The globalization debate

Globalization, as a concept, is both highly fashionable and highly contested. Over the past decade, a huge academic literature has developed on the subject. To provide an exhaustive account of this vast and ever-expanding literature is clearly an impossible task. Nevertheless, it is possible to identify five distinct ‘schools of thought’ within the globalization literature. These are: the hyperglobalist thesis; the sceptical thesis; the complex globalization thesis; the new institutionalist thesis; and the ideational thesis. Here, we outline each of these in turn.