Bob Jessop

Liberalism, Neoliberalism, and Urban Governance: A State–Theoretical Perspective

This paper discusses the recurrence and the recurrent limitations of liberalism as a general discourse, strategy, and regime. It then establishes a continuum of neoliberalism ranging from a project for radical system transformation from state socialism to market capitalism, through a basic regime shift within capitalism, to more limited policy adjustments intended to maintain another type of accumulation regime and its mode of regulation. These last two forms of neoliberalism are then related to a broader typology of approaches to the restructuring, rescaling, and reordering of accumulation and regulation in advanced capitalist societies: neoliberalism, neocorporatism, neostatism, and neocommunitarianism. These arguments are illustrated in the final part of the paper through a critique of the World Report on the Urban Future 21 (World Commission 2000), both as an explicit attempt to promote flanking and supporting measures to sustain the neoliberal project on the urban scale and as an implicit attempt to naturalize that project on a global scale.

Theorizing sociospatial relations

This essay seeks to reframe recent debates on sociospatial theory through the introduction of an approach that can grasp the inherently polymorphic, multidimensional character of sociospatial relations. As previous advocates of a scalar turn, we now question the privileging, in any form, of a single dimension of sociospatial processes, scalar or otherwise. We consider several recent sophisticated ‘turns’ within critical social science; explore their methodological limitations; and highlight several important strands of sociospatial theory that seek to transcend the latter. On this basis, we argue for a more systematic recognition of polymorphy—the organization of sociospatial relations in multiple forms—within sociospatial theory. Specifically, we suggest that territories (T), places (P), scales (S), and networks (N) must be viewed as mutually constitutive and relationally intertwined dimensions of sociospatial relations. We present this proposition as an extension of recent contributions to the spatialization of the strategic-relational approach (SRA), and we explore some of its methodological implications. We conclude by briefly illustrating the applicability of the ‘TPSN framework’ to several realms of inquiry into sociospatial processes under contemporary capitalism.

Post-Fordism and the State

Drawing on recent developments in regulationist economics and neoMarxist state theory, this contribution begins with a brief comment on the nature of social reproduction regimes and the importance of taking proper account of the ‘mixed economy of reproduction’.1 It then addresses four interrelated sets of questions about the recent restructuring and possible transcendence of the post-war social reproduction regime associated with Atlantic Fordism, especially in its north-West European guise of the Keynesian welfare state. First what is involved in theorizing ‘post-Fordist’ social reproduction regimes? Second, considering the latter in relatively abstract theoretical terms, what might its core features comprise? Third, moving to more concrete-complex terms, how might post-Fordist social reproduction regimes be distinguished one from another? And, fourth, what are the respective roles of the state (whether at supranational, national, or local level) and other forms of governance in such regimes? Unfortunately space constraints preclude a detailed answer to all these questions but I will at least try to suggest how they might be addressed.

Institutional Re(turns) and the Strategic – Relational Approach

The author distinguishes and comments on three different forms of the institutional turn: thematic, methodological, and ontological. He argues that there is a wide range of institutional turns that have been undertaken for quite different theoretical, empirical, and policy-related reasons; and suggests that the returns from any given institutional turn are by no means guaranteed to be positive. The different senses in which ‘institutions matter’ are explored and the need to contextualize the institutional turn, both at more macro and at more microlevels, is also emphasized. One way of undertaking this contextualization is through the ‘strategic – relational approach’ with its concern with both the structural and the strategic dimensions of a contextualized institutional analysis. As well as presenting the approach in general terms, the author also illustrates its relevance to the spatiotemporal dimensions of institutional analysis. Eight broad conclusions about the institutional turn are presented.

Regulation Theories in Retrospect and Prospect.

This chapter critically assesses the regulation approach to the critique of political economy. It starts with the theoretical background to regulation theories; moves on to compare the main approaches and their various fields of application; and then offers some methodological and epistemological criticisms of the leading schools. Then come some more general methodological remarks on the object and subject of regulation and some specific comments on one of the weakest areas of regulation theory - its account of the state. Thus this chapter focuses on methodology and general theory rather than empirical analysis.

The regulation approach, governance and post-Fordism: alternative perspectives on economic and political change?

This paper critically compares and evaluates regulationist and governance approaches to the transformation of the local state. It is prompted by the close connection often made between the transition from Fordism to post-Fordism and new forms of economic and political governance. The paper first reviews the conceptual background to current concerns with regulation and governance. It then considers the basic (meta-) theoretical assumptions and core concepts of the two paradigms and identifies parallels and convergences and well as some important differences in theoretical or substantive focus. Attention then shifts to posible conflicts or tensions between regulation and governance as axes of crisis-management and crisis-resolution in local economies and states. The paper notes some problems in attempts to combine concepts and arguments relating to governance and regulation and highlights the importance of the organization of inter-organizational relations in resolving regulation and governance problems. It...

The Crisis of the National Spatio-Temporal Fix and the Tendential Ecological Dominance of Globalizing Capitalism

This article develops a heterodox, strategic-relational approach to globalization. This is seen as a multi-scalar, multi-temporal, multi-centric process, involving new forms of time-space distantiation and compression. As such, it is just one face of a complex re-scaling of social processes which can also be interpreted from other scalar viewpoints, such as localization, regionalization or triadization. Five interrelated issues are then addressed: (1) the structural and strategic dimensions of globalization seen in temporal as well as spatial terms; (2) the role of globalization, especially in its neoliberal form, in enhancing the ecological dominance of the capitalist economy, i.e. in enhancing the relative primacy of the capital relation in an emerging world society; (3) the significance of the global scale for capitalist reorganization and its links to other scales of activity o especially given the relativization of scale rooted in the erosion of the national spatio-temporal fix associated with Atlantic Fordism; (4) the impact of the new scalar dynamics of globalizing capitalism on the relative primacy and forms of appearance of capitals inherent contradictions and dilemmas and the problems that this poses for a re-regularization of capital accumulation on a global scale; and (5) the implications of globalization for the state and politics. Copyright Joint Editors and Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2000.

Critical semiotic analysis and cultural political economy

A case is made for cultural political economy (CPE) by exploring the constitutive role of semiosis in economic and political activities, economic and political institutions, and social order more generally. CPE is a post-disciplinary approach that adopts the “cultural turn” in economic and political inquiry without neglecting the articulation of semiosis with the interconnected materialities of economics and politics within wider social formations. This approach is illustrated from the emergence of the knowledge-based economy as a master discourse for accumulation strategies on different scales, for state projects and hegemonic visions, for diverse functional systems and professions, and for civil society. He is best known for his contributions to state theory, the regulation approach in political economy, the study of Thatcherism, governance and, most recently, the future of capitalism, the capitalist state, and welfare regimes. His recent publications include: The Future of the Capitalist State (Polity, 2002) and STATE/SPACE, co-edited with N. Brenner, M. Jones, and G. MacLeod (Blackwell, 2003). He is now working on the nature and contradictions of the knowledge-based economy.A case is made for cultural political economy (CPE) by exploring the constitutive role of semiosis in economic and political activities, economic and political institutions, and social order more generally. CPE is a post-disciplinary approach that adopts the â��cultural turnâ�� in economic and political inquiry without neglecting the articulation of semiosis with the interconnected materialities of economics and politics within wider social formations. This approach is illustrated from the emergence of the knowledgebased economy as a master discourse for accumulation strategies on different scales, for state projects and hegemonic visions, for diverse functional systems and professions, and for civil society.

The Changing Governance of Welfare: Recent Trends in its Primary Functions, Scale and Modes of Coordination.

This paper discusses four dimensions of the capitalist states role in economic and social reproduction: its economic and social policy roles, the scales on which these roles are performed, and the modes of governance with which they are associated. It describes the typical postwar welfare regime on these dimensions, analyses the crisis in the governance of welfare that began to emerge in the late 1970s and 1980s, and characterizes the new regime that is tendentially replacing the postwar welfare state.

Critical Realism and Semiosis

This paper explores the mutual implication of critical realism and semiosis (or the intersubjective production of meaning). It argues that critical realism must integrate semiosis into its account of social relations and social structuration. This goes well beyond the question of whether reasons can be causes to include more basic issues of the performativity of semiosis and the relationship between interpretation (verstehen) and causal explanation (erklA¤ren). The paper then demonstrates how critical realism can integrate semiosis into its accounts of dialectic of structure and agency through an evolutionary approach to structuration. It also demonstrates how critical semiotic analysis (including critical discourse analysis) can benefit from critical realism. In the latter respect we consider the emergence of semiotic effects and extra-semiotic effects from textual practices and give two brief illustrations of how this works from specific texts. The paper concludes with more general recommendations about the articulation of the discursive and extra-discursive aspects of social relations and its implications for critical realism.