The accelerating integration of economies, societies, cultures, and political systems across national boundaries — and the analytical framework for understanding the processes that drive that integration, the inequalities it produces, and the political reactions against it.
Globalization is the word we use to describe the fact that the world has become more connected — but connection is not the same as equality, and the same processes that integrate also stratify. Understanding globalization means understanding who benefits from integration, who pays for it, and why the reaction against it has become one of the defining political forces of the early twenty-first century.