1. What are the characteristics of the ideal-typical bureaucracy? What are some of the ways the ideal-typical bureaucracy is unrealistic?

2. It is often the case that those who occupy offices lower in the bureaucratic hierarchy have greater knowledge and competence than those who rank above them. What does this suggest about the ideal-typical bureaucracy? Can you think of examples from your own experiences where this has been the case?

3. According to Weber, what are the three types of legitimate authority? How is rational-legal authority related to Weber’s concept of bureaucracy?

4. Over the last several decades, what changes have bureaucratic organizations undergone? How are these changes reflective of increasing globalization?

5. What is informationalism, and how has it affected the global economy? How is the emergence of informationalism related to the development of new communication technologies like the Internet, social networking sites, and smartphones?

6. How has the process of globalization threatened the nation-state? What sorts of barriers have nation-states developed to limit global flows? What sorts of flows have nation-states been unable to limit?

7. What sorts of things flow most easily around the world? What flows less easily or even not at all?

8. Discuss each of Appadurai’s landscapes, with special focus on the disjunctures (with examples) among and between them. What are the implications of these disjunctures for the process of globalization?

9. How are network organizations different from classic bureaucracies? In what ways are network organizations reflective of what Thomas Friedman calls the “flat world”?

10. How are open-source technologies reflective of a more fluid and open world? What structural barriers have transnational corporations created to limit these open-source technologies? What do you think is going to be the direction of the future? Why?