Abstract

In recent years there have been two important changes among the myriad of political and policy initiatives that occur throughout the world. First, we have entered a new era in which national and foreign policy is no longer dominated by attention to monolithic Cold-War style opponents. This has brought about a new form of "globalization" and a push to engage the nations of the world as trade partners. Second, many commentators have noticed the ubiquity of advanced communications tools, most notably the internet. For the most part, however, these two new discussions rarely intersect in meaningful ways. In fact, however, the drive to globalization is being fueled by the sorts of economies that are possible in a world in which such advanced communications tools exist. Likewise, the companies who have invested the most in building these communications tools also have a great interest in spreading their ubiquity: thus promoting globalization to an extent not seen in earlier portions of the century. This paper has as its broadest aim to investigate how the two discussions are related. Making reference to the current popular and scholarly literature about the internet and about globalization, the essay describes how both discussions are weakened by the fact that although they supposedly describe revolutionary change, neither does so in a satisfactory manner. It is through the study of these two discourses and their relation to one another that the revolutionary potential of recent developments can be assessed.