The studies of global social and economic inequalities in social sciences that
go beyond “methodological nationalism” are recent but have older roots. The
first theories to reflect on the global and trans-regional interconnections
and asymmetric regional developments within the capitalist system can be
traced back to a Marxian tradition. These theories were critical to the
conventional approach to social inequalities (hegemonic in the Western
European and US academic centers in the 20th century) restricted to within
nation-state boundaries. However, during the last three decades, several new
approaches have emerged to capture the construction of social inequalities
within the context of transnationalization, which extend beyond defined
political units such as the nation-state. Transnationalization is creating a
new challenge to social scientists to review critically their premises related
to their reference units and to study social inequalities by focusing on
social, economic, cultural and political interdependencies from the global
perspective. This paper will focus specifically on four different approaches
to global inequalities: (1) global and international comparative research; (2)
the world-system perspective; (3) the transnational approach; and (4) the
approach of entanglements. The aim is to draw a critical balance of these
recent approaches, examine the central theoretical arguments and empirical
findings, identify shortcomings and make suggestions for further research