Rethinking Globalizations

Globalizations from Below uses a Constructivist International Relations approach that emphasizes the centrality of normative power to analyze and compare the four globalizations âfrom below.â

These are: (1) the counter-hegemonic globalization represented by the âmovement of movementsâ of alter-globalization transnational social activists, who try to put an end to the Neoliberal nature of the Western-centered globalization âfrom aboveâ; (2) the non-hegemonic globalization enacted by âant tradersâ that are part of the transnational informal economy; (3) the partially similar Chinese-centered globalization, whose entrepreneurial migrants are strongly influenced and instrumentalized by the Chinese state; and (4) the first wave globalization âfrom belowâ that paralleled (and outlived) the 1870â"1914 globalization âfrom above.â This book identifies their common features and uses them to define the concept of globalization âfrom belowâ as a set of socio-economic or socio-political processes that involve large transnational flows of people, goods, and/or ideas characterized at least in part by informality. They are enacted by entrepreneurial or activistic individuals who either take advantage of the normative power of the hegemon at the origin of an international order and an associated globalization âfrom above,â or â" explicitly or implicitly â"  transgress, contest, and try to redefine dominant economic, legal, political, and socio-cultural norms, thus challenging the existing international order and globalization âfrom above.â By constructing a unified theoretical framework, this book attempts to open a new field of interdisciplinary research that should take globalizations âfrom belowâ out of their current scholarly marginality.

This is one of the first scholarly works to collectively present more than one globalization âfrom below,â and will be of great interest to students, scholars, and researchers of International Relations, International Political Economy, Development Studies, Economic History, Anthropology, Diaspora Studies, and Chinese Studies.