Globalization and localism: at the roots of political transformations.

The objective of the article is to analyse and describe the recent development in the ways politics is thought of and enacted. The hypothesis is based on the idea that the recent course has been influenced by changes in the relationships between politics and economy, which contribute to shape social interactions between States, organizations and individuals. The article is divided in three pans: in the first some of the meanings of globalization are discussed; in the second, the idea that the meanings of politics depend on the spatial and historical context is illustrated by an example drawn from a modem Western European country; in the third pan the issue of the relationship between politics and social regulation is considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]