Washington Consensus, Globalization, Neo Liberaism and the State in Africa: A Critical Exegesis

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alabi Usman ◽  
Salihu Bashir
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Developing World ◽  
African State ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
The State ◽  
Washington Consensus ◽  
Global Political Economy

Neoliberalism as a political economic ideology drives the world’s global economy and it’s responsible for the rise and fall of nations especially the advanced and developing world respectively. The global political economy is driven by neoliberal thought and the market has for so long being a medium for distilling the values of a global hegemon that maintains the global political economy and legitimizes its leadership. Washington Consensus is one of the recent policies that expresses neoliberal economic thought and aims at perpetuating the integration of developing world to the global capitalist grid and also recently the Soviet States that emerge out of the ashes of the former Soviet Union. But in all, the Washington Consensus has failed and failed woefully and has plunge the countries where it was adopted into deeper crisis, it has not put into consideration country specific peculiarities and has assumed that Latin America’s problem is peculiar to that of other developing countries. Washington Consensus has even went as far as the new Soviet countries who do not even have a well differentiated market structure therefore has no basis for the Washington Consensus. Yet this has shown that the Washington Consensus is an ideological make up rather than an economic prescription. However Neoliberalism did not stop at that, the pervasiveness of neoliberal ideas has led to globalization which is the present reality of the global political economy, the market becomes a universal phenomenon under globalization thus making neoliberal economic arrangement the end of history. The central argument of this paper on globalization is that it was triggered, it was not supposed to be now, the world was not prepared for globalization and that is why we are having the several backlashes occurring now. What exactly does this portends for the African state, the argument of this paper is for the state. Inspite of globalization, the role of the state cannot be jeopardized; the state in Africa is pivotal to the much needed economic leap of Africa. I also argued that neoliberalism distorted the African economic arrangement and led to the neo-patrimonial nature of the African states which makes it incapable of auto centric development. This paper concludes that there is no better period for Africa to develop than in this age of globalization and that regionalism is pivotal to Africa’s economic advancement

scholarly journals Comparative legal analysis of the anti-corruption policy in Ukraine and Poland

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (69) ◽  
pp. 91-114
Author(s):  
Oleksandra Zakharova ◽  
Olena Harasymiv ◽  
Olga Sosnina ◽  
Oleksandra Soroka ◽  
Inesa Zaiets
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Market Economy ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
The State ◽  
Legal Analysis ◽  
International Treaties

Effective counteraction to corruption remains relevant in some countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, given that manifestations of corruption are a real obstacle to the realization of human rights, social justice, economic development and jeopardizes the proper functioning of a market economy. However, if such countries of the region, such as Poland, succeeded in ensuring the implementation of an effective anti-corruption policy, a number of post-Soviet countries, in particular Ukraine, faced significant obstacles to overcoming corruption and effectively implementing national anti-corruption policies. Therefore, within this article, a comparative legal analysis of the anti-corruption legislation of these countries has been carried out. The state of implementation of national anti-corruption policies and the formulated conclusions, which provide answers to the questions of improving the implementation of national anti-corruption policy, in particular Ukraine, are considered. Thus, the existence of modern national anti-corruption legislation that best meets the requirements and recommendations on which the state relies on relevant international treaties can be the key to successful anti-corruption efforts.

Gender, Labor, and Emotion in a Global Economy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexia Bloch
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Women Entrepreneurs ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Global Capitalism ◽  
Emotion Work ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Affective States ◽  
Political Economic

This chapter considers how shuttle traders, or small-scale entrepreneurs in the wholesale garment business, move merchandise from Turkey to locations across the former Soviet Union and are part of a broader transformation of intimate practices and affective states brought about by gendered mobility in the region. Featuring the accounts of three women entrepreneurs from Russia, the chapter reflects on how particular political-economic formations generate their own distinctive affective states. The chapter considers the emotion work required of women as men contend with shame about no longer being primary breadwinners, and as women widely reflect on their shame associated with becoming traders. Overall, the chapter analyzes how ideals around gender and labor are renegotiated as global capitalism encompasses former socialists.

10. Global Political Economy

2021 ◽  
pp. 223-249
Author(s):  
Stephanie Lawson
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
International Political Economy ◽  
Global Politics ◽  
Traditional Role ◽  
Global Political Economy ◽  
The North ◽  
Role Of The State

This chapter offers an overview of the field of Global Political Economy (GPE)—also known as International Political Economy (IPE). It builds on themes introduced in previous chapters, including connections with theories of global politics. These are discussed from a historical perspective to enable a better appreciation of how ideas, practices, and institutions develop and interact over time. These theories arose substantially within a European context, although the extent to which these may be applied uncritically to issues of political economy in all parts of the globe must be questioned. Significant issues for GPE include trade, labour, the interaction of states and markets, the nexus between wealth and power, and the problems of development and underdevelopment in the global economy, taking particular account of the North–South gap. The chapter then discusses the twin phenomena of globalization and regionalization and the way in which these are shaping the global economy and challenging the traditional role of the state. An underlying theme of the chapter is the link between economic and political power.

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.

Capitalisms: A Global System

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Deeg
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Systems Approach ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Business Systems ◽  
Global System ◽  
Global Political Economy ◽  
Epochal Change

The global political economy is a multilevel system of economic activities and regulation in which the domestic level continues to predominate—in other words, it is a global system comprising national capitalist economies. Nations differ in terms of the regulations and institutions that govern economic activity, an observation that is embodied in the so-called “varieties of capitalism” (VoC) literature. Contemporary VoC approaches highlight the significance of social and political institutions in shaping national economies, in stark contrast to neoclassical economics which generally ignores institutions other than markets or sees them as hindrances to the functioning of free markets. Three analytical premises inform the diverse conceptual frameworks within the VoC literature: the firm-based approach, national business systems approach, and the governance or “social systems of production” approach. The VoC literature offers three important contributions to our understanding of the global political economy. The first is that different sources of competitive advantage for firms and nations are institutionally rooted and not easily changed. The second contribution is that these distinct national arrangements give rise to different interests/preferences in how the global economy is constructed and managed. Finally, the VoC approaches provide a framework for analyzing long-term institutional changes in capitalist systems and the persistence of diverse forms of capitalism, including the global financial crisis of 2008–2009 that may usher in yet another epochal change in the “battle of capitalisms.”

The State of Agrarian Reform in the Former Soviet Union

2001 ◽  
Vol 53 (6) ◽  
pp. 885-901 ◽  
Author(s):  
Max Spoor ◽  
Oane Visser
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Agrarian Reform ◽  
The State

There are Many Alternatives: Margaret Thatcher in the History of Economic Thought

2002 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 307-311 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bradley W. Bateman
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Free Market ◽  
The United States ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
Margaret Thatcher ◽  
The Times ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Investment Boom

The last twenty-five years of the twentieth century were freighted with important moments for historians of economic thought: the collapse of the Keynesian consensus, the rise (and fall) of monetarism, the collapse of the former Soviet Union and the other Marxist-Leninist states in central and eastern Europe, the rise of neo-liberalism, and arguments over the possible emergence of a “New Economy” following the internet investment boom at the end of the 1990s. Each of these moments will require its own history as we slowly move away from the tumult of the times and begin to weigh them for their own significance. But several of the moments have a common iconic face in Margaret Thatcher, the Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1979 to 1990. Few other individuals so readily embody the sense of the times. Thatcher's election—a full year and a half before Ronald Reagan's—marks for many people the moment when Keynesian policies finally and irretrievably lost their legitimacy. Likewise, the timing of her election, just two months before Paul Volcker's selection as the chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in the United States, also means that for many people Thatcher's is the public face of monetarism's ascendancy. Finally, there is probably no one person whose name is so clearly associated with the rise of free market thinking and neo-liberalism during the end of the twentieth century.

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