Increased pace of life and overcoming of spatial barriers, through communication and transportation technology, resulting in apparent shrinking of time to the present and globe to a single space, altering everyday experience of social relations and awareness of global interdependence. Cf. D. Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 1990, p. 240.

Principles and goals adopted by the Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing, September 1995. Stresses women's right to equality, emancipation, and access to resources. Expresses growing world consensus on status of women promoted by previous world conferences. Click here for text.

Town in New Hampshire, U.S., where WW II allies agreed in 1944 on shape of post-war world economic order. Name used to describe that order, in particular two organizations founded there- International Monetary Fund and World Bank-designed to promote exchange rate stability and economic development within free market system. Key change in early 70s: [..]

Relationships not controlled by the state or, more commonly, all forms of association outside of state and market. Currently also denotes work of nongovernmental organizations. Used by critics and movement activists to refer to source of resistance to and the sphere of social life to be protected against globalization. For examples of term in use b [..]

Hostile relationship, reflected in arms race and competition for global influence, between Soviet bloc and U.S.-led NATO, 1945-1991. "Iron curtain" across central Europe marked key division in "bipolar" world until fall of Berlin Wall, 1989. End variously traced to internal difficulties of Soviet regime, pressure from U.S. arms [..]

Permanent rule of one country or region by another, usually based on conquest. Feature of European expansion since sixteenth century, as Western powers took control of people and territory across much of globe. Last wave in Africa, late-nineteenth century. South American colonies gained independence in nineteenth century, African and Asian after WW [..]

Tendency to turn goods and services, even land and labor, into products for sale in market; used critically to describe loss of human qualities in capitalist production and exchange

Production processes carried out by "interorganizational networks clustered around one commodity or product, linking households, enterprises, and states to one another within the world economy," with greater share of control and wealth going to network nodes in core countries (G. Gereffi and M. Korzeniewicz, eds., Commodity Chains and Glo [..]

Ideology centered on eliminating class inequality via collective ownership of means of production; form of one-party government controlling economy and society in name of such ideology. Rooted in work of Karl Marx and other nineteenth-century critics of industrial capitalism. After heyday in mid-twentieth century, influence declined with demise of [..]

Standard economic concept accounting for gains from trade due to tendency of countries to export goods they produce relatively efficiently. "A country has comparative advantage in producing a good if the opportunity cost [value of opportunities forgone in making a choice] of producing that good in terms of other goods is lower in that country [..]