Shmuel N. Eisenstadt has fundamentally modified the classical theory of modernization. Over the course of his work, which is connected with the changes of sociological theory since the 1950s, he has executed a turn from the comparative analysis of institutions to the research program of comparative civilizations. The research program of multiple modernities has emerged out of this attentional shift coming from the First Research Program 1986, which led to “multiple modernities” and to the Second Research Program 2003. A key milestone was the critique of the theory of structural differentiation as the main process underlying the socio­structural evolution of societies; this began with The Political Systems of Empires (1963), along with the development of convergence theories of modernization, which have had impact on contemporary sociological theory beginning with that same book. In the meantime, the research program of multiple modernities now continues into the Third Research Program of Multiple Modernities, Membership, and Globalization 2016 and its implementation (Preyer and Sussman, 2016a, b). Firstly, I will show how the program seeks to sketch an updated vision of the theoretical systematization of research on globalization since the 1990s. Secondly, I will go on to sketch the foci of research within the Third Research Program in our era of globalization; finally, I shall outline some consequences of changes in the research situation within sociological theory.