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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: FaultLine who wrote (64690)	1/7/2003 1:49:27 AM
From: KLP	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

FL--FYI....Speaking of Gramscian Structure and Hegemony: Characteristics of the Global Political Economy In this day's discussion, we focus on the structure of the global political economy and the condition of hegemony. Different approaches to IPE emphasize different definitions of structure and hegemony. Exploring the structure of the global political economy . . . helps explain who makes the rules, may explain what the rules will be, and possibly explains when the actors in the system have confidence. 1. What is structure? Economic nationalists and, to some extent, liberals focus on: Distribution of military/strategic and economic power among states . . . Which states have the most military and economic power? Can the system be described as unipolar, bipolar, balance of power, etc.? Which states control monetary and financial relations? Marxian analysts tend to focus more on the nature of productive relations and class: Control of production . . . What is the relationship between the capitalist class and governments? Who controls the accumulation of wealth? Who controls the way production and exchange occurs? Neo-Marxian/Gramscian analysts, such as Cox, focus more on the notion of historic bloc: Control of the complex of ideas and social agreements that undergird society . . . Who controls what we desire, what our interests are? Whom does the combination of social practices that we call "normal" benefit most? Where do our norms come from? Neoliberal institutionalists and constructivists borrow some of Cox's emphasis and focus on the normative structure of the global political economy: Control of the rules that organize economic (and other) interactions . . . Who makes the rules? How do international regimes develop? Who enforces the rules? How do we explain cooperation? (I want to note that neoliberal institutionalists and constructivists have a different take on rules, the role of rules, who the important actors are, etc. That's a subject for another session.) Change in the structure versus change of the structure Another aspect to analyze when considering the structure is whether changes represent a change in the structure (e.g., the structure remains the same, but the dominant actor changes) or a change of the structure (the fundamental organizing principle changes, such as what happens when a bipolar system becomes a unipolar system). Also, examine who the actors are as different scholars consider the nature of system structure. states states and classes, with states representing the interests of the capitalists classes corporations, particularly multinational corporations nongovernmental organizations transnational social movements epistemic communities or functional specialists within governments Paying attention to different kinds of actors means defining the structure differently. Marlin-Bennett's gloss on structure: My position is that ultimately the distribution of power resources (military, economic, and social in the Gramscian sense) is important because contributes to (but is not solely responsible for) establishing the dominant normative context in which people interact. The diagram below (adapted from Marlin-Bennett and DeWinter, 1999) depicts a cube that defines a normative space bounded by the nature of the market, the nature of sovereignty, and the nature of what constitutes the political (the public/private divide). When a world system (in the Wallersteinian sense) is deeply embedded, the vast majority of rules governing the political economy of that system will be located close together within the cube. However, not all participants in the system will accept the dominant normative structure at all times. Structural changes occur when challengers develop the resources (military, economic, personal/social) to shift the normative position of the rules. =============> con't @http://www.american.edu/rmarlin/lec8_667.htm