scholarly journals Resisting the global neoliberal economy

2021 ◽  
pp. 147488512110258
Author(s):  
Alasia Nuti
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Global Justice ◽  
Economic Institutions ◽  
Outer Limit ◽  
Shared Interest ◽  
International Political Theory ◽  
The World

As a Western citizen, am I responsible for the serious injustices, such as sweatshop labour, characterising our global economy? Benjamin McKean’s terrific new book, Disorienting Neoliberalism: Global Justice and the Outer Limit of Freedom, shows why this is a misleading question – one that will not properly orient us in relation to the neoliberal economy. McKean argues that we need to recognise that we are unfree under unjust transnational economic institutions and thus we have a shared interest in resisting neoliberalism. This means that we should become disposed to heed the calls for solidarity by others across the world whose freedom is also impaired by neoliberal institutions. McKean’s book offers a powerful and persuasive new account of global (in)justice and solidarity; it is an inspiring call to arms for egalitarian theorists. Although I will raise two friendly critical observations about McKean’s argument, I recognise that this book is a major contribution to international political theory and that it sets a superb example of how to combine scholarly rigour with what might be called activist theorising.

Disorienting Neoliberalism

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin L. McKean
Keyword(s):  
Supply Chain ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Global Supply Chains ◽  
Global Inequality ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Du Bois ◽  
The World ◽  
Iris Marion Young

In a dizzying global economy full of injustices that threaten our freedom, people who want to promote justice should be disposed to solidarity with each other. When global supply chains assemble products from every corner of the global and workers’ economic futures seem ever more uncertain, the very neoliberal theories that helped usher in this world also provide a powerful way to understand and navigate it. Those who want to resist the injustices of today’s global economy need to reorient their way of seeing so that it is possible to act more effectively. By drawing on a diverse range of thinkers from G. W. F. Hegel and John Rawls to W. E. B. Du Bois and Iris Marion Young, Disorienting Neoliberalism provides an account of freedom that can inform transnational movements for justice. By explaining how neoliberal institutions and ideas constrain the freedom of people throughout the supply chain from worker to consumer, the book provides a new orientation to the global economy in which it is possible for people to see one other as partners in resisting a shared obstacle to freedom and thus be called to collective action. Cultivating this disposition to solidarity better expresses freedom than the pity and resentment which global inequality so often gives rise to. In doing so, the book shows how political theory can be a source of orientation to the world, illuminating how ideals can help guide action even when they may be impossible to realize.

Institutions and the Global Political Economy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa L. Martin
Keyword(s):  
International Economic ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
International Institutions ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Economic Institutions ◽  
Global Political Economy ◽  
The World ◽  
The Impact

In a comparison of today’s global political economy with that of the last great era of globalization, the late nineteenth century, the most prominent distinction is be the high degree of institutionalization in today’s system. While the nineteenth-century system did have some important international institutions—in particular the gold standard and an emerging network of trade agreements—it had nothing like the scope and depth of today’s powerful international economic institutions. We cannot understand the functioning of today’s global political economy without understanding the sources and consequences of these institutions. Why were international organizations (IOs) such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) or International Monetary Fund (IMF) created? How have they gained so much influence? What difference do they make for the functioning of the global economy and the well-being of individuals around the world? In large part, understanding IOs requires a focus on the tension between the use of power, and rules that are intended to constrain the use of power. IOs are rules-based creatures. They create and embody rules for gaining membership, for how members should behave, for monitoring, for punishment if members renege on their commitments, etc. However, these rules-based bodies exist in the anarchical international system, in which there is no authority above states, and states continue to exercise power when it is in their self-interest to do so. While states create and join IOs in order to make behavior more rule-bound and predictable, the rules themselves reflect the global distribution of power at the time of their creation; and they only constrain to the extent that states find that the benefits of constraint exceed the costs of the loss of autonomy. The tension between rules and power shapes the ways in which international institutions function, and therefore the impact that they have on the global economy. For all their faults, international economic institutions have proven themselves to be an indispensable part of the modern global political economy, and their study represents an especially vibrant research agenda.

scholarly journals Neo-Kantian Cosmopolitanism and International Law: Modest Practicality?

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 605-629
Author(s):  
Peter Sutch
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Global Justice ◽  
Practical Approach ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Political Theory

AbstractThis article explores the practical approach to global justice advocated by the cosmopolitan political theorists Pogge, Beitz and Buchanan. Using a comparative exposition it outlines their reliance on international law and on human rights law in particular. The essay explores the neo-Kantian influence on the practical approach and offers an original critique of this trend in contemporary international political theory.

scholarly journals Aesthetic and World Politics by Roland Bleiker. Basingtoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Hardcover: 271 pp.

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 105
Author(s):  
Siti Aliyuna Pratisti ◽  
Junita Budi Rachman
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Great Role ◽  
Political Theories ◽  
International Political Theory ◽  
The World ◽  
The Aesthetic

Aesthetic approach to politics is not really something considered as a novelty. Immanuel Kant has described the aesthetic relationship with rationality way back in the 17th century, as well as Friedrich Nietzsche and Jaques Rancier as a more contemporary counterpart. In the field of international relations, the study of aesthetics has been raised by a number of reviewers – from James Der Derian, Costas Constantinou, David Campbell, to Anthony Burke – who began to lay aesthetics as a foothold in approaching various phenomena. Roland Bleiker is one of the most consistent among them. In an essay entitled "The Aesthetic Turn in International Political Theory", Bleiker opened the discourse to establish aesthetics as one of the paradigms in international political theory. His essay is published in 2001, contrasts with the majority of international political theories that always try to "catch the world as it is". Bleiker assumes that there is always a distance between representation and what it represents. Through aesthetics, he criticizes approaches that fill this theoretical gap with mimetic ideas. He emphasizes that aesthetic studies do not try to mimic the reality, but it is trying to recognize the various emotions and sensibilities in the formation of a certain representation. The great role of "emotion" in politics is further explained by Bleiker through an essay entitled “Fear No More: Emotions and World Politics”, published seven years after.

scholarly journals The Motivation Question: Arguments from Justice and from Humanity

2012 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 661-678 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holly Lawford-Smith
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Global Justice ◽  
International Political Theory

Two dominant arguments within international political theory, arguments from humanity and arguments from justice, can be distinguished along the lines of the well-known distinction between omissions and actions, respectively. The discussion in this paper shows that people in general are psychologically biased towards thinking that omissions producing harm are less morally grave than actions producing equivalent harm. It also canvasses evidence suggesting that greater moral gravity correlates with heightened guilt, and that heightened guilt is more likely to lead to action that would alleviate it, i.e. remedial or compensatory action. For those reasons, it is suggested that we should expect arguments from justice, which track actions, to be a more feasible means to the desired outcome of (local commitment to) global justice than arguments from humanity, which track omissions.

Bentham's International Political Theory: Taking States’ Responsibilities Seriously

Utilitas ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Benjamin Bourcier
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
International Politics ◽  
International System ◽  
The State ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
International Theory ◽  
International Political Theory ◽  
The World ◽  
Institutional Model

Abstract In this article, I defend the idea that Bentham's international political theory entails a cosmopolitan dimension. First, I explain that Bentham rejects two pillars of internationalism, namely, the sovereign's unconstrained autonomous power and authority in international politics, and the legal and moral personality of the state in the international realm. This critique leads Bentham to construct a complex international political theory which places the issue of states’ responsibility at its centre. Bentham's international theory articulates a minimalist international system of cooperation between states (Part II) and an institutional model of public officials’ responsibilities that together play the crucial role in securing the greatest happiness of the greatest number in the world (Part III). In this last part, I explain how Bentham's international political theory relies heavily on the responsibilities of states, a set of responsibilities that encompasses both national and cosmopolitan responsibilities that public officials in each state hold.

Defending political autonomy: a discussion of Charles Beitz

2005 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 381-388 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Miller
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Global Justice ◽  
Difference Principle ◽  
Just World ◽  
Political Autonomy ◽  
Global Distributive Justice ◽  
The World ◽  
Contemporary Work ◽  
Primary Goods

Among political philosophers, discussion of Charles Beitz's very important book Political Theory and International Relations has focused mainly on Part Three, in which Beitz addresses the issue of global distributive justice, and argues in favour of applying Rawls's difference principle globally: an ideally just world would be one in which the share of income and other primary goods going to the least advantaged group of persons would be maximised, no matter which society those persons belonged to. There has been much debate about whether relationships across the world are cooperative in the sense that this principle is thought to presuppose, how one might construct an international index of advantage and disadvantage, and so forth. Beitz himself has contributed to this debate, and it remains central to contemporary work on global justice.

scholarly journals Hooray for Global Justice? Emerging Democracies in a Multipolar World

1970 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian Culp ◽  
Johannes Plagemann
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Global Justice ◽  
Rising Powers ◽  
Emerging Democracies ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
International Political Theory ◽  
Stark Contrast ◽  
Emerging Powers ◽  
Relations Of Power

Rising powers are fundamentally shifting the relations of power in the global economic and political landscape. International political theory, however, has so far failed to evaluate this nascent multipolarity. This article fills this lacuna by synthesizing empirical and normative modes of inquiry. It examines the transformation of sovereignty exercised by emerging democracies and focuses especially on the case of Brazil. The paper shows that – in stark contrast to emerging democracies’ foreign policy rhetoric – the ‘softening’ of sovereignty, which means that emerging powers gain as well as lose certain aspects of sovereignty, has become the norm. The paper explores this softening of sovereignty from the perspective of global justice by assessing it on the basis of globalist, statist, and internationalist conceptions of global justice. We find that the emergent multipolarity contributes in various ways to the realization of the distinct socioeconomic and political criteria of these three conceptions of global justice. However, we also point out that the transformation of sovereignty generates particular problems for the realization of all three conceptions.

Charles Beitz, Political Theory and International Relations

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy Bertoldi
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Global Justice ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Dominant Mode ◽  
Difference Principle ◽  
Political Autonomy ◽  
International Political Theory ◽  
International Anarchy

Charles Beitz’s Political Theory and International Relations (PTIR) played a pioneering role for contemporary international political theory by bringing together two domains of inquiry that had proceeded largely independently from each other in the twentieth century. This chapter will assess PTIR’s contributions to international political theory and explore its continuing relevance for debates on sovereignty, human rights, and globalization in a plural world. After reviewing the ways in which PTIR shaped the evolution of both international relations theory and political theory by questioning the central assumptions of international anarchy and political autonomy and by establishing cosmopolitanism as the dominant mode of analysis for international political theory with its groundbreaking argument for a global difference principle, the chapter will conclude by identifying several productive tensions in Beitz’s work that can further enrich contemporary discussions of global justice.

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