The Blackwell Companion to Globalization

Chapter 4

Globalization: The Major Players

GEORGE M. THOMAS

An area of study operating under the nominalization as powerful as ‘globalization’ is bound to be fraught with visions of larger than life forces, structures and processes that toss actors to and fro, from the small boats of individuals to ships of states. It also is understandable that there would be reactions against these visions – waves of attempts to re-centre discussions around the actions and agencies of individual actors as an antidote to the massive scale of globalization.

Whatever your take on these issues might be, it is important to understand the players involved in globalization and to understand that each is both actor and acted upon. It is not difficult to produce immediately a list of the players: nation-states, firms, international governmental organizations (IGOs), international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs), a host of other associations and individuals. It is a little more difficult to catalogue their interrelations and to understand who they are, what they are doing and why. That is, it is more difficult to delineate their identities, interests, actions and interrelations, and just how they relate to globalization and its processes.

It is reasonable to begin with one type of actor with clear identities and interests and then map out its relation to globalization – how it reacts and how globalization influences it. Those who study one type of actor, commonly states or firms, tend to depict that ...