scholarly journals National policy space: reframing the political economy of globalization and its implications for national sovereignty and democracy

2021 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 447-465
Author(s):  
THOMAS PALLEY
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
National Policy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Policy Space ◽  
National Sovereignty ◽  
Global Democracy ◽  
Political Project ◽  
Degree Type

ABSTRACT This paper critiques the trilemma framing of the political economy of globalization, and offers an alternative framing based on the construction of national policy space. The paper makes three main contributions. First, building on Stein (2016), it deconstructs the categories used by Rodrik (2011) and introduces distinctions between the “degree”, “type”, and “dimensions” of globalization; “effective” versus “formal” national sovereignty; “content” versus “process” of democracy; and “national” versus “global” democracy. The deconstruction shows countries face choices involving a series of margins, not a trilemma. Second, that suggests reframing the problematic in terms of national policy space, which is the “funnel” through which globalization impacts democracy and national sovereignty. Third, the paper shows a country can be impacted by globalization even if it does nothing because other countries’ actions change its possibility set. The reframing shows globalization is an intrinsically political project. To the extent it is now driving a nationalistic anti-democratic turn in politics, responsibility lies with political elites.

The Political Economy of Aid Allocation in Africa: Evidence from Zambia

2018 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Takaaki Masaki
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Geographical Distribution ◽  
The Political ◽  
Development Projects ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Limited Information ◽  
Aid Allocation ◽  
Electoral Incentives ◽  
Swing Voters

Abstract:This article utilizes a newly available dataset on the geographical distribution of development projects in Zambia to test whether electoral incentives shape aid allocation at the subnational level. Based on this dataset, it argues that when political elites have limited information to target distributive goods specifically to swing voters, they allocate more donor projects to districts where opposition to the incumbent is strong, as opposed to districts where the incumbent enjoys greater popularity.

The vulgarity of democracy. Political, pornography, masculinity and politics in Ecuador

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xavier Andrade
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Social Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Public Office ◽  
The Public ◽  
Image Objects ◽  
Audience Responses ◽  
Neoliberal Policies ◽  
Deviant Sexuality

The Vulgarity of Democracy explores key aesthetics and affective aspects of democracy via a visual ethnographic exploration of political pornography and the public uses of machismo to construct agendas for popular redemption in Guayaquil, Ecuador, during the 1980s. This period was the beginning of a highly conflictive social process as a result of the imposition of neoliberal policies. Its focus is on the life and work of Pancho Jaime (1946-1989), the most controversial and widely known rock promoter and independent journalist. Between 1984 and his assassination in 1989, Jaime’s underground publications used in-depth investigation as well as gossip, pornographic cartoons, and obscene language to comment on democracy and the corruption of political elites. Jaime’s strategy was to denounce the conduct of powerful figures in public office, and caricaturize their deformed bodies as indexes of their supposedly “deviant” sexuality. Following contemporary and comparative discussions on the political economy of images, and the materiality of image-objects, X. Andrade analyzes the production, circulation, and consumption of Pancho Jaime’s political magazines, audience responses to grotesque visual and aggressive textual discourses, and the effects of revealing public secrets about popular understandings of politics.

Internationalization of finance capital in Spain and Turkey: Neoliberal globalization and the political economy of state policies

2012 ◽  
Vol 47 ◽  
pp. 115-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mustafa Kutlay
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Financial Crisis ◽  
State Policies ◽  
Comparative Perspective ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Neoliberal Globalization ◽  
Finance Capital ◽  
Policy Fields ◽  
Over Time

AbstractThis study applies the proactive/reactive state framework to the transformation of Spanish and Turkish finance capital in a comparative perspective. It concludes that the “proactive” policies pursued by the Spanish state and the strategic coalition established between political elites and the integrationist segments of finance capital resulted in the heterodox internationalization of Spanish firms, whereas the “reactive” state policies in Turkey, designed in line with orthodox neoliberal dictums, paved the way for an incomplete internationalization. The 2007/2008 crisis, however, demonstrates that the same state may be both proactive and reactive across various policy fields over time. The recent Spanish financial crisis and Turkey's regulatory success after 2001 illustrate this point.

American Exceptionalism in Crime, Punishment, and Disadvantage

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicola Lacey ◽  
David Soskice
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Political System ◽  
National Policy ◽  
American Exceptionalism ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Postwar Period ◽  
Comparative Political Economy ◽  
Crime And Punishment ◽  
Politics Of Race

This chapter sets a particular thesis focused on the institutional structure of the American political system within the context of a broader literature in the comparative political economy of crime and punishment. It then considers three possible objections to this analysis. The first argues that increasing American exceptionalism in the postwar period is to be explained primarily in terms of a distinctive history and politics of race. The next is the argument that this exceptionalism is to be attributed primarily to national policy driven by the federal government. The final argument is that American exceptionalism is driven by the interests of political elites who are relatively disconnected from the interests of their electors. Each of these objections, the chapter suggests, can be met.

The limits of instrumentalizing disorder: Reassessing the neopatrimonial perspective in the Central African Republic

2018 ◽  
Vol 118 (471) ◽  
pp. 307-327 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lotje de Vries ◽  
Andreas Mehler
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Functional Role ◽  
Central African Republic ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Informal Networks ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Power Basis

Abstract Assumptions about the political economy of African states predominantly centre on a dominant elite’s ability to stabilize power. A key assertion is that elites maintain clientelistic networks of rents and redistribution and in turn extend their control over their respective territories by instrumentalizing disorder. We challenge the assumption that disorder plays such a functional role. Largely drawing on data and fieldwork from the Central African Republic, we demonstrate the profoundly unproductive consequences of disorder that tend to be overlooked through current approaches to the political economy of African countries. We investigate how disorder impacts three dimensions of effective politics of domination: a set of elite groups that structure power in society, a political economy that redistributes its benefits through formal and informal networks, and the existence of functional centre–periphery ties across a territory. The article shows with regard to the Central African Republic that disorder has produced a small political elite that is largely unable to stabilize its power basis. We argue that certain African states are subject to forms of disorder that political elites cannot turn into an advantage.

India’s Turn to Rights-Based Legislation (2004–2014): A Critical Review of the Literature

Social Change ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 653-665
Author(s):  
Alf Gunvald Nilsen
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Critical Review ◽  
Socioeconomic Inequality ◽  
Active Participation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Review Of The Literature ◽  
Academic Literature ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Electoral Democracy ◽  
Political Project

This article surveys the academic literature on rights-based legislation and critically discusses key findings and arguments that emerge from this literature. I conduct this survey and discussion in light of a wider understanding of the political economy of Indian democracy as resilient but limited in terms of substantial forms of redistribution and recognition in favour of subaltern groups. This contradiction has arguably become especially pronounced in the context of neoliberalisation, where, despite the active participation of the poor in electoral democracy, socioeconomic inequality has reached dramatic heights, and I discuss rights-based legislation as a response to this. In conclusion, I reflect on whether rights-based legislation has anything to offer an oppositional political project to break with this spiral of dispossession and impoverishment.

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