Globalization Matters: Engaging the Global in Unsettled Times

At the turn of the twenty-first century, globalization – both the process and the idea – bestrode the world like a colossus. Widely acclaimed by political and economic pundits as the most important phenomenon of our time, it took the world by storm. Two decades later, it has come under sustained attack from the reinvigorated forces of the extreme right and radical left. Does globalization still matter in our unsettled world? Responding in the affirmative, this study develops and applies a new framework of an engaged theory of globalization to analyse some of today’s most pressing global challenges: the rise of national populism; ecological degradation; rapid urbanization; new sources of insecurity; and the changing landscape of higher education. Offering a comprehensive appraisal of globalization in our unsettled times, this study addresses why and how trans-planetary interrelations continue to matter in a world that is wavering between globalist expansion and nationalist retrenchment.