General Framework

Globalization and the Rise of Integrated World Society: Deterritorialization, Structural-Power, and the Endogenization of International Society.

Babones, Salvatore, John H.S. Aberg. International Theory 11, no. 3 (2019): 293-317.

There is a widespread feeling that globalization represents a major system change that has or should have brought world society to the forefront of international relations theory. Nonetheless, world society remains an amorphous and undertheorized concept, and its potential role in shaping the structure of the international society of states has scarcely been raised. We build on Buzan's (2018, 2) master concept of 'integrated' world society ('a label to describe the merger of world and interstate society') to locate the integration of world society in the globalization of social networks. Following the advice of Buzan (2001) and Williams (2014), we use conceptual frameworks from international political economy to systematically explore the structure of integrated world society along six dimensions derived from Mann (1986) and Strange (1988): military/security, political, economic/production, credit, knowledge, and ideological. Our empirical survey suggests that, on each of these dimensions, power has centralized as it has globalized, generating steep global hierarchies in world society that are similar to those that characterize national societies. The centrality of the United States in the networks of world society makes it, in effect, the 'central state' of a new kind of international society that is endogenized within integrated world society.

Keywords: Globalization; Structural Power, Power; Money and Finance; Security; General Framework

Contributor(s): Salvatore Babones and John H.S. Aberg
Keywords: Globalization, Structural Power, Power, Money and Finance, Security, General Framework, Strange-Influenced Works, 2010's
Source and Medium: Journal Article

Year of Publication: 2019

Power and Counter-Power: Knowledge Structure and the Limits of Control.

David, Matthew, Cynthia Meersohn Schmidt. Sociological Research Online 24, no. 1 (2019): 21-37.

In this article, we explore Susan Strange's multidimensional and non-reductive international political economy (IPE) approach to structural power. Strange's key weakness is the failure to account for her knowledge structure's regulative form relative to her security, production and financial structures. We seek to develop Strange's account through the addition of Manuel Castells' account of digital network structures. Castells' morphogenic structural approach to digital network power helps to clarify the mechanisms by which today's knowledge structure achieves autonomy, internal regulation and generative capacity. This sociological completion of Strange's theory, an international socio-political economy approach as it were, better explains the capacity and limits of today's digital network knowledge structure to resist reduction to other structural interests. Strange's non-reductive structural approach to power is significant for sociology as it helps identify 'social order' in a global age, but an additional sociological dimension is also necessary for the fulfilment of Strange's theoretical project.

Keywords: Knowledge; Production; Security; Money and Finance; General Framework

Contributor(s): Matthew David and Cynthia Meersohn Schmidt
Keywords: Knowledge, Production, Security, Money and Finance, General Framework, Strange-Influenced Works, 2010's
Source and Medium: Journal Article

Year of Publication: 2019

The Changing Position of the State and State Power in Global Affairs - Views from Two Scholars in International Political Economy

Du Plessis, Marthinus J. South African Journal of Military Studies 28, no. 1 (2012): 146-167.

Keywords: Structural Power, Power; General Framework; Authority vs Markets

Contributor(s): Marthinus J. Du Plessis
Keywords: Structural Power, Power, General Framework, Authority vs Markets, Strange-Influenced Works, 2010's
Source and Medium: Journal Article

Year of Publication: 2012

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