Theorizing Globalization: Introducing the Challenge

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to provide critical tools for, and background to, the chapters ahead. Part of this involves examining globalization’s historical dimension, which is vital in thinking about the specificity of the contemporary globalizing moment. In theoretical terms, we want to argue for the utility of critical theory as a way of approaching globalization, and critical theories of social change and analyses of modernity and development, which are linked in a number of crucial ways to discussions of globalization, are helpful in understanding the complexity of globalizing transformations. Above all, we insist on the inescapability of theorizing, and maintain that the imaginative and lively variety of critical theoretical approaches canvassed here shed significant light on globalization.