Heikki Patomäki

Neoliberalism and the Global Financial Crisis

First I make a case for the possibility of defining neoliberalism in a sufficiently evident and coherent way as a programme of resolving problems of, and developing, human society by means of competitive markets. Second, I argue that the more narrow, technical and short-term ones definition of Keynesianism is, the more plausible the claim about a new era of Keynesianism may seem. A multidimensional comparison between ideal-typical models of social democracy and neoliberalism shows, however, that the ongoing global economic crisis has so far prompted responses that are leaving neoliberalisation intact in most dimensions and may even elicit further neoliberalisation. I conclude by discussing the limits of thinking about ideologies in territorial-statist terms. The current era may well be replaced by an era of green global Keynesianism; but a full-scale return to mere national social democracy is unlikely, especially given the discrepancy between the reaches of territorial states and private capital operating in competitive, liberalised world markets.

After Critical Realism

Abstract While recent scientific discoveries and theories can be taken to provide additional evidence for some of the central critical realist claims, overall critical realism seems to be in need of reassessment, revisions and further developments. First, I argue that here has been an inclination among critical realists to prefer the language and model of philosophy to falsifiable science, creating a predisposition towards somewhat sectarian practices. These tendencies also account for the relative lack of substantive research based on, or inspired by, critical realism. Second, I make a case for radicalising the critique of anthropomorphism and applying it to critical realism itself. Third, and in some contrast to the second point, I argue for rethinking the subject-object relationship and the concept of the intransitive dimension of science. The critique of anthropocentrism has been taken too far. We are implicated in and are a part of the object of our study. It even seems that we humans are a part of the process of the cosmos becoming conscious of itself, also through science.

Critical responses to neoliberal globalization in the Mercosur region: roads towards cosmopolitan democracy?

Thus far, the most articulate political theoretical response to the process of globalization is the theory of cosmopolitan democracy: given our democratic ideals and aspirations, globalization requires us to rethink the political community within which these ideals and aspirations can be realized. The problem of many models of cosmopolitan democracy, such as David Helds, is that they are partially detached from the real world historical processes. In this paper, we take a step towards correcting this bias. In the Mercosur region of Latin America, neoliberal globalization has led and will lead to a variety of critical political responses, some of which carry the seeds of cosmopolitan democracy. In Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Brazil, it seems that there has occurred a dialectical deveopment of political consciousness to tackle directly the real conditions of peoples lives. After defining our basic concepts - globalization, democracy and civic public spaces - we develop a categorization of different trans- and supranational responses to globalization. Our empirical research indicates the need to redefine the conceptual basis for cosmopolitan democracy in political economy terms. For the actors in the Mercosur region, the most pressing priorities have to do with tackling the problems caused by financial globalization and the repressive governance of the globalising economy. However, instead of legalist blueprints, there seems to be a quest for more imaginative and context-sensitive (radical) reforms.

Problems of Global Democracy

HP: International or planetary democracy was first discussed in the 1940s when the United Nations was founded. During the Cold War years, the topic was all but forgotten. However, in the 1970s, when the Third World demanded a New International Economic Order, it was declared that ‘all states are judicially equal and, as equal members of the international community, have the right to participate fully and effectively in the international decision-making process in the solution of world economic, financial and monetary problems’ (UN, 1975: Article 10). That was the heyday of state sovereignty. The 20th-century spread of state sovereignty can be conceived as an outcome of the first coming-together of humanity under the rule of industrializing capitalism and the European empires that represented themselves at home, as it were, as ‘national sovereign states’. The institution of state sovereignty seemed, during and in the immediate aftermath of the process of decolonization, to provide a legitimate platform for fighting the imperial rule and capitalist exploitation that the majority of humanity experienced outside the core regions of the world economy (cf. Linklater, 1990: 67–72). Hence, in the 1970s, world democratic aspirations were articulated in terms of inter-state relations. The topic of planetary democracy re-emerged in the 1980s with the rise of the globalization discourse and, a little later, the end of the Cold War. In particular, your works on critical theory, democracy and state theory in the 1980s, and related early attempts to question the connection between democracy and the state such as John Burnheim (1986), resulted in the theory of cosmopolitan democracy. This theory was first outlined in your essay ‘Democracy, the Nation-state and the Global System’ (Held, 1991) and developed further in the book Democracy and the Global Order (Held, 1995). These have been extremely important openings. Yet, it also seems to me that the model of cosmopolitan democracy is based on a rather selected set of

How to tell better stories about the history and future of global political economy

ABSTRACT Benjamin J. Cohens story of the transatlantic divide in IPE follows a simple plot, creating expectations concerning the outcome and culmination of this process. The conclusion is not predictable – there is no story unless our attention is being held in suspense by contingencies – but it must be acceptable. In Cohens story, the expectation created is that IPE will follow American positivism and theories but involves ‘British’ moral judgements and sentiments of justice. However, there are better ways of telling better stories about the history and future of Global Political Economy. First, the methodological dividing line is essentially false, i.e. based on an anachronistic understanding of science. Causal explanation involves hermeneutical understanding; and does not imply predictions in the sense of positivism. Second, I argue that the rise of IPE should be read in terms of debates on political economy that have continued since the eighteenth century and have never been limited to Britain and the United States. The rise of new Political Economy in politics, sociology, business studies and other fields is a challenge to the hegemony of orthodox neoclassical economics. Analogically to the time of the Great Depression when collective learning did occur and largely in Keynesian terms, the on-going and future learning is contingent also on the consequences of the orthodox dominance in policy-making.

How to Tell Better Cosmic Stories

Abstract In response to Hostettler, I clarify the intended meanings of ‘After Critical Realism?’ My point is not to abandon critical realism but to develop it further and make it more self-reflexively critical. Bhaskars journey through different stories about our place in the cosmos is a dialectical learning process from Althusserian scientist existentialism, via an all-encompassing dialectical philosophy as a theory of moral good grounded in every expressively veracious action or remark, to a pluralist notion of God. Bhaskars questions are deep and his answers pertinent, but there are more hypothetical, scholarly and dialogical ways of telling ethico-political and cosmic stories.

Book Review Forum: A Response from Between the Past and the Future: On the Ethico-Political Notion of Collective Learning of Humankind

I am grateful to Tarak Barkawi, Christopher Chase-Dunn and Anna Leander for their insightful reviews of The Political Economy of Global Security (PEGS), not least since they provide me with an opportunity to clarify and further develop some of the key ideas of my book. I feel quite sympathetic to many of their critical points and remarks and in some cases I agree to a large degree. In this response, I first discuss issues of the past and the present and then move, via theories of political transformations, to the methodology and substance of futures studies. Barkawi provides a useful summary of the main plot and seems supportive of some of its basic tenets, yet he criticizes the book harshly for underestimating the importance of the so-called ‘war on terror’ and the role of Islamic movements. The Islamic forces ‘are more powerful than Patomäki’s favoured transformative agent, global civil society, a fact which does not bode well either for the reach of his analysis or its political hopes’. Barkawi also argues that I fail to appreciate the plurality of humanity and its many denizens, ‘those who live in different worlds, who have desires quite other than he or I may wish or hope’. These are serious charges given the attempt to tackle the key dynamics of global political economy and security. While it is true that I do not share the widespread opinion that the ‘war on terror’ emerged all of a sudden or that it has since been decisively important in its own right, my explanatory story of the recent past nonetheless categorizes the war as a potentially important nodal point in world history: