Volume 9, Issue 1 -

This study examines the impact of globalization on the emergence of human trafficking as a transnational security threat. The author discusses the relationship between globalization and violent non-state actors (VNSAs), seeing human trafficking as one of VNSAs threatening the state in the age of globalization. The erosion of state sovereignty and emergence of transnational organized crime are analyzed in an attempt to understand the role of globalization in transforming human trafficking into a transnational challenge.

This article argues that the evolution of, and challenges to, sustainable development cannot be understood completely outside its contemporary global context, consisting mainly of three interconnected spheres, i.e., the global governance system, the North-South debate, and global trade liberalization. As the boundaries of these three spheres get more and more blurred in a context of an intensifying globalization, the project of sustainable development is very often faced with obstacles that set back its evolution and might very well bring it to a halt. Above all, sustainable development is now caught in the crossfire between the push for exponential economic growth, on the one hand, and a compelling need to reverse catastrophic ecological threats and social exigencies, on the other. More often than not, the current structure and scope of global governance constitutes more of a hindrance than a help to the emerging paradigm of sustainable development. Accordingly, this article seeks to pinpoint the different challenges to the implementation of sustainable development in the field of global governance and to discuss to what extent these challenges are inherent in the structure and scope of this system. In a similar vein, this article examines and discusses the challenges to sustainability within two other highly interrelated spheres, namely global trade and the North-South politics. With this end in view, a special focus is placed throughout this paper on the interconnectedness of, and overlap between, these three global spheres and the determinant role played by the major actors therein.

With the recent pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, here is one of the most intriguing questions of our time – what is China’s political destiny? For some, the answer seems self-evident: world domination. Martin Jacques and many other China watchers say it is not “if” but “when China rules the world”. But the burning question is, how will China rule itself? How will it survive as a stable and centralized state through its economic and global make-over as a superpower? What will the political future of this vast and rapidly evolving nation look like? Will China have a democracy? Perhaps the answers to these questions can be found in another time and place – in Britain during the so-called long eighteenth century (1688–1832) – where we can see parallels between the forces that helped transform Britain into the global superpower of the nineteenth century and those that underpin China’s modern-day transformation. This article argues that these forces will set China on the path to democracy in the same way they helped change the political dimensions of Britain.

Marshall Hodgson’s scholarship, notably his contribution of the “Islamicate” to the study of Islamic civilization, parallels the work of other legendary world historians, notably Arnold Toynbee, Fernand Braudel and William McNeill. Hodgson’s work is unique in distinguishing the religious – that is, Islamic – aspects of history from the non-Muslim cultural and scientific aspects of this history as well as the roles played by non-Muslims who happened to be ruled by Muslims. Hodgson also emphasized continuities between Islamicate civilization and the wider world. In so doing, Hodgson was a precursor of much of today’s global history, from his criticism of Eurocentrism to his extensive study of cultural and historical interconnections and interdependencies. This essay reintroduces a few of Hodgson’s contributions and makes the case for greater scholarly attention to his work.