Globalization, Crises, and Change

Neoliberal globalization is in serious crisis. It has brought the world economy to the brink of a global economic depression with major social consequences, from the housing crisis to the credit crunch, to high rates of unemployment and decline in the standard of living for the great majority of the world’s population. This is an occasion to re-examine the structure of the global economy and its social impact in the early twenty-first century in order to assess the problems created by neoliberal economic policies that are endemic to the latest, transnational stage of world capitalism that has been expanding across the globe through the processes of neoliberal globalization. It is for this reason that a careful sociological analysis of the dynamics and contradictions of neoliberal globalization is sorely needed so that the social consequences of this process on the affected populations can be assessed and appropriate responses developed to overcome the ongoing global economic, political, and social crises. This series promises to make a major contribution to this end and will serve to facilitate discussion and debate on a topic that is bound to become the centerpiece of transnational studies in the twenty-first century.