Why does society describe itself as global? Re-examining the relation between globalization and the states from a second-order perspective

Luhmann on globalization: Beyond world society

As it is well known, Luhmann redefines society as a system of communication (1995, 2013). Unlike previous societies in history, modern society is a world society due to the fact that its operations of communication can cover the entire globe (Luhmann, 1990, 1997, 2012; Moeller, 2006; Stichweh, 2008). Modern society is global in scope, at least potentially, because it is functionally differentiated (Beyer, 1994: 38; Luhmann, 1990: 178). Group membership, as required by stratification in pre-modern societies, no longer sets up conditions for coordination. As a result, operations of communication in each autonomous functional subsystem are in principle free to stretch in space as far as needed, with some exceptions where segmentation and centre–periphery relations are prevailing.

In Luhmann’s theory, modern society presents us with a special case that the concept of world society is meant to account for. World society is also introduced to reinforce the concept of society itself as Luhmann understands it. Most sociologists interpret society in regional terms because they define it as an organized group of persons inhabiting the same place. By redefining society as a system of communication, Luhmann criticizes this interpretation for taking this regional character for granted (2012). It is true that there are different regions in the world corresponding very often to ‘national societies’ contained within state territories. Yet sociological analysis cannot begin with this fact by accepting it as it is. Rather it must frame this fact as a research question: why are there regional differences in the world? For Luhmann, the concept of world society allows us to do exactly that.

In short, Luhmann would think of globalization as the rise of a modern world society (Beyer, 1994: 36). In this expression, ‘modern’ indicates functional differentiation, whereas ‘world’ signals anti-regionalism. However, when one looks deeper into Luhmann’s writings, one finds other concepts for envisioning globalization in alternative ways. As I suggested elsewhere, one can look at globalization as a self-description of contemporary society (Guy, 2010a). What motivates this redefinition is the desire to take full advantage of the distinction between first-order and second-order observations for the study of globalization. As it turns out, Luhmann’s conception of globalization leaves this distinction completely to one side. Luhmann simply discusses globalization from a first-order perspective by attempting to demonstrate the relevance of it. Had he considered globalization from a second-order perspective, Luhmann would have refrained from developing such arguments.

In Luhmann’s systems theory, the status of the observer is not limited to psychic systems (or human consciousness), but applies to social systems as well. First-order observations aim at describing reality, whereas second-order observations aim at describing other observers (Luhmann, 2002; Moeller, 2006). Second-order observations introduce a range of phenomena to which first-order observations cannot give access. Second-order observations indicate that the process of describing reality takes place within an observer, so that what is described as real depends on the observer behind the description and not on the reality in front of this observer.

So why it is that the system of society observes globalization today? Why does society today produce communications on the theme of globalization? By answering that society is a worldwide system by now, Luhmann does not satisfy the requirements of second-order observing. He is only repeating the same thing twice. What causes communications on the theme of globalization cannot be the prior existence of globalization (or world society), at least not from a second-order perspective, because the structures of any observer ought to be differentiated from the structures of reality as described by the same observer. Alternatively, by redefining globalization as a self-description of society, we can understand more adequately how communications on the theme of globalization do not result from some external stimulus (the immediate state of affairs that globalization is supposed to be), but are fuelled by the need inside the system of society to generate images of the system in order for society to better handle its own ever-growing complexity.

The value there is in talking about globalization is not factual, but functional, in the way Moeller uses the term (2011). As with religion or love, what matters is not what is true according to scientific standards, but what gets people moving. It is not only that individuals find themselves having to take position in front of globalization. It is also that making references to globalization is a way to get projects started and actors to jump in. All the while, globalization may very well remain a fuzzy topic. As one of society’s self-descriptions, globalization does not correspond to an exact set of circumstances. Rather it exists as currency allowing for the conversion of items circulating in culture. As currency, globalization is also a source of dispute, which is to say that there is a tendency for claims about globalization to multiply, leaving actors in place with the challenge of figuring out which claim is reliable and which is not. This is how globalization helps channel the reproduction of the system of society. Globalization presents society with a problem that the system takes as its own so as to give focus to its attention. From there, society works to remodel itself in light of the description it has selected for itself by sorting out what is really global and what is not (what is local) among all the events going on in the system.

In summary, whereas Luhmann examined globalization from a first-order perspective, I suggest analysing it from a second-order perspective. As a result of this, the concept of world society is displaced in favour of the notion of self-description. But this is only the beginning. What consequences follow for the other issues related to globalization? One major issue discussed in the sociological literature is the relation between globalization and sovereign states. In the rest of the text, I explore how the double switch from first-order to second-order and from world society to self-description requires us to re-examine this relation.

In the next section, I formulate the following hypothesis: when describing society as globalization, we proceed by searching for patterns across states. In short, measuring the global can be done by comparing states with each other. As a condition of possibility for globalization as society’s self-description, this practice and the assumptions behind it – that comparing states with states is unlike comparing apples and oranges – ought to be historicized. I rise to this challenge in the subsequent sections by devising a genealogy positioning this practice in relation with alternative practices from the past. To this end, I introduce the concept of spatial division, which allows me to reconsider the division of today’s world into sovereign states within a more abstract context.

Globalization and the state: Toward a genealogical reconstruction

Social scientists have treated the relation between globalization and sovereign states in various ways. This is not to say that their works have nothing in common. As a norm, the matter at hand has been handled within a first-order framework. If a second-order perspective is to reveal any new insights, it is a good idea to consider preliminarily the results yielded by these first-order approaches. We will then have a basis for contrast. The social scientific works done on the relation between globalization and sovereign states indicate four distinct ideal-types of such relation. I briefly present these ideal-types before introducing a fifth one inspired this time by a second-order perspective.

Granted, this is a rough classification. The works of some authors might not fit nicely into one category only. For example, in their study of global transformations, David Held and his colleagues distinguish between globalization’s impact on state sovereignty and on state independence (1999). Accordingly, their analysis mixes two ideal-types or more. But the point here is that, in all four ideal-types sketched above, both globalization and sovereign states are basically conceptualized as some sort of forces exercised either in opposition or in combination with one another. This is a conceptual strategy in accordance with a first-order perspective. To adopt a second-order perspective, however, we need a different strategy.

This alternative strategy leading to my fifth ideal-type is twofold. On one hand, globalization as society’s self-description is linked with the difference between global and local. On the other hand, references made to both commonalities and discrepancies between sovereign states are used as criteria for the processing of this difference in communication. In other words, determining what is global and what is local is society’s own transient achievement as a social system, which it pulls off by comparing sovereign states with other sovereign states in the course of its operations. Society can then take on the form of globalization by identifying itself with the global.

It is important that not everything that is designated as global is automatically admitted as such. For this, certain conditions must be satisfied. The structure of sovereign states around the world allows for a variety which is exploited for this purpose. By definition, a social trend must be apparent in multiple countries or states to be recognized as a global trend or else one can only accept it as a local or regional trend. What would be the critical threshold for this to occur? It is not necessary to agree on a precise number of countries. It is sufficient that the structure of sovereign states provides the means for generating multiple measurements and reading these measurements against each other. In practice, the structure operates like a grid with one empty square for each state as recording space. Once each square is filled up with information regarding the corresponding state, more information can be extracted from the total picture: global averages, global maximums, global majorities and so on. This sort of observing does not automatically bring about new realities ‘on the ground’ of course, but it does provide reasons for action which can lead to effective changes in society, as in the case of self-fulfilling prophecies for instance. For sure, this may not happen in a straightforward manner, since the information process leaves plenty of room for disagreement. Yet the absence of consensus does not mean that the overall process remains without any consequences whatsoever.

This is the technique (or one technique) for determining ‘the global’ in globalization and therefore in society. Through this technique, society enters into a relation with itself, as it were, since information about the current state of the system is released inside the system, which then gives the latter a chance to intervene and work on itself. Moreover, the technique establishes a relation between globalization and sovereign states unlike any of the previous relations sketched out earlier. In this new relation, the state is not posited as the counter-value to globalization. To repeat, states provide a criterion for applying the distinction global/local inasmuch as they offer a material for comparisons. Accordingly, we do not owe our interest in determining the global to the prior existence of global objects around us, but to a set of expectations implied in the structure of sovereign states, i.e. the fact that the world comprises not one, but many states, which in principle can converge as much as they can diverge from each other.

Consider global networks, for example. It is not size or distance that matters the most (or space, or scale), but the fact that these networks reveal a pattern across multiple states that could otherwise be autonomous, i.e. not connected with each other. In a world divided into states, one cannot take these networks for granted. They come as a surprise to us, which explains the informational value we see in them (for the time being at least). In sum, global objects like global networks are not interesting in themselves; they have become interesting as a result of society’s contingent evolution. Knowing this, in order to push the study of globalization one step further, we must look into society’s evolutionary past.

With this in mind, I develop in the next pages a genealogical reconstruction leading to globalization as a self-description of society. As everybody knows, genealogy as a research method was pioneered by Michel Foucault (1977). Nevertheless it is compatible with Luhmann’s systems theory. In his own way, Foucault also wanted to open up a second-order perspective (Akerstrom Andersen, 2003). Just as Foucault maintained that sexuality did not exist before the nineteenth century (which is not the same as saying that people never had intercourse until then), my main suggestion is that globalization did not exist before 1950 (even though people had been moving across regions and continents for centuries long before that).

Beyond this family resemblance, the reason I have for choosing Foucault’s method is that I wish to loosen Luhmann’s dichotomy between social structures and semantics. For Luhmann, semantics is all too often subordinated to structures, while the latter are frequently limited to two general cases: stratification and functional differentiation. However, one can imagine alternative scenarios where changes in semantics precipitate changes in structures for example (for discussion, see Passoth, 2011). In my case, although redefining globalization as society’s self-description allegedly places me at the semantic level, I do not feel it necessary to fall back on the primacy of functional differentiation as causal explanation. A genealogical reconstruction allows me on the contrary to trace a sequence along which semantics periodically condenses into social structures.

The sequence I imagine is largely constructed around the transformations of the state over centuries, mainly in the West. The state is a collective project that has taken different shapes at different moments in time. Among other things, the classical liberal state cannot be completely mixed up with the national state (or nation-state). That being said, my aim is not to formulate a new theory of the state, either modern or pre-modern. I look at the institution of the state throughout history for the reason that different understandings of it involve different ways of making comparisons across space, i.e. different ways of producing observations through the manipulation of distinctions relating to space. Indeed, states have been compared with other states as much as with other things. Comparisons in space carried out as operations by one observer may revolve around states, but are not limited to them. It is these differences between comparative practices that I seek to highlight. Hence, literally, my project is to compare comparative practices, taken as the mechanisms in action behind the activity of observing space and society.

To prevent more confusion, I hereby substitute the concept of spatial division for the notion of the state. Any form of spatial division implies a set of multiple spatial units, whereas different forms of spatial division establish different relations between the units within the same set. For my genealogy, I will discuss four forms of spatial division: stratified, heterogeneous, homogeneous and meta-division. In the sequence I propose, the forms of spatial division are assembled in the same order. The practice of comparing states interchangeably (as if on the same plane), and the distinction global/local made possible by this practice in particular, correspond to the last two forms of spatial division, contrasted with the first two.

Before I can devote one section for each form of spatial division, let me examine the general concept of spatial division more closely.

Spatial division

I must clarify four points. For my first three points, I explain how the various forms of spatial division are to be distinguished. For my last point, I indicate what matters the most when lining up the forms of spatial division into one sequence. Based on these principles, the total sequence will show that the differences between spatial units went through a series of re-descriptions: initially understood as differences in kind (or natural irreversible hierarchies), they end up being reinterpreted as differences in degrees (or historical reversible conjunctures).

As will become evident in the following sections, the historical material I refer to is enormous. I merely succeed in scratching the surface. It is therefore important to properly circumscribe the limited results I offer. I have concentrated my efforts on bringing all elements into one coherent picture: one complete sequence with a beginning and an end. Because of this, each phase within the sequence probably remains underdeveloped somehow. Even though it may not have been possible for me to lay out all the required details, I would like to defend my project nonetheless by reasserting the peculiarity of a second-order perspective.

Second-order observation means observing the observer. For Luhmann, an observer can only operate as a system in an environment, whereas the boundary between these two can only be worked out by the system and not the environment. In terms of cognition, this means that no information is imported from the environment by the system. Information and knowledge are created within the system by means of the system’s own operations. The environment plays a role as a source of noise or undirected energy only. Imagine the system as a dice, if you will: the environment is called in to get the dice rolling by providing the external shock necessary for that. On the other hand, the environment does not affect the result when the dice stop rolling, which depends on what has been preliminarily written down on each face of the dice.

Why does this matter here? What it means is that, as I worked to articulate the different types of spatial division in a genealogy, I didn’t search for transcultural variables (say, class divisions) located beyond what social systems are capable of observing. By adopting a second-order perspective, I embraced an evolutionary model. In this model, there are no simple causal relations between system and environment. The environment does not cause the system to change in a direct fashion. It exercises an ecological pressure that applies variably so as to enable a selection to take place among a range of options already available within the system. Sociological analysis had to be recalibrated accordingly.

My focus has been on the constraints that society exercises on itself in its capacity as observer (the range of options at the level of cognition) at different moments of its history. The goal was to observe what society observed in practice back then as opposed to what most social scientists would observe retrospectively today (for example, racism or sexism). Furthermore, I did not attempt to explain social change in light of transhistorical factors (like power or rationality), but as a reiterative process instead, so that the circumstantial reasons for change had to be reassessed at each step of the way.

I will now present the different forms of spatial division in order: first, stratified division, then heterogeneous division and finally homogeneous division along with meta-division.

Stratified division

A stratified spatial division prevails whenever spatial units are given as dissimilar in content and unequal in rights. Space is stratified to the extent that a distinction is sustained between upper and lower units. The observer who is projecting the entire division places him/herself in the upper position. In other words, stratification as a cognitive frame works top-down. This is less an opportunistic strategy than a logical prerequisite. The observer remains convinced that what he or she sees is the only reality there is to see and that such ‘clarity of vision’ endows him or her with authority. Anyone who pretends to see something else is foolish, or disrespectful, or ill-intended, and must be treated accordingly. This is why, in the observer’s mind, differences in ‘content’ (in collective beliefs and social behaviours) call for unequal treatment.

The corresponding situation is a mixture of two of Robertson’s images of world-order. The first one is the asymmetrical version of global Gemeinschaft. In this image, the world is portrayed as inhabited by a large number of culturally distinct communities mostly closed to each other. In the asymmetrical version of this image, one community designates itself as a superior civilization entitled to rule over the others, hence the presumption of stratification. The second image is global Gemeinschaft 2. This may come as a surprise since Robertson describes it as an image presenting the world as one unified community encompassing all living human beings. Nonetheless, global Gemeinschaft 2 certainly defines a form of stratification inasmuch as it is the projection of one ideal conception of the human nature. This conception establishes that one is not fully human unless one submits to certain predetermined conditions on how one is expected to run one’s life, in public and in private. For example, one must pray to the right God or serve the right nation or pledge to the right party. Claims of humanity (of being human) are made possible only when claims of non-humanity or inhumanity are made possible too. In a similar manner, the privileged community in the asymmetrical version of global Gemeinschaft 1 sees itself as ‘the real one’ or ‘the truly human’ in comparison to which the other communities can only be ‘fake’ or ‘untrue’ (barbarians rather than civilized people).

Because operations of observation are not only carried out by individuals alone, but by entire groups as well, there is the possibility for members of the group occupying the upper unit to disagree. This is the latent problem in stratified division. While criticisms are forbidden in principle, clashes are not prevented in practice. Leaders can benefit from ideological developments to secure their legitimacy, yet these developments also provide symbolic resources for challenging their power. One leader is never legitimate enough so that he or she cannot be rejected in the name of the same principles that leader wishes to embody. Therefore leaders draw attacks from competitors eager to take their place. However, when conflicts erupt, they do not lead toward more egalitarian relations between units, but toward revised forms of stratification of space and groups. In these new forms, the division between upper and lower units (between who is worthy of humanity and who is not) is not cancelled, but repeated, albeit each time with a different master on the top. What comes out of this are series of incessant dynastic rivalries, repeated religious schisms, cycles of revolutions and counter-revolutions, and so on.

In this context, one can conceptualize the state as the upper unit within a stratified space. Even though other conceptions of the state exist, as we shall see in a moment, this is nonetheless the first one to appear in the present genealogical reconstruction. By seeing the state as the upper unit, it does not follow that all upper units are states. For this reason, the first episode of our general reconstruction must be broken down into two distinct phases. In the beginning, space is divided according to a stratification model, although none of the spatial units are identified as states. Spatial division corresponds in this case to pre-modern agrarian empires or city-states whose societal structures revolved around a distinction between city and countryside as upper and lower units respectively (Giddens, 1987). Later on, space continues to be divided according to the same model, although some spatial units are now re-described as states. Those units assume a higher position in front of the others, at least for some observers. This second part coincides with the diffusion of a new discourse in early modern western political philosophy taking the state as its object of reflection, in which the state was presented as civilized society, exemplified in social contract theories and natural law doctrines. This conception implies a difference between zones of civility and zones of un-civility, which is evidence of stratification in the form of dissimilarity in content and inequality in rights. In this conception, the state is not separated from the rest of society. State and society are coterminous with each other. In the subsequent phases, this conception will be revised and a gap will be inserted between state and society. This is when we enter the third phase of our sequence, which corresponds to the transition from a stratified spatial division to a heterogeneous one.

Heterogeneous division

The spatial units are now constituted as dissimilar in content, yet equal in rights. The challenge is no longer to enforce and maintain a hierarchy between upper and lower units. The new latent problem lies in the difficulty of determining what must be admitted as spatial units to start with. With heterogeneous division comes the rule that spatial units must be distinct nations, by definition. This creates the burden of having to demonstrate what sets one spatial unit (one nation) apart from the others. Indeed, if it were shown that two nations were identical to each other, we would have to treat them as the same nation. We would have not two, but only one spatial unit. On the other hand, achieving the status of a proper nation for a group means earning the right to self-determination in accordance with the ideal of modern democracy, which claims power goes to the people and no longer to kings (Bendix, 1978; Kedourie, 1960). Equality is granted when the nation gets to form an independent sovereign state. Such reward or promise can act as a motivation for contesting any image of a nation. When this happens, the whole division of space goes under a re-editing process so as to introduce more spatial units.

Heterogeneous division largely emerged out of the development of the modern states, most notably in Europe, from the nineteenth century onward (Mann, 1984; Poggi, 1990). This implies numerous things, but the creation of bureaucratic apparatus following the centralization of administrative power has been a central factor. This bureaucracy, along with its staff, became the latest avatar of the state. While both people and territory remained integral to the existence of the state, they were not to be confused with it anymore. Rather than being the same as society itself, the state was now placed in relation to it, which is to say that the two of them had to be separated. Another factor in the development of the modern state that stimulated heterogeneous division is democratization, i.e. the new requirement for state leaders to act as the representatives of society understood as a single body. National representation often backfires though. Because the notion of representation involves political accountability even when this is difficult to enforce in practice, attempts made at representing the nation are always likely to create grounds for diverging opinions. Chances only increase when the issue at stake mixes with efforts to gain control over the state.

This indicates the inner dynamics of heterogeneous division. There is a hidden asymmetry in the relation between state and nation. Clearly, the relation does not produce the same effects on each of them. Both state and nation must face the same problem of representing the nation (as opposed to representing the state), but with different consequences. As a newly autonomous institution, the state can change or alter how it represents the nation without having to change itself, most notably by means of electoral cycles. The same is not possible for the nation because, this time, the representing subject is not distinct from the represented object. If a nation were to change the way it represents itself, it would have to transform itself at the same time. Knowing this, when we envision the relation state-nation as one line on a two-dimensional plane, we can imagine multiple images of the nation expanding laterally, as it were, thus marking a second line coming at right angle with the first one. In short, the state tends to remain identical to itself in its institutional form, while different variations of the nation are generated virtually out of each other. In the end, heterogeneous division is all at once an ideology confirming the legitimacy of the state already in place and a discourse motivating both secession movements and anti-colonial movements (Breuilly, 1982).

Like stratified division, heterogeneous division combines two images of world-order. The first one is the symmetrical version of global Gemeinschaft 1 and the second one is global Gesellschaft 1. In the latter, the world we live in happens to be a world of states defined as legal associations. In the former, we live in a world of cultural communities. In the asymmetrical version of this image, as explained earlier, there is one community which sees itself as superior to the others. This is simply not the case in the symmetrical version in which all communities are equal. In the context of heterogeneous division, the cultural communities imagined in global Gemeinschaft 1 are explicitly and exclusively interpreted as equivalent to as many nations.

The relation between global Gemeinschaft 1 and global Gesellschaft 1 is ambiguous for there are two versions of this relation. The first version, the official one, gives priority to global Gemeinschaft 1. Nations are supposed to be more primitives than states. A nation exists naturally, so to speak, whereas a state is created artificially as an instrument for fulfilling one nation’s needs. In this worldview, nations cover the globe since the dawn of time – to repeat again, all spatial units in the spatial division are nations – although so far only some of them have given themselves a state in the form of centralized administrative structures.

In the other version, the unofficial one, global Gesellschaft 1 has precedence over global Gemeinschaft 1 so that nations reappear as derivatives of states (Hobsbawm, 1990). The spatial units that have already taken the aspect of a state are the ones that can also claim to be nations by the same token. Even if these spatial units remain a small minority within the total set of units, it becomes nonetheless possible for the other units to describe themselves as nations too without having achieved political independence. Thus, as a cognitive frame, heterogeneous division triggers this effect: because nations must be different from each other, the whole world gets populated with nations as soon as one spatial unit is recognized in this way.

What the official and unofficial versions have in common is the unequal ratio between nations and states: nations always outnumber states. In the official version, this situation is a matter of incompleteness: one day, every single nation in the world will achieve independence. We are just not there yet. The total number of nations is assumed to be stable, even though it remains unknown, because each nation or cultural community holds an ontological status. In the unofficial version, the unequal ratio can never be balanced out since the creation of more states provides the conditions for the creation of even more nations.

Homogeneous division and meta-division

There are two more phases in my genealogy: the transition to homogeneous division and subsequently to meta-division. In history, this double transformation ought to be located in the twentieth century, following the creation of the Organization of the United Nations and the waves of decolonization in Africa and Asia. We end up with two new images of world-order: global Gesellschaft 1 and global Gesellschaft 2. The connection between homogeneous division and meta-division is subtle. Basically, homogeneous division does not trigger any latent problem. It therefore suffers from a lack, whilst meta-division arises to make up for this lack. In this sense, meta-division plays the role of homogeneous division’s latent problem. This is why the two phases mentioned above fuse together into a single episode within my genealogy. That leaves us with two questions to deal with. First, why is it that homogeneous division is not attached to any latent problem? Second, how does meta-division compensate for this? Let me answer these questions in order.

The mechanism in action behind any latent problem is the possibility of negating anything arising in communication. This requires one axis separating one value from its counter-value. What is challenged in communication is not the whole distinction, but the attribution of specific values. One must accept this distinction in order to be capable of contesting any value already attributed. In a stratified division, the axial distinction separates upper units from lower units. Contention opposes self-proclaimed upper units with other self-proclaimed upper units. In a heterogeneous division, we have multiple images of the nation in competition with one another. Some images are taken to be accurate, whereas others are deemed distorted, or else some images are taken to represent one person’s nation, whereas other images represent someone else’s nation. What is at stake is a legitimate claim over the control of the state.

Homogeneous spatial division precipitates no latent problem of its own because it does not define any axial distinction. Under the conditions of homogeneous spatial division, all units turn into states as in global Gesellschaft 1. Hence there are no differences left among them. Not only are they all equal in rights, but they also become all similar in content. Local histories, memories and identities do not disappear altogether, of course, but these are no longer sources of authority in the set of expectations that sinks in as the homogeneous division outgrows previous forms of spatial division. What is asked from spatial units is that they attend to each other as states. They must open up to the world and reflect the other spatial units within their own borders. The spirit of homogeneous division finds its natural expression in the discourse of multiculturalism. To repeat, since spatial units are all states from the onset, there is nothing else into which units can transform (no more counter-value). Homogeneous division leaves the observer in a cul-de-sac: now that each unit happens to be the same as the next one, there is no room left for internal variation at the level of observation. As a result, this form of spatial division barely generates information on its own. The problem of making distinctions therefore moves up at a higher level, which brings us back to meta-division.

Meta-division allows for the introduction of the axial distinction that homogeneous division is missing. This is how meta-division compensates for the poverty of information the latter arrived at. This axial distinction happens to be precisely the difference global/local, around which globalization as society’s self-description is articulated. The difference global/local does not erase or displace the spatial division in which states are equal in rights and similar in content. Actually, the difference global/local depends on this particular setting to function at all. Concretely, the world map remains a mosaic of states. However this map does not really show us what we want to know: it does not tell us how the world is evolving. For this, extra information needs to be produced by comparing multiple states throughout the world so as to determine what are the trends at the global level and what remains local by opposition, or what can be observed across a majority of states on one hand and what can be observed in only certain individual states on the other hand. Global Gesellschaft 2 illustrates this, although this is not exactly what Robertson had in mind (Guy, 2010b). Thus, a new set of spatial units comes into view at a higher level: we have units that are global on one side and units that are not global on the other side. These units can be regions, cities, districts, organizations, networks or movements. These are not stable entities, for claims to global status are forever contestable as claims. We are looking at a process of selection, since units must compete with each other to be granted a global status. For anything we accept as global, there is a hidden series of pretenders wanting to be global too and waiting for the moment to move into the foreground and grab society’s attention.

This ultimate phase is partly reminiscent of Martin Albrow’s account of the global age (1996). However, Albrow only considers the global age in contrast with the modern age, while I distinguish between four forms of spatial division along a sequence made up of four phases. Furthermore, references made to the world as one single place seem unproblematic in Albrow’s analysis, whereas I understand them as stakes in a competition game, which means that some references ends up attracting more attention than others.

Conclusion

Table 1 recapitulates the features of each form of spatial division, while Figure 1 shows the sequence leading to the practice of comparing states with states interchangeably.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Table 1.

Forms of spatial division.

	Stratified	Heterogeneous	Homogeneous and meta-division
Units and states	i. No units are states	Some units are states and some are not	All units are states
	ii. Some units are states and some are not
Content and rights	Dissimilar in content	Dissimilar in content	Similar in content
	Unequal in rights	Equal in rights	Equal in rights
Images of world-order	Gemeinschaft 2	Gesellschaft 1	Gesellschaft 1
	Gemeinschaft 1 (asymmetrical version)	Gemeinschaft 1 (symmetrical version)	Gesellschaft 2
Latent problem	Which unit goes on the top of the spatial division?	Which unit must be admitted in the spatial division?	What is global and what is not?

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 1.

The evolution of forms of spatial division.

No doubt, this is a rough sketch. In all likelihood, the present results are temporary only. At this stage, I think there is a value in them anyway, for the reason that they can help us in doing justice to the complexity of our times. Not only can we see globalization as one discursive practice, but we can also detect the layers of forgotten meanings that have contributed successively to launch this practice in activity. Moreover, even though globalization has grown out of them through a series of deviations, the other forms of spatial division have not been completely dismissed in this process. As shown in Figure 1, they may still exist today along with globalization. Through them, we can account for the diverging points of view on globalization. For instance, globalization would mean imperialism in the context of heterogeneous division or universalization in the context of stratified division. All the while, we remain aware of the anachronism going on here. For the same reason, the present results also guard us against a great deal of reification. Quite clearly, they leave room for multiple framing categories. Rather that falling prisoner to any one of them, we can move freely from one category to another as needed, while mapping out social reality in its manifold dimensions.

In finishing, I would like to reaffirm the main strategic choices I have made in this article. The goal was to expose the complexity that goes in discoursing about the world in terms of globalization. This complexity has not been attributed to globalization as one large-scale phenomenon which could be analytically isolated (like urbanization or industrialization), but to the historical conditions making this discourse possible. Hence, instead of depicting globalization as a multifaceted object, I have pointed to the distinction between what is global and what is local as a device allowing for the coordination of selectivity, even in conflict. Rather than forcing a predetermined content on the definition of globalization, I have suggested that having to agree on the precise contours of globalization gives people today an opportunity to step into action in the course of communication. In that sense, my priority has not been ‘to do the work for others’. This is in contrast to Sassen (2007), for example, who seeks to identify what is global and what is local for the ‘benefit’ of the rest of us. But there is a hidden cost to ‘benefits’ like this, for they require us to continue ignoring the distinction between first-order and second-order observation. Rather than confining myself within the frame of globalization, I have attempted to escape from it – not so as to forget about it, but so as to contemplate it from the outside and envision it along with other alternative frames; hence the motivation for articulating numerous forms of spatial division while limiting globalization as a self-description of society to one of them.