As this suggests, the question ‘‘what is globalization?’’, however straightforward, is
one that invariably lacks a straightforward answer; indeed, it is one that is surprisingly
rarely posed. A variety of effects follow from this—not the least of which is the
tendency of proponents of the globalization thesis (‘‘radicals’’ in Giddens’s (1999)
terminology) and their critics (‘‘skeptics’’ in the same terms) to talk past one
another.7 Whether globalization is happening and whether the consequences often
attributed to it should be attributed to it depend on what globalization is taken to
imply—and it is here that the major differences often lie. Unremarkably, skeptics
tend to adopt more exacting definitional standards than radicals, pointing almost in
the same breath to the disparity between the real evidence (such as it is) and the
rigors of such an exacting definitional standard. Radicals by contrast set for themselves
a rather less discriminating definitional hurdle, with the effect that they
interpret the very same evidence that leads skeptics to challenge the globalization
thesis as seemingly unambiguous evidence for the thesis. What makes this all the
more confusing is the seeming reluctance of authors on either side of the exchange to
define clearly and concisely their terminology.