James H. Mittelman

Rethinking the ‘New Regionalism’ in the Context of Globalization

Following its decline in theory and practice in the 1970s, regionalism both revived and changed dramatically in the 1980s, and has gained strength in the 1990s. Regionalism today is emerging as a potent force in the global restructuring of power and production.

Innovation and transformation in international studies

Part I. Rethinking Remaking the Roots of Global Social and Political Theory: 1. Transformation and innovation in the study of world order Stephen Gill 2. Consciousness, myth and collective action: Gramsci, Sorel and the ethical state Enrico Augelli and Craig N. Murphy 3. Critical realism and the demystification of interstate power E. H. Carr, Hedley Bull and Robert W. Cox Richard Falk 4. Ibn Khaldun and world order Mustapha Pasha Part II. Political Economy: the Social and Ecological Anatomy of Transformation: 5. Ecology, political economy and the counter-movement: Karl Polanyi and the second great transformation Mitchell Bernard 6. Braudelian reflections on economic globalisation: the historian as pioneer, Eric Helleiner 7. Social forces and international political economy: joining the two IRs Jeffrey Harrod 8. Transnational class formation and state forms Kees van der Pijl Part III. Transformation, Innovation and Emancipation in Global Political and Civil Society: 9. Globalisation and contested common sense in the United States Mark Rupert 10. The silent revolution and the weapons of the weak: transformation and innovation from below Fantu Cheru 11. Frantz Fanon, decolonisation and the emerging world order Randolph Persaud 12. Whose crisis? Early and post-modern masculinism V. Spike Peterson Part IV. Reflections on Global Order in the Twenty-First Century: 13. Civil society and democratic world order Yoshikazu Sakamoto 14. Imposing global order: a synthesised ontology for a turbulent era James N. Rosenau 15. The problem or the solution? Capitalism and the state system Susan Strange 16. Rethinking innovation in international studies: global transformation at the turn of the millennium James H. Mittelman.

Conceptualizing Resistance to Globalization

Assessments of resistance to globalization are necessarily influenced by the manner in which one conceptualizes these processes. Too often, both of the terms (‘resistance’ and ‘globalization’) are used promiscuously, the latter as a buzzword or catchall and the former in many different ways, sometimes as a synonym for challenges, protests, intransigence, or even evasions. Hence, we seek to juxtapose alternative explanations of resistance and highlight the complexities of conceptualizing it. The purpose of this chapter, then, is to explore the question, what is the meaning of resistance in the context of globalization?

Rethinking the international division of labour in the context of globalisation

constrains all regions and states to adjust to transnational capital. The global transformation now underway not only slices across former divisions of labour and geographically reorganises economic activities, but also limits state autonomy and infringes sovereignty. In a notable attempt to explain vast changes in the global political economy, Karl Polanyi held that the socially disruptive and polarising tendencies in the world economy were generated by what he called a self-regulating market, not a spontaneous phenomenon but the result of coercive power in the service of a utopian idea. He traced the tendencies in the world economy that caused the conjuncture of the 1930s and produced-out of a breakdown in liberal-economic structures-the onset of depression, fascism, unemployment and resurgent nationalism, collectively a partial negation of economic globalisation, leading to world war. Like the global economy of the 1930s, the contemporary globalisation process represents unprecedented market expansion accompanied by widespread structural disruptions. While escalating at a world level, globalisation must be regarded as problematic, incomplete and contradictory-issues to be taken up below. By globalisation, I mean the compression of the time and space aspects of social relations, a phenomenon that allows the economy, politics and culture of one country to penetrate another.2 A hybrid system, globalisation intensifies interactions among, and simultaneously undermines, nation states. Although globalisation is frequently characterised as a homogenising force, it fuses with local conditions in diverse ways, thereby generating, not eroding, striking differences among social formations. Fundamentally an outgrowth of the bedrock of capital accumulation, this structure embraces and yet differs in

The globalisation challenge: Surviving at the margins

Globalisation is crucial to understanding international political economy, for it directs attention to fundamental changes underway in the post-Cold War era. The manifestations of globalisation include the spatial reorganisation of production, the interpenetration of industries across borders, the spread of financial markets, the diffusion of identical consumer goods to distant countries, massive transfers of population within the South as well as from the South and the East to the West, resultant conflicts between immigrant and established communities in formerly tight-knit neighbourhoods, and an emerging worldwide preference for democracy. A rubric for varied phenomena, the concept of globalisation interrelates multiple levels of analysis-economics, politics, culture and ideology. But what explains globalisation? What are its causes, mechanisms, and possibilities for transformation? Where to focus an analysis? On the inner workings and logic of capital itself? On strategies and actors seeking to optimise their positions? On empirical indicators or trends said to comprise this process? On the complementary and contradictory interactions among localisation, regionalisation and globalisation? On the social and political consequences? I contend that world society is entering a new era in the relationship between power and the division of labour, which is globalised. What sets the context for conflict and cooperation in the post-Cold War period is an integrating and yet disintegrating process known as globalisation. Although any given world problem has many sources, globalisation establishes novel opportunities and challenges for solving it. In developing this argument, I will first explore varied meanings of the concept of division of labour and the multilayer character of the globalisation process. The next section anchors the discussion by examining one region-East Asia-within this framework. This section is obviously not a detailed account but a synopsis of the impact of globalisation on a specific regional division of labour. Finally, I will turn to the seeds of future conflict sown by globalisation and, also, the implications for adaptation to a rapidly changing and highly competitive environment.

Globalization: An Ascendant Paradigm?

International Studies is on the cusp of a debate between para-keepers, observers who are steadfast about maintaining the prevailing paradigms and deny that globalization offers a fresh way of thinking about the world, and para-makers, who bring into question what they regard as outmoded categories and claim to have shifted to an innovatory paradigm. This distinction is a heuristic that allows for various gradations and dynamic interactions between the keepers and the makers. It helps to identify anomalies in and discomfort with International Studies. Partly as a response to these problems, globalization studies has evolved and may be tentatively delimited by a distinct set of characteristics. But, in the near term, there is no looming Kuhnian crisis in the sense of an impending overthrow that would quickly sweep away reigning paradigms. Given that systematic research on globalization is only slightly more than a decade in the making, it is most likely that International Studies has entered an interregnum between the old and the new. At this time, as a paradigm, globalization is more of a potential than a worked-out framework. It may be best understood as a proto-paradigm.

Globalisation and environmental resistance politics

AbstractBased on extensive fieldwork in Eastern Asia, an epicentre of globalisation, and Southern Africa, a key node in the most marginalised continent, this cross-regional study asks: what constitutes resistance to neoliberal globalisation? An ecological reading of master theorists of resistance, especially Polanyi, focuses attention on protectionist movements as a response to the spread and deepening of the market—solid patterns and cumulative action—and to a lesser degree, on the soft, or latent, forms of protest that may or may not sufficiently harden so as eventually to challenge globalising structures. Attention is given to submerged forms of resistance within civil society insofar as they are emerging into networks. The empirical evidence includes interviews designed to elicit the voices of the subjects of globalisation engaged in environmental resistance politics. Counter-globalisation strategies are identified, and the impact of countervailing forces is assessed.

Global Bricolage: emerging market powers and polycentric governance

Abstract Contemporary globalisation is characterised by an explosion of organisational pluralism. Acronyms such as brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), ibsa (India, Brazil and South Africa), and basic (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) abound. This proliferation of groupings signals a repositioning within global governance and their names serve as metaphors for adjustments among formal and informal modes of global governance. They may be understood in terms of global bricolage: a framework for analysing incipient assemblages in global governance. Rooted in cultural political economy, this notion offers a language for grasping a loose meshwork of groupings based on certain large countries in the global South. The concept of global bricolage deepens analysis of polycentric governance and enables observers to identify three major tensions that mark contemporary global order. The antinomies are between old and new narratives that represent actual or potential shifts in prevailing forms of global governance, between an emancipatory spirit and contested neoliberal norms, and between interregional coalitions and intraregional differences. Quite clearly, the manner of addressing them will bear greatly on the shape of future world order.

Globalization: Captors and captive

Globalization studies are not really global. Rather, globalization research mainly centres on, and emanates from, the OECD countries. To begin to change the balance, it is important to pose a set of pertinent and penetrating research questions. Animated by theoretical and empirical research undertaken largely in southeast Asia, these questions call for painstaking analyses of dominant moral codes, various actors attempts to turn the globalization scenario to advantage, cultural and political struggles to assert some control over market forces, and tensions within a framework based on neoliberal values and policies. The act of capturing establishes a hierarchy between the captor and the captive. This hierarchy is not a dichotomy, but an ordering of power and a division of labour. The captors of course seek to remain on top, and the captured attempt to ascend from the bottom of the heap. Such structural and dynamic relationships must be contextualized and, today, are integral to the epochal transformation known as globalization.

Reconstituting ‘Common-sense’ Knowledge: Representations of Globalization Protests

Common sense about globalization protests is embodied in media representations, aided by public intellectuals, and imported into the classroom. Survey research demonstrates that the template of representations is partially accurate and partly misleading. The protesters’ perspectives show considerable complexity, and indicate a selective rejection of neoliberal policies and core institutions but not an overall ‘antiglobalization’ stance. Even if not totally coherent, these bundles are not just random collections of beliefs, attitudes, goals, and strategies. They raise doubts about authoritative imagery and pose questions about transformative possibilities. It is well to recall that for Gramsci, critical thinking should not merely oppose but become part of people’s understanding of their own conditions, bringing about a new common sense.