Impact The demonstrations in Seattle did not halt
the globalization process or WTO lobbying for addi-
tional free trade agreements, although the latter did
abate in the early years of the twenty-first century as a
result of the absence of consensus among WTO
member states on the topic of agricultural policy re-
form. Nor did the injuries suffered by Seattle’s
antiglobalization protesters from the pepper spray
and the club-wielding law-enforcement agents cause
demonstrators to reconsider their methods. Quite
to the contrary, the protests in Seattle drew head-
lines throughout the world, and publicity is the life
blood of those seeking to get their cause before a
wide audience.
However, Seattle did have two important conse-
quences for the future scheduling of WTO meet-
ings, as well as those of the World Bank and Interna-
tional Monetary Fund (IMF)—who are perceived by
antiglobalization activists as the WTO’s partners in
the “unholy trinity” of the contemporary global
order—and (G8) summits involving the leaders of
the world’s major economic powers. First, local law-
enforcement agencies (excluding Czech authorities
at the time of the 2000 World Bank and IMF summit
in Prague) appear to have learned to be better pre-
pared for such protests and to handle them, insofar
as possible, less provocatively. Thus, in anticipation
of the coming protests by the 10,000 who had gath-
ered in Washington, D.C., in 2000 to protest at a
World Bank meeting, District of Columbia police
sealed off the major routes leading to the bank’s
headquarters, and with access to the bank itself de-
nied, the protests unfolded in a largely orderly man-
ner. Second, WTO, IMF, World Bank, European
Union, and others affecting the contemporary
global economic order have increasingly scheduled
their meetings in hard- or expensive-to-access areas
(like Hong Kong, or Qatar, the host of the 2001
WTO summit). Still, rarely have their meetings
passed unnoticed, and if the past is any indicator of
the near future, as the pace of globalization again in-
creases, so too will the number of well-organized and
sometimes violent antiglobalization protests.
Further Reading
Bhagwati, Jagdish.In Defense of Globalization. Rev. ed.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. A useful
discussion of globalization for the lay reader.
Broad, Robin.Global Backlash: Citizen Initiatives for a
Just World Economy. Lanham, Md.: Roman &
Littlefield, 2002. An in-depth look at globaliza-
tion protests.
Friedman, Thomas.The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Un-
derstanding Globalization. New York: Farrar, Straus
and Giroux, 1999. The author of the best-selling
bookThe World Is Flat: A Brief Histor y of the Twenty-
first Centur y(2005) examines the benefits of and
resistance to globalization.
Legrain, Philippe.Open World: the Truth About Global-
ization. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2004. A positive view
of globalization by a former correspondent for
The Economist.
Podobnik, Bruce, and Thomas Ehrlich Reifer. “Global
Social Movements Before and After 9/11.”Journal
of World-Systems Research10, no. 1 (Winter, 2004).
Special issue.
Joseph R. Rudolph, Jr.See also Air pollution; Automobile industry; Busi-
ness and the economy in the United States; Down-
sizing and restructuring; Employment in the United
States; Global warming debate; North American Free
Trade Agreement (NAFTA). World Wide Web
Definition A system of interlinked hypertext
documents and media files that can be accessed
over the Internet and viewed in a Web browser
As the World Wide Web became a reality, information on the
Web was more accessible to individuals, businesses, and or-
ganizations. As the Web improved over the 1990’s, individ-
uals were able to make more informed personal decisions;
businesses developed more agile management structures,
and organizations expanded their scope.
In 1990, Tim Berners-Lee used the term “the World
Wide Web” to describe how all the information on
the Internet could be treated as a connected whole.
At that time he also recognized that, with the right
technology, all of this information could be viewed
in a Web browser by anyone, anywhere in the world.
During this period, he developed the first browser
and a primitive Web server. In 1994, he founded
the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which
became the principal standards body for Web devel-
opment. Berners-Lee continued his work on the
Web throughout the 1990’s and today is a leader in
developing the Semantic Web, an attempt to de-The Nineties in America World Wide Web 941