Whereas the globalisation process seems to be gaining in momentum and magnitude in every industrialised country and almost every developing country, it has become one of the main stakes in the democratic debate without public opinion always heard or listened to on the issue. It is thus that in France as in the United States, recent opinion polls indicate a chasm between a certain ruling élite, which is broadly favourable to globalisation, and a public whose perception, if not always negative, is at least far more qualified. In addition, another chasm has opened up within public opinion between those categories that are relatively well-off and those categories that are relatively less well-off. And globalisation, if it is not the cause of all the troubles of these latter categories, manages at least to represent a majority of their frustrations, thereby fuelling a crisis in representative democracy whichis latently taking hold in industrialised countries.

This content is published in French - Perceptions de la mondialisation en France et aux Etats-Unis