The Global Configurations of Inequality: Stratification, Global Inequalities, and the Global Social Structure (with Florian Schumacher) (original) (raw)

The chapter is an introduction to the subject of global inequality. Simultaneously it is a reflection of different classical sociological approaches on social differentiation and of the current discourses on global social differentiation. Consequently, the sociological concepts of social differentiation are presented as three different lines of thought. Thereafter, the main theories of globalization are discussed in an effort to highlight the global forms of stratification. Although inequality plays a prominent role in nearly every book published on globalization, we argue that a comprehensive theory of globalization must account for the structural effects and large-scale changes of inequality on the micro and macro level. Building up on the famous distinction of Ronald Robertson (1992) we treat inequality as a culturally glocalized phenomenon, i.e. integrating both the global and the local effects of inequality to the analysis of global inequality. In a nutshell, we argue that globalization has two structural effects on social stratification. On the one hand, it creates glocal inequalities on a local level. On the other hand, it shapes the social structure on the global level. Consequently, the empirical dimensions of global inequality are displayed and contextualized in a final step. The chapter concludes by summarizing the consequences from the empirical analysis of global inequality for prospective globalization theory.