bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Liquidity
Authors: Beilharz Peter
Published: March 2012

The idea of liquidity has become increasingly popular in the sociology of globalization over the last decade. This popularization has much to do with the use and influence of the work of Zygmunt Bauman. For Bauman, liquidity is a successor term for the postmodern, referring to contingency, uncertainty, the slipperiness of everyday life and its institutions and expectations. Fixity means predictability; liquidity ushers in a whole new way of life.
Mass Media
Authors: Matos Carolina
Published: March 2012

The mass media are today seen as playing a key role in enhancing globalization, and facilitating cultural exchange and multiple flows of information and images between countries through international news broadcasts, television programming, new technologies, film, and music. If before the 1990s mainstream media systems in most countries of the world were relatively national in scope, since then most communications media have become increasingly global, extending their reach beyond the nation‐state to conquer audiences worldwide. International flows of information have been assisted by the development of global capitalism, new technologies, and the increasing commercialization of global television, which has occurred as a consequence of the deregulation policies adopted by various countries in Europe and the United States in order to permit the proliferation of cable and satellite channels.
Mass Migration
Authors: Pok Binh
Published: March 2012

The most basic definition of mass migration is the movement of large numbers of people from one geographical area to another. It differs from individual migration in the sheer numbers of people involved in a “mass migration.” It is further distinguished from large‐scaleseasonalmigration in that the latter is characterized by its periodicity and repetition, whereas mass migration usually refers to an event or series of events that may take place over the course of several years or even decades but is nevertheless bounded by time and usually results in permanent settlement.
McWorld
Authors: Curran Dean
Published: March 2012

“McWorld” is a term used to describe the increasingly homogenous and consumerist culture that is being produced by economic globalization. In particular, akin to Ritzer's “McDonaldization” (2008), “McWorld” serves to represent the proliferation of forms of consumption and consumerism by using the idea of “fast‐food” as a metaphor for the broader organization of American market society.
Media Society
Authors: Adolf Marian
Published: March 2012

Media society (MS) is understood as an emergent social formation that develops when the modern media system, by way of technological means, typical content, and a patterning communicative logic, enters ever deeper into the individual, institutional, and societal sphere of contemporary society. As media and information technologies merge to provide the technical infrastructure of the bulk of human communication, they become the backbone of both private and public social interaction. While media's emergence as a major force of modernization and social change is structurally related to technological innovation and institutional differentiation, their cultural significance lies with their new social, political, and cultural roles. Hence, media have come to be designated a “total social phenomenon” brought about by a rapid process of the mediatization of human relations on the micro‐, meso, and macro‐levels. First, as sophisticated means of (interpersonal) communication, they organize and shape the most fundamental of human traits – communication – as social interaction in work and leisure time, in public and in private, as people increasingly rely on technological devices. Second, in their joint role as social, cultural, and economic institutions that provide professional communication, they increasingly set the standards, and the pace, and suggest the format of human interaction. The modern media system has thus begun to exert increasing pressure on other social fields (Altheide & Snow 1979), as the way they select, shape, and distribute their messages becomes the prevalent source of information and mode of experience. Third, on the macro‐level, they have become a social subsystem (Luhmann 2000) in its own right, as the increasing division of labor and rapid specialization has transformed the media from intermediaries in the service of other social fields into major economic and cultural actors that impact on and irritate other social subsystems such as politics, the economy, science, and education.
Methods in the Study of Globalization
Authors: Babones Salvatore J.
Published: March 2012

Globalization as such and in its current sense first began to attract serious scholarly attention in the 1990s. Sociologist Roland Robertson is widely credited with giving the term its current usage in his seminal book on the subject (Robertson 1992). Robertson makes clear that globalization, in his view, is a phenomenon that “has to do with the ‘organization’ of the world as a whole” (1992: 182–183), with “the scope and depth of consciousness of the world as a single place” (1992: 183). The crux of globalization as a concept is that it is concerned with phenomena that are constructed as global, whether or not in all cases they actually are (Boli 2005). Though the conceptual level of analysis of all globalization research is clearly global, globalization research often focuses on cases or examples that are highly local. Babones (2006) identifies studies using individuals, subnational regions, countries, supernational areas, and the world as a whole as units of analysis.
Microfinance
Authors: Offutt Stephen
Published: March 2012

Microfinance has quickly become one of the most visible global initiatives in the fight against poverty. Bill Gates, George Soros, and Queen Sophia of Spain are just a few of the international spokespersons for microfinance. They join various other corporate sponsors, private foundations, multilateral institutions, and national governments that are promoting the industry's development and growth. Such sponsors are linked to more than 3500 microfinance institutions (MFIs) that serve more than 106 million impoverished clients on six different continents (Daley‐Harris 2009). The links that hold this transnational industry together are created and maintained through direct partnerships, umbrella organizations, international summits, advocacy and publicity campaigns, and the growing academic literature that explores its impact on cultures and societies.
Military
Authors: Sandhoff Michelle , Segal David R.
Published: March 2012

The military has been involved in processes of globalization throughout history. From the unification and expansion of Ancient Egypt to the territorial expansion of the Roman Empire to the establishment of a global British Empire, military forces were used to establish empires that spanned the globe long before scholars began discussing “globalization” (Eisenstadt 1963). After the heyday of Western imperialist expansion in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, militaries became instruments of national sovereignty. Although regionalism replaced global empires, the establishment of alliances for mutual defense led to conflict at a global level in both World Wars. Following the end of World War II, militaries began working in multinational alliances providing peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance globally.
Missionaries
Authors: Williams Roman R.
Published: March 2012

A missionary is someone sent on a religious mission, one that typically involves propagating their religion or conducting charitable work in a culture or country different from their own. Throughout history Buddhist, Christian, and Muslim missionaries carried their religions throughout the world. Today, the global diffusion of Buddhism and Islam is mainly due to international migration and formal missionary efforts are rare. The missionary activities of Christians, however, remain a prominent feature of globalization.
Mobilities
Authors: Sheller Mimi
Published: March 2012

Mobilities are thesine qua nonof globalization. Without extensive systems of mobility, social processes could not take place on a global scale. But the field of mobilities research goes far beyond this moot point. Over the past decade a new mobilities paradigm has been emerging in the social sciences involving new approaches to studying the combined movements of people, objects, and information in all of their complex relational dynamics, as well as the representations, ideologies, and meanings attached to such movement. Unlike the traditional sociological study of social mobility, transdisciplinary mobilities research encompasses not only human mobility, but also thespatialmobility of objects, information, images, and capital, as well as the study of the physical means for movement such as infrastructures, vehicles, and software systems that enable travel and communication to take place. Mobilities research overlaps with some aspects of globalization studies, communications research, migration and border studies, tourism studies, transport geography and the anthropology of circulation, but it also differs in its scope, foci, and methodologies from each of these.
Modernity
Authors: Wagner Peter
Published: March 2012

The most common – even though far from unproblematic – view about modernity holds that this term refers to a novel kind of society that emerged from a sequence of major transformations in Europe and North America culminating in the industrial and democratic revolutions of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Significantly, this view often entails both that these transformations catapulted Europe (or the West) to the front position in the course of world history and that the thus established Western model would diffuse worldwide because of its inherent superiority. Thinking about modernity thus meant thinking about globalization, even though these terms only came into frequent use in the 1980s and 1990s respectively.
Multilateral Agreement on Investment
Authors: Kobrin Stephen
Published: March 2012

Negotiations to develop a Multilateral Agree­ment on Investment (MAI) were launched at the Organization for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) in May 1995. The objective was a multilateral agreement resulting in a “high standard” liberal investment regime while providing for the protection of investment and the resolution of disputes. The effort was not successful and discussions were terminated in April 1998. The failure to reach an agreement was due to disputes among participants, vocal protests from the international civil society groups, and flaws in the process. The MAI is of continuing interest as it foreshadowed both the increasing difficulty of reaching broad‐based multilateral agreements and the rise of digitally empowered transnational actors as a significant factor in international politics.
Multinational Corporations
Authors: Bonanno Alessandro , Antonio Robert J.
Published: March 2012

Multinational corporations (or MNCs) are enterprises that operate in more than one country through branches and subsidiaries. Their national origins are known and recognized as they are identified with, and claim membership in, a particular nation‐state. They differ from domestic corporations – enterprises that operate predominantly within one single nation – and transnational or global corporations. The latter are often recognized as enterprises that have largely severed relevant connections with their home nation‐states and operate disregarding the interests and well‐being of the home country to a
significant
degree. In pertinent literature, however, the difference between multinational corporations and transnational or global corporations is often downplayed. The two terms have been used interchangeably. Simultaneously, many
multinational
corporations have evolved into
transnational
corporations in recent decades.
Museums
Authors: Wulf Andrew
Published: March 2012

The etymological origins of the term “museum” derive from the GreekMouseion, the shrine of the Muses who presided over the arts and sciences. What is broadly defined as the first museum, the Library of Alexandria, flourished in the three centuries before the Common Era and housed primarily texts on papyrus rolls whose interpretation by a community of scholars offered a better understanding of what was then the ancient world. Though this forum was more a philosophical academy based on an archive of documents than a repository of artifacts intended for display, it thrived on the ethos of education and discovery through the exploration of world history. This research function has remained a fixture throughout the evolution of museums and reflects the modern museum value of learning through the study and display of material culture.
Nation‐state
Authors: Hershkovitz Shay
Published: March 2012

The framework of the modern nation‐state seems to be nowadays the most natural political arrangement one can think of, and it is difficult to imagine an alternative political arrangement. Nevertheless, the state is a relatively new entity in the history of mankind, as it appeared only some 350 years ago. In our times, global processes related to globalization erode the state's position as the main definer of human geographical space. Movements of capital, people, technology, information, ideas – along with the growing power and influence of multinational corporations and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) – all pose a continuous challenge to the framework of the state and to the organization of a world system composed of sovereign states.
Networks
Authors: Axford Barrie
Published: March 2012

A network is an arrangement of nodes tied together by relationships – some instrumental, others affective – that serve as channels of communication, resource pools, and coordinating mechanisms. As Karin Knorr‐Cetina (2007) notes, the ontology of the network consists of cooperation of various kinds, strategic alliances, exchanges, emotional bonds, kinship ties, personal relations, and other forms of grouping and entrenchment. Sociality is thereby instantiated in networks of relationships.
New World Information and Communication Order
Authors: Zehle Soenke
Published: March 2012

The controversy around a New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) is a key episode in the emergence of global communications governance. Beginning in the 1960s, US efforts to maintain the “free flow of information” as a core principle in international communications were met with criticism from the Soviet Union and its allies as well as the Non‐Alignment Movement (NAM) of independent states. International arguments within the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the main forum of NWICO‐related debates between 1972 and 1985, led to the creation of a commission mandated to investigate imbalances in global information flows. Documenting the dominance of commercial and military communications infrastructures by industrialized nations, the commission proposed a stronger international regulation of the media system, based on alternative development paradigms that stressed cultural identity, independence, and self‐reliance. Actively promoted by UNESCO until 1983, NWICO contributed to the departure of two of its key members, the United States (1984) and the UK (1985).
Nongovernmental Organizations
Authors: Dinerstein Ana Cecilia
Published: March 2012

The catch‐all term “nongovernmental organizations” (NGOs) describes nonprofit‐making, autonomous, voluntary, and private organizations, created by natural or legal persons acting together on a continuous basis, pursuing a mission according to a particular vision of society, but with no participation or representation in any government, or attempt to gain state power.
Non‐place
Authors: Sam Jillet Sarah
Published: March 2012

Non‐Place is a social geographical concept integral to the definition of Place. Consequently, both concepts are visualized as ideal‐typical poles in a continuum. The interpretation of Non‐Place has progressed from an initial association with spaces of difference (de Certeau), to a more critical association with generic spaces (Ritzer 2004; Augé 2008). The latter interpretation is particularly relevant to the discussion of globalization.
North American Free Trade Agreement
Authors: Kay Tamara
Published: March 2012

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is a multilateral agreement signed by the governments of the United States, Mexico, and Canada that eliminates or reduces tariffs on a variety of products and services and went into force on January 1, 1994. Although, as early as the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan called for the creation of a free trade zone extending across the Americas, it did not take shape until the early 1990s under the George H. W. Bush Administration. Mexican officials had opposed creating a free trade zone with the United States for years, but after a series of economic crises in the 1980s and the rise of a new cadre of neoliberal technocrats, the Salinas de Gortari Administration began the process of neutralizing opposition and building support for an agreement (Fairbrother 2007). Initially only the United States and Mexico were parties to the agreement, but Canada joined negotiations in January 1991. Unlike the European Union and the European community that preceded it, NAFTA is strictly a free trade agreement. It did not create a common currency or allow the free movement of people among the three countries.
North–South
Authors: Aulette Judy
Published: March 2012

The terms North and South or global North and global South refer to the distinction between those nations that are most wealthy and powerful and those that are poorer and less powerful in the global political economy. The words are based on the observation that the richest and most powerful nations are nearly all located in the Northern Hemisphere, while the Southern Hemisphere is comprised of mostly poorer and less powerful nations. The North includes nations of North America, such as the United States and Canada, and the nations of Europe. The South includes nations in South America, Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. Although New Zealand and Australia lie below the equator, they are often considered as part of the Global North.
Open‐Sourcing
Authors: Rey P.J.
Published: March 2012

In the simplest terms, open‐source software is software whose code is made public. This is in contrast to proprietary software, whose code remains a trade secret. Unlike proprietary software, open‐source software allows any developer, or group of developers, to freely repackage, remix, modify, extend, or augment the software in order to best customize it for their own purposes. The development of open‐source software is closely linked to the phenomenon of crowd‐sourcing, whereby technology enables the distribution of complex tasks formerly done by paid professionals to (usually unpaid) amateurs, consumers, or freelancers. In this case, rather than one set of developers working to produce an ultimate, polished version of a program that is unviewable to the public until its final release, developers across the globe continuously revise the software and offer their own new versions or modifications to the public. Occasionally, these changes become so popular that they are integrated in to the next official release by a company, and the process begins anew. So, while proprietary software is centrally conceived and controlled, rigid, and discrete, open‐source software, like many trends related to globalization, is fluid, ever‐changing, and as localized as it is global.
Organisation for Economic Co‐Operation and Development
Authors: Abbott Kenneth W.
Published: March 2012

The Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) is an important but often overlooked international organization that plays multiple roles in the governance of globalization. The OECD:
Orientalism
Authors: Munif Yasser
Published: March 2012

“Orientalism,” broadly defined, refers to two, almost contrary concepts. The first meaning designates, according to European scholars, the activities that revolve around the production of art and knowledge, which have as their object of study the Orient. Orientalism, as a field of inquiry that examines the Orient, appeared in the West, with the emergence of capitalism and modernity. Although some scholars trace its history back to the Roman Empire, its formation as a systematic and lasting field dates back to the early seventeenth century, when several theological centers where created in Rome and elsewhere to study Oriental languages, practices, philosophies, and documents. Its interest in Oriental religions marked merely its early period; it evolved in subsequent centuries to focus its attention on history, arts, archeology, and culture more generally defined.
Outsourcing
Authors: Lair Craig D.
Published: March 2012

As it is normally used in the business context, the term outsourcing refers to instances in which a company purchases goods or services, once performed within the organizational structure of a company (i.e., “in house”), from an outside supplier. An example of this would be an automobile manufacturer purchasing the engines it needs for its cars from an outside company instead of building this component itself. Another way of thinking about outsourcing is in terms of the “make vs. buy” decision; that is, does a company make what it needs itself, or does it buy it from others? Though the practice of outsourcing is not new, and one can readily find historical examples of firms choosing to purchase products and services instead of producing them in house, the prevalence of this trend and the fact that it is occurring on a global scale are just two of the factors that distinguish the current wave of outsourcing from previous forms of outsourcing. In fact, outsourcing is so prevalent and so widespread today that it can potentially affect every aspect of the business process. Thus, businesses are no longer just outsourcing specific tasks (e.g., payroll) but entire business divisions (e.g., human resources). Also, some companies (e.g., Nike) have outsourced all of their manufacturing capabilities, leaving some to wonder what exactly it is that they “produce,” and others to characterize them as “hollow” organizations (Jonas 1986). The result of this is that it is no longer the question of what is being outsourced but instead what is not.
Pan American Health Organization
Authors: Collins‐Dogrul Julie
Published: March 2012

The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) is an international public health agency that leads collaborations among member states and other partners to promote health equity, combat disease, and improve the quality and length of the lives of the peoples of the Americas. The organization strives to eliminate health disparities within and between countries by promoting shared interests, responsibilities, and cooperation among members. PAHO's view is that good health is central to the well‐being of families, communities, and the region.
Passports
Authors: Torpey John
Published: March 2012

As nation‐states – states of and for particular “peoples” defined as more or less mutually exclusive groups of citizens – modern states have typically been eager to regulate the movements of persons within and across their borders when they wish to do so. Their efforts to implement such regulation have driven them toward the creation of the means uniquely and unambiguously to identify individual persons, whether “their own” or others. In order to effect this regulation, states and the international state system have been compelled to define who belongs and who does not, who may come and go and who may not, and to make these distinctions intelligible and enforceable. Beyond simply enunciating definitions and categories concerning identity, states must
give effect to
these distinctions, and they require documents in order to do so in individual cases. Although passports are not the only documents that may be used for these purposes, passports have played a decisive role in achieving these aims.
Peace
Authors: Lynch Cecelia
Published: March 2012

Peace is a composite term that connotes a range of political conditions from the absence of war to the institutionalization of social justice and/or cosmopolitan ethics. Peace is theorized primarily as the absence of war between political units in international relations and diplomatic studies, whereas philosophers and social theorists debate the social, economic, and ethical prerequisites for lasting conditions of peace. Social and economic prerequisites may be conceptualized as forms of wealth distribution that result in economic justice. Ethical prerequisites are often conceptualized as necessitating one of many forms of cosmopolitanism, such as respect for human rights. These prerequisites are extremely difficult to achieve in a pluralist world. While peace defined as the absence of war frequently occurs, most theorists and observers would not claim that the conditions of lasting peace, including social justice and agreement on ethics, has ever been achieved.
Place
Authors: Puleo Thomas J.
Published: March 2012

Place is a specific engagement with space.Where space is general, place is particular. Where space is objective, place is subjective. Where space is abstract, place is experienced. Place is material
and
cognitive. Old places are remembered and new places are imagined even as they occupy the same space as the present place. Place, real
and
imagined, exists at multiple scales, including the globe, the nation, the city, the body, and all points beyond or in between. The world is a place, as is Mars, ancient Rome, Camelot, or one's backyard.
Policing
Authors: Deflem Mathieu
Published: March 2012

Global policing activities involving criminal law enforcement agencies have in recent years increased in kind and evolved into a wide variety of forms. Yet, global policing is not a recent phenomenon but has a long history dating back to at least the early nineteenth century when national states, especially in Europe, sought to strengthen control over political dissidents and relied on police institutions to track down opponents of established regimes across state borders. From these early political origins, global policing gradually transformed in kind and objectives to become more permanently structured in international police organizations and to focus on more distinctly criminal, rather than political, enforcement objectives.
Population
Authors: Sowers Elizabeth
Published: March 2012

Population refers to the size of the group of people living in a particular area, which is impacted by the number of births, deaths, and migratory actions that occur. Studying populations, including their growth and decline, is the province of demography, or the scientific study of population. Demographers study populations at a variety of geographical levels, large and small. One could study the population of a particular neighborhood; a city, like Mexico City; a nation‐state, like China; regional groupings of countries, like the European Union; and metropolitan areas within one country, like the San Francisco Bay Area (to name only a few examples).
Postcolonialism
Authors: Ashcroft Bill
Published: March 2012

Postcolonialism (or often post‐colonialism) deals with the effects of colonization on cultures and societies. Unlike “colonialism,” this term is of much more recent provenance, emerging in the late 1970s to describe a range of literary and cultural analysis of colonized and formerly colonized societies. As originally used by historians after World War II in terms such as the post‐colonial state, “post‐colonial” had a chronological meaning, designating the post‐independence period. However, from the late 1970s, the term has been used by cultural critics to discuss the various social, political and cultural effects of colonization. It now describes neither a historical period nor a fixed range of societies but is best understood as a discourse generating a specific reading practice.
Postcommunism
Authors: Ray Larry
Published: March 2012

“Postcommunism” eludes simple definition. It can be a geographical reference to those countries of former Soviet systems in which communist governments were overthrown or abdicated in 1989–1991. However, it also invokes a “postcommunist condition” following the end of the Cold War (Sakwa 1999). The end of the bipolar world has been accompanied by a new but increasingly fragile US hegemony along with the emergence of civilizational conflict and global terrors that, in contrast to the territorially based divisions of the Cold War are partially “de‐territorialized.” This constitutes a radical departure from the emergent social processes of the previous two centuries. For most of the nineteenth century, socialism developed as a diverse body of ideas and political movements that presented an alternative to capitalism and colonialism. During the first half of the twentieth century, it was possible to imagine or indeed expect that capitalism would be superseded by socialism in some form or another – a possibility that Weber and, following him, Schumpter noted with dismay. Socialist parties were attracting mass working‐class following and extensive support among intellectuals. As well as growing support in the industrialized countries, socialism became increasingly influential among anti‐colonial liberation movements such as the Indian Congress and the African National Congress. Socialist and communist movements remained powerful forces in much of the non‐communist as well as the Soviet world during the twentieth century. Indeed, ironically, the Communist Party of Great Britain, which had never been a significant force in British politics, gained hitherto unprecedented influence on the mainstream intellectual Left through the journalMarxism Todayduring the 1980s. By the end of 1991, all this had gone along with the Soviet Union – communist and, increasingly, socialist ideologies, Eurocommunism, and the project of a post‐capitalist order based on social justice and equality all consigned to history. With this, passed an epoch in social and political thought and practice.
Poverty
Authors: Veltmeyer Henry
Published: March 2012

It is estimated that from 950 million to 1.3 billion people across the world live in conditions of extreme poverty, on less than a dollar a day and unable to meet their basic human needs, and at least another billion (depending on how poverty is understood) live in “relative” poverty. This means that nearly 800 million people do not get enough food, and about 500 million people are chronically malnourished. In fact, more than a third of the children of this world are malnourished. More than 840 million adults, of whom 538 million are women, are illiterate – and 1200 million people live without access to safe drinking water. These are some of the basic facts and figures on poverty, according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Primary Education
Authors: Ritzer George
Published: March 2012

There has been a phenomenal growth of education, especially higher education, in many countries and much of it can be attributed to various global processes (Manicas 2007). A good deal of the initial impetus for the expansion of education around the world emanated from national governments that not only accepted the importance of economic growth, but also the idea that education was critical to such growth (Blackman 2007). This was especially relevant to those nation‐states that took as their goal the development of a “knowledge economy.” The idea here is that while in the past brawn may have been the key to economic development, in the “post‐industrial” society it is much more knowledge and information that is needed for such development (Bell 2006). Knowledge, information, and the like are seen as “human capital” that is to be acquired by future employees primarily through involvement in the educational system. It also has tended to mean a commitment to lifelong education and to participation in educational systems throughout the life course.
Professions
Authors: Faulconbridge James R.
Published: March 2012

The professions, in the strictest scholarly definition of the term, are an exclusive group of occupations that have a state‐granted monopoly over the provision of a particular service. Monopoly rights are upheld by restricting the production and delivery of services to individuals who hold a qualification that is used to grant access to the profession – usually a university degree. Abel (1988) refers to this as a closure system that regulates “the production of producers” and which forms the basis of a professional project. Historically, accountants, architects, the clergy, doctors and lawyers have been the principal professions focused on in work by academics. However, because of the way the status of a profession is defined by the nation‐state and its granting of monopoly rights to a group, variations between countries in terms of which occupations can claim the title of a profession render a universal list of professions that deserve study difficult to construct.
Public opinion
Authors: Rhomberg Markus
Published: March 2012

The concepts of public opinion differ within the European and Anglo‐Saxon research cultures. Whereas the European model of public opinion is placed within the discourses of public sphere and public debate along a normative idea, the Anglo‐Saxon alternative is rather focused on demographic surveys to measure and quantify public opinion. These different perspectives certainly affect the transnational or even global idea of public opinion. In a US perspective, public opinion is seen as the simple addition of individual opinions (Frankovic 1998), for example in the case of the concept of agenda‐setting and the formation of a public agenda (McCombs & Shaw 1972). In turn, the European perspective on public opinion negates a rather statistical aggregate of public opinion and attributes its own version as a product of collective communication and discourses in the public sphere. In this normative understanding, public opinion emerges from the triangle of reason, argument and dialogue. Public opinion in a European perspective is not the addition of all individual opinions in a discourse but the result of this discourse. As a medium of societal requirements, demands, and discourses, public opinion manages the public agenda and sets issues for societal and political decision making (Noelle‐Neumann 2001; Gerhards & Neidhardt 1993). Interestingly, the European concept is based on the ideas of the US scholar Walter Lippmann (1922). This view was also reflected in the United States, but was operationalized foremost in European studies. The US scholar Maxwell McCombs stated: “Walter Lippmann consciously prefaced Public Opinion with Plato's allegory of the cave where the prisoners in the cave could see only the reflections of reality on the wall before them” (McCombs et al. 1991: 10). In particular, the origins of the concept of public opinion stem from the eighteenth and nineteenth century: European intellectuals like Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill and Alexis de Tocqueville developed this concept in opposition to authoritarian monarchs.
Quotas
Authors: Skully David
Published: March 2012

A quota is quantitative restriction. Quotas are usually imposed by governments and other organizations to influence the composition of something. When a high volume of imports threatens a domestic industry, governments can limit imports by imposing an import quota. Similarly, a legislature or governing board might impose a quota mandating that at least half of its members be women, if women are historically underrepresented. By setting maximum volumes or minimum or maximum proportions, quotas can remedy the perceived problem of too much or too little of something. This entry focuses on quotas in international trade, their international governance, and on their use in environmental and resource management.
Race
Authors: Law Ian
Published: March 2012

Across the world as civilizations and societies emerged, ideas of race have had practical adequacy for people in helping them make sense of their social and cultural position. The history and origins of the notion of race reveals a wealth of differing meanings from which emerged the central understanding that it refers to a rhetoric of descent. The concept of race can be defined as the social and cultural significance assigned to a group of people who are recognized as sharing common physical or physiognomic characteristics and/or a common lineage of descent, hence for Goldberg (1993) race refers to a “rhetoric of descent” resulting from cultural choices in naming a set of markers of difference between human beings.
Realism, Political
Authors: Pumar Enrique
Published: March 2012

Political realism examines politics as an arena for power contestation and attainment. Regardless of whether the focus is the domestic or international sphere, the realist perspective assumes that political actors behave in ways to maximize, or at least, satisfy their self‐interests. This implies that actors are capable of making rational calculations when it is in their best interest and will determine what types of political opportunities should be capitalized. A point of contention among proponents of this perspective is the degree to which power is fungible; that is to say, to what extent the power and prestige accumulated in one issue‐area is actually transferable to another. Finally, there has been a great deal of theorizing among political realists regarding whether power is a means to an end, a mean, an end, or both.
Reflexivity
Authors: Beck Ulrich , Zhang Joy Yueyue
Published: March 2012

There is a beautiful image for the intellectual metaphor of reflection, which has been so central ever since the Enlightenment:
thinking with an added eye
(Johann Gottlieb Fichte). It is definitely in accordance with this when Alvin Gouldner speaks of “reflexive sociology” and Jürgen Habermas of the “communicative society.” In talk of the “self‐referentiality of the systems” (Luhmann), on the other hand, the different aspect of the relationship to the “self” occupies the center of attention. On this contrast between knowledge and not‐knowing, consciousness and non‐consciousness, Bourdieu occupies a mediating position. He conceives of reflexivity as systematic reflection on the unconscious presuppositions (categories) of our knowledge.
Relativization
Authors: Robertson Roland
Published: March 2012

Relativization is a crucial concept in the study of globalization. Relativization occurs when a group has beliefs and values and feels challenged by virtue of another group having different beliefs and values. In an increasingly compressed and interdependent world relativization is a particularly significant process. An excellent example of relativization is provided by the origins of Protestant fundamentalism in the United States at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. The saying that sums up the situation confronting dedicated Protestants of that time is that they came to believe that they were strangers in their own country. In other words, they felt like immigrants, in the sense that they were being inundated by what they perceived to be alien doctrines and ways of life.
Resistance to Globalization
Authors: Saguier Marcelo
Published: March 2012

Resistance to globalization refers to the gamut of struggles and actions of social groups and individuals in response to the dislocating consequences of neoliberal reforms and its effects in the spheres of the economy, politics and identity/culture.
Restructuring
Authors: Veltmeyer Henry
Published: March 2012

The termrestructuringdefines a concept constructed as a means of understanding the dynamics of capitalist development over the course of the past four decades. This restructuring process can be separated into two stages: (i) the 1970s and (ii) the 1980s and beyond.
Runaway World
Authors: Stones Rob
Published: March 2012

Runaway World: How Globalisation is Reshaping our Lives
was the title provided by the eminent British sociologist, Anthony Giddens, for the series of talks he was invited to give for the 1999 BBC Reith Lectures (Giddens 2002). Choosing to present his lectures in four different global venues – moving from London, to Hong Kong, Delhi, Washington DC and then back to London for the final lecture – Giddens's central focus was our sense of living in a world that is in many ways out of control. Giddens argued that this sense was profoundly linked to the phenomenon of globalization, which in line with his other works such as
The Consequences of Modernity
(1990) he presented as a process that involves the stretching of social relations across time and space so that powerful and dynamic international and transnational networks of connection increasingly dominate local experiences and interactions. Individuals feel that unstable and unsettling forces over which they have little or no power are pushing them around, and are doing so arbitrarily, with little reference to standards of reason, justice or respect. This provokes intense feelings of anxiety, disorientation, frustration, and anger. These experiences are directly at odds with the Enlightenment belief that the application of reason to the natural, social, and political worlds would lead to a stable, secure and predictable world (Giddens 2002: 1–3). Such a belief in order and control had informed Weber's resigned acceptance that we would all be reduced to tiny cogs in smoothly efficient bureaucratic machines.
Scales of Globalization
Authors: Herod Andrew
Published: March 2012

Globalization is frequently described as a process that is rescaling economic, cultural, and political life. Virilio (1997) suggests that globalization is eviscerating scales like the national and the local, whereas Sassen (2003) argues it is spurring the “denationalization” of life. Gray (1998: 57) maintains that globalization is heralding de‐localization, “the uprooting of activities and relationships from local origins and cultures [and] the displacement of activities that until recently were local into networks of relationships whose reach is distant or worldwide.” These claims raise questions about how what are typically seen as the two ends of the scalar spectrum – the local and the global – are related to each other and to the geographic scales which are understood to lie between them, for example, the national.
Semiperiphery
Authors: Reifer Tom
Published: March 2012

The concept of the semiperiphery has been among the most significant contributions of world‐systems analysis to the study of global capitalism, and arguably the most ambiguous. The concept of the semiperiphery forwarded the notion of an intermediate zone – with in‐between levels of wealth, income and types of production processes – that are exploited by the core and yet which in turn exploit the periphery, through a combination of Schumpeterian forms of monopolistic competition, innovation and creative destruction (Arrighi & Drangel 1986; O'Hearn 1994). Semiperipheral states and regions included states as diverse as South Africa, Israel, Brazil and Russia. Semiperipheral status is sometimes the fate of declining cores (Spain and Portugal in the sixteenth century) and an aspiration for other upwardly mobile states, the United States from 1776 to the twentieth century and other smaller states such as Taiwan and South Korea, whose very success under US hegemony encourages the illusion of national development for all states and regions.
Sex
Authors: John Frank David
Published: March 2012

In several senses over recent decades, it has become more meaningful to speak of “global sex.” In an earlier era – before the onset of intensive globalization – the phrase had few connotations.
Sex Segregation
Authors: Charles Maria
Published: March 2012

Sex segregation
refers to unequal distributions of women and men. Social scientists study distributions across many locational dimensions, including occupation, industry, sector (public versus private), occupational specialty (surgeon versus pediatrician), field of study, and educational institution type. These dimensions are comprised of categories that are related to one another vertically or horizontally. Vertical segregation refers to the distinction between elite and nonelite positions (professional versus clerical occupations; universities versus vocational colleges). Horizontal segregation occurs across divides that are less explicitly status‐graded, such as field of study (social versus physical sciences) and task profile (manual versus nonmanual occupations).
Sex Trafficking
Authors: Lee Susan Hagood
Published: March 2012

Sex trafficking is the practice of transporting persons away from their home to a distant location where they are coerced or forced into enslaved prostitution to the profit of their traffickers. The International Labor Organization estimates that 1.39 million women and girls worldwide are victims of commercial sexual servitude. Some women and girls are initially kidnapped into prostitution while others are sold by their parents or relatives. Many are lured into initial cooperation through the fraudulent promise of respectable employment. Traffickers flourish in impoverished regions with few employment opportunities and transport their victims to more affluent areas with a market for sexual services. In many regions, legal businesses participate in trafficking under the guise of tourism or entertainment. States profit through taxes on these businesses, and corrupt officials benefit from bribes to protect the industry. In some areas, military installations and peacekeeping operations provide a customer base for trafficking. The international community has responded to trafficking with a Protocol calling on states to enact laws to criminalize all involvement in sex trafficking.
Sex Work
Authors: Williams Erica L.
Published: March 2012

Prostitution or sex work is the act of exchanging sexual services for monetary gain. Sex work can also be defined as work that uses sexual elements of the body (Kempadoo & Doezema 1998: 4). Thus, prostitution is one type of sex work. Sex work, also known as sexual labor, may also include historical forms such as wet‐nursing, temple prostitution, surrogate child‐bearing, donor sex, (Kempadoo & Doezema 1998: 4). Often referred to as the world's oldest profession, sex work is relevant to globalization because it is prevalent in many societies around the world.
Sexualities, Globalizing
Authors: Haritaworn Jin , Bakshi Sandeep , Kuntsman Adi , Petzen Jennifer
Published: March 2012

Feminist and gay representations are closely interlocked with current Islamophobic discourses. From the de‐veiling/outing of Afghani women or migrant Muslim women in Europe and the hypervisibility of sexual transgression in Abu Ghraib to the “sexiness” of warfare itself, gendered/sexualized images of Orientalism are spectacularly globalized and proliferated. Concurrently, they are mobilized differently in diverse local and national settings, as our research in three national locations has taught us. This entry addresses worrying resonances between local formations of Islamophobia in Israel, the United Kingdom and Germany. The aim is to address different manifestations of queer Islamophobia that for queers of color signals a backlash against multiculturalism and the permissibility (coming out of the closet) of racist discourses that reinforce Western superiority.