Morten Ougaard

Dimensions of Hegemony

Ougaard, M. Dimensions of Hegemony. Cooperation and Conflict, XXIII, 1988, 197- 214. The first section of the article deals briefly with the history of the concept of inter national hegemony. The second section identifies several dimensions in various defi nitions of the concept. The first dimension is the distribution of resources implying that hegemony is defined as a preponderance of material power resources, while the second dimension is control over outcomes. In some definitions the hegemon has a greater control than other actors, no matter which outcomes are attained. In other definitions a specific kind of outcome is required, such as the provision of certain collective goods. A related question is whether the hegemon takes care of shared interests or is catering to its own interests, to the detriment of those of others. This points to what is arguably a somewhat neglected dimension of hegemony: the underlying pattern of interests. It is suggested that the concept of hegemony is relevant in situations with common basic interests and secondary but significant contradictory interests. In such a situation hegemony is defined as one actors ability to provide for its own interests in conflicts of a secondary nature. The third section focuses on the patterns of interests underlying US hegemony. Three possible changes that can lead to declining hegemony are examined: increasing difficulties for the common interests, increasing incompatibility between the interests of the hegemon and its allies, and finally a growing disparity within the hegemons own interests. The evidence is only suggestive and points in different directions, but on balance it tends to strengthen the case for declining hegemony.

The reconfiguration of the transnational power bloc in the crisis

The current political conjuncture is analysed as a crisis of hegemony in the transnational power bloc. The previous hegemonic crisis of the 1970s lasted about 10 years before the neoliberal hegemonic project was firmly established. This new regime evolved in two stages: the first marked by the hegemony of transnational industrial capital; the second marked by the hegemony of finance, ending with the global financial crisis. The next regime will mainly be shaped by struggles along three lines of conflict within the transnational power bloc: between finance and productive capital; between ‘green’ and ‘black’ capital; and between the old industrialized countries and the emerging economies. Using patterns of political contestation and policy development as indicators of change in power relations, it is concluded: that finance is still part of the power bloc but no longer hegemonic; that green capital is gaining momentum but facing strong opposition; and that there has been some strengthening of the new powers but the situation is still unsettled. Transition to a green growth model, where productive capital from the North is hegemonic but with strengthened Southern capital, is a possibility but not the only one in this still open situation.

Sustainability and counteracting factors to profit rate decline

This paper discusses sustainability implications of barriers to growth as specified in the theory of the long-term falling rate of profit but focusing on the counteracting factors (CFs) specified by Marx. These depend much on political processes and are important in state theory for understanding policies of national and international institutions. Fourteen partly overlapping factors are identified and grouped in five categories: increased pressure on labor, geographical expansion, resource efficiency, technological progress, and destruction or devaluation of capital. It is suggested that there are limits to all of them and also that there is much room for continued capitalist growth. While the drive toward resource efficiency can contribute to sustainability, other CFs work against this. But increased sustainability requires the retirement of resource inefficient and carbon intensive technologies which implies a destruction of capital that will counteract the falling rate of profit. This will require sustained political intervention.

NAFTA, the EU and Deficient Global Institutionality

The differences between NAFTA and the EU are clear, as stressed in some of the previous chapters of this book. Yet these differences should not obscure how much the two projects actually have in common. Fundamentally, they are both examples of regional market integration and political institutionalization. Although of very different vintage and shaped by different historical circumstances, there exists an historical link between the two, while their future trajectories are bound to be interconnected because both are building blocks in a wider process of international institutionalization.

The Transnational State and the Infrastructure Push

ABSTRACT In 2010, the G20, in cooperation with major international organisations, launched a comprehensive effort – here labelled the infrastructure push – to promote infrastructure investments around the world. Using selected transnationalised elements from historical materialism, this is explained as a transnational state initiative to secure general material conditions for capitalist growth in a manner that is profoundly shaped by power relations. The infrastructure problem was allowed to grow during neoliberalism because of the hegemony of finance; the push is a result of and reflects a weakening of finance and strengthening of industrial interests in the transnational power bloc, as well as a strengthening of the emerging economies. This potential hegemonic project has gained the support of the global labour movement, while also has been subject to serious criticism from civil society organisations, speaking for the most vulnerable subaltern social forces. The empirical analysis also shows that the transnational state in this policy area works as a flexible, networked cooperation of G20 states and leading international organisations in ongoing dialogue with non-state actors, especially transnational business. In this cooperation, the international organisations have a relatively autonomous role in line with a historical materialist understanding of state apparatuses.

Why Transnational Class and State? A Response to Ian Taylor

Ian Taylor challenges the concepts of a transnational capitalist class (TCC) and state, suggesting that Poulantzas’s notion of the “internal bourgeoisie” is a better theoretical starting point for the analysis of transnational class formation and that the transnational state (TNS) is a step too far. This critique is not convincing. It is debatable to what extent it is a “Poulantzian reading.” The rejection of the notion of a TCC is unsustainable because of compelling evidence for the existence of such a class with articulated shared interests and organizations tasked with pursuing them. The critique of the TNS has some validity, but largely because proponents of the concept have been insufficiently clear on the consequences of upscaling the state concept to the global level. When this is acknowledged, the relevance and usefulness of the concept is that it enables state theoretical analysis of demonstrably existing TNS apparatuses that perform TNS functions, shaped by transnational relations of power between social forces, involving both structural power and direct engagement in transnational sites of contestation. There are now transnational elements of all fundamental characteristics of the capitalist state except one, the monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. Finally, Taylor does not provide an alternative approach to theorizing what descriptively is known as global governance.

Neo-Poulantzian Perspectives in IR and the Current Crisis

This paper is about Poulantzas, historical materialism, international relations, and the current crisis. My purpose is to discuss how some Poulantzian theoretical contributions can be applied to the study of subject matters that are the focus of academic fields such as International Relations (IR), International Political Economy (IPE), International Politics, World Politics and others. I deliberately abstain from singling out any of these disciplines or fields or labels and from trying to define them precisely, because one of my arguments is that historical materialism (HM) is a research program that contains its own theoretical definition of the object under study. This object, with inspiration from Poulantzas’ notion of the imperialist chain and his general theory of society, I will define as the global social formation or for short, world society.

General Theoretical Issues

This chapter discusses four theoretical questions of a general nature. The first is epistemological and concerns the notion of Bohrian complementarity, which, I argue, is a principle that is highly relevant for several important problems in societal theory and will be used to clarify two questions later in the text. The next two concern basic ontological issues, namely the structure-agency problem, where the principle of complementarity is applied for the first time (the second is in chapter 6) and the question of ideas versus material forces. Finally, the fourth section addresses a problem of a different kind, namely the reasons for applying a macro-sociological and idiographic approach to global society, politics and governance.

The Persistence Function in Contemporary World Society

The purpose of this chapter is to examine the extent to which a global state function of persistence has developed, following the modalities presented in Chapter 6, and in doing so to validate the applicability of the dual perspective on the state also outlined in Chapter 6 in relation to the global context specified in Chapter 3.

The Trajectory of Hegemonic Leadership

The preceding chapter presented an analysis of the power relations of the world society, departing from a specification of the power of social forces and states, respectively, and the institutionalization of these relations primarily in the constellation of G-7, the IMF and the OECD. A picture was drawn of a composite dominant bloc consisting of the domestically dominant coalitions in the leading countries and emphasis was placed on underlining the complexity of the power relations. The analysis did not focus specifically on the US in spite of the fact that one of the central characteristics of the world order is the unique role of this country. After the Cold War, and also before in the entire period following World War II, the US has occupied a historically unique position as the only superpower, possessing power resources, both hard and soft, in a league of its own, and its position and significance has differed from all other nation-states. The limited attention paid to these realities is not an attempt to downplay their significance; on the contrary it results from the recognition of the centrality of the US role but combined with a theoretical perspective that calls for a separate treatments.