The Recognition of Globalization and the Globalization of Recognition

Abstract

This chapter examines ways in which globalization and recognition can be related so as to highlight positive and problematic features of the concepts. It examines various meanings of the terms as the notions are used in practical life to express aspects of social and political life, and more specifically and stipulatively in social and political theories. In so doing, it examines the pros and cons of the ways in which the terms are employed and urges that combining these concepts can guard against the problems to which reliance on each in isolation is prone. Hence, this chapter argues for what its title implies: the recognition of globalization and the globalization of recognition. An exemplary, if contestable way of relating the terms together, is evident in Hegel’s social philosophy in which Hegel employs notions of recognition and the development of the world to frame a perceptive account of politics in the modern world.