards. Globalization in Question, Second Edition, is a timely intervention into current discussions about the nature and prospects of globalization. The book has far-reaching implications which will be of interest to students and academics in a number of disciplines including politics, sociology, economics and geography, as well as to journalists and policy-makers.

AcheraIou analyzes hybridity using a theoretical, empirical approach that reorients debates on métissage and the 'Third Space', arguing for the decolonization of postcolonialism. Hybridity is examined in the light of globalization, indicating how postcolonial discourse could become a counter-hegemonic ethics of resistance to global neoliberal doxa.

An essential guide to the intractable public debates about the virtues and vices of economic globalization, cutting through the complexity to reveal the fault lines that divide us and the points of agreement that might bring us together. Globalization has lifted millions out of poverty. Globalization is a weapon the rich use to exploit the poor. Globalization builds bridges across national boundaries. Globalization fuels the populism and great-power competition that is tearing the world apart. When it comes to the politics of free trade and open borders, the camps are dug in, producing a kaleidoscope of claims and counterclaims, unlikely alliances, and unexpected foes. But what exactly are we fighting about? And how might we approach these issues more productively? Anthea Roberts and Nicolas Lamp cut through the confusion with an indispensable survey of the interests, logics, and ideologies driving these intractable debates, which lie at the heart of so much political dispute and decision making. The authors expertly guide us through six competing narratives about the virtues and vices of globalization: the old establishment view that globalization benefits everyone (win-win), the pessimistic belief that it threatens us all with pandemics and climate change (lose-lose), along with various rival accounts that focus on specific winners and losers, from China to AmericaÕs rust belt. Instead of picking sides, Six Faces of Globalization gives all these positions their due, showing how each deploys sophisticated arguments and compelling evidence. Both globalizationÕs boosters and detractors will come away with their eyes opened. By isolating the fundamental value conflictsÑgrowth versus sustainability, efficiency versus social stabilityÑdriving disagreement and show where rival narratives converge, Roberts and Lamp provide a holistic framework for understanding current debates. In doing so, they showcase a more integrative way of thinking about complex problems.

In 2007, for the first time in human history, a majority of the world’s population lived in cities. However, on a global scale, poverty overwhelmingly retains a rural face. This book assembles an unparalleled group of internationally-eminent scholars in the field of rural development and social change in order to explore historical and contemporary processes of agrarian change and transformation and their consequent impact upon the livelihoods, poverty and well-being of those who live in the countryside. The book provides a critical analysis of the extent to which rural development trajectories have in the past and are now promoting a change in rural production processes, the accumulation of rural resources, and shifts in rural politics, and the implications of such trajectories for peasant livelihoods and rural workers in an era of globalization. Peasants and Globalization thus explores continuity and change in the debate on the ‘agrarian question’, from its early formulation in the late 19th century to the continuing relevance it has in our times, including chapters from Terence Byres, Amiya Bagchi, Ellen Wood, Farshad Araghi, Henry Bernstein, Saturnino M Borras, Ray Kiely, Michael Watts and Philip McMichael. Collectively, the contributors argue that neoliberal social and economic policies have, in deepening the market imperative governing the contemporary world food system, not only failed to tackle to underlying causes of rural poverty but have indeed deepened the agrarian crisis currently confronting the livelihoods of peasant farmers and rural workers. This crisis does not go unchallenged, as rural social movements have emerged, for the first time, on a transnational scale. Confronting development policies that are unable to reduce, let alone eliminate, rural poverty, transnational rural social movements are attempting to construct a more just future for the world’s farmers and rural workers.

The China Questions 2 assembles top experts to explore key issues in US–China relations today, including conflict over Taiwan, economic and military competition, public health concerns, and areas of cooperation. Rejecting a new Cold War mindset, the authors call for dealing with the world’s most important bilateral relationship on its own terms.

For a century, economists have driven forward the cause of globalization in financial institutions, labour markets, and trade. Yet there have been consistent warning signs that a global economy and free trade might not always be advantageous. Where are the pressure points? What could be done about them? Dani Rodrik examines the back-story from its seventeenth-century origins through the milestones of the gold standard, the Bretton Woods Agreement, and the Washington Consensus, to the present day. Although economic globalization has enabled unprecedented levels of prosperity in advanced countries and has been a boon to hundreds of millions of poor workers in China and elsewhere in Asia, it is a concept that rests on shaky pillars, he contends. Its long-term sustainability is not a given. The heart of Rodrik’s argument is a fundamental 'trilemma': that we cannot simultaneously pursue democracy, national self-determination, and economic globalization. Give too much power to governments, and you have protectionism. Give markets too much freedom, and you have an unstable world economy with little social and political support from those it is supposed to help. Rodrik argues for smart globalization, not maximum globalization.