(Page 2 of 44) - On the Cutting Edge of Globalization authored by Rosenau, James., Earnest, David., Ferguson, Yale. and Holsti, Ole.

Although globalization is marked by large processes with broad consequences in

numerous arenas, it is sustained by concrete and identifiable people---by public officials
who frame issues, make choices, negotiate outcomes, and implement policies; by
corporate executives who generate resources, sell products, and focus on market shares;
by technological specialists who facilitate communications and the analysis of policy
alternatives; by consumers who purchase goods and workers who produce them; by
tourists and immigrants who travel extensively; and by a host of other individuals who
contribute to a vast diversity of transnational processes. Complex as these processes and
policies are, however, the rapidly expanding literature on globalization has started to
illuminate their dynamics.

But there remains at least one aspect of globalizing processes

that remains elusive and unexplored as the focus of systematic inquiries: little is known
about the ind ividuals who give direction to and set the limits of the processes---those
persons who can properly be described as operating on the cutting edge of globalization.
Do Cutting- Edgers, as we call them, conceive of themselves as located on the forefront of
globalization? Do they interact often? Do they form coordinated networks or mostly go
their own way? Do they travel widely and often, or do they conduct most of their
boundary-spanning work electronically? Does their participation in globalizing processes
change their orientations toward their country of citizenship and to the very world they
are helping to transform? Do their lives on the cutting edge alter their attitudes toward
the meaning of “home” and their local communities, toward change and charitable
giving, toward the role of government and the rich-poor gap? Are they concerned about
the downsides of globalization, about its possible cultural and environmental
consequences and its effects on the stability of governments? Has the Battle of Seattle
and similar protests given them pause about the transnational activities in which they are
involved?

Theoretical Concerns

As these questions imply, our project is founded on the premise that profound

changes are at work in the world as the dynamics of globalization and the reactions
thereto become increasingly central to the course of events at every level of community.
The evidence of rapid and pervasive transformations seems to be everywhere as
neoliberal economic policies, vast movements of people around the world, electronic and
transportation technologies, and a host of other dynamics have led to what has been
described as the relative death of time and distance. We presume that individuals who
are deeply involved in the economic, social and political transformations have not simply
absorbed the changes into their traditional behavior.

Rather, our social scientific,

See the 713 entries in the bibliography listed in Jan Aart Scholte, Globalization: A Critical

Introduction (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000), pp. 318-48.

For full discussions of the various transformations at work in the present era, see James N.

Rosenau, Along the Domestic-Foreign Frontier: Exploring Governance in a Turbulent World (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1997), and Yale H. Ferguson and Richard W. Mansbach, “Global Politics at