Nicolò Addario

The essay deals with the definition and sociological explanation of globalization in a world-society. The difficulty of the theme springs up from the lack of a sufficient degree of abstraction in modern sociological theory. The basic assumption of the Autor is that, during the transition from the modern society to the so-called world-society, the principal form of functional differentiation produces new forms of non-functional differentiation. The world divides itself between a centre and a periphery and at the same time the distinction springs up another time inside the periphery. That means new forms of patronage and new forms of relation between inclusion and exclusion in social systems. In this way what is normally called «under-development» can be re-interpreted, in a evolutionary perspective, as a new modernity.