Whose climate intervention? Solar geoengineering, fractions of capital, and hegemonic strategy

Proposals for slowing climate change by reflecting sunlight back to space, known as solar geoengineering (SG), are gaining traction in climate policy. Given SG’s capacity to slow warming without reducing carbon emissions, prominent criticism suggests that it will enable fossil fueled business-as-usual. This assessment is not without merit, yet the primary funders of SG research do not emanate from fossil capital. We analyze sources of funding for SG research, finding close ties to financial and technological capital as well as a number of billionaire philanthropists. These corporate sectors and associated philanthropies comprise part of “climate capital” – the fraction of the capitalist class aligned with climate action. We argue that SG is being positioned as a tactic for enabling incremental, market-driven decarbonization, explore key institutions advocating this approach in US climate policy, and conclude that SG is poised to serve as a tool for class compromise between fossil and climate capital.

Democracy, Development and Industrial Policy in Nigeria

The article places Nigeria’s political and economic challenges in historical and global context. As opposed to viewing democracy or development emerging simply as the ‘will of the people’ or ‘political will’, it encourages a historical and structural view of the phenomena. Sustained democratic institutions and intensive economic growth emerge under particular conditions where the continued maintenance of hegemony and gate-keeping extractive states are no longer viable. A diversified capitalist class and economic power among a strong middle class are needed to demand greater democratic accountability. Industrial policy is essential to creating the structural change required for their emergence. Yet the dispersed and ethno-religiously fragmented distribution of power makes industrial policy implementation difficult. Given the salience of such historical and structural forces, postcolonial Nigerians should be seen as formative generations. Students and practitioners of development economics, policy and politics should be more creative in producing politically informed policies for the country.

Queer Laughter in the Archives of Silent Film Comedy

This chapter looks and listens for queer traces of lesbian sexuality in the archives of American silent film comedies, from 1894 to 1919. Like sexuality, laughter is arousing, ambiguous, and often difficult to understand out of context. Focusing on A Florida Enchantment (1914) and Phil-for-Short (1919), as well as several very early slapstick film comedies, the chapter pursues queer laughter as a historiographic method. It argues that potential queer subtexts emerge in tense conflict with their juxtaposition to offensive representations of blackface minstrelsy, patriarchal sexism, and capitalist class ideology. At once amusing and disturbing in their sexuality effects, these films provoke new intersectional strategies in queer critical reading.

Explosive mixtures: ‘Redbones’ and the racialisation of a white working class

In the 1950s a wave of labour unrest shook a small town in southwestern Louisiana, leading to the racialisation of workers who had previously been considered white, as ‘mixed race’ or, in local terms, ‘Redbone’. This article considers why certain individuals were marked as mixed race in relation to strike violence and their opposition to capitalist expansion. Utilising a variety of methodological approaches, including archival research, historiography and oral testimony, this article seeks to examine how an instance of labour unrest was reinterpreted by local law enforcement, an interstate capitalist class and the national press as calling into question the racial integrity of a group of workers who had been formerly marked as white. This explosive and largely unstudied strike provides an opportunity to better understand how racialisation operates as a technology of control, even over individuals who appear phenotypically white. The strike at Elizabeth allows a glimpse at the tactics of representatives of white supremacy when white workers do not fully embrace the ‘wages of whiteness’.

Global Capitalism and the Battle for Hegemony

Facing a crisis of legitimacy, the capitalist class is constructing new hegemonic projects to stabilize their global system. This article will examine competing fractions of the transnational capitalist class (TCC), how these fractions are confronting the crisis of global capitalism, and how TCC theory analyzes the current state of conflict. TCC theorists see the development of two hegemonic projects, one based on militarized accumulation and authoritarian politics and that of green capitalist reformism. But differences exist on the evaluation of the strength and formation of these emerging blocs. The article also pays attention to the relationship between the United States and China as a battleground between globalizing projects, rather than nations.

The Political Economy of Structural Change

This chapter criticizes the view that structural change is a purely technocratic process. Many writings simply outline a list of best practices. However, a political economy analysis is required. The chapter provides examples from the history of Germany under Bismarck, the Republic of Korea, and Peron’s Argentina. What is lacking in the study of structural change is a thorough analysis of political economy in explaining how structural change occurs. Who holds political power within a state, why are (or are not) certain policies adopted, and whose interests are (or are not) being served by a given economic policy? These questions are of the utmost importance in understanding structural change. Countries with a strong landlord class or a strong financial capitalist class have generally found it difficult to implement good industrial policies, as those classes tend to want policies that may be detrimental to manufacturing. One also needs to look at the ideas held by those controlling the state.