Stratification and global elite theory: A cross-cultural and longitudinal analysis of public opinion

Many scholars have argued that globalization involves the emergence of a global elite, who are attached more to supra-national identities than others, who remain more local. Two variants of the global elite can be found in the literature: cosmopolitan and capitalist. This literature suggests more broadly that cross-nationally stratification has a consistent influence on attitudes pertinent to globalization such as support for global economic institutions. Using a social stratification approach, we examined nine developed societies from the World Values Survey to test whether stratification is related to attitudes towards globalization, and find only modest support for the contention that the upper strata become more cosmopolitan and more capitalist, or in a word, more global. The evidence suggests that the attitudinal globalization of the upper strata in developed economies is temporary and does not occur simultaneously in all countries, and that it does not increase consistently over time.