Globalisation and Sustainable Development: Quest for a New Paradigm

After the collapse of Soviet Union and its Marxist-Leninist economic and political model of development the Washington consensus inspired model of economic and political development popularly known as Globalization became the new mantra, the panacea to cure all societal ills, and the only option to raise global humanity from poverty, ill health, and political oppression. There is no doubt that it lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, however its many gains were not equally or even near equally distributed. Economic inequality, human rights suffered specially in China and several countries in Eastern Europe, environmental degradation, unemployment, unregulated and unbridled dominance by multinationals (mostly Western, Americans ) brought about unprecedented economic crisis and social fragmentation. These developments raised serious doubts and questions about the viability of globalization model. The "discontent with globalization" forced academics and policymakers to reevaluate other alternatives. The present anthology discusses some of these issues in a comparative context by presenting alternative models to Western unregulated free market Globalization model.