Stephen Gill

New constitutionalism, democratisation and global political economy∗

Constitutional revision is a feature of the 1990s. Specifically, this involves initiatives to politically ‘lock in’ neo‐liberal reforms. These initiatives serve to secure investor freedoms and property rights for transnational enterprises. Yet students of international political economy have paid surprisingly little attention to the constitutional aspects of global restructuring. Thus this essay analyses the new constitutionalism of disciplinary neo‐liberalism, understood as the discourse of governance that informs this pattern of change. It is reflected in the World Banks World Development Report 1997: The State in a Changing World. New constitutionalism operates to confer privileged rights of citizenship and representation to corporate capital and large investors. What is emerging within state forms (state & endash civil society complexes) is a pattern of authority in which capital has greater weight and representation, restraining the democratisation process that has involved centuries of struggle for...

Toward a Postmodern Prince? The Battle in Seattle as a Moment in the New Politics of Globalisation

This essay analyses recent protests against aspects of neoliberal globalisation, as for example at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Ministerial Meeting in Seattle in late 1999 and in Washington, DC in spring 2000 to coincide with the IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings. I first examine the reasons for the failure of the Seattle talks, and secondly, evaluate the protests and their political significance. Finally, I analyse some emerging forms of political agency associated with struggles over the nature and direction of globalisation that I call the ‘the postmodern Prince’. This concept is elaborated in the final section of this essay. It is important to stress at the outset, however, that in this essay the term ‘postmodern’ does not refer, as it often does, to a discursive or aesthetic moment. In my usage, ‘postmodern’ refers to a set of conditions, particularly political, material, and ecological that are giving rise to new forms of political agency whose defining myths are associated with the quest to ensure human and intergenerational security on and for the planet, as well as democratic human development and human rights. As such, the multiple and diverse political forces that form the postmodern Prince combine both defensive and forward-looking strategies. Rather than engaging in deconstruction, they seek to develop a global and universal politics of radical (re)construction. The battle in Seattle took place both inside and outside the conference centre in which the meetings took place; the collapse of the discussions was partly caused by the greater visibility of trade issues in the everyday lives of citizens and the

Constitutionalizing Inequality and the Clash of Globalizations

Intensified inequalities, social dislocations and human insecurity have coincided with a redefinition of the political in the emerging world order. Part of this redefinition involves the emergence of new constitutionalism. New constitutionalism limits democratic control over central elements of economic policy and regulation by locking in future governments to liberal frameworks of accumulation premised on freedom of enterprise. New political “limits of the possible” are also redefined by a “clash of globalizations” as new constitutionalism and more generally “globalization from above” is contested from below by nationalists, populists and fundamentalists as well as diverse progressive movements in innovative forms of global political agency.

Economic globalization and the internationalization of authority: Limits and contradictions

Abstract The post-war internationalization and globalization of production, finance and exchange has not been matched by a corresponding internationalization of political authority, especially with regard to economic matters. Indeed, it could be argued that a central contradiction in the development in the post-war global political economy lies in the territorialization of political authority and identity, usually identified with the nation-state, and the universalization of economic forces, increasingly associated with the deepening and spread of commoditization and marketization of social life. Thus, in so far as one speaks of the problem of global economic management, viewed from the perspective of the most powerful states and social forces in the world order, one is discussing attempts to create a more developed international political and civil society, that is, involving formal organizations (such as the G7, IMF, World Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development) as well as informal, private forums (such as the Trilateral Commission, World Economic Forum, the Bilderberg meetings) in a strategic process which is designed to configure the limits of political discourse with regard to national and global economic policy.

Global Health and the Global Economic Crisis

Although the resources and knowledge for achieving improved global health exist, a new, critical paradigm on health as an aspect of human development, human security, and human rights is needed. Such a shift is required to sufficiently modify and credibly reduce the present dominance of perverse market forces on global health. New scientific discoveries can make wide-ranging contributions to improved health; however, improved global health depends on achieving greater social justice, economic redistribution, and enhanced democratization of production, caring social institutions for essential health care, education, and other public goods. As with the quest for an HIV vaccine, the challenge of improved global health requires an ambitious multidisciplinary research program.

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.

Ontology, Method, and Hypotheses

Chapter 2 is concerned to advance some of the theoretical and practical agenda outlined at the end of Chapter 1 by introducing issues of ontology and epistemology so as to outline a methodological sketch to frame a number of our main hypotheses.

Globalization, democratization, and multilateralism

Foreword Timothy M. Shaw Preface Stephen Gill 1. Global Structural Change and Multilateralism Stephen Gill 2. Finance, Production and Panopticism: Inequality, Risk and Resistance in an Era of Disciplinary Neo-Liberalism Stephen Gill 3. Nordic Welfare Capitalism in the Emerging Global Political Economy Magnus Ryner 4. Restructuring the Global Divison of Labour James H Mittelman 5. New Global Migration Dynamics Helene Pellerin 6. Identity, Interests and Idealogy: The Gendered Terrain of Global Restructuring Isabella Bakker 7. Structural Adjustment and the G-7: Limits and Contradictions Fantu Cheru and Stephen Gill 8. Global Environmental Issues and the World Bank David Law 9. Atlantic Rivalries and the Collapse of the USSR Kees Van Der Pijl 10. Civil Society and Political Economy in South and Southern Africa Fantu Cheru 11. Some Reflections on the Oslo Symposium Robert W Cox

Global Political Economy and Social Reproduction

Chapter 1 serves as the general introduction to this book, and it should be read in conjunction with Chapter 2, which outlines ontological and methodological issues, and sketches our main hypotheses.

The Geopolitics of the Asian Crisis

This short essay is a commentary on the world’s worst economic crisis since the 1930s. Millions were impoverished, whilst much of the debts of private investors were socialized through government and IMF-led bailouts. However, largely overlooked at the time was how financial and economic crises have a strategic, geopolitical aspect. This aspect can be understood partly in terms of rival projects of capitalist development. Such projects involve the regional and global articulation of ideology, international organizations, state power and capital.