Paul Cammack
The University of Manchester, Global Development Institute, Department Member
A brilliant foundational account of mobile workers in the world market
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Must-read new foundation for understanding contemporary social life.
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A brilliant contribution to world literature, destined to be a classic. Review contains multiple spoilers, so I suggest you buy and read the novel first.
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A bid to assert the hegemony of cosmopolitan liberalism over more critical approaches
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A fundamental contribution on capitalism and social reproduction
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Why the World Bank hates informal labour markets
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A heartfelt polemic, with some analytical flaws.
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An excruciatingly bad book - ill-conceived, clumsily executed, pretentious, and far too long.
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A psychosexual melodrama that has nothing to do with capitalism at all!
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The Case of the Wrong Stick
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Not very good, I'm afraid.
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More mythmaking than worldmaking.
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Shock therapy, Jim? Not as we know it.
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Over-complicated, but still worth reading
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No political economy, please, we're sociologists
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A great read, that takes you to the heart of Gurnah's fictional world.
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Highly readable and informative, but wrong about Marx and Maurice Dobb
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Excellent advanced introduction that could not be more timely.
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A sophisticated introduction to Marx's method that never loses sight of its aim to be a practical guide for researchers
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Special Issues on Blind spots in political economy/IPE. There are some good things here, but they do need searching out.
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Liberal international relations theory regresses to its roots.
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An excellent, systematic and wide-ranging study.
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A rich and authoritative introduction to the region.
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The everyday, made strange.
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The limits and sad demise of 'Social Europe'
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A joy to read, from start to finish
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An urgent and timely warning
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Brilliant insight into building the world market
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The perils of adding intersectionality and stirring
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What price femininity in the current conjuncture?
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A powerful and potentially path-breaking historical materialist analysis of successive gender orders.
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An illuminating study of an extreme case of instrumentalism
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Or, hard times for good political economy
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Blatant self-promotion - amazingly, it worked!
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How to build a global proletariat, Part 2.
Following on from WDR 2019: The Changing Nature of Work (https://whatsworthreading.weebly.com/changing-nature-of-work.html).
Following on from WDR 2019: The Changing Nature of Work (https://whatsworthreading.weebly.com/changing-nature-of-work.html).
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How the European Commission, the World Bank and the OECD plan to reshape global labour markets to intensify the extraction of surplus value from households - and how households play along.
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The kitchen as a school for neoliberal subjects
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Not the book the title promises
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Far and away the most brilliant text of 'second wave' feminism.
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Outstanding introduction and essential reading
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A flawed classic, but a classic all the same.
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A very bad book, on so many levels
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A classic materialist analysis, ahead of its time
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A Malaysian state project of global significance
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A new reading of a classic text
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A brilliant realisation of a lifelong intellectual project, and a fundamental turning point in contemporary Marxist theory.
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Last of a great series. But what kind of feminist is Kinsey Millhone?
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An excellent collection, providing much food for thought.
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Essential reading: an artful global capitalist manifesto that embraces Marx's general law of social production
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An indispensable source, but one that rather loses its way.
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This paper introduces my monograph, The Politics of Global Competitiveness, Oxford University Press, 2022
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When Marx and Engels thought about politics they did not take states as the starting point, but the world market.
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This short essay outlines Marx’s general law of social production, which is the basic theorem of the politics of global competitiveness.
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The relationship between 'Economic Europe' and 'Social Europe' is best understood in terms of the politics of global competitiveness.
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The victory of UK Uber drivers in gaining improved conditions is part of a broader shift in which the 'standard labour contract' and the relative protection from dismissal that it entailed is being replaced by a new standard that makes... more
The victory of UK Uber drivers in gaining improved conditions is part of a broader shift in which the 'standard labour contract' and the relative protection from dismissal that it entailed is being replaced by a new standard that makes all work precarious. What is a victory when considered in isolation marks the institutionalisation in law of a significant loss of labour rights.
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The OECD and the World Bank have always been committed to a global capitalist economy organised on liberal principles. They urge all governments to maximise the proportion of their population in employment, and to carry out reforms that... more
The OECD and the World Bank have always been committed to a global capitalist economy organised on liberal principles. They urge all governments to maximise the proportion of their population in employment, and to carry out reforms that will make those in work as productive as possible. Their response to COVID-19 is primarily of interest because it reveals the assumptions on which their analysis is based, and illustrates the speed and precision with which they identified and responded to both the challenges and opportunities the pandemic provided. When the pandemic broke out, they already had in place a policy framework that analysed health and other emergencies in accordance with the goal of promotion of capitalism on a global scale. Within this framework, they have addressed the threats that COVID-19 poses and sought to make it as productive as possible for their continuing commitment to furthering the politics of global competitiveness. Despite significant setbacks their central objective, the development of the world's population as a resource for global capital, remains unchanged. It is likely to be pursued more intensively than ever by governments around the world in the wake of the pandemic-not because the OECD or the World Bank says so, but because more than ever today the immanent laws of capital, which are the point of departure for both organisations, oblige all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production.
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World Bank poverty reduction strategies papers (PRSP) in the first years of the present century represented a shift from a narrowly conceived neoliberal agenda to a broader one focused on creating a climate for investment and... more
World Bank poverty reduction strategies papers (PRSP) in the first years of the present century represented a shift from a narrowly conceived neoliberal agenda to a broader one focused on creating a climate for investment and characterized by positive state action to promote competitiveness in product, capital and labour markets. While 'sound macroeconomic policy' remained a bedrock of poverty reduction, PRSPs went far beyond
this in order to reshape social relations and the relationship between citizens, markets and the state. This paper argues that in its general policy orientation the World Bank now promotes an agenda shared with other international and multilateral agencies,
especially the OECD, focused on building the human capital of workers, expanding employment, and making labour markets ever more competitive. The focus of the paper, therefore, is on the relationship between poverty reduction and the politics of
competitiveness. The paper discusses (i) the common ground between the ‘Washington Consensus’, the ‘Post-Washington Consensus’ and the strategy of global proletarianisation spelled out by the World Bank from 1990 onwards; (ii) the parallel
OECD/EU programme for restoring the hegemony of capital over labour in the developed world; and (iii) the current conventional wisdom of the international and regional institutions concerned with global economic governance. The conclusion assesses the
complementarity and contradictions between poverty reduction strategies and universal competitiveness.
this in order to reshape social relations and the relationship between citizens, markets and the state. This paper argues that in its general policy orientation the World Bank now promotes an agenda shared with other international and multilateral agencies,
especially the OECD, focused on building the human capital of workers, expanding employment, and making labour markets ever more competitive. The focus of the paper, therefore, is on the relationship between poverty reduction and the politics of
competitiveness. The paper discusses (i) the common ground between the ‘Washington Consensus’, the ‘Post-Washington Consensus’ and the strategy of global proletarianisation spelled out by the World Bank from 1990 onwards; (ii) the parallel
OECD/EU programme for restoring the hegemony of capital over labour in the developed world; and (iii) the current conventional wisdom of the international and regional institutions concerned with global economic governance. The conclusion assesses the
complementarity and contradictions between poverty reduction strategies and universal competitiveness.
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ABSTRACT A critique of the response of the global financial institutions to the current crisis. It is one of the key precepts of the 'political economy of reform' that every crisis is an opportunity to be exploited to drive reform... more
ABSTRACT A critique of the response of the global financial institutions to the current crisis. It is one of the key precepts of the 'political economy of reform' that every crisis is an opportunity to be exploited to drive reform forward. True to form, the international organisations and their G-20 allies have used the current crisis to their advantage. They have greatly reinforced the power of the IMF in particular, with the intention of tightening further the disciplinary power of capital, in line with a project under way for two decades. In this context, proposals to introduce an unconditional IMF Flexible Credit Line and to democratise the Bretton Woods institutions are traps for the unwary. Rather than empowering the poor in the developing world they legitimise and intensify mechanisms that subject them to closer control and exploitation by capital. The response of the IFIs to the global crisis – highly successful so far – has taken the form of a carefully staged illusion dependent on the magician's art of misdirection. However, their own recent publications, analysed here, give their secrets away. As a general rule, the more progressive these proposals for reform seem to be, the more dangerous they are.
The paper argues that the EU's 'Open method of Coordination' was primarily intended to strengthen the capacity of the EU to promote an agenda of competitiveness, rather than a social agenda opposed to pro-market reforms, and suggests that... more
The paper argues that the EU's 'Open method of Coordination' was primarily intended to strengthen the capacity of the EU to promote an agenda of competitiveness, rather than a social agenda opposed to pro-market reforms, and suggests that the policies of the UN's Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean took a similar approach.
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The empirical observation that the dynamics of economic, social, political and cultural change in the contemporary world are increasingly shaped by the pursuit and promotion of capitalist competitiveness provides the starting point for... more
The empirical observation that the dynamics of economic, social, political and cultural change in the contemporary world are increasingly shaped by the pursuit and promotion of capitalist competitiveness provides the starting point for the research programme set out here. Not only are the vast majority of governments around the world explicitly pursuing competitiveness in the global capitalist economy through the reorientation of social and economic policies, but international organisations ranging from the IMF, the World Bank, and the regional development banks to the EU, the OECD, UNCTAD and the UNDP are all busy urging governments everywhere to reform the ‘business climate’ in order to promote investment and domestic entrepreneurship and stimulate competition. Crucially, the governments of the leading capitalist economies in the world are not pursuing competitiveness for themselves alone. They are actively promoting it too in other countries and regions of the global economy – in the ‘emerging markets’ and low and middle income countries which are their present and future competitors. It is this novel and distinctive feature of the global political economy – the systematic manner in which governments, along with organisations such as the OECD, promote competitiveness far beyond their own frontiers – which demands explanation, and which is the principal object of enquiry of the research programme set out here.
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There is a consensus among global governing elites and international institutions on policies appropriate for the alleviation of poverty. It centres on the restructuring of social institutions and relations to enhance competitiveness. The... more
There is a consensus among global governing elites and international institutions on policies appropriate for the alleviation of poverty. It centres on the restructuring of social institutions and relations to enhance competitiveness. The OECD, the World Bank, the UNDP and the UK are presented as examples.
Marx is generally reckoned to have had too little to say about what has come to be defined as ‘social reproduction’, largely as a consequence of too narrow a focus on industrial production, and a relative disregard for issues of gender.... more
Marx is generally reckoned to have had too little to say about what has come to be defined as ‘social reproduction’, largely as a consequence of too narrow a focus on industrial production, and a relative disregard for issues of gender. This paper argues in contrast that the approach he developed with Engels and in Capital, Volume 1, provides a powerful framework for its analysis. After an introductory discussion of recent literature on social reproduction the second section sets out Marx’s approach to the ‘production of life, both of one’s own in labour and of fresh life in procreation’. The third addresses his account of reproduction in Capital, Volume 1, Chapter 23. The fourth and fifth compare the relationship of the family to industry and exchange as depicted in Capital and in the present day respectively. The conclusion suggests some implications for theories of social reproduction.
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The emergence of the G20 leaders' meeting during the recent global financial crisis as the ‘premier forum for international economic cooperation’ reflects a significant shift of hegemony over global governance towards the emerging... more
The emergence of the G20 leaders' meeting during the recent global financial crisis as the ‘premier forum for international economic cooperation’ reflects a significant shift of hegemony over global governance towards the emerging economies but does not challenge the authority or objectives of the international financial institutions. On the contrary, successive G20 initiatives, culminating in the adoption of the Seoul Development Consensus for Shared Growth in November 2010, reveal both a further strengthening of the already close institutional relationship between the G20 and the Bretton Woods institutions and a strong shared commitment to a developmental form of global liberalism. This article charts the ascendancy of emerging economy perspectives through the lens of the G20, maps their ties to the IMF and other international organisations, sets out the content of the new global developmental liberalism, and assesses the implications of emerging economy hegemony for the advanced and the emerging economies, respectively.
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Successive White Papers on International Development issued by New Labour in 1997 and 2000 show its unconditional acceptance of the World Bank's promotion of the development of the world market on the basis of proletarianisation of the... more
Successive White Papers on International Development issued by New Labour in 1997 and 2000 show its unconditional acceptance of the World Bank's promotion of the development of the world market on the basis of proletarianisation of the poor.
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ABSTRACT
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... the inaugural Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) in Bangkok in March 1996, proposed originally by Singapore's prime minis-ter Goh Chok Tong, and ... of wholehearted support for the IMF's pre-scriptions that, in the words of the... more
... the inaugural Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) in Bangkok in March 1996, proposed originally by Singapore's prime minis-ter Goh Chok Tong, and ... of wholehearted support for the IMF's pre-scriptions that, in the words of the European trade commissioner, Sir Leon Brittan, 'would ...
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This article offers a critical review of the UNDP's understanding of human development, and of recent Human Development Reports, with a principal focus on those from 2010 to the present. It argues that they show that the UNDP is now fully... more
This article offers a critical review of the UNDP's understanding of human development, and of recent Human Development Reports, with a principal focus on those from 2010 to the present. It argues that they show that the UNDP is now fully aligned with the World Bank in its overall policy stance and its underlying logic, and that this marks the end of the project of setting market-led growth in a broader conception of human development that began with the first report (1990). The idea that the UNDP/HDR conception of human development represents an alternative to World Bank orthodoxy is a myth.
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The requirements of global economic liberalization do not fit with the requirements of democracy. I take the main characteristic of the environment of globalization to be the pressure on all states in the global system to restructure... more
The requirements of global economic liberalization do not fit with the requirements of democracy. I take the main characteristic of the environment of globalization to be the pressure on all states in the global system to restructure their economies and societies in order to survive and prosper in a competitive global capitalist economy in which production and exchange is increasingly organized along liberal lines.
This has far-reaching consequences for the relationship between capitalism and liberal democracy. In the past, its ideal-typical form combined management of both economic development and social provision by the state with a political system arising out of civil society
and remaining largely autonomous (a liberal polity, in other words, in a socio-economic framework managed by the state). In a future structured by globalization the ideal-typical pattern will be the reverse: an economic and social system shaped by liberal economic forces operating at a global level which states have limited capacity to resist, and a political system managed by the state in order to mitigate the consequences of global economic liberalism (a liberal economy, in other words, in a political framework managed by the state). States will take a more direct role in the management of their citizens, in order to compensate for their
decreasing inability to manage the broader social and political environment.Thus, globalization does not mean the end of the State, but possibly the end of liberal democracy.
This has far-reaching consequences for the relationship between capitalism and liberal democracy. In the past, its ideal-typical form combined management of both economic development and social provision by the state with a political system arising out of civil society
and remaining largely autonomous (a liberal polity, in other words, in a socio-economic framework managed by the state). In a future structured by globalization the ideal-typical pattern will be the reverse: an economic and social system shaped by liberal economic forces operating at a global level which states have limited capacity to resist, and a political system managed by the state in order to mitigate the consequences of global economic liberalism (a liberal economy, in other words, in a political framework managed by the state). States will take a more direct role in the management of their citizens, in order to compensate for their
decreasing inability to manage the broader social and political environment.Thus, globalization does not mean the end of the State, but possibly the end of liberal democracy.
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This paper summarises and builds on previous work of mine on the politics of global competitiveness, and in particular documents the emergence of a world market project at the OECD from the late 1970s onwards. It shows that OECD set out... more
This paper summarises and builds on previous work of mine on the politics of global competitiveness, and in particular documents the emergence of a world market project at the OECD from the late 1970s onwards. It shows that OECD set out to create a genuinely global capitalist economy, with the conscious intention of subjecting the advanced economies to intense competition from 'emerging economies'. It then addresses the complementarity with World Bank policy from 1990 onwards, identfying as a common theme the recognition of both organisations that the hegemony of global capital could not be secured unless the attitudes and behaviour of citizens around the world could be shaped to its requirements.
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Production and social reproduction have too often been treated as separate albeit related spheres. This paper proposes instead the concept of a ‘social production complex’, and reassesses on this basis the contributions of Marx and... more
Production and social reproduction have too often been treated as separate albeit related spheres. This paper proposes instead the concept of a ‘social production complex’, and reassesses on this basis the contributions of Marx and Engels, and the potential for a re-engagement of gendered Marxism and materialist feminism. Key concepts identified from classical marxism are technological revolution, the division of labour (in terms of both ‘varying labour’, which is discussed at length, and fragmented production), commodification, and the world market. A research agenda is briefly sketched out, supported by an extensive bibliography of recent work relevant to the global social production complex as outlined in the paper.
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This paper sees market building in Asia as part of the larger project of constructing a global market economy – a project which can be traced back to Adam Smith and, more recently, to the founding of a set of global liberal institutions... more
This paper sees market building in Asia as part of the larger project of constructing a global market economy – a project which can be traced back to Adam Smith and, more recently, to the founding of a set of global liberal institutions in the post-World War II period. In the last two decades the global liberal impulse behind the creation of
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The 2013 Human Development Report (The Rise of the South: Human Progress in a Diverse World, UNDP, New York) promotes and celebrates the global development of capitalism through free trade, equating it with human progress. It is... more
The 2013 Human Development Report (The Rise of the South: Human Progress in a Diverse World, UNDP, New York) promotes and celebrates the global development of capitalism through free trade, equating it with human progress. It is anticipated and exposed by a classical Marxist critique.
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This chapter will be published in Surya Deva, ed, Socio-Economic Rights in Emerging Free Markets: Comparative Insights from India and China, forthcoming, Routledge, 2015. The entry of China and India into the global economy involves... more
This chapter will be published in Surya Deva, ed, Socio-Economic Rights in Emerging Free Markets: Comparative Insights from India and China, forthcoming, Routledge, 2015.
The entry of China and India into the global economy involves not only the internal transformation of those two societies, but also a significant step towards what Marx called the ‘completion of the world market’ – the expansion of foreign trade and the transformation of social relations of production, and with that the intensification of competition across the global economy. They represent crucial cases, therefore, for the gang of four international organizations most closely concerned with the governance of labour markets, social policy and trade – the ILO, the OECD, the World Bank, and the WTO. Over the past two decades these organizations have converged, along with the IMF and the multilateral regional banks, on a programme aimed at reshaping socio-economic rights to make them consistent with and supportive of the rule of capital, and competitiveness in the global economy. This paper analyses the manner in which the Gang of Four seek to fit social and economic rights to the exigencies of the world market, and explores in detail the engagement of the OECD with China and India. The chapter shows that the four leading international organisations concerned with trade, employment, labour markets and social protection have converged on a set of policy prescriptions which centre on the imperative to reallocate labour towards higher productivity activity, and to tailor socio-economic rights to that end.
The entry of China and India into the global economy involves not only the internal transformation of those two societies, but also a significant step towards what Marx called the ‘completion of the world market’ – the expansion of foreign trade and the transformation of social relations of production, and with that the intensification of competition across the global economy. They represent crucial cases, therefore, for the gang of four international organizations most closely concerned with the governance of labour markets, social policy and trade – the ILO, the OECD, the World Bank, and the WTO. Over the past two decades these organizations have converged, along with the IMF and the multilateral regional banks, on a programme aimed at reshaping socio-economic rights to make them consistent with and supportive of the rule of capital, and competitiveness in the global economy. This paper analyses the manner in which the Gang of Four seek to fit social and economic rights to the exigencies of the world market, and explores in detail the engagement of the OECD with China and India. The chapter shows that the four leading international organisations concerned with trade, employment, labour markets and social protection have converged on a set of policy prescriptions which centre on the imperative to reallocate labour towards higher productivity activity, and to tailor socio-economic rights to that end.
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The building of markets in Asia is part of a larger project of constructing a global market economy, which can be traced back to the post-WW2 founding of a set of global liberal institutions. Since 1990 the global liberal impulse has... more
The building of markets in Asia is part of a larger project of constructing a global market economy, which can be traced back to the post-WW2 founding of a set of global liberal institutions. Since 1990 the global liberal impulse has gained momentum, in step with the emergence of a world market of genuinely global scale, and the issue of risk is central to it.The paper describes the global liberal project, offers a critical analysis of the difference between negative risks (external and internal) that pose a threat to the global liberal project, and the positive risks that the project seeks to embed and incentivise, outlines the treatment of risk in the literature on the ‘political economy of reform’, and provides a detailed analysis of Social Risk Management at the World Bank over the last decade. The conclusion briefly surveys the field of risk management across the wider range of global institutions, and reflects on the implications for ‘building markets in Asia’.
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Those that get their living by their daily labour … have nothing to stir them up to be serviceable but their wants which it is prudence to relieve, but folly to cure. … From what has been said, it is manifest, that, in a free nation,... more
Those that get their living by their daily labour … have nothing to stir them up to be serviceable but their wants which it is prudence to relieve, but folly to cure. … From what has been said, it is manifest, that, in a free nation, where slaves are not allowed of, the surest wealth consists in a multitude of laborious poor (Bernard de Mandeville,
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The World Bank has discovered that people are programmable, and some (poor people) are more programmable than others. So the 2015 World Development Report (Mind, Society and Behavior) has ditched the ‘rational actor’ model on which... more
The World Bank has discovered that people are programmable, and some (poor people) are more programmable than others. So the 2015 World Development Report (Mind, Society and Behavior) has ditched the ‘rational actor’ model on which neo-classical economics was built, as an impediment to the purposive transformation of society. It draws on a wide range of disciplines (behavioural economics, cognitive science, psychology, neuroscience) to ‘improve the design and implementation of development policies that target human choices and action,’ or in other words to turn our own cognitive capacity and sociality against us with the transparent objective of implanting the whole of humanity with the gene of conformity in thought and behaviour to the logic of globally competitive capitalism.
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The relationship between political development theory and the dissemination of democracy is a curious one. In the period when political development theory was most influential, efforts to disseminate democracy throughout the Third World... more
The relationship between political development theory and the dissemination of democracy is a curious one. In the period when political development theory was most influential, efforts to disseminate democracy throughout the Third World in line with its core values were notably unsuccessful. It later went into eclipse as a consequence of the failure of successive efforts at theory-building, from functional, cultural and comparative historical perspectives respectively. Despite this double failure, its core ideas have re-emerged as a dominant force in recent
democratization literature. This article outlines the core ideas of the literature, in which conservative elitism rather than modernization theory provides the unifying thread. It then traces the failure of political development theory as theory in the 1960s and 1970s, and the emergence thereafter of a politics of pragmatism in which the core values of conservative elitism survive intact. Finally, it suggests some of the reasons for its renewed ascendancy.
democratization literature. This article outlines the core ideas of the literature, in which conservative elitism rather than modernization theory provides the unifying thread. It then traces the failure of political development theory as theory in the 1960s and 1970s, and the emergence thereafter of a politics of pragmatism in which the core values of conservative elitism survive intact. Finally, it suggests some of the reasons for its renewed ascendancy.
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ABSTRACT
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Full-text of this article is available at http://www.49thparallel.bham.ac.uk/back/issue22/1_Cammack.pdf This paper subjects Joseph Nye’s advocacy of soft power (recently repackaged as ‘smart’ power) to critical scrutiny, and reflects on... more
Full-text of this article is available at http://www.49thparallel.bham.ac.uk/back/issue22/1_Cammack.pdf This paper subjects Joseph Nye’s advocacy of soft power (recently repackaged as ‘smart’ power) to critical scrutiny, and reflects on the implications for US global leadership. It shows that Nye’s position is far from multilateralist, still insisting as it does on hard power supremacy and the need for America to lead. It then argues that the case made is weak, both in theory (because of a misuse of collective action theory) and in practice (because of the evidence he himself provides that America is unable to provide constructive, co-operative leadership). It concludes that the best contribution that America could make to global stability would be to relinquish the claim to leadership, not only in cases where it is at odds with the international community, or widely seen as itself the source of instability, but particularly in cases where shared perspectives regarding common goals ...
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Benjamin Cohen's International Political Economy: An Intellectual History (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2008) is not a neutral history of how IPE was constructed as a discipline, as the author claims, but itself a... more
Benjamin Cohen's International Political Economy: An Intellectual History (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2008) is not a neutral history of how IPE was constructed as a discipline, as the author claims, but itself a construction of IPE. It is built on a number of empirically false claims, as Cohen himself openly acknowledges in the text itself. Yet these claims are essential to the project of constructing IPE as a new approach. It is argued here that the project is best understood as an ideology of institutional and intellectual power - as a justification of IPE on the grounds of the institutional space it has captured, and the latest in a series of attempts to banish Marxism from the academy. Viewed in this way, its intellectual incoherence is constitutive rather than casual, and therefore confirms the greater merits of a Marxist approach.
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A critical evaluation of the new elite paradigm proposed by Field, Higley and Burton suggests that it is beset by a number ofproblems. Two issues are explored: the relationship between consensual unity among elites and political... more
A critical evaluation of the new elite paradigm proposed by Field, Higley and Burton suggests that it is beset by a number ofproblems. Two issues are explored: the relationship between consensual unity among elites and political stability, and the role of elite settlements and two-step ...
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The argument of this paper is simple, but potentially far-reaching. It assumes that we are still a long way from seeing the realization of capitalism on a global scale as Marx and Engels envisaged it, but that a decisive qualitative... more
The argument of this paper is simple, but potentially far-reaching. It assumes that we are still a long way from seeing the realization of capitalism on a global scale as Marx and Engels envisaged it, but that a decisive qualitative change has been under way since the last quarter of the twentieth century, with the ‘completion of the world market’ in terms of exchange, and a decisive speeding up of the process of the transformation of the social relations of production across the world, against a background in which the real subsumption of labour to capital is still the exception rather than the rule. This latter process of transformation is particularly in evidence in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Against this background, I argue that the African, Asian and Inter-American Development Banks are uniformly devoted to promoting the transformation of the social relations of production in the regions which they cover, in ways that respond to a logic of global competitiveness, but vary in content in accordance with the current level and character of capitalist development and integration into the world market in each case. The argument is potentially far-reaching in its implications for theory because it implies that what we have experienced to date constitutes only the pre-history of capitalism on a global scale (with the consequence that pretty much all theory and analysis around it needs recalibrating), and that the convergent policy proposals of the MDBs in relation to Africa, Asia and Latin America give a first intimation of the character of a regulatory framework for capitalism on a global scale. I make this argument with particular reference to global value chains, labour markets, and social protection, and from the perspective of the critique of political economy pioneered by Marx and Engels from the 1840s on. In doing so I advance and illustrate a new materialist framework for the analysis of global capitalism. While sympathetic to though critical of the tradition of political economy (whether classical, international or global), the argument is hostile to post-1970 IR-derived ‘IPE’, and would rather see it abandoned than incorporated into the broader tradition.
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Accounts of the “new regionalism” two decades ago identified a growing trend towards co-ordinated state action at the regional level in pursuit of both security and political economy concerns – new in terms of its “bottom-up” character,... more
Accounts of the “new regionalism” two decades ago identified a growing trend towards co-ordinated state action at the regional level in pursuit of both security and political economy concerns – new in terms of its “bottom-up” character, post-Cold War logic, heterogeneous focus, and relation to globalisation. More recently, proponents of “regulatory regionalism” have suggested that regional projects reshape and transform states themselves. This article identifies an emerging “world market regionalism,” within which regions are addressed in terms of their position within the world market, and regional projects are strategically oriented towards the “completion of the world market” in its dual aspect as expansion of trade and transformation of social relations of production. The focus is on the purposive transformation of the region in pursuit of global competitiveness. A detailed account is given of such a project of world market regionalism developed over the last two decades at the Asian Development Bank. It is aimed at transforming the region, and individual states within it, into a space contributory to a wider global project aimed at “completing the world market” and transforming both the social relations of production and individual attitudes and behaviour.
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This is the third of three linked working papers which analyse the discourse produced by the Asian Development Bank, principally in successive Asian Development Outlooks, from 1996-7 onwards. Very extensive use is made of direct... more
This is the third of three linked working papers which analyse the discourse produced by the Asian Development Bank, principally in successive Asian Development Outlooks, from 1996-7 onwards. Very extensive use is made of direct quotation, in order to provide substantial illustration of the analysis offered. The papers will serve as a point of reference for more synthetic analysis to be developed elsewhere. It may be, too, that they will serve a purpose to other researchers interested in the arguments developed by the Bank over the period. An identical common introduction, setting out briefly the analytical framework adopted, appears in each of the three papers. It situates the analysis in a classical Marxist framework which interprets the production of discourse and ideas in their material context, presenting the ADB as a representative of 'Asian capital in general', committed to the development of capitalism on a global scale, and adapting its discourse from moment to moment in accordance with the changing material context – in the global economy, and in Asia. This third paper covers the period from 2008 to 2012. At its centre is the 'global financial crisis' and the Bank's reaction to it. It is argued that, as with the earlier Asian financial crisis, while the Bank did not predict the crisis, it responded to it quickly by adapting in its discourse in order to orient Asian governments towards a new phase of the long-term objective of successful integration into the global capitalist economy. Retaining its fundamental commitment to further the development of the world market, and to transform state-society relations and social relations of production across Asia, it now switched its focus from external to internal drivers of change, and advocated an Asian-centred leadership of global capitalist development centred on regional integration and South-South cooperation.
This is the second of three linked working papers which analyse the discourse produced by the Asian Development Bank, principally in successive Asian Development Outlooks, from 1996-7 onwards. Very extensive use is made of direct... more
This is the second of three linked working papers which analyse the discourse produced by the Asian Development Bank, principally in successive Asian Development Outlooks, from 1996-7 onwards. Very extensive use is made of direct quotation, in order to provide substantial illustration of the analysis offered. The papers will serve as a point of reference for more synthetic analysis to be developed elsewhere. It may be, too, that they will serve a purpose to other researchers interested in the arguments developed by the Bank over the period. An identical common introduction, setting out briefly the analytical framework adopted, appears in each of the three papers. It situates the analysis in a classical Marxist framework which interprets the production of discourse and ideas in its material context, presenting the ADB as a representative of 'Asian capital in general', committed to the development of capitalism on a global scale, and adapting its discourse from moment to moment in accordance with the changing material context – in the global economy, and in Asia. This second paper covers the period from 2001 to 2007, a period that sees the articulation by the Bank of a programme for the transformation of production and social relations across Asia, with the objective of achieving competitiveness in the global capitalist economy. Within this programme, the expansion of trade and the attraction of foreign direct investment were seen as important because they were sources of competition and of access to advanced methods of production. At the same time, the Bank promoted reforms to financial systems, and continued to press for a wider programme of structural reform, in particular in relation to labour flexibility and social protection. As a consequence, the region was well placed when the global financial crisis broke in 2007.
This is the first of three linked working papers which analyse the discourse produced by the Asian Development Bank, principally in successive Asian Development Outlooks, from 1996-7 onwards. Very extensive use is made of direct... more
This is the first of three linked working papers which analyse the discourse produced by the Asian Development Bank, principally in successive Asian Development Outlooks, from 1996-7 onwards. Very extensive use is made of direct quotation, in order to provide substantial illustration of the analysis offered. The papers will serve as a point of reference for more synthetic analysis to be developed elsewhere. It may be, too, that they will serve a purpose to other researchers interested in the arguments developed by the Bank over the period. An identical common introduction, setting out briefly the analytical framework adopted, appears in each of the three papers. It situates the analysis in a classical Marxist framework which interprets the production of discourse and ideas in their material context, presenting the ADB as a representative of 'Asian capital in general', committed to the development of capitalism on a global scale, and adapting its discourse from moment to moment in accordance with the changing material context – in the global economy, and in Asia. The first paper covers the period from 1996-7 to 2000. At its centre, therefore, is the 'Asian financial crisis' and the Bank's reaction to it. It is argued that while the Bank did not predict the crisis, it responded to it quickly by adapting in its discourse in order to orient Asian governments towards the long-term objective of successful integration into the global capitalist economy. With this objective in mind, it interpreted the crisis as providing evidence for the need for further structural reforms, both to further the development of the world market, and to transform state-society relations and social relations of production across Asia.
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This paper reviews the response of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to the ‘global financial crisis’, against the background of its analysis of regional development priorities prior to the crisis. Between 2003 and 2009 the Bank... more
This paper reviews the response of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to the ‘global financial crisis’, against the background of its analysis of regional development priorities prior to the crisis. Between 2003 and 2009 the Bank developed a focus on ‘productive development’: ‘industrial’ policies for open national economies in an integrated world economy, with an emphasis on productivity-enhancing social and labour-market reforms. Its response to the crisis reflected the fact that as far as Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) was concerned, it was short-lived, and gave way to a phase of global rebalancing in which conditions for renewed growth were largely benign (with easy access to capital and strong demand for commodities), but at the same time variable in their impact, and fraught with risk. The period between 2008 and 2013 was as much one of opportunity as crisis; production and trade were as significant as finance, though there were financial risks that needed to be managed; and intra-regional variation was as important as ‘global’ impact. The Bank consistently stressed the need to be ready to restore and maintain the momentum of productive development once the world economy as a whole emerged from the crisis period. In 2013, as the crisis drew to a close, the Bank again highlighted long-running problems of low productivity and domestic savings, and identified the prevalence of informal labour and inefficient firms as the principal obstacles to sustained growth. It argued, therefore, that policy should focus on the reallocation of resources, the elimination of perverse incentives, and the promotion of productivity-enhancing structural reform.
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The paper begins with a critique of the literature on private sector governance, noting that it emerged at a moment of excessive and misplaced faith in the viability of a private sector driven by lightly regulated financial and private... more
The paper begins with a critique of the literature on private sector governance, noting that it emerged at a moment of excessive and misplaced faith in the viability of a private sector driven by lightly regulated financial and private equity markets. The underlying models of corporate governance and state-business relations are then critically examined. Against this background, a number of arguments related to Asia are made. First, there are important aspects of Asian states, business sectors, corporate governance and state-business relations that do not conform to the Anglo-American model and are not easily subjected to its logic. Second, there is a strong and varied tradition of state authority over business across Asia. If this was in retreat after 1990 and in the brief wave of Western neoliberal triumphalism that followed the ‘Asia’ crisis, the reverse is true in the context of the much more devastating ‘Atlantic’ crisis. Third, the general re-awakening of interest in ‘industrial policy’ and state authority enforced by legal codes and bureaucratic means is reinforced by the salience of the Chinese case, and by the alacrity with which they have been taken up by international organisations, and by the World Bank in particular. In the light of these considerations, the paper concludes that it is more likely that a regime of transnational state regulation centred around states interacting with international organisations and intergovernmental organisations will emerge than one in which states are ‘rule takers’ in a regime of transnational private regulation centred around private actors.
The purpose of this paper is to set the issue of Chinese investment in Southeast Asia in two contexts: the changing geography of economic growth and patterns of trade and investment across the world as a whole, and the accompanying quiet... more
The purpose of this paper is to set the issue of Chinese investment in Southeast Asia in two contexts: the changing geography of economic growth and patterns of trade and investment across the world as a whole, and the accompanying quiet revolution that has taken place in the international institutions most directly concerned with the management of the global economy. The crisis that hit the advanced capitalist economies in 2007 has accelerated both processes, leading the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) and the World Bank in particular to celebrate dynamic growth in Asia, Africa and Latin America, and to turn increasingly to Asia in general and China in particular as the key to future global growth. Central to this turn to the ‘emerging economies’ has been a sustained political and analytical focus on the potential for ‘South-South’ growth. In this context, the paper offers a stylized comparison of Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia as regions in the new global economy, and draws some conclusions.
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Leicester University Press/Cassell, 1997 A critique of political development theory from a Marxist/historical materialist perspective. I argue that what political development theorists from the 1950s onwards (Almond, Pye, Verba, Rustow,... more
Leicester University Press/Cassell, 1997
A critique of political development theory from a Marxist/historical materialist perspective. I argue that what political development theorists from the 1950s onwards (Almond, Pye, Verba, Rustow, Huntington, etc) took to be a universal theory of political development is better understood as a theory of political change in societies undergoing a process of capitalist modernization, and that the driving force behind it, through all its various theoretical twists and turns, was the desire to produce a doctrine which would aid the promotion of capitalist rather than socialist development. There is an intimate relationship between the 'revisionist' theory of democracy associated with Schumpeter and Dahl, and political development theory: while the former is a theory of politics in already constituted capitalist states, and a doctrine aimed at maintaining the capitalist character of the societies concerned, the latteris a theory of politics in the process of capitalist modernization, and a doctrine aimed at guaranteeing the capitalist direction of change.
A critique of political development theory from a Marxist/historical materialist perspective. I argue that what political development theorists from the 1950s onwards (Almond, Pye, Verba, Rustow, Huntington, etc) took to be a universal theory of political development is better understood as a theory of political change in societies undergoing a process of capitalist modernization, and that the driving force behind it, through all its various theoretical twists and turns, was the desire to produce a doctrine which would aid the promotion of capitalist rather than socialist development. There is an intimate relationship between the 'revisionist' theory of democracy associated with Schumpeter and Dahl, and political development theory: while the former is a theory of politics in already constituted capitalist states, and a doctrine aimed at maintaining the capitalist character of the societies concerned, the latteris a theory of politics in the process of capitalist modernization, and a doctrine aimed at guaranteeing the capitalist direction of change.
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First edition: Macmillan, 1988; second edition, Macmillan, 1993 Co-authors: David Pool and William Tordoff Introductory textbook. First edition covered Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. Second edition added East and Southeast... more
First edition: Macmillan, 1988; second edition, Macmillan, 1993
Co-authors: David Pool and William Tordoff
Introductory textbook. First edition covered Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. Second edition added East and Southeast Asia.
Second edition chapter structure: Introduction; the Heritage of the Past; State and Society; Political Parties and Participation; The Military; Revolution; Women in World Politics; The International Context; The Third World in the Global Economy.
Co-authors: David Pool and William Tordoff
Introductory textbook. First edition covered Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. Second edition added East and Southeast Asia.
Second edition chapter structure: Introduction; the Heritage of the Past; State and Society; Political Parties and Participation; The Military; Revolution; Women in World Politics; The International Context; The Third World in the Global Economy.
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In a series of recent works Burton, Field, and Higley have sought to establish a new elite paradigm and to develop out of it theories of substantial explanatory power.1 They have so far provided critical evaluations of previous elite... more
In a series of recent works Burton, Field, and Higley have sought to establish a new elite paradigm and to develop out of it theories of substantial explanatory power.1 They have so far provided critical evaluations of previous elite theory and proposals for its systematization and development (Field and Higley 1980; Burton and Higley 1987a; Field et al. 1988a), broad accounts ofrelationships between types of national elites, elite transformations, and political stability or instability since 1500 (Field and Higley 1985; Higley and Burton 1988), and fuller accounts of two types
Abstract: Despite the longevity of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, (OECD) and its declared, commitment, from its inception to the development of the world economy, little attention has been paid either to the... more
Abstract: Despite the longevity of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, (OECD) and its declared, commitment, from its inception to the development of the world economy, little attention has been paid either to the empirical record or the theoretical significance of its contribution to global economic,governance. This paper explores OECD engagement with emerging (non-member) economies, and argues that it should,be understood,as aiming,to organise,member and,non-member states alike for global competitiveness., The first section explores the OECD's presentation,of itself as “a strategic partner of decision-makers,in the political economy of reform”. The second, section assesses, the analytical framework, underpinning its policy advice, focused on promoting 'the right kind of competitive pressures' and developed, in successive, issues of Going for Growth (2005-2008) and in its engagement, with individual countries through Economic Surveys. The third...
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Marx is generally reckoned to have had too little to say about what has come to be defined as ‘social reproduction’, largely as a consequence of too narrow a focus on industrial production, and a relative disregard for issues of gender.... more
Marx is generally reckoned to have had too little to say about what has come to be defined as ‘social reproduction’, largely as a consequence of too narrow a focus on industrial production, and a relative disregard for issues of gender. This paper argues in contrast that the approach he developed with Engels and in Capital, Volume 1, provides a powerful framework for its analysis. After an introductory discussion of recent literature on social reproduction the second section sets out Marx’s approach to the ‘production of life, both of one’s own in labour and of fresh life in procreation’. The third addresses his account of reproduction in Capital, Volume 1, Chapter 23. The fourth and fifth compare the relationship of the family to industry and exchange as depicted in Capital and in the present day respectively. The conclusion suggests some implications for theories of social reproduction.
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This article offers a critical review of the UNDP's understanding of human development, and of recent Human Development Reports, with a principal focus on those from 2010 to the present. It argues that they show that the UNDP is now... more
This article offers a critical review of the UNDP's understanding of human development, and of recent Human Development Reports, with a principal focus on those from 2010 to the present. It argues that they show that the UNDP is now fully aligned with the World Bank in its overall policy stance and its underlying logic, and that this marks the end of the project of setting market-led growth in a broader conception of human development that began with the first report (1990). The idea that the UNDP/HDR conception of human development represents an alternative to World Bank orthodoxy is a myth.
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Abstract Accounts of the “new regionalism” two decades ago identified a growing trend towards co-ordinated state action at the regional level in pursuit of both security and political economy concerns – new in terms of its “bottom-up”... more
Abstract Accounts of the “new regionalism” two decades ago identified a growing trend towards co-ordinated state action at the regional level in pursuit of both security and political economy concerns – new in terms of its “bottom-up” character, post-Cold War logic, heterogeneous focus, and relation to globalisation. More recently, proponents of “regulatory regionalism” have suggested that regional projects reshape and transform states themselves. This article identifies an emerging “world market regionalism,” within which regions are addressed in terms of their position within the world market, and regional projects are strategically oriented towards the “completion of the world market” in its dual aspect as expansion of trade and transformation of social relations of production. The focus is on the purposive transformation of the region in pursuit of global competitiveness. A detailed account is given of such a project of world market regionalism developed over the last two decades at the Asian Development Bank. It is aimed at transforming the region, and individual states within it, into a space contributory to a wider global project aimed at “completing the world market” and transforming both the social relations of production and individual attitudes and behaviour.
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Page 1. Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1940772 東南亞研究中心 Southeast Asia Research Centre Paul Cammack Southeast Asia in the New Global Economy: Emerging Challenges from Africa and Latin America Working Paper Series... more
Page 1. Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1940772 東南亞研究中心 Southeast Asia Research Centre Paul Cammack Southeast Asia in the New Global Economy: Emerging Challenges from Africa and Latin America Working Paper Series No. 109 ...
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ABSTRACT This is the third of three linked working papers which analyse the discourse produced by the Asian Development Bank, principally in successive Asian Development Outlooks, from 1996-7 onwards. Very extensive use is made of direct... more
ABSTRACT This is the third of three linked working papers which analyse the discourse produced by the Asian Development Bank, principally in successive Asian Development Outlooks, from 1996-7 onwards. Very extensive use is made of direct quotation, in order to provide substantial illustration of the analysis offered. The papers will serve as a point of reference for more synthetic analysis to be developed elsewhere. It may be, too, that they will serve a purpose to other researchers interested in the arguments developed by the Bank over the period. An identical common introduction, setting out briefly the analytical framework adopted, appears in each of the three papers. It situates the analysis in a classical Marxist framework which interprets the production of discourse and ideas in their material context, presenting the ADB as a representative of 'Asian capital in general', committed to the development of capitalism on a global scale, and adapting its discourse from moment to moment in accordance with the changing material context – in the global economy, and in Asia. This third paper covers the period from 2008 to 2012. At its centre is the 'global financial crisis' and the Bank's reaction to it. It is argued that, as with the earlier Asian financial crisis, while the Bank did not predict the crisis, it responded to it quickly by adapting in its discourse in order to orient Asian governments towards a new phase of the long-term objective of successful integration into the global capitalist economy. Retaining its fundamental commitment to further the development of the world market, and to transform state-society relations and social relations of production across Asia, it now switched its focus from external to internal drivers of change, and advocated an Asian-centred leadership of global capitalist development centred on regional integration and South-South cooperation.
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ABSTRACT The entry of China and India into the global economy involves not only the internal transformation of those two societies, but also a significant step towards what Marx called the ‘completion of the world market’ – the expansion... more
ABSTRACT The entry of China and India into the global economy involves not only the internal transformation of those two societies, but also a significant step towards what Marx called the ‘completion of the world market’ – the expansion of foreign trade and the transformation of social relations of production, and with that the intensification of competition across the global economy. They represent crucial cases, therefore, for the gang of four international organizations most closely concerned with the governance of labour markets, social policy and trade – the ILO, the OECD, the World Bank, and the WTO. Over the past two decades these organizations have converged, along with the IMF and the multilateral regional banks, on a programme aimed at reshaping socio-economic rights to make them consistent with and supportive of the rule of capital, and competitiveness in the global economy. This paper analyses the manner in which the Gang of Four seek to fit social and economic rights to the exigencies of the world market, and explores in detail the engagement of the OECD with China and India. In terms of the overall project of which this is a part, the objective is to sketch in the background against which regional development banks and emerging economies engage in the wake of the financial crisis.
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ABSTRACT This is the first of three linked working papers which analyse the discourse produced by the Asian Development Bank, principally in successive Asian Development Outlooks, from 1996-7 onwards. Very extensive use is made of direct... more
ABSTRACT This is the first of three linked working papers which analyse the discourse produced by the Asian Development Bank, principally in successive Asian Development Outlooks, from 1996-7 onwards. Very extensive use is made of direct quotation, in order to provide substantial illustration of the analysis offered. The papers will serve as a point of reference for more synthetic analysis to be developed elsewhere. It may be, too, that they will serve a purpose to other researchers interested in the arguments developed by the Bank over the period. An identical common introduction, setting out briefly the analytical framework adopted, appears in each of the three papers. It situates the analysis in a classical Marxist framework which interprets the production of discourse and ideas in their material context, presenting the ADB as a representative of 'Asian capital in general', committed to the development of capitalism on a global scale, and adapting its discourse from moment to moment in accordance with the changing material context – in the global economy, and in Asia. The first paper covers the period from 1996-7 to 2000. At its centre, therefore, is the 'Asian financial crisis' and the Bank's reaction to it. It is argued that while the Bank did not predict the crisis, it responded to it quickly by adapting in its discourse in order to orient Asian governments towards the long-term objective of successful integration into the global capitalist economy. With this objective in mind, it interpreted the crisis as providing evidence for the need for further structural reforms, both to further the development of the world market, and to transform state-society relations and social relations of production across Asia.
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ABSTRACT This is the second of three linked working papers which analyse the discourse produced by the Asian Development Bank, principally in successive Asian Development Outlooks, from 1996-7 onwards. Very extensive use is made of direct... more
ABSTRACT This is the second of three linked working papers which analyse the discourse produced by the Asian Development Bank, principally in successive Asian Development Outlooks, from 1996-7 onwards. Very extensive use is made of direct quotation, in order to provide substantial illustration of the analysis offered. The papers will serve as a point of reference for more synthetic analysis to be developed elsewhere. It may be, too, that they will serve a purpose to other researchers interested in the arguments developed by the Bank over the period. An identical common introduction, setting out briefly the analytical framework adopted, appears in each of the three papers. It situates the analysis in a classical Marxist framework which interprets the production of discourse and ideas in its material context, presenting the ADB as a representative of 'Asian capital in general', committed to the development of capitalism on a global scale, and adapting its discourse from moment to moment in accordance with the changing material context – in the global economy, and in Asia. This second paper covers the period from 2001 to 2007, a period that sees the articulation by the Bank of a programme for the transformation of production and social relations across Asia, with the objective of achieving competitiveness in the global capitalist economy. Within this programme, the expansion of trade and the attraction of foreign direct investment were seen as important because they were sources of competition and of access to advanced methods of production. At the same time, the Bank promoted reforms to financial systems, and continued to press for a wider programme of structural reform, in particular in relation to labour flexibility and social protection. As a consequence, the region was well placed when the global financial crisis broke in 2007.
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... considerable literature on private governance arose at a particular moment – at the height of expectations regarding the dominance of neoliberalism, and its potential to generate regulatory ... Nölke, Andreas, Henk Overbeek and... more
... considerable literature on private governance arose at a particular moment – at the height of expectations regarding the dominance of neoliberalism, and its potential to generate regulatory ... Nölke, Andreas, Henk Overbeek and Bastiaan van Apeldoorn (2007), Marketization ...
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Abstract: This paper sees 'new'market-building in Asia as part of a larger project of the construction of a global market economy, which can be traced back to Adam Smith, and more recently to the founding of a set of global... more
Abstract: This paper sees 'new'market-building in Asia as part of a larger project of the construction of a global market economy, which can be traced back to Adam Smith, and more recently to the founding of a set of global liberal institutions in the post-World War ...
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ABSTRACT Benjamin Cohen's International Political Economy: An Intellectual History (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2008) is not a neutral history of how IPE was constructed as a discipline, as the author claims,... more
ABSTRACT Benjamin Cohen's International Political Economy: An Intellectual History (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2008) is not a neutral history of how IPE was constructed as a discipline, as the author claims, but itself a construction of IPE. It is built on a number of empirically false claims, as Cohen himself openly acknowledges in the text itself. Yet these claims are essential to the project of constructing IPE as a new approach. It is argued here that the project is best understood as an ideology of institutional and intellectual power - as a justification of IPE on the grounds of the institutional space it has captured, and the latest in a series of attempts to banish Marxism from the academy. Viewed in this way, its intellectual incoherence is constitutive rather than casual, and therefore confirms the greater merits of a Marxist approach.
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ABSTRACT
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It is doubtful as to whether the countries of the Third World are likely to move to the kind of liberal democracy that is regarded as characteristic of the West. In particular, parties are often remaining ‘parties of the State’ and not... more
It is doubtful as to whether the countries of the Third World are likely to move to the kind of liberal democracy that is regarded as characteristic of the West. In particular, parties are often remaining ‘parties of the State’ and not organizations truly competing with each other. This is in part a consequence of economic globalization, as the requirements of global economic liberalization do not fit with the requirements of democracy. In such a context, clientelism around the State may be inevitable and it contributes to ensuring that the main party in the country, and indeed all parties become ‘parties of the State’, as is the case in Mexico or Malaysia and perhaps in the Ukraine and South Africa. Thus, globalization does not mean the end of the State, but possibly the end of liberal democracy.
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The relationship between political development theory and the dissemination of democracy is a curious one. In the period when political development theory was most influential, efforts to disseminate democracy throughout the Third World... more
The relationship between political development theory and the dissemination of democracy is a curious one. In the period when political development theory was most influential, efforts to disseminate democracy throughout the Third World in line with its core values were notably unsuccessful. It later went into eclipse as a consequence of the failure of successive efforts at theory‐building, from functional,
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The international development community, led by the World Bank, has recently committed itself to the abolition of poverty; and the World Bank has set out, in its most recent World Development Report, Attacking Poverty, the means by which... more
The international development community, led by the World Bank, has recently committed itself to the abolition of poverty; and the World Bank has set out, in its most recent World Development Report, Attacking Poverty, the means by which the target of reducing the proportion of ...
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ABSTRACT This article offers a constructive critique of Fehl and Freistein's argument that international organisations (IOs) significantly affect international stratification, either producing, reproducing or transforming inequality.... more
ABSTRACT This article offers a constructive critique of Fehl and Freistein's argument that international organisations (IOs) significantly affect international stratification, either producing, reproducing or transforming inequality. It suggests that without reference to the specific purposes which individual IOs pursue and the forces driving global change, it is impossible to predict either when the goals of IOs and states might diverge, or when a particular IO might promote the reproduction of inequality on the one hand, or its transformation on the other. In particular, divergence between states on the one hand and IOs charged with the management of the global economy on the other is explained by the fact that the IOs concerned are committed to the reproduction of capital on a global scale, and therefore to the continuous transformation of global hierarchies. The argument is supported by a case study of IO support for China's Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).
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ABSTRACT The creation of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB)was welcomed by the World Bank but opposed by the Obamaadministration. The paper explains China’s positive relationshipwith the Bank and the Organization for Economic... more
ABSTRACT The creation of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB)was welcomed by the World Bank but opposed by the Obamaadministration. The paper explains China’s positive relationshipwith the Bank and the Organization for Economic Cooperation andDevelopment (OECD) in terms of the mission of the Bank, sharedby the OECD, to develop and deepen the global economy. The AIIBand the related Belt and Road initiative promise to do this throughinvestment in infrastructure and connectivity in and around thepoorly integrated Eurasian landmass. But while the current Chineseleadership has supported an inclusive global economy based uponfree trade and supported by multilateral institutions, China’s controlof resources outside the multilateral framework and adherence topractices that challenge liberal principles prompt suspicions thatthese commitments are either disingenuous or anyway subjectto reversal. In itself, therefore, the AIIB provides no conclusiveevidence either way on China’s future course.
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ABSTRACT This paper documents the commitment of the OECD from its creation in 1961 to the continuous development of the world market along liberal lines. In doing so, it details a significant effort to promote what might be called... more
ABSTRACT This paper documents the commitment of the OECD from its creation in 1961 to the continuous development of the world market along liberal lines. In doing so, it details a significant effort to promote what might be called proto-strategies of deep marketization across its ‘Northern’ advanced economy membership. These were articulated at key junctures: in its earliest years, then in response to the rise of the NICs (Newly Industrialized Countries) in the 1970s, again in the context of what it diagnosed as the crisis of the welfare state in the 1980s, and in a clutch of studies in the mid-1990s that anticipated and welcome the rise of China and other emerging economies. The argument made was always that sustainable growth in the advanced countries and the continued development of the world market as a whole could best be achieved if OECD members would abstain from protectionism, embrace competition and reform labour markets and social welfare in order to maintain and enhance their competitiveness in the global economy. Particular attention is drawn to the 1994 Jobs Study, which addressed the need for welfare and labour market reform in terms that foreshadowed the universal policies of deep marketization in evidence today.
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Book Review: Global Crises and the Crisis of Global Leadership by Stephen Gill Critical Perspectives on the Crisis of Global Governance by Stephen Gill New Constitutionalism and World Order by Stephen Gill and A. Claire Cutler (eds)GillStephen (ed.) Global Crises and the Crisis of Global Leadersh...more
does recognise such behaviour, but his interpretation of Post-Apartheid history tends to lean towards structural factors and is less sceptical of what John Saul characterises as a ‘globalization made me do it’ explanation (Saul 2014: 93).... more
does recognise such behaviour, but his interpretation of Post-Apartheid history tends to lean towards structural factors and is less sceptical of what John Saul characterises as a ‘globalization made me do it’ explanation (Saul 2014: 93). While the lack of admonishment for ANC top-brass may be at odds with writers who employ a more polemical style, Bundy nevertheless arrives at a conclusion which is becoming increasingly shared by left-leaning commentators: the ANC is incapable of leading a progressive government and counter-hegemonic forces must rally around an alternative vehicle (p. 156). As such, while Short-Changed? argues that there has been some limited progress since 1994, and contends that historical legacies and international contexts have made for harsh circumstances, the political implications of this analysis are laid out in no uncertain terms. Overall, this is an engaging little read suitable for scholars, students and informed lay readers, which emphasises the complex nature of contemporary South African politics, and argues compellingly for the need to place the Post-Apartheid era within the longue durée of South African and World history.
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Signos de los tiempos: durante un almuerzo el 11 de junio de 2004, Anoop Singh, Director del Departamento del Hemisferio Occidental del Fondo Monetario Internacional (FMI), insto a los asistentes al seminario internacional “Desafios para... more
Signos de los tiempos: durante un almuerzo el 11 de junio de 2004, Anoop Singh, Director del Departamento del Hemisferio Occidental del Fondo Monetario Internacional (FMI), insto a los asistentes al seminario internacional “Desafios para el Desarrollo en el Caribe”** realizado en Puerto Espana, capital de Trinidad y Tobago, a erigir instituciones locales para “dar rienda suelta a la innovacion y a la iniciativa empresarial, que son tan cruciales para el crecimiento”. La opcion en defensa de instituciones nacionales fuertes para complementar politicas macroeconomicas solidas y mercados laborales flexibles reflejaba el cambio de enfoque del FMI a fines de la decada del ‘90, bajo la presion ejercida por el Banco Mundial (BM), del “ajuste” a la competitividad; y anticipaba una discusion, liderada por su colega Sanjay Kathuria, acerca de las fuentes de crecimiento y competitividad en la region2. Solo tres dias despues, el 14 de junio, se inauguraba en Washington DC el segundo Foro Latinoamericano de la Competencia, patrocinado conjuntamente por la Organizacion para la Cooperacion y el Desarrollo Economico (OCDE) y el Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo (BID).
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Research Interests: Economics and Convergence
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The Latin American republics have accumulated between them, over more than a century and a half of independent political life, a wealth of experience of the relationship between states and markets. They offer examples which range from the... more
The Latin American republics have accumulated between them, over more than a century and a half of independent political life, a wealth of experience of the relationship between states and markets. They offer examples which range from the extreme liberalism of the Murillo Toro regime in Colombia in the 1850s, which abstained from the organisation of its own military capacity, called upon its supporters to defend it if so inclined when it faced revolt, and duly fell from power, to the extreme interventionism of the pre-revolutionary regime in Cuba, which abolished the market in the dominant sugar sector, and the extreme utopianism of the Cuban revolution in its Guevarist phase, which attempted to abolish money in favour of moral incentives. With direct regard to the comparative theme to which this volume is addressed, Latin America since the Second World War has given birth to a distinctive development strategy, import-substituting industrialisation, and endowed it with a body of theory through the efforts of Raul Prebisch and other economists associated with the United Nations’ Economic Commission on Latin America (ECLA).1 One of the consequences of the deep regional economic crisis in the 1980s has been the profound questioning of this model of state-led development. In Latin America at least, the turn to the market has been as much a result of internal developments as either an imposition from outside, or a response to prevailing fashions in official international development circles.
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The argument of this paper is simple, but potentially far-reaching. It assumes that we are still a long way from seeing the realization of capitalism on a global scale as Marx and Engels envisaged it, but that a decisive qualitative... more
The argument of this paper is simple, but potentially far-reaching. It assumes that we are still a long way from seeing the realization of capitalism on a global scale as Marx and Engels envisaged it, but that a decisive qualitative change has been under way since the last quarter of the twentieth century, with the ‘completion of the world market’ in terms of exchange, and a decisive speeding up of the process of the transformation of the social relations of production across the world, against a background in which the real subsumption of labour to capital is still the exception rather than the rule. This latter process of transformation is particularly in evidence in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Against this background, I argue that the African, Asian and Inter-American Development Banks are uniformly devoted to promoting the transformation of the social relations of production in the regions which they cover, in ways that respond to a logic of global competitiveness, but vary ...
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BERT Useem recently argued in this journal that it was Bolivia's chang-ing relationship to the international political economy that was largely responsible for the loss of power of the workers' movement between 1952 and 1956.1... more
BERT Useem recently argued in this journal that it was Bolivia's chang-ing relationship to the international political economy that was largely responsible for the loss of power of the workers' movement between 1952 and 1956.1 This judgment, however, fails to take into ...
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BERT Useem recently argued in this journal that it was Bolivia's chang-ing relationship to the international political economy that was largely responsible for the loss of power of the workers' movement between 1952 and 1956.1... more
BERT Useem recently argued in this journal that it was Bolivia's chang-ing relationship to the international political economy that was largely responsible for the loss of power of the workers' movement between 1952 and 1956.1 This judgment, however, fails to take into ...
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For most of the 1890s Brazilian state presidents and federal representatives of Minas Gerais lacked influence in federal politics. What had begun as a deliberate policy of neutrality and self-imposed isolation eventually became a position... more
For most of the 1890s Brazilian state presidents and federal representatives of Minas Gerais lacked influence in federal politics. What had begun as a deliberate policy of neutrality and self-imposed isolation eventually became a position of weakness and internal division, made manifest when changing circumstances and perceptions induced a desire to re-assert the voice of the state at federal level. Antonio Olinto dos Santos Pires, at one time Minister of Industry, Transport, and Public Works, pointed in April 1896 to the neglect of the interests of the state in the federal Congress, and contrasted the ineffective performance of federal representatives with the 'preponderant role in the labours of the legislature' which Minas should have had by right, in view of its importance and the number of its deputies.1 Despite his efforts, the Partido Constitucional Mineiro disintegrated when Glicerio's Partido Republicano Federal (PRF) itself fell apart in 1897. To Joao Dunshee de Abranches, a contemporary journalist and politician who subsequently produced a detailed account of the collapse of the PRF, it seemed that the Minas delegation of this period was 'an agglomeration of groups without cohesion and without power, locked in mutual combat over interminable internal dissensions'.2 Yet within a couple of years Minas had achieved at federal level a position of influence second to none. The state provided a virtually uninterrupted sequence of Presidents or Vice-Presidents of the Republic between 1902 and 1930, and played a dominant role in federal politics throughout the period. It is this transformation in the fortunes of the state, launched with the alliance cemented between Silviano Brandao and Campos Sales in 1899, that is the subject of this paper. It will be argued here that the politics of the period, at state and federal level, can only be fully understood in terms of the interplay of economic interests and policy preferences arising out of the changing impact throughout the economy of the fortunes of the leading coffee export sector.
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In Latin America a number of military regimes committed to demobilising mass move-ments and extinguishing the traces of populist or reformist governments have emerged in recent years. The cases of Brazil in 1964, Chile and Uruguay in... more
In Latin America a number of military regimes committed to demobilising mass move-ments and extinguishing the traces of populist or reformist governments have emerged in recent years. The cases of Brazil in 1964, Chile and Uruguay in 1973, and Argentina between ...
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DOI: 10.1177/030913250703100120 2007 31: 124 Prog Hum Geogr Paul Cammack globalization ... Book Review: Imperial nature: the World Bank and struggles for social justice in the age of ... Larner, W. 2003: Guest editorial: neoliberalism?... more
DOI: 10.1177/030913250703100120 2007 31: 124 Prog Hum Geogr Paul Cammack globalization ... Book Review: Imperial nature: the World Bank and struggles for social justice in the age of ... Larner, W. 2003: Guest editorial: neoliberalism? Environment and Planning D: Society ...
Research Interests:
The Latin American republics have accumulated between them, over more than a century and a half of independent political life, a wealth of experience of the relationship between states and markets. They offer examples which range from the... more
The Latin American republics have accumulated between them, over more than a century and a half of independent political life, a wealth of experience of the relationship between states and markets. They offer examples which range from the extreme liberalism of the Murillo Toro regime in Colombia in the 1850s, which abstained from the organisation of its own military capacity, called upon its supporters to defend it if so inclined when it faced revolt, and duly fell from power, to the extreme interventionism of the pre-revolutionary regime in Cuba, which abolished the market in the dominant sugar sector, and the extreme utopianism of the Cuban revolution in its Guevarist phase, which attempted to abolish money in favour of moral incentives. With direct regard to the comparative theme to which this volume is addressed, Latin America since the Second World War has given birth to a distinctive development strategy, import-substituting industrialisation, and endowed it with a body of theory through the efforts of Raul Prebisch and other economists associated with the United Nations’ Economic Commission on Latin America (ECLA).1 One of the consequences of the deep regional economic crisis in the 1980s has been the profound questioning of this model of state-led development. In Latin America at least, the turn to the market has been as much a result of internal developments as either an imposition from outside, or a response to prevailing fashions in official international development circles.
Research Interests:
The argument advanced in this chapter is twofold. First, regional associations can in principle play a wide variety of roles, from the promotion of common regional interests to the reinforcement of domestic political projects; they may... more
The argument advanced in this chapter is twofold. First, regional associations can in principle play a wide variety of roles, from the promotion of common regional interests to the reinforcement of domestic political projects; they may even contribute to processes of state formation ...
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IN THE EARY 1970s, AT THE HEIGHT OF BRAZIL'S 'ECONOMIC miracle', the possibility was mooted by some within the regime of an evolution towards a stable authoritarian system based upon a permanent ruling party capable of... more
IN THE EARY 1970s, AT THE HEIGHT OF BRAZIL'S 'ECONOMIC miracle', the possibility was mooted by some within the regime of an evolution towards a stable authoritarian system based upon a permanent ruling party capable of governing by consent. The most immediate ...