GLOBALISATION AND THE GLOBAL CRISIS

The world has been changing dramatically over the past two and a half decades, and this dynamic is only becoming more profound and faster. The global financial and economic crisis has marked the end of a stage in globalisation characterised by a thrust towards worldwide integration primarily on the basis of technical and scientific phenomena – breakthrough information and communication technologies as well as the emergence of biosciences, to name just a few. Part of the foundations for the ‘global village’ announced by pioneers in the 1980s has already been built. The current landscape is far from perfect, though, and we still have a long way to go if we want this to be a time of development and progress for all humankind.

The revolution in the twenty-first century hinges on essentially ‘technical’ drivers, and society has adjusted its organisation, customs and habits mostly in a reactive way, which has had the effect of bringing about – along with unimaginable advancement opportunities – significant social challenges and dilemmas. Only a handful of institutions have managed to redesign themselves, while not nearly enough new organisations have been created to address the issues stemming from this new scenario, with its local–global tensions in social life.