Globalisation is a contentious subject, much criticised in street protests as well as in seminar rooms. But though many of the critics claim to defend the interests of ordinary people in the developing world, the voices of those people themselves have seldom been given as much attention as those of western protestors and academics.

Globalisation – in Stiglitz's working definition: ‘the closer integration of countries and peoples of the world’ (2002, p. 9) – is a process usually viewed from above. Our own perspective is less Olympian. We are interested in globalisation not viewed as a world-wide process but from the perspective of the public in developing countries, who see it as an external challenge to their own country or locality. For them, the key questions are about greater economic and cultural ‘openness’ to an external, rapidly integrating world; about participation in multi-national or supra-national organisations; and about embracing or resisting the inward flow of foreign ideas, customs, symbols, capital, and personnel, as well as foreign technology, economic goods and services.

From a democratic perspective, grass-roots public opinion is important in itself. But even in countries that are only partially democratic, or not democratic at all, grass-roots opinion can be important. Indeed governments may be more exposed to public opinion in such countries just because they have so little ‘process-legitimacy’. The climate of public opinion affects elites and elite policy in most contemporary societies. It can always influence, if not determine policy.