For the past few years, I have been exploring the phenomenon of “globalization,” and the ways it is reshaping politics and policy-making in contemporary societies.  The focus of much of my work has been on the impact of globalization on American political life, and culminates in the analysis I present in my book The Politics of Globalization in the United States. In this book, I make two major arguments.  First, I suggest that globalization has been the product primarily of the policy choices that accompany a new role for the state in contemporary advanced capitalist societies.  In this sense, globalization is best understood as a political phenomenon, an aspect of the reshaping of the relationship between states and societies that has been in process since the late 1970’s.  Second, I contend that the result of globalization has been the emergence of a deep division between those who benefit from and those who are disadvantaged by this new role for the state, and that this division has played a central role in shaping American political life over the past twenty years.  In the book, I explore the emergence and impact of this division in the areas of trade policy, immigration policy and politics, and the politics of language and education.  I conclude with the argument that the future of American politics depends upon how we come to understand the meaning and role of the American polity in a much more interconnected world.

In the past year or so, my research interests have shifted towards looking at how globalization works on the international level.  My article in the January, 2001 issue of Governance marked a this transition in my work, as I used my work on immigration policy to explore the ways globalization changes the ways states operate – their boundaries, policy-making processes, constituencies, etc.  I am now pursuing a research project on the issue of the growing role and impact of legal processes and agents at the international level in shaping the way political power operates in today’s global economy.  There is no question that the process of governing the global economy now involves a complex framework of legal agreements and institutions – from the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its operations to international commercial arbitration.  I am especially interested in the role of private agents – multinational corporations, financial markets, and global law firms – in shaping the rules and operation of this legal framework, and ultimately in their impact on the way states act in attempting to shape the direction of the global economy.  Ultimately, my research is concerned with the impact of these developments on the distribution of power and wealth in the contemporary global political economy, and within the states which claim to represent the interests of their citizens in this political economy.  The initial ideas and direction for this research project are presented in my forthcoming working paper, to be published by the Centre for the Study of Globalization and Regionalization at the University of Warwick.