In both popular and scholarly work, ‘globalization’ is generally conceptualized as a social fact; an external force constraining action. The range of conceptualizations is vast: authors writing for popular audiences such as Thomas Friedman and Naomi Klein conceptualize it as the emergence of a global information grid, and the global spread of corporate brands culture, respectively (Klein 1999, Friedman 1999). On the scholarly side, Marxist authors generally conceptualize it as a stage of capitalist development and the emergence of a transnational capitalist class (e.g. Robinson 1999, Harvey 2005, Abdal & Ferreira 2021). World society scholars conceptualize the phenomenon as the global diffusion of norms and practices (Meyer et al. 1997, Meyer 2000). Though these conceptualizations differ significantly, they share the contention that ‘globalization’ is a phenomenon that exists in the social world, and can be analyzed as a stand-alone social object with immutable characteristics.This dissertation is dedicated to articulating an alternative theory of globalization; a ‘relational’ theory of the phenomenon. This means conceptualizing it not as a discrete social object with unique characteristics that can be isolated from the context in which it is deployed, but rather as inextricable from its cultural and linguistic construction. The relational approach is not limited to the reconceptualization of a single social object like globalization, but is a wholesale philosophical shift in how social science is often conducted (Emirbayer 1997). However, conceptualizing globalization as a relational social object carries unique challenges, while creating novel ways of understanding recent international history. Understanding globalization as a social fact helps social scientists and the general public make sense of the last two to three decades of world history. It is held responsible for a vast array

of changes that have occurred during this period: the decline of American manufacturing, the emergence of China as a global power, the erosion of traditional cultures, the ascendance of a global financial oligarchy, amongst many others. Arguing that these changes cannot be tied back to a single dynamic undermines common explanations for them. If globalization does not exist ‘out there,’ what accounts for these changes? A relational approach to social science resists ascribing causal power over a wide and complex array of dynamics to a single theory. ‘Globalization’ has functioned as an analytical shorthand to reduce the complexity of recent history into a single concept. But, in order to account for the extreme scope of dynamics that it is meant to encompass, it cannot maintain analytical coherence. This is especially true on the level of individual social action, of which explanations belie efforts to be subsumed into high order concepts like globalization.On the other hand, a relational theory of globalization carries its own challenges. One is naturally inclined to seek its social construction in history, but because it is such a broad and all-encompassing concept, it is difficult to identify its construction without imposing parameters on the concept inductively, belying the relational impulse. If the analyst is inclined to err on the side of specificity, one can limit the analysis to its most recent usage, and look no earlier than the 1980s and 1990s when it became the term of art to describe the world. However, on the opposite side of the spectrum, one could proceed with an infinitely-general conceptualization of the concept, and locate its construction in early human civilization (e.g. Sachs 2020). This dissertation adopts the latter approach, albeit providing a hypothetical account of its early construction to set the historical foundation for the case studies. The empirical portion of this dissertation applies the relational theory of globalization to provide a granular account of its construction since the Second World War. This narrative pays

significant attention to the social and cultural context in which American foreign policy practitioners were engaging with the concept, so as to fully-illuminate its social construction. From the Second World War to the early 1990s, the apogee of globalization, the narrative shows how the concept went from a tenuous diagnosis of a barely-discernible change taking place in international life, to the orienting paradigm of American foreign policy, succeeding the conflict with the Soviet Union as the country’s highest international priority. Through this narrative account, I show that globalization did not emerge externally from social actors to constrain the action of people and states, but was a perception of a changing international environment that carried with it professional implications for its articulators and political implications for American foreign policy, and thus the wider world.