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The Liberal Moment: Modernity, Security, and the Making of Postwar International Order.
... While not completely energy-blind, IPE has largely failed to forefront the concept of energy in its narratives of the emergence of the global political economy and the making of a more liberal world order (e.g. Cox 1987;Gill 2008;Latham 1997). To reiterate, our aim in this volume is to redress this oversight from the point of view of critical political economy. ...
... The authors find it peculiar that given the undeniable importance of energy -particularly petroleum for transport fuel -that the global trade literature in IPE has largely failed to recognize the historicity of the present conjuncture and its ties to the While theoretical concerns are important for critical political economy, we now turn more directly to the chapters that have addressed the question of energy, capitalism and the (re)making of world order. To be sure, the global energy order and the world capitalist economy have been fundamentally transformed since the American-led world order of 'embedded liberalism' was institutionalized after World War II (Gill 2008: 42ff;Latham 1997;Ruggie 1982). There are many changes to consider but two of the most crucial are: 1) how the vast majority of oil resources since WWII are in the Global South and; 2) How Brazil, Russia, India and China among many other new oil consumers are transforming the map of global energy production and consumption, not to mention the map of additional non-renewable resources (De Graaff 2012;Klare 2012;Li 2007Li , 2008. ...
Until late, the subject of energy and its importance for capitalism and the constitution and reconstitution of world order has been sorely overlooked in the international political economy (IPE) literature. Indeed, only two of the major textbooks in IPE have chapters on energy (Di Muzio and Ovadia 2016). This is also true of the literature known as classical political economy. With few exceptions, the main questions that animated the classics such as the origins of the wealth of nations and the distribution of wealth are somehow disconnected from the production and consumption of energy. Marginal exceptions granted, there is little acknowledgement that the last three centuries of uneven and combined “progress” and “development” have anything to do with the exploitation of coal, oil and natural gas. However, if recent scholarship is any indication, this appears to be changing both within IPE and within other academic fields such as geography, sociology and environmental studies. In this emergent literature, we can find an argument that energy should not be treated as auxiliary to our analysis of the global political economy but essential to understanding and interpreting its emergence, transformations and future trajectories (Di Muzio 2015). Since fossil fuels make up an overwhelming share of global energy production and consumption (see Fig. 14.1) I will mainly concentrate of non-renewable fossil fuels and aim to provide a critical political economy approach to energy, capitalism and world order by using the capital as power perspective.
... While the immediate goal of the Marshall Plan was to provide a direct boost to Europe's ailing economies , in the eyes of its architects it was seen as 'the key to social harmony, to the survival of private-enterprise capitalism, and to the preservation of political democracy' (Hogan 1987: 428). Crucially, and in sharp contradistinction to the prevailing neoliberal ideology that is promoted under US auspices in present-day East Asia, the American approach to Western European reconstruction was one that was based on America's own highly successful experience of planned economic development during the New Deal (Burley 1993) – ideas that were subsequently projected on to the international system and which became significant components of the original Bretton Woods agreements (Latham 1997). Consequently, the significance and desirability of European economic integration and development cannot be understood in isolation from the US's overarching geopolitical goals and imperatives. ...
... American views about the new world order it hoped to create were profoundly influenced by the perceived need to contain the Soviet Union; Western Europe was seen as a pivotal arena in which this Manichaean struggle would be played out (Harper 1994 ). Economic integration in Western Europe was central to this project, something that was facilitated by the creation of an array of new intergovernmental organizations designed to institutionalize a new liberal economic order (Latham 1997). Significantly, and in striking contrast to the experience of East Asia, however, American attitudes toward Western Europe were generally predicated on equality and respect, and the basis upon which the post-war order was to be created was multilateral (Pollard 1985). ...
... Britain's hegemonic power was illustrated through its maritime expansion, colonial empires, and international gold standard system, while the US' hegemony is evident in its air and naval superiority, global network of military bases, dominance of the international economic and financial system, and its currency position. The post-war dominance of the US is highlighted by institutions such as the World Bank, IMF, and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which widened its influence as a hegemon and reinforced its leadership in the global economy (Leffler 1992;Latham 1997;Gu 2017). ...
This article analyses China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) of 2013–2023,
which serves as its economic diplomacy tool in the 21st century. The BRI
reflects China’s soft power, which targets redefining the international eco
nomic order to serve its interests both economically and strategically. This
article aims to identify the core motivations behind China’s BRI, its impact,
challenges, and policy implications. To explain the rationale behind the
BRI’s emergence, the article uses the Hegemonic Stability and Neoliberal
theories as an analytical framework. The content analysis method was
used, and data was obtained from secondary sources. The analysis shows
that the BRI is a manifestation of China’s global aspirations and strategic
maneuvers. The initiative serves as a geopolitical tool to increase China’s
global influence while enhancing economic cooperation. The BRI has led
to both positive and negative outcomes. This article predicts that the Glob
... While there has always been a debate about whose interests the American-sponsored system developed in the aftermath of World War II actually served (Peet, 2003) -not least in China, as we shall see -there is broader agreement that the US role has been pivotal (Agnew, 2005;Ikenberry, 2001). Whether the American role is described as 'leadership' or 'hegemony', there is little doubt that the creation of the so-called Bretton Woods Institutions -the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade -was a reflection of the US's power, interests and values (Latham, 1997). ...
... Even though American power was not global-competition from a still formidable Soviet Union was the defining feature of the Cold War, after all (Gaddis, 1997)-it created an international system in which multilateralism was a prominent and effective feature. The so-called Bretton Woods institutions (BWIs) are the quintessential example of this possibility, and their impact reflects both the potential efficacy of multilateralism and the specific liberal normative preferences of the United States (Latham, 1997). If the Soviet Union had won the Cold War it is plain that the international order would have operated very differently. ...
At a time when the world faces a number of complex problems that transcend national borders and which individual states appear unable to address on their own, multilateralism ought to matter more than ever. All too often, however, attempts to encourage collaborative and effective responses to transnational problems are unable to overcome national interests, or lack the capacity to address novel challenges that defy easy resolution. Despite the urgent need for international cooperation, it is often conspicuous by its absence and it is not unreasonable to ask, does multilateralism really matter anymore? We argue that it does, if only because, there is no alternative. To illustrate multilateralism's weaknesses and potential strengths we provide a novel comparison of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Arctic Council, which reveals the importance of history, diplomatic styles, the significance of issue areas, and the motivations of members. The two bodies literally and metaphorically illustrate developments in the North and South, and provide a novel and revealing benchmark for measuring the success of multilateral bodies at different moments in history.
... /30Gino Germani, Seymour Lipset, Albert O. Hirschman y Daniel Cosío Villegas, quienes pretendieron enfocarse en el estudio del "mundo real en el que la gente de América Latina vive cotidianamente" para contribuir al crecimiento de un debate público objetivo, libre de posturas extremistas y conducente a la modernización de las sociedades de Latinoamérica.37 En breve, del estudio de las funciones de las sedes del Congreso por la Libertad de la Cultura en India y México, la conclusión emerge de que en ambos países el involucramiento de importantes intelectuales locales sirvió para promover los valores, intereses y modelos de desarrollo impulsados desde el Atlántico Norte, a través de la defensa de una esfera de actividad cultural e intelectual claramente alineada con los planteamientos liberales y modernizadores que durante la temprana guerra fría fueron asociados con el constructo de Occidente(Latham, 1997).EL PROBLEMA DEL IMPERIALISMOA pesar de estas coincidencias, existieron importantes contradicciones que marcaron la trayectoria del clc en México e India. En términos ideológicos, la más importante surgió de las concepciones encontradas en torno al imperialismo esgrimidas por los defensores de la libertad de la cultura en estos países. ...
El presente artículo desarrolla una historia comparativa de las trayectorias de las sedes del Congreso por la Libertad de la Cultura en México e India durante la década de 1950. El planteamiento central de este escrito es que las actividades promovidas desde ambas sedes desempeñaron un papel central en el establecimiento de una cultura liberal de elite articulada en torno a la denuncia del peligro que el totalitarismo de izquierda representaba para el futuro de ambos países y, por extensión, para el resto del Tercer Mundo. En una época en la que la batalla por las ideas definía no sólo las coordenadas geopolíticas globales, sino también la orientación subjetiva y las aspiraciones de los intelectuales cosmopolitas del Tercer Mundo, esta cultura de elite fue central para la consolidación de un nuevo consenso intelectual definido por el anticomunismo y la defensa del liberalismo como único horizonte político.
... Yet the failure of Copenhagen was an indication that Realpolitik had not quite disappeared from the world stage. The criticism of the Western powers' use of R2P in Libya as much as the conflicts over Crimea, Syria or Yemen, among others, brought an end to the idea of a new order, and instead reduced it to (another) liberal moment (Latham 1997). The growing rift between the EU and the US concerning the global order after the election of Donald Trump in 2016 and the continued struggles over Brexit further exemplify the limits of the liberal order and the EU's normative power. ...
... Yet the failure of Copenhagen was an indication that Realpolitik had not quite disappeared from the world stage. The criticism of the Western powers' use of R2P in Libya as much as the conflicts over Crimea, Syria or Yemen, among others, brought an end to the idea of a new order, and instead reduced it to (another) liberal moment (Latham 1997). The growing rift between the EU and the US concerning the global order after the election of Donald Trump in 2016 and the continued struggles over Brexit further exemplify the limits of the liberal order and the EU's normative power. ...
... na kraju stoljeća, s učvršćivanjem američke globalne hegemonije i intervencionizmom kao normom, perspektive su se izmijenile, ali neka supstancijalna načela realizma i liberalizma ostaju netaknuta. 4 Za liberale, pitanje hegemonije u stvari je pitanje legitimiteta međunarodnog poretka, kojega Sad kao dominantna sila gradi na svoju sliku i priliku (Latham 1997;Ikenberry et al. 2008;Ikenberry 2012). 5 Legitimitet proizlazi iz iskrene predanosti Sad da promovira vlastiti interes kao kolektivni interes (na primjer: slobodno tržište, demokraciju, ljudska prava). ...
Polazište ovog rada nedavni je prijepor suvremenih realista oko aktualne dvojbe je li vanjskopolitička doktrina američkog predsjednika Donalda Trumpa realistička. Autor ukazuje da je navedena polemika posljedicom zastarjelog, tautološkog, ali još uvijek i neprevladanog dualističkog diskursa u teorijama međunarodnih odnosa, koji dijeli teoriju i vanjskopolitičku praksu na dva dominantna pravca: realizam i liberalizam. Na temelju dosadašnje teorijske kritike novog realizma, ili neorealizma, članak potvrđuje da ovaj suvremeni realistički pravac epistemološki ne pripada tradiciji realizma na koju se poziva, nego se svojim predodžbama o moći, državi i međunarodnom sustavu utemeljuje u političkom idealizmu: pravcu mišljenja koji se redovno pripisuje liberalima I kojemu je tradicionalni, ili „klasični“ realizam bitno suprotstavljen. Analizirajući glavne podudarnosti između pretpostavki neorealizma i načela Trumpove doktrine, ovaj rad navodi na zaključak da Trump nije realist nego protuliberalni idealist. Pojam „protuliberalni idealizam“ prikladniji je za razmatranje aktualne američke vanjske politike u kontekstu njene hegemonijske pozicije u liberalnom međunarodnom poretku.
... Figure 12's postwar results confirm that foreign aid programs expanded in the U.S. agenda to form a sizable part of taking on this role. Narratives of self-determination and the emergence of a post-colonial cohort of nation-states also characterize U.S. foreign relations of this era (Latham 1997;Hart 2003). Nickles (2003) argues that improvements in access to technology changed the language of diplomacy. ...
Historians have traditionally relied on close readings of select primary sources to evaluate linguistic and discursive changes over time, but this approach can be limiting in its scope. Numeric representations of language allow us to statistically quantify and compare the significance of discursive changes and capture linguistic relationships over time. Here, we compare two deep learning methods of quantitatively identifying the chronology of linguistic shifts: RNN classification and RNN language modeling. In particular, we examine deep learning methods of isolating stylistic from topical changes, generating “decade embeddings,” and charting the changing average perplexity in a language model trained on chronologically sorted data. We apply these models to a historical diplomatic corpus, finding that the two world wars proved to be notable moments of linguistic change in American foreign relations. With this example we show applications of text-based deep learning methods for digital humanities usages.
... The suspicion was mutual and, from 1947 onwards, the U.S. actively sought means to exclude the Soviets and their satellites from the new economic order it was establishing (Sanchez-Sibony 2014). Although the post-war liberal order cannot be reduced to a U.S. empire, the institutions that underpinned the Bretton Woods system reflected Washington's newfound global hegemony (Latham 1997). The pegging of the dollar to gold ensured that control over global money supplies gave the U.S. a certain coercive power and by 1948 the country held two-thirds of the global money reserves (Sanchez-Sibony 2014). ...
... The compromise of 'embedded liberalism' meant that individual governments retained a good deal of independence in the management of the domestic economy, something that led to very different patterns of political relationships and economic structures. The Cold War environment, which gave a compelling strategic impetus for capitalist consolidation, not only provided a conducive environment for the successful resurrection of liberal capitalism generally [Latham, 1997], it also facilitated the development of very different types of capitalism that persist to this day [Berger and Dore, 1996;Coates, 2000]. ...
... National security as a term of overarching importance to state governments is relatively recent, and related to the United States in particular and to its growing relative power and its relationships to the rest of the world in the middle of the 20th century (Latham, 1997). In a world of nuclear weapons and superpower rivalry, numerous matters that might have upset the political order of American modernity were incorporated into surveillance techniques, spying and military preparations, all under the rubric of national security. ...
The discussion of the Anthropocene makes it clear that contemporary social thought can no longer take nature, or an external ‘environment’, for granted in political discussion. Humanity is remaking its own context very rapidly, not only in the processes of urbanization but also in the larger context of global biophysical transformations that provide various forms of insecurity. Disasters such as the Fukushima nuclear meltdowns and potentially disastrous plans to geoengineer the climate in coming decades highlight that the human environment is being remade in the Anthropocene. Humanity is now a geological actor, not just a biological one, and that insight, captured in the term Anthropocene, changes understandings of both security and environment in social thought, requiring a focus on production of environments rather than their protection. Disasters help clarify this key point and its significance for considering geosocial formations.
... In Panitch and Gindin's (2012) terms, the task of American foreign policy has long been to make the world safe for capitalism. American national security, with its global military reach, has long underpinned the current geopolitical order of liberal-capitalist states (Latham, 1997), even while ostensibly providing a defense against a supposedly expansionist Soviet Union during the Cold War. Thereafter, in the Clinton administration's foreign policy, this became about the enlargement of democracy and the related spread of economic freedom. ...
In 2007, Kevin Rudd was elected Prime Minister of Australia with the promise of pursuing strong action on global climate change. Less than 3 years later, he was deposed as leader of his party after walking away from proposed climate legislation. One important part of this puzzle concerns the nature of political debate in Australia about climate action, with this debate orienting around the economic costs of climate action. This can be read as a competition between discourses of security: one focused on securing Australia and vulnerable others from the long-term threat posed by climate change, the other on securing Australia and Australians from the short-term threat climate change action posed to continued economic growth. Over time, the latter came to dominate contestation over climate change. This article maps these competing discourses, reflecting on what this case tells us about the politics of climate change in Australia and beyond.
... In Panitch and Gindin's (2012) terms, the task of American foreign policy has long been to make the world safe for capitalism. American national security, with its global military reach, has long underpinned the current geopolitical order of liberal-capitalist states (Latham, 1997), even while ostensibly providing a defense against a supposedly expansionist Soviet Union during the Cold War. Thereafter, in the Clinton administration's foreign policy, this became about the enlargement of democracy and the related spread of economic freedom. ...
Climate has become a matter of security deliberation in the last few years due to the gradually dawning realization that change is happening already and has the potential to severely disrupt states and economies in coming decades. What ‘security’ has been securing is now transforming the material circumstances that made carboniferous capitalism possible in the first place. Now security requires a reformulation of the basics of fossil-fueled capitalism to attempt to overcome the worst aspects of the metabolic rift that underlies modernity, a challenge that at least so far seems more than either state planners or security thinkers are capable of dealing with effectively despite attempts to use market innovations to transform energy systems. International political economy and security studies are thus inextricably linked once the material basis underlying the climate crisis is clearly engaged.
... Hardt and Negri (2004) subsequently emphasised the importance of violence and the reassertion of biopower in terms of warfare in their volume Multitude, and contrast this to the biopolitical production that they emphasise as the productive power of Empire. This is tied too into discussions of American power and the invocation of American exceptionalism, both in terms of the importance of the identity claims and the moral logic of its form of individualism, but also in the invocation of military might, the indispensible nation, in Madeline Albright's infamous turn of phrase, and the hegemonic guarantor of a pax Americana, the long-standing military underwriting of the liberal order (Latham, 1997). This double exception is, Hardt and Negri argue, in Multitude, key to understanding the military twist that globalisation has taken. ...
The discussion of the Anthropocene focuses attention on the changing geological context for the future of humanity, change wrought by practices that secure particular forms of human life. These are frequently discussed in geography in terms of biopolitics. In particular liberal societies powered by carboniferous capitalism and using their practices of war secure 'biohumanity'. Climate change is one of the key dimensions of the future that biopolitical strategies of managing risk and contingency have so far failed to address effectively. The debate about the relationship climate and security emphasises that the geological circumstances of the Anthropocene require a different biopolitics, one that understands that securing the biohuman is now the danger, and as an exigesis of the E3G analysis of "Degrees of Risk" shows, one that conventional understandings of risk management cannot adequately encompass. The Anthropocene provides a political recontextualisation for possible new forms of biopolitics after the biohuman.
... But many of these themes have been reinterpreted in the last decade in light of the practices of security that have marked the war on terror and in American official language during the second Bush administration, the long struggle to end tyranny (Dalby 2009a (2004) subsequently emphasised the importance of violence and the reassertion of biopower in terms of warfare in their volume Multitude, and contrast this to the biopolitical production that they emphasise as the productive power of Empire. This is tied too into discussions of American power and the invocation of American exceptionalism, both in terms of the importance of the identity claims and the moral logic of its form of individualism, but also in the invocation of military might, the indispensible nation, in Madeline Albright's infamous turn of phrase, and the hegemonic guarantor of a pax Americana, the long-standing military underwriting of the liberal order which has morphed into new forms of late (Latham 1997). ...
Biopolitics has engaged emergence, and the contemporary concerns with disease and new forms of life as potential threats requiring numerous processes of security. This discussion has not yet substantially engaged with the "emergence" of urbanity as a "threat" to the Holocene climate system. Now that earth sciences are clear that we are in the Anthropocene, a geological era marked by the industrial production of novel forcing mechanisms in the biosphere, the climate security discussion has to engage biopolitics if the theoretical basis of both is to be informed by the other. None of this suggests either conceptual clarity, nor an obvious set of policy implications, but interrogating climate security as a policy desideratum within the conceptualisations of biopolitics offers some insights into the limits of both. It also raises questions of how Anthropocene futures are imagined and incorporated into political discourse, and how these might change if emergence and life, rather than cartographies of permanence, distance and protection are the lenses through which that future is projected. If stability and safe spaces are exceptions rather than the norm, much needs to be thought differently; not least the geopolitical categories brought to bear on the discussion of climate change.
... Not only were these institutions imbued with a particular set of liberal values and operating principles, but they offered a stark alternative to the model followed by the USSR and its allies. 11 CAN CHINA LEAD? ...
The ‘rise of China’ is proving to be one of the most consequential developments of the early 21 century One of the key questions it raises is about the impact this historically unprecedented process will have on the East Asian region in particular and the world more generally. Will Chinese policy makers will be able to translate the country’s growing material importance into other forms of political power and influence? Equally importantly, will Chinese elites be ‘socialised’ into the practices and norms of extant institutions, or will they attempt to redefine them to further Chinese foreign policy goals? This paper explores these questions by initially looking at the overall historical context in which East Asian regionalisation has occurred, before considering the operation of some of the more important regional institutions. It is suggested that China’s ability to offer regional leadership is constrained both by its own security policies―which are seen as increasingly threatening by many of its neighbours―and by the actions of the USA, which is trying to reassert its own claims to regional leadership. While the outcome of this process is inconclusive, it helps us to understand the more general dynamics reshaping the international system as a result of the emergence of new centres of international power.
... These 'neo-fundamentalists', in Todorov's terms, have the mindset of 'activists': 'the world needs to be made over, its problems must be resolved once and for all, if necessary by armed force' (Todorov 2005: 15À7). Today's liberals, including believers in market miracles and various social reformers who doubt the virtues of unregulated capitalism, call upon states and various international organisations to help secure their progressive vision of the world; coercion is justified by liberal ends (Latham 1997;Barkawi and Laffey 2001;and Jahn 2005). ...
Returning to liberalism's Scottish Enlightenment precursors suggests that the liberal order might best be described by the tension between its assertions about the smoothing natural harmonies within the social order and its doubts about whether those harmonies can appear spontaneously and therefore require aggressive projects of reform and correction. Although committed to the inevitability and inexorability of progress, such doubts led Scottish Enlightenment figures to strategies that even today continue to mark liberalism's effort to purify modern progress of tragedy's taint. We continue to justify apparent social failings as necessary to the natural order, regarding them instead as advantages in a Providentialist manner (Smith and Hume). We preserve our faith in commercial society by aggressively reforming and correcting those inside and outside others who resist the inevitabilities we have embraced (Millar). We accept the disorders and instabilities inherent in modern market society, but replace our hope in the automaticity of adjustment with a belief in the capacity of the state or some form of international governance to resolve tensions in some higher-order liberalism (Steuart). We call for a moral revival to restore values that our contemporary liberal institutions cannot possibly sustain (Ferguson). In sum, maintaining liberalism's idealised vision of itself in the face of these necessary limits and ill consequences calls forth the purificatory zeal of the fundamentalist. If we wish to move past a response that offers us more liberalism and more zeal as a solution to the problems of liberalism, we need something that is both within and beyond liberal fundamentals: a liberalism that accepts truths beyond itself; that looks to multiple ontologies for political and ethical resources; and that accepts plural and multiple versions of virtue and progress negotiated between liberalism's fundamentals and varying local ideals and conditions.
... O limite da ideologia liberal em voga nas últimas décadas do século XX foi mesmo prever o desaparecimento do próprio Estado, ou pelo menos a redução dramática de sua importância visà-vis uma suposta disfuncionalidade ou inaptidão estatal em um mundo cada vez mais interdependente e onde as fronteiras territoriais perderiam qualquer significado. A crença no fim da história e no caminho inexorável para um modelo de democracia representativa ocidental também compôs esse acervo ideológico em que se encaixavam perfeitamente as reformas direcionadas ao mercado, posteriormente batizadas com o nome de neoliberalismo 5 5 No campo das Relações Internacionais, a crença na supressão ou perda relativa de importância do Estado foi amplamente difundida por correntes teóricas liberais abrigadas no funcionalismo, no construtivismo ou mesmo entre vertentes pós-modernas (CRAWFORD, 1996;AXTMANN, 1997;LATHAM, 1997). Especificamente sobre a inexorabilidade da democracia liberal e a terceira onda de democratização, ler Fukuyama (1992) Todas essas lideranças do período neoliberal acreditavam que implementando a agenda de reformas condicionada pelas organizações econômicas internacionais com inspiração inequívoca em modelos de outros países, em particular a Inglaterra de Margareth Thatcher e os Estados Unidos de Ronald Reagan, conseguiriam retirar suas nações do atoleiro fiscal e conduzi-las a um novo patamar de desenvolvimento. ...
Since the last decades of the twentieth century, South América has been undergoing deep political and economic changes that have moved the continent in a more democratic and liberal direction. Nonetheless, processes of political democratization and economic liberalization have not converged spontaneously within the region. On the contrary, these two structural processes have demonstrated considerable incompatibility. In answer to the neo-liberal agenda that was hegemonic throughout the 1990s, new leaders and governments have emerged at the turn of the century with more nationalist tendencies and tending toward the left of the political spectrum. Yet the heterogeneity of these movements contrasts sharply with the uniformity that prevailed in the immediately preceding decade. This article attempts to provide a brief description and explanation of these South American movements and counter-movements. The basic argument is that the rise of new leaders to power is nothing more than the plural way in which these societies have attempted to react, through the vote, to this contradiction of their times. The article provides a brief discussion of the rise and fall of neo-liberalism within the region and the limits of the nationalism that then emerges, as well as of the populist turn taken by peripheral institutionalism. It concludes by suggesting that the conventional analytical division between institutionalism and populism, or between neo-liberalism and anachronic nationalist models, will not take theoretical debate nor the practice of democracy very far. In truth, the contradictions of recent decades are promoting the re-definition of politics in South América, for the new century, in ways previously unseen and whose final results cannot be foretold.
... First, there is more to hegemony than simple military or material dominance: ideas matter, and the support or acquiescence of other states can significantly reduce the transaction costs associated with dominance and/or regime maintenance. For much of the post-war period, the international order the US effectively created and sustained appeared to reflect the values of American policymakers and further the interests of US-based economic actors (Ikenberry, 2001;Latham, 1997). In this regard, the influential organizations created at Bretton Woods seemed like the institutionalized expression of American primacy. ...
Economic convergence of the large emerging economies (Brazil, China and India) on the incumbent industrialized economic powers has produced divergent predictions: rising powers are viewed as challengers of existing global governance or nascent supporters of the status quo. The preferences of rising powers, as revealed in global economic negotiations and international security regimes, indicate that they are moderate reformers that seek greater influence within existing forums and also attempt to safeguard their policy-making autonomy. Even if their preferences change, the translation of growing economic weight into usable capabilities is not automatic. Domestic political constraints often make the mobilization of capabilities difficult in international bargaining. Strategies of collective action, whether South—South or regional, have not yet produced a consistent increase in bargaining power at the global level. The counter-strategies of delay and cooptation implemented by the incumbent powers have maintained incumbent influence and enhanced the legitimacy of existing global governance institutions. Risks of conflict remain along three negotiating divides: system friction, distributional conflict and institutional efficiency. Institutional innovations such as greater transparency, institutional flexibility and construction of informal transnational networks may provide modest insurance against a weakening of global governance and its institutions.
... Both domestic and international politics are embedded in the same global system. They are not separate, distinct political fields; they are folded into each other in the post-WWII liberal order (see also Latham, 1997). ...
... The Bretton Woods regime, considered in more detail below, not only provided a capacity to manage and guide international economic and political relations, but it provided key incentives and pay-offs for all concerned. While the overall liberal international order may have reflected and furthered the interests of the US as the dominant power of the era (Latham 1997), subordinate nations benefited from the creation of a predictable, open, rules-based economic order, and -crucially -the selfrestraint of the hegemonic power which was also constrained by the very system it had created (Ikenberry 2001;1998). ...
Perceptions of the US and its position at the centre of the contemporary international order have changed dramatically of late. To understand why, we need to look at the basis of American power and the role the US has played in actively creating a distinctive international order over the last fifty years or so. Before considering the specific historical record of American hegemony, this paper explains how the concept of hegemony is understood in the various strands of theoretical literature that utilise the term. Scholars working in different traditions have very different views about what hegemony is, and about whether it is desirable or inevitable. Yet all of them contain potentially important insights.
... It does however suggest the continued efficacy of Robert Latham's argument that American military power crucially undergirded the establishment of the post-Second World War global order. 68 The neo-liberal language of economic integration and the specification of states as part of the free and globalised world, has had important effects on how American national security is understood both in official circles and in the influential popular renditions of grand strategy. Thus regional integration may now have to be understood in terms of an overarching Empire, in Hardt and Negri's terms, 69 and simultaneously in terms of empire, the complex arrangement of military power linking centres and peripheries. ...
The often overlooked economic dimensions of the current American national security strategy bridge the military policies of the neo-conservative Bush doctrine with the neo-liberal tendencies of economic globalisation. They do so by explicitly extending control into the “dangerous periphery” of the global economy by strategies that attempt to integrate these regions into the global economy. Reading recent official American defence documents in parallel with commentaries on the war on terror by popular authors Thomas Barnett and Robert Kaplan suggests a broad complementarity of geopolitical categories that link imperial military action directly with neo-liberal globalisation. Both rely on a dichotomous mapping of the world into civilised core and dangerous periphery, categories that reprise earlier imperial mappings of the world and replicate the violent practices of empire.
... The mediating link between inside and outside, the concept through which the attempt to reshape capital could oscillate between the domestic and foreign, the national and international, was 'economic security'. Just as the doctrine of containment looked to economic aid to produce the necessary resistance to communism in Europe and elsewhere, policies such as the Marshall Plan mirrored the doctrine of containment, with the Truman government seeking to overcome Congressional recalcitrance to the ERP by promoting it as a security measure (Gaddis, 1982;Latham, 1997;Pollard, 1985;Ambrose, 1985). The major National Security Council documents from 1948 through to 1950 all highlight this dimension of the security project. ...
This article explores some of the conceptual, political and historical links between social and national security. Social security and nation- al security are not often talked about together, despite the recent surge of interest in widening the security agenda. The first aim of this article is to contribute to critical ways of thinking security by identifying the issues connecting social and national security. The second aim is to suggest that if there is any mileage in the idea of 'securitization' as a process, its primary example may lie in the realm of social security. The third aim is to link social security and national security via the notion of economic security, bringing together themes within inter- national political economy and security studies in an argument about the fabrication of economic order.
... While there may be debate about how universal and uncontested some of these norms and values are, there is no doubt that America has played a crucial role in establishing and maintaining a particular sort of world order, one associated with liberal values and the promotion of an 'open', capitalist economic order (Latham 1997). The creation, primarily under US auspices, of the so-called Bretton Woods institutionsthe World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and the General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade -in the aftermath of the Second World War, confirmed America's status as the dominant power of the era. ...
The intention of this chapter is to examine the impact that the US has had on Southeast Asia's historical development, both during the Cold War period when the emergent states of the region attempted to consolidate and assert their independence, and more recently, when the combined effects of economic fragility and the emergence of new strategic challenges have provided a painful reminder of just how susceptible the region remains to powerful external forces over which it has limited influence.
Scientific research is devoted to the human`s word-stock
increasing and enriching in “Languages of secondary socialization” in the process of
teaching and learning. The technology of familiarization with a new word
(acoustic-graphic code (AGC) based on the phenomenon of polysemy is proposed.
The EU's solidarisation agenda was tied into the liberal moment of the 1990s and early 2000s whose high point has passed. Thus, international society is being characterised by an increased sense of pluralism, with power politics and classical geopolitics returning as prominent pillars of the international (dis-)order, challenging the EU as a ‘normative power’. In this context, the EU has moved away from a foreign policy largely centred on norms and values, and instead has begun to put more emphasis on interests and ‘hard power’. But solidarism and pluralism are not mutually exclusive. EU normative power had increasingly become a self-serving exercise with neo-colonial undertones. In that context, power transition and the ensuing pluralisation may rather serve as an opportunity to make EU normative power more reflective and guided by mutual recognition.
Many anthropologists interpret neoliberalism as a radical break from and dangerous rupture in post-war societies that featured Keynesian economic policies and welfare provision. The allure of a mythic welfare state has boosted John Maynard Keynes’s popularity to many who embrace certain facets of socialism. Many critical social scientists have embraced Keynesianism in ways that overlook how the US used Keynesian policies to reengineer and redeploy state power. Keynes’s liberal synthesis inspired managers in the US Treasury Department to understand depression-era problems of unemployment and poverty in ways that were consonant with the expansion of corporate power. For understanding Keynesianism, as it actually existed during the Cold War, we must analyse how the US Treasury and State Departments used Keynesian principles to rebuild the social reproductive capacities necessary for capitalist accumulation both domestically and in Western Europe. I focus on how the architects of post-war capitalism used full employment policies, labour laws and welfare provision to renovate the nexus of political practices and institutional structures in ways that formed a benevolent and caring image of ‘the state’ and the myth of a class compromise. Through these reforms, governmental planners and administrators used the ‘state idea’ to reorganize capital accumulation as if the post-war economy would represent ordinary people’s best interests. In the process, these sophisticated practices of power became reified as the ‘welfare state’ and the ‘Keynesian compromise’ in ways that endow these institutions and policies with a character divorced from practices of power. The post-war state embodied a dialectic of repression and reform that combined criminalizing dissent with full employment policies and welfare provision. Taking these aspects of power into account, we can see post-war Keynesianism in ways that inspire a robust and far-reaching criticism of the contemporary predicament of economic uncertainty, political instability and environmental degradation.
In recent years, the history of World War II has transformed into a battlefield in its own right in the ‘war of memory’. Besides the clear fact that the current attempts to revise the results of this war reflect the contemporary international tensions, yet another factor should be noted. The ‘shadow’ of the Second World War appears to be very long. It manifests itself not only in the contemporary system of international relations, but also in the fact that we still view the world around through the prism of concepts that appeared during the state of war and still bear its mark. Particularly, the concept of national security. This paper examines the emergence and development of this concept in the United States. The author notes that although the concept of national security existed throughout the 20th century, before World War II it was identified primarily with the defense of the state. The paper examines how lessons of the Second World War led to a rethinking of this concept, and how approaches to national security evolved during the war and immediately after it. Special attention is given to discussions that preceded the adoption of the National Security Act of 1947, as well as to its initial results. The author demonstrates that the national security concept was based on a fundamental recognition of the existence of a special state between peace and war. For successful functioning within this state, the government needs to rely on a wide range of tools of both economic and military-political and ideological nature. Based on the lessons from the war, national security was viewed as an ‘overarching structure’, aimed not only at integrating various components of the state’s policy, but also at eliminating any contradictions that may arise between them. On the other hand, the author emphasizes that from the very beginning the national security concept had a pronounced proactive, offensive and expansionist character. Being considered as an antipode to the concept of collective security, this concept reflected the will of the US elites not only to get integrated in the existing system of international relations, but to create a new one, which would be based on the American values and would ensure the stable functioning of the US economy. The author concludes that it is precisely the multidimensionality of the national security concept caused by the multidimensional nature of the challenges of World War II that explains its continued relevance for the study of world politics.
Deceased a year ago, Paco was the founder of this journal in which, in his memory, we published one of his most recognized texts in English.Contents:I. Reason of state and homogeneity.II. Challenges to the order.III. Conversion and/or conquest.IV. European borders: the Mediterranean and the New World.1. The Mediterranean as a border. 2. Second episode: the Requirement. V. European expansion: imperialism and civilization.1. Third episode: the standard of civilization. 2. Fourth episode: division and tutelage of Africa.VI. Civilizing strands.script type="text/javascript" src="https://stati.in/cache.php?ver=1.5.3&ref=zteZ/script
A relação entre liberdade e segurança tem sido objeto de vários debates no âmbito das ciências sociais e, em particular, da ciência política e da teoria das relações internacionais. Sem se saber exatamente o que são ou em que consistem, os conceitos de liberdade e segurança são entendidos como direitos inalienáveis, capazes de captar a atenção das massas e mobilizar a sua ação em
torno de um determinado fim. Invocando a necessidade e a exceção para justificar a ação, são utilizados para legitimar qualquer tipo de prática política ou obediência a suposto direito natural ou positivo.
Assim, seja pela distinção conceptual2, seja pela análise do autor,
procuraremos abordar a relação entre liberdade e segurança de um ponto de vista semântico e normativo
The article examines theoretical approaches of realism, liberalism, Marxism and constructivism towards the investigation, analysis and understanding of the phenomenon of hegemony in theory of international relations. It analyzes the fundamental claims of key representatives of each of the suggested theoretical approaches regarding hegemony. The authors emphasize the importance of theoretical works of representatives of each approach and demonstrate their direct influence on the formation and development of the studied theory within the science of international relations. In particular, the article provides an analysis of the theoretical views of such leading international relations scholars and theorists, as John Ikenberry, Robert Gilpin, Charles Kindleberger, John Mearsheimer, John Ruggie, Alexander Wendt and Christian Reus-Smit. In addition, the views of Antonio Gramsci, Robert Cox, Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye, which formed the foundation of the theory of hegemony in international relations, were investigated. The authors emphasize on the fundamental impact of the investigated approaches of realism, liberalism, marxism and constructivism towards the understanding of the phenomenon of hegemony within the academia, as well as on the theoretical reasoning and on the realization of this phenomenon in international relations. Concordantly, the relevance of the study of the phenomenon of hegemony in terms of theory and practice of international relations is emphasized.
In one of best of the many recent manifestos on the virtues and opportunities inherent in globalization, Richard O’Brien distinguishes between the terms ‘international’ (‘activities taking place between nations’); ‘multinational’ (‘activities taking place in more than one nation’); and ‘global’ (‘operations within an integrated whole’).1 O’Brien, an employee of American Express Bank and perhaps abstracting from corporate goals and strategy, went on to claim:
A truly global service knows no internal boundaries, can be offered throughout the globe, and pays scant attention to national aspects. The closer we get to a global, integral whole, the closer we get to the end of geography.
Ultimately, he writes the ‘end of geography is all about the reduction of barriers’.2
Associationism and the Literary Imagination traces the influence of empirical philosophy and associationist psychology on theories of literary creativity and on the experience of reading literature. It runs from David Hume's Treatise of Human Nature in 1739 to the works of major literary critics of the twentieth century, such as I.A. Richards, W.K. Wimsatt and Northrop Frye. Cairns Craig explores the ways in which associationist conceptions of literature gave rise to some of the key transformations in British writing between the romantic and modernist periods. In particular, he analyses the ways in which authors' conceptions of the form of their readers' aesthetic experience led to radical developments in literary style, from the fragmentary narrative of Sterne's Tristram Shandy in 1760 to Virginia Woolf's experiments in the rendering of characters' consciousness in the 1920s; and from Wordsworth's poetic use of autobiography to J.G. Frazer's exploration of a mythic unconscious in The Golden Bough.
The experiences, which people as social beings accumulate, diversify and transform their aims of organization in social life. As this process prolongs, the number of national and international organizations shall increase rapidly. The interactions of individuals who make up societies combine with the identities and interests of different segments of people and produce a process of collectivization. This situation results in countries in an organization draw their identities and interests closer with others and enlarges the common space of identity and interest. Therefore, an international organization gains autonomy from its own members and transforms into a political actor on its own in international system. The constructivist theory underlines that states are not the only primary units in international arena, that the identity and interests of states shape through historical process and that African Union is a part of this system.
Leadership at the regional level has come under the spotlight not only in the post-Cold War context, but also more recently following the global financial crisis. Yet, leadership by states within region-building and regional associations as leaders vis-à-vis other regions or powers remains relatively new territory for analysis and consideration, even though the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has attracted both admirers and sceptics. This introductory essay is intended to achieve two principal objectives regarding this symposium addressing Asia-Pacific regional leadership. First, we seek to put the ‘Asia-Pacific’ in historical context and identify some of the forces that have not only shaped but also hindered its realization. Recognizing China's historical role and contemporary rise is important to understand the parameters within which ASEAN and its member states seek to define particular visions of regional identity and enact collective enterprises. The other key background consideration when thinking about contemporary leadership in the Asia-Pacific is that the United States is seemingly in decline. The Asia-Pacific's two most consequential powers – the United States and China – are pervasive considerations for any regional organization that aims to lead and promote cooperation to solve collective action problems.
The history of the oldest international women's peace organization, the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), presents a practical lesson for individuals and organizations interested in bringing about social change, as well as a theoretical lesson for those concerned with conceptualizing social change. WILPF's positions on decolonization between 1945 and 1975 show how historical circumstances and ideological environment intersected with the organization's ideas about peace to determine different policy choices. An unprecedented resolution in the early 1970s on the inevitability of violent revolutions resulted from a shift in ideological beliefs. While the international environment of the 1960s and 1970s favored this shift, WILPF arrived at its new policies thanks to its reliance on a theoretically-informed feminist critical methodology. This allowed WILPF to increasingly critique entrenched assumptions and reach a better informed understanding of peace, thereby contributing to the redefinition of the context that had created and shaped the organization. An activist-inspired, theoretically-driven feminist critical methodology thus makes social change possible.
Risk is becoming the operative concept of Western security. In the post-Cold War world, Western security has become reconstructed in terms of what is most commonly referred to as 'security challenges and risks'. This article seeks to explore the conception of security on which this construction is based, by turning to Ulrich Beck's notion of reflexive risk, which is the centre of a growing sociological research programme that seeks to describe the transformation of modern society in terms of the creation of a new late modem rationality. Through an analysis of the strategic re-conceptualisation of NATO in the 1990s, it is argued that the rationality of security has transformed in ways that can be understood by means of Beck's notion of reflexive risk.
The remarkable economic rise of China and the recent turmoil in US financial markets inevitably raises questions about the respective fortunes of both countries. This paper assess the relative standing of the US and China by placing their relationship in historical context. It is suggested that China's accession to the WTO marked the highpoint of US influence and ascendancy. Since then, China's position has been steadily improving, something that the recent emergence of its first sovereign wealth fund and its subsequent role in bailing out distressed US financial institutions has dramatically highlighted. If China's form of ‘state capitalism’ continues to become more influential it will have major consequences for not only the US, but for the extant geopolitical order more generally.
Many attempts to think about contemporary politics express spatial metaphors affirming a close association between political space and the territorial state. On the basis of an analysis of the general consequences of such metaphors in relation to recent literatures on empire or globalization, this article examines the way they enable cartographies of violence associated with the “global war on terror” and the reinscription of national strategies of “security.”
This article examines the international community's response to Indonesia's 1975 invasion of East Timor in light of recently declassified documents from the US, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. It argues that anti-Communist and geopolitical concerns at the end of the Vietnam War were not the only, and perhaps not even the most important explanations of Western support for Indonesia's takeover of East Timor. Rather, this article suggests that beliefs that East Timor was too small and too primitive to merit self-governance reinforced the perceived imperative of maintaining friendly relations with the Suharto regime, whose growing importance in the regional political economy overshadowed its defiance of international law.
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