Globalisation and its Discontents

TLDR

The anti‑globalisation movement challenges sociological theory by confronting the court sociology of Beck and Giddens and prompting theorists like Bourdieu to re‑legitimize resistance discourses. Bourdieu’s analysis of neo‑liberalism focuses on subjective changes among the state nobility, overlooking the economic shifts that drove late‑capitalist globalisation.

Abstract

The emergence of an anti-globalisation movement which seeks to project a common interest between workers and social movements against neo-liberalism, represents a challenge for sociological theory. The most direct challenge is to the ‘court sociology’ of Beck and Giddens who now act as advisors to political elites. They have conceptualised globalisation as primarily an abstract cultural process which calls for ‘inevitable’ flexible changes among the dominated. One theorist who rose to the challenge of the anti-globalisation movement was Pierre Bourdieu. His later writings re-legitimised a discourse of resistance. But his explanation of neo-liberalism in terms of subjective changes among the state nobility has underplayed the economic changes in late capitalism that gave rise to the phase of globalisation.