Daniele Conversi, Center for Nationalism Studies Americanization and the planetary spread of ethnic conflict: The globalization trap
Since at least the year 2000, new books and independent research have begun to proliferate, illustrating with richness of details how corporations have taken over the functions of government in many crucial areas, thereby menacing the core of the demos. The works of Naomi Klein, Noreena Hertz, George Monbiot, Greg Palast and many others have highlighted how US-led corporate interests corrupt and appropriate government functions, bend entire legal systems and destroy popular sovereignty, endangering the very fabric of democracy on a global scale (Hertz 2000, Klein 2000, Monbiot 2000, Palast 2003). The sudden rise of the ‘no global’ movement has reflected and embodied this emerging concern for the unrestrained excesses of corporate capitalism. However, these epochal shifts have yet to propel a significant amount of academic research. Indeed, most ‘scholarly’ analyses still proceed in a conceptual-terminological vacuum Accusations that academia is complicit of collision with corporate interests, and even of US imperial expansion (Pilger 2001), are therefore predictable. Although this may be to a certain extent true, it is worth considering that university scholars, secluded, safe and over-confident in their conservative niches, are normally slow to react to historical events and unable to grasp them promptly and articulate them in ways which are accessible to the greater public. Significantly, scholars still cannot agree on the meaning of the term globalization, for which there is no yet coherent or universal definition: some authors focus on mere economic aspects, others on financial flows, others on policy-making and the law, and so on. Of all forms of globalization, cultural globalization is possibly the most visible and effective as it proceeds on its lethal path of global destruction, removing all traditional barriers and securities in its wake. It is also the form of globalization which can be more easily identified with US global dominance.
Source: https://www.academia.edu/5484189/Americanization_and_the_planetary_spread_of_ethnic_conflict_The_globalization_trap
Photo source: https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/north-american-bald-eagle-on-flag-244441918
Since at least the year 2000, new books and independent research have begun to proliferate, illustrating with richness of details how corporations have taken over the functions of government in many crucial areas, thereby menacing the core of the demos. The works of Naomi Klein, Noreena Hertz, George Monbiot, Greg Palast and many others have highlighted how US-led corporate interests corrupt and appropriate government functions, bend entire legal systems and destroy popular sovereignty, endangering the very fabric of democracy on a global scale (Hertz 2000, Klein 2000, Monbiot 2000, Palast 2003). The sudden rise of the ‘no global’ movement has reflected and embodied this emerging concern for the unrestrained excesses of corporate capitalism. However, these epochal shifts have yet to propel a significant amount of academic research. Indeed, most ‘scholarly’ analyses still proceed in a conceptual-terminological vacuum Accusations that academia is complicit of collision with corporate interests, and even of US imperial expansion (Pilger 2001), are therefore predictable. Although this may be to a certain extent true, it is worth considering that university scholars, secluded, safe and over-confident in their conservative niches, are normally slow to react to historical events and unable to grasp them promptly and articulate them in ways which are accessible to the greater public. Significantly, scholars still cannot agree on the meaning of the term globalization, for which there is no yet coherent or universal definition: some authors focus on mere economic aspects, others on financial flows, others on policy-making and the law, and so on. Of all forms of globalization, cultural globalization is possibly the most visible and effective as it proceeds on its lethal path of global destruction, removing all traditional barriers and securities in its wake. It is also the form of globalization which can be more easily identified with US global dominance.
Source: https://www.academia.edu/5484189/Americanization_and_the_planetary_spread_of_ethnic_conflict_The_globalization_trap
Photo source: https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/north-american-bald-eagle-on-flag-244441918