Crisis Neoliberalism and Regimes of Permanent Exception

Since the world system emerged in the mid-19th century, the stages of capitalist development have all been initiated by economic crises. But unlike the crises of 1873, 1929 or 1973, that of 2007 did not signal the end of the neoliberal stage, but rather its continuation in more extreme forms. This break in the previous pattern requires us to periodize neoliberalism itself and understand how the cumulative effect of the policies implemented during the ‘vanguard’ and ‘social’ periods prepared the way for the current ‘crisis’ period, by restricting the options available to political and state managerial representatives of capital. By reorganizing political economy in such a way that states respond to short-term demands by key sectors of capital rather than the needs of the system as a whole, neoliberalism has inadvertently undermined the accumulation process, producing permanent ‘states of exception’ as the only means of containing the resulting social crisis.

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Migrant Labour during the Pandemic: A Political Economy Perspective

The Indian Economic Journal ◽

10.1177/00194662211021209 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 001946622110212

Author(s):

Deepak K. Mishra

Keyword(s):

Political Economy ◽

Migrant Workers ◽

Labour Force ◽

Current Crisis ◽

Capitalist Development ◽

Working Classes ◽

Migrant Labour ◽

Cheap Labour ◽

The One

This article aims to analyse the plight of the migrant workers in India during the Covid 19 pandemic from a political economy perspective. While taking note of the disruptions and uncertainties during the drastic lockdown that was announced suddenly, it is argued that the vulnerabilities of the migrant labour force are deeply embedded in the long-term changes in the political economy of development in India. These changes, on the one hand, have resulted in the gradual weakening of state support to the working classes, and on the other, have resulted in the normalisation of ‘cheap labour’ as a legitimate objective of neoliberal capitalist development. Locating the conditions of the migrant working class on the specificities of the manifold restructuring of the Indian economy under neoliberal globalisation, the study attempts to emphasise the structural dimensions of the current crisis faced by the migrant labourers. JEL Codes: J46, J61, O15, O17, P16

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Methodological Issues in Macro Comparative Research: An Introduction

Journal of World-Systems Research ◽

10.5195/jwsr.2009.334 ◽

2009 ◽

pp. 1-2 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Jeffrey Kentor

Keyword(s):

Political Economy ◽

Comparative Research ◽

World System ◽

The Other ◽

Special Issue ◽

Methodological Issues ◽

The World

This special issue of JWSR is the offspring of an ASA Political Economy of the World System session that I organized in 2007. My thanks to Andrew Jorgenson, co-editor of JWSR, who moderated the session and proposed that I put together a special issue on this topic. In turn, I asked Timothy Moran to join me as co-editor of this issue. Tim is one of the foremost quantitative macro-comparative sociologists in the country, and was the discussant on the PEWS panel. Tim provides a summary and discussion of the contributions in the conclusion. As it turns out, only two of the panel presentations are included in this issue. The other two were submitted in response to a general call for papers. All four manuscripts were peer reviewed.

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IR, imperialism, and the Global South: From Libya to Venezuela

Politics ◽

10.1177/02633957211061232 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 026339572110612

Author(s):

Matteo Capasso

Keyword(s):

Political Economy ◽

Foreign Policy ◽

International Relations ◽

International Political Economy ◽

Global South ◽

Media Representations ◽

Capitalist Development ◽

Secondary Literature ◽

The World ◽

Growing Body

This article brings together two cases to contribute to the growing body of literature rethinking the study of international relations (IR) and the Global South: The Libyan Arab al-Jamāhīrīyah and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Drawing on media representations and secondary literature from IR and international political economy (IPE), it critically examines three main conceptual theses (authoritarian, rentier, and rogue) used to describe the historical socio-political formations of these states up to this date. Mixing oil abundance with authoritarian revolutionary fervour and foreign policy adventurism, Libya and Venezuela have been progressively reduced to the figure of one man, while presenting their current crises as localized processes delinked from the imperialist inter-state system. The article argues that these analyses, if left unquestioned, perpetuate a US-led imperial ordering of the world, while foreclosing and discrediting alternatives to capitalist development emerging from and grounded in a Global South context. In doing so, the article contributes to the growing and controversial debate on the meanings and needs for decolonizing the study of IR.

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