The geographies and politics of globalization

Abstract

Recent debates on globalization have tended to be polarized between those wishing to ‘unthink’ the broad set of economic, political and cultural processes it encompasses and those who enthusiastically embrace them. This article maps out the recent geographical literature on the politics of globalization as an idea, and suggests some of the directions in which less polarized and more sophisticated interpretations of globalization are heading. The focus of the article is on globalization as a political discourse, which is addressed through ideas on the production of scale. The problematic association of globalization with neoliberalism is also explored. Five ‘counterdiscourses’ of globalization are then identified which attempt to rethink the political orthodoxy of neoliberal globalization. The article concludes by arguing for a ‘relational’ view of scale and suggesting some of the promises, and pitfalls, of rethinking the global scale.