Contemporary theses – hyperglobalists, sceptics
and transformationalists
From around the mid-1980s explicit theorization about globalization appeared as the term entered into academic and eventually popular usage. Waters (2001) cites figures such as Beck (1992), Rosenau (1990), Lash and Urry (1994) and geographer Harvey (1989) as important contributors in this endeavour. It is Robertston (1992) and Giddens (1991) who
are credited with the major contributions, however, with their ideas concerning the ‘relativisation of the individual with respect to higher scales of analysis’ and ‘time–space distanciation’ respectively. It is argued that:
he significant features of each of their [Robertson and Gidden’s] proposals are first that they are multi-causal or multi-dimensional in their approach, and second, that they emphasise subjectivity and culture as central factors in the current acceleration of the globalization process.