The Third wave in globalization theory

This essay examines a proposition made in the literature that there are three waves in globalization theory—the globalist, skeptical, and postskeptical or transformational waves—and argues that this division requires a new look. The essay is a critique of the third of these waves and its relationship with the second wave. Contributors to the third wave not only defend the idea of globalization from criticism by the skeptics but also try to construct a more complex and qualified theory of globalization than provided by first-wave accounts. The argument made here is that third-wave authors come to conclusions that try to defend globalization yet include qualifications that in practice reaffirm skeptical claims. This feature of the literature has been overlooked in debates and the aim of this essay is to revisit the literature and identify as well as discuss this problem. Such a presentation has political implications. Third wavers propose globalist cosmopolitan democracy when the substance of their arguments does more in practice to bolster the skeptical view of politics based on inequality and conflict, nation-states and regional blocs, and alliances of common interest or ideology rather than cosmopolitan global structures

'Silence bleeds': Hamlet across borders : The Shakespearean Adaptations of Sulayman Al-Bassam

Original article can be found at: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713734315~db=all Copyright Informa / Taylor and FrancisThis article addresses the writing and performance work of Anglo-Kuwaiti director Sulayman Al-Bassam, tracing the development of his various adaptations of Shakespeare's Hamlet into English and Arabic 'cross-cultural' versions between 2001 and 2007. Al-Bassam's work presents English as a 'language in translation'. His works move from early modern to modern English, from Arabized English to Arabic, from one linguistic and geographical location to another, their forms moulded and remoulded by complex cultural pressures. The study focuses on specific examples from three adaptations to show in practice how in these works English is 'constantly crossed, challenged and contested'Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Representing the Rise of the Rest as Threat Media and Global Divides

Like a giant oil tanker, the world is turning. New growth poles of the world economy have been emerging in the south and east. Globalization once belonged to the west and now the tables are turning. We have entered the era of the ‘rise of the rest’. Western media and politics of representation have celebrated the rise of the west for two hundred years, how then do they represent the rise of the rest? The main trends are that the rise of the rest is ignored, or represented as a threat, or celebrated in business media as triumphs of the marketplace. Media echoing free market ideology have contributed to vast wealth polarization; representing the rise of the rest as threat contributes to global political polarization; recycling the 9/11 complex produces cultural and political polarization; and overusing celebrity narratives contributes to existential polarization. These are the global divides discussed in this paper. In the wake of the economic crisis of 2008 there have been marked changes in discourse and a new motif has taken shape: recruiting the rest to rescue the west

What Do People Want?

Abstract Should a discussion of populism be concerned with populism, along with revulsion of its various extremisms, or should it rather be concerned with the failure of institutions and the misbehavior of elites in a world in which eight billionaires own as much as half the world population? The former option will yield a totally different and probably somewhat more predictable discussion than the latter, which may include “from bad to worse.” A third option is that different types of market economies yield different types of populism, including pluto-populism. This discussion follows the latter two options

Global Culture, 1990, 2020

Here I reflect on the main themes of Global Culture, Nationalism, Globalization and Modernity. On these themes, where are we 30 years later? I sidestep the fine print of the 1990 conversations and share notes in brief format on where I have come to in the decades that have passed. I round off with notes on the 2020 conjuncture