The Blackwell Companion to Globalization

Introduction to Part III

GEORGE RITZER

This part opens with several chapters devoted to problematic aspects of globalization (although Part II dealt with its share of problems – ill health in a global context, for example) – inequality, corruption, sexuality, war and terrorism. The penultimate chapter examines, given the many problems associated with globalization, forms of resistance to it and the final chapter involves a sweeping look into the future(s) of globalization.

Given the importance of the relationship between globalization and inequality, we devote two chapters to it. There is another reason for devoting two chapters to this issue – the authors of each are the major protagonists in a crucial debate in this area over whether globalization is related to the continuing salience of (Korzeniewicz and Moran), or a meaningful decline in (Firebaugh and Goesling), global inequality. It may well be that this is the issue in the entire field of globalization and it is interesting to note that, as McGrew anticipated in the first chapter in this volume, it is a highly contested one. It is also, as discussed by Babones (Chapter 7), a methodological issue. Perhaps above all, it is, as contended by Korzeniewicz and Moran, a theoretical issue (see Robinson, Chapter 6) which, in their view, pits (world) system theory against modernization theory.

Firebaugh and Goesling address three forms of global inequality – income, health and education – although their focus is clearly on income. ...