Is globalization a code word for americanization? : contemplating McDonalds, Coca-Cola, and military bases

In ‘Is Globalization a code word for Americanization?’, the author shows how globalization scholarship ignores the role of the American nation-state in shaping that process, while Americanists and historians of American history have had a blind spot in seeing the u.s. in global terms. Cast as a weak nation-state institutionally and anti-imperial in comparison with European colonial powers, scholarship had a difficulty to see the u.s. state as a global actor. Globalization, however, cannot be understood without analyzing the hegemonic power of the u.s. nation-state that has been crucial in shaping international and transnational politics and institutions during the twentieth century. Future research will therefore have to analyze in a historically grounded fashion the u.s. nation- state in relationship with corporate business and civil-society organizations to map the politics and institutions that have shaped globalization in the era that has been rightfully called the ‘American Century’