GPE Lectures Second Half
Lecture 7: The State and Rising Powers in the Global Economy
Overview of Lecture
1. Classical Definition of the State
2. GPE theories on the impacts of Globalization on the State
- Liberal Approaches
- Statist Approaches
- Critical Approaches: Historical materialist accounts
3. Rising Powers in the Global Economy
Neoliberal Globalization & the State
Max Weber Theory of the State
‘System of administration and law which is modified by state and law and which guides the
collective actions of the executive staff; the executive is regulated by statute likewise, and claims
authority over members of the association (those who necessarily belong to the association by
birth) but within a broader scope over all actively taking place in the territory over which it
exercises domination
Definition implies several points:
a. Modern state is a system of administration and law
b. Exercises domination over society
c. Its authority extends over all inhabitants of the geographical area
d. it is independent and autonomous from the society
e. State bureaucracy gives society a higher elemets of rationality and efficiency
State contains three crucial elements:
Territory: Must be able to enforce its laws over a particular geographical space.
Violence: To achieve order, it must be able to deploy coercive force, in the form of police, law
courts and prisons etc.
‘State is a relation of men dominating men, a relation supported by means of legitimate
violence.’
Legitimacy: To claim allegiance of the governed for the government.
,Karl Marx Instrumentalist Theory
Bourgeoise, since establishment of Modern Industry and of the world market, conquered for
itself, in the modern representative State, exclusive political sway. Executive of the modern state
is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoise.’
- State is merely in the hands of the dominant class
- Mechanisms through which the state works as an instrument of capital.
Personnel at the height of the state system (including the government, legislature, bureaucracy,
army and judiciary).
High-level state actors share a commitment to the rationality of capitalism and a ‘belief that the
national interest is inextricably bound up with wealth and strength of capitalist enterprise.’
Theory of the Integral State
- State Power: The capacity of social classes to realize their interests through state
apparatuses/institutions
- Two realms of the ‘political society’ (state’s apparatuses and institutions such as
government, judiciary and coercive apparatuses) and the ‘civil society’ (media, education
and non-governmental institutions and organizations) are inseparable
- Gramsci developed insights geared to explaining the state-civil society relationship
- Within the integral state conception, processes of consent (hegemony) in civil society are
just as important as openly coercive state rule (domination)
- Class power is created and maintained by coercion and consent through both formal
institutions of the state and civil society
GPE Theories on the Impacts of Globalization on the State
From the Keynesian to the Neoliberal State
Keynesian State
- Job creation
- Welfare Provision
- Redistribution
Neoliberal State
- Privatization
- Deregulation
- Competition promotion
- Spending cut to increase efficiency
,Liberal Approaches
Hyperglobalists:
- States are reduced to transmission belts to adjust national economies to the requirements
of global capital.
- States are reduced to providing infrastructure and other services to transnational
corporations
- TNCs are powerful new international actors deciding who gets what.
- Argument neglects three key elements (Colin Hay):
- Firms do not possess perfect information
- Movement in the global economy costs.
- Firms benefit from state intervention
The Transformationalists:
- Globalization is characterized by unprecedented structural changes, to which
governments must adjust.
- States are not on the retreat, but they are restructured and reconstituted
- Emergence of new powerful international actors created challenges for the state
- Led to emergence of the competition state.
‘Paradox of the competition state’
- Globalization can undermine the effectiveness and autonomy of domestic policymakers
- Globalization can lead to the expansion of state intervention and regulation to support
competitiveness and marketization.
Statist Approaches: Neorealism
Global Economy is subordinate to International Political System
1) Economic activity is subordinate to political goals
2) Economic Actors are subject to political authority
Not globalization, but internationalization of economic activities.
- States remain the only important actors in IR:
- Market Forces depend on regulatory power of states ensuring further liberalization and
basic regulation
States are not the victims of globalization, but the midwives
, - Inequality between states and the state rivalry leads to conflict, not to a global society and
culture.
Statist Approaches: DST
Developmental Sate Theory: ‘sufficient power, autonomy and capacity at the center to shape,
pursue and encourage the achievement of explicit developmental objectives’.
Theoretical approach to the role of the state in development
- Key to success of development in East Asia from Japan to South Korea and China
It is critical of neoliberal globalization and free trade orthodoxies
It argues that WTO has been ‘an industrial upgrading device for advanced countries,’ and an
industrial downgrading device for developing countries.’
- Any meaningful changes in the global economic structure in future depend on allowing
‘more government leadership’.
Critical Approaches: Historical Materialism
New Imperialism:
- State has reconfigured, but the demise of the state is a myth.
Despite increase in global networks of trade and investment, many national capitals remain
dependent on the support of their nation-state:
- Ranging from tariffs and subsidies to assertion of military power.
Regionalization Rather than Globalization:
- Three centers of economic and political power of Western Europe, North America and
East Asia.
Ongoing economic crisis that started in early 1970s necessitates conflicts of interest between
these power centers.
Informal Empire Thesis:
- Internalization of production and finance dissolves the unity of the old national capital
classes.
- Construction of an ‘informal empire’ by the US has subordinated the other major
capitalist states to the American empire.
- Focuses a lot of the US
Lecture 7: The State and Rising Powers in the Global Economy
Overview of Lecture
1. Classical Definition of the State
2. GPE theories on the impacts of Globalization on the State
- Liberal Approaches
- Statist Approaches
- Critical Approaches: Historical materialist accounts
3. Rising Powers in the Global Economy
Neoliberal Globalization & the State
Max Weber Theory of the State
‘System of administration and law which is modified by state and law and which guides the
collective actions of the executive staff; the executive is regulated by statute likewise, and claims
authority over members of the association (those who necessarily belong to the association by
birth) but within a broader scope over all actively taking place in the territory over which it
exercises domination
Definition implies several points:
a. Modern state is a system of administration and law
b. Exercises domination over society
c. Its authority extends over all inhabitants of the geographical area
d. it is independent and autonomous from the society
e. State bureaucracy gives society a higher elemets of rationality and efficiency
State contains three crucial elements:
Territory: Must be able to enforce its laws over a particular geographical space.
Violence: To achieve order, it must be able to deploy coercive force, in the form of police, law
courts and prisons etc.
‘State is a relation of men dominating men, a relation supported by means of legitimate
violence.’
Legitimacy: To claim allegiance of the governed for the government.
,Karl Marx Instrumentalist Theory
Bourgeoise, since establishment of Modern Industry and of the world market, conquered for
itself, in the modern representative State, exclusive political sway. Executive of the modern state
is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoise.’
- State is merely in the hands of the dominant class
- Mechanisms through which the state works as an instrument of capital.
Personnel at the height of the state system (including the government, legislature, bureaucracy,
army and judiciary).
High-level state actors share a commitment to the rationality of capitalism and a ‘belief that the
national interest is inextricably bound up with wealth and strength of capitalist enterprise.’
Theory of the Integral State
- State Power: The capacity of social classes to realize their interests through state
apparatuses/institutions
- Two realms of the ‘political society’ (state’s apparatuses and institutions such as
government, judiciary and coercive apparatuses) and the ‘civil society’ (media, education
and non-governmental institutions and organizations) are inseparable
- Gramsci developed insights geared to explaining the state-civil society relationship
- Within the integral state conception, processes of consent (hegemony) in civil society are
just as important as openly coercive state rule (domination)
- Class power is created and maintained by coercion and consent through both formal
institutions of the state and civil society
GPE Theories on the Impacts of Globalization on the State
From the Keynesian to the Neoliberal State
Keynesian State
- Job creation
- Welfare Provision
- Redistribution
Neoliberal State
- Privatization
- Deregulation
- Competition promotion
- Spending cut to increase efficiency
,Liberal Approaches
Hyperglobalists:
- States are reduced to transmission belts to adjust national economies to the requirements
of global capital.
- States are reduced to providing infrastructure and other services to transnational
corporations
- TNCs are powerful new international actors deciding who gets what.
- Argument neglects three key elements (Colin Hay):
- Firms do not possess perfect information
- Movement in the global economy costs.
- Firms benefit from state intervention
The Transformationalists:
- Globalization is characterized by unprecedented structural changes, to which
governments must adjust.
- States are not on the retreat, but they are restructured and reconstituted
- Emergence of new powerful international actors created challenges for the state
- Led to emergence of the competition state.
‘Paradox of the competition state’
- Globalization can undermine the effectiveness and autonomy of domestic policymakers
- Globalization can lead to the expansion of state intervention and regulation to support
competitiveness and marketization.
Statist Approaches: Neorealism
Global Economy is subordinate to International Political System
1) Economic activity is subordinate to political goals
2) Economic Actors are subject to political authority
Not globalization, but internationalization of economic activities.
- States remain the only important actors in IR:
- Market Forces depend on regulatory power of states ensuring further liberalization and
basic regulation
States are not the victims of globalization, but the midwives
, - Inequality between states and the state rivalry leads to conflict, not to a global society and
culture.
Statist Approaches: DST
Developmental Sate Theory: ‘sufficient power, autonomy and capacity at the center to shape,
pursue and encourage the achievement of explicit developmental objectives’.
Theoretical approach to the role of the state in development
- Key to success of development in East Asia from Japan to South Korea and China
It is critical of neoliberal globalization and free trade orthodoxies
It argues that WTO has been ‘an industrial upgrading device for advanced countries,’ and an
industrial downgrading device for developing countries.’
- Any meaningful changes in the global economic structure in future depend on allowing
‘more government leadership’.
Critical Approaches: Historical Materialism
New Imperialism:
- State has reconfigured, but the demise of the state is a myth.
Despite increase in global networks of trade and investment, many national capitals remain
dependent on the support of their nation-state:
- Ranging from tariffs and subsidies to assertion of military power.
Regionalization Rather than Globalization:
- Three centers of economic and political power of Western Europe, North America and
East Asia.
Ongoing economic crisis that started in early 1970s necessitates conflicts of interest between
these power centers.
Informal Empire Thesis:
- Internalization of production and finance dissolves the unity of the old national capital
classes.
- Construction of an ‘informal empire’ by the US has subordinated the other major
capitalist states to the American empire.
- Focuses a lot of the US
