Globalization

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

Global Money and the Decline of State Power

Underhill, Geoffrey R.D. In Strange Power: Shaping the Parameters of International Relations and International Political Economy, edited by Thomas Lawton, James Rosenau, Amy C. Verdun, 115-135. London: Routledge, 2000.

Abstract Content

Keywords: Global governance; Globalization; Money and finance; Authority; Markets; States

Contributor(s): Geoffrey R.D. Underhill, Editor: Thomas Lawton, Editor: James Rosenau and Editor: Amy C. Verdun
Keywords: Global governance, Globalization, Money and finance, Authority, Markets, Strange-Influenced Works, 2000's
Source and Medium: Book Chapter

Year of Publication: 2000

Globaloney? (Review Essay)

Strange, Susan. Review of International Political Economy 5, no. 4 (1998): 704-711.

In this review of the influential Paul Hirst and Grahame Thompson Globalisation in Question (Oxford: Polity Press, 1996) alongside two other books arguing a similar position, Strange makes a major intervention in the debate over the 'myth' of globalisation. Arguing that the authors (like others) miss the deterritorialisation of commercial power in the global system, Strange allows that there needs to be a corrective to the extreme globalisation thesis of complete transformation, but that a failure to examine what is really happening in the global political economy, while relying on aggregated and out-of-date statistics has led too many political economists to fail to recognise the very real changes in the balance of power between multinational corporations and states. For Strange it is this balance of power that is of major importance for understanding globalisation.

Keywords: Globalization; Theory; Corporations; States; Transnational Corporations; Authority vs Markets

Contributor(s): Susan Strange
Keywords: Globalization, Theory, Corporations", States, 1990's
Source and Medium: Journal Article

Year of Publication: 1998

An International Political Economy Perspective

Strange, Susan. In Governments, Globalization, and International Business, edited by John H. Dunning, 132-145. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.

In this chapter Strange lays out her idea of what International Political Economy is, including a wide-ranging view of politics (not just the activities of politicians and governments) and a focus on structural power. This then leads her to discuss the problems that globalisation presents for governments, business and people. She concludes that these problems require a re-examination of authority and justice both by states and by international business and adopting an IPE perspective facilitates such analysis. By trying to make a bridge between business research and international relations Strange returns again to the theme of breaking down disciplinary boundaries, see for instance 'International Political Economy: Reuniting three fields of intellectual endeavour' (1989).

Keywords: Globalization; Political Economy; Theory

Contributor(s): Susan Strange and Editor: John H. Dunning
Keywords: Globalization, Political Economy, Theory, 1990's, Susan Strange
Source and Medium: Book Chapter

Year of Publication: 1997

The Erosion of the State

Strange, Susan. Current History 96, no. 613 (1997): 365-369.

Strange briefly revisits the globalisation debate and suggests those who argue that as the state still exists, globalisation can be ignored are very mistaken. She then goes on to outline three dilemmas of globalisation: the economic, in that increasingly there is no political authority able to govern and control market relations; the environmental, while on one hand market actors are driven by the profit motive to use up environmental resources, countervailing power is largely absent; the political, there is a major democratic deficit in the governance structure of the global system. Strange then links these aspects of globalisation to technical change and increased mobility of capital. However, a concentration on the state misses the 'new diplomacy' between firms and other non-state actors as well as states themselves as outline in Rival States, Rival Firms: Competition for world market shares (with John M. Stopford and John S. Henley, 1991) . She then restates briefly her argument from The Retreat of the State (1996). The Diffusion of Power in the World Economy (1996), the state is losing its authority due to: the decline in importance of war-making and security; its inability to control the value of the currency; and its increasingly lack of credibility as a provider of welfare. Thus, to deny the decline of the state is to deny that something needs to be done about it unless big business is to come to rule the international system.

Keywords: Authority; Globalization; Markets; States; Authority vs Markets

Contributor(s): Susan Strange
Keywords: Authority, Globalization, Markets, States, 1990's
Source and Medium: Journal Article

Year of Publication: 1997

The Problem or the Solution? Capitalism and the State System

Strange, Susan. In Innovation and Transformation in International Studies, edited by Stephen Gill, James H. Mitelman, 236-247. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Again Strange criticises International Relations for not focusing on the systemic problems, not least of all environmental and financial issues which a concern for inter-state relations misses. Thus International Political Economy is open to approaches from political geography, historical sociology and elsewhere that have not been fixated on the relations between states as the key causal factor in the global system. Globalised production and finance are integrating most areas into a global system and it is the system not states which analysis should focus on in the future.

Keywords: Global Governance; Globalization; Money and Finance; Production; International Relations; Global System

Contributor(s): Susan Strange, Editor: Stephen Gill and Editor: James H. Mittelman
Keywords: Global Governance, Globalization, Money and Finance, Production, 1990's
Source and Medium: Book Chapter

Year of Publication: 1997

The Limits of Politics

Strange, Susan. Government and Opposition 30, no. 3 (1995): 291-311.

Originally delivered as a lecture at the LSE this article finds Strange explicitly engaging with the notion of globalisation. For Strange globalisation is: the development of products for explicitly global and transnational markets; the decline of barriers and distinctions between national economies; the emergence of at least partial labour mobility in addition to the more recognised capital mobility; and the speeding up of transport and communications. While these trends have changed the balance between authority and markets over outcomes in the international political economy, they have also led to an increasingly globalised but asymmetrical array of structural power.

Keywords: Authority; Globalization; Markets; Theory; Structural Power, Power; Authority vs Markets

Contributor(s): Susan Strange
Keywords: Authority, Globalization, Markets, Theory, Structural Power, Power, 1990's
Source and Medium: Journal Article

Year of Publication: 1995