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POLITICS, INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, AND GLOBALIZATION Cherry I Walker. Land-Marked: Land Claims and Land Restitution in South Africa. Johannesburg: Jacana Media; Athens: Ohio University Press, 2008. xii + 292 pp. Abbreviations. Maps. Photographs. Tables. Appendixes. Endnotes. Bibliography. Index. $26.95. Paper. Aninka Claassens and Ben Cousins, eds. Land, Power and Custom: Controversies Generated by South Africa's Communal Land Rights Act. Published for the Legal Resources Centre. Cape Town: UCT Press; Athens: Ohio University Press, 2008. xv + 392 pp. DVD. Maps. Abbreviations, Contributors. Notes. Tables. References. Index. $34.95. Paper. These two books are indispensable additions to the core literature on land reform in South Africa. In their different approaches and structures, they both offer a creative mix of academic insights and the entrenched experience of activists, and of local case studies with a wealth of concrete sociological detail alongside broad discourses on modes of analysis on a national and continental scale. They each concentrate on one element of what Cherryl Walker refers to as "the three-legged cooking pot" of land reform policy initiated in 1994: the Restitution Programme and the attempt to reform land tenure in the former Ban tus tans, respectively. Neither covers the third leg of redistribution (the transfer of former white-owned farmland to black occupants), which is the leg that has received most attention and funding - although some of Cherryl Walker's general evaluations do extend to cover it. Indeed, her somewhat skeptical and cautious overall conclusions about the future of land reform apply to both redistribution and restitution plans. Walker's account of restitution provides a look back to the origins of today's problem in previous decades when the injustices of forced removals occurred. Her study is enriched by personal accounts from this period, when she was a "participant observer" working to resist the removals. She supplies a similar insider's account of the first stage of the restitution program, but this time from a position within the new state as the commissioner for land claims in Kwazulu-Natal. Since moving into academia after 2000, her work has continued to benefit from a third perspective, that of academic researcher. The book thus juxtaposes and interrelates the three elements and perspectives: emotive personal memories and indelible images of dispossession; a planner's account of the mechanisms and frustrations of restitution; and the evaluation of the record. The memories from long ago of a litde girl lost in a removal suggest the ways in which such incidents became the currency of a historical narrative at the heart of the rhetoric of national liberation; at the same time, they provide a measure of success or failure and serve to remind us of the complex reality covered up by the national myth. The approach embodied in this fusion of perspectives serves in turn as an explanation of why the restitution program failed. Over and above the occasional lack of political will, the over-bureaucratization and inefficiency, and the mistaken policy formulations (all of which are acknowledged in the account), Walker sees inherent conflicts in the dual goals of reversing injustice and stimulating rural development oriented toward the poor: limits to what can be achieved and how quickly these goals can be achieved via restitution. …

POLITICS, INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, AND GLOBALIZATION Ian Scoones, Nelson M a ron g we, Biasio Mavedzenge, Jacob Mahenehene, Felix Murimbarimba and Crispen Sukume. Zimbabwe's Land Reform: Myths and Realities. Woodbridge, Suffolk: James Currey; Harare: Weaver Press; Auckland Park, South Africa: Jacana Media, 2010. xv + 288 pp. Bibliography. Index, f 16.99, $29.95, R1 75.00. Paper. One of the clear aims of this interesting and controversial book by Scoones et al. is to challenge five somewhat overstated myths that have dominated representations of Zimbabwe's post-2000 land reform. These are (1) that the land reform has been a total failure; (2) that the beneficiaries of this reform have been largely political "cronies" of the former ruling party, Zanu PF; (3) that there has been no investment in the new resetdement areas; (4) that agriculture in general is in complete ruins and has created chronic food insecurity; and (5) that the rural economy has collapsed. Challenges are made on the basis of detailed empirical research conducted over the past decade on "what has happened in the new resettiements" in Zimbabwe since 2000, and specifically in Masvingo Province in the country's dry southeast. The book's overall emphasis is explicidy on the "changing livelihoods of people who gained land" (31) - notably, not on those who didn't - and according to the authors, their data represent the "ground-level, field realities" that most others have failed to examine or acknowledge. These realities (in the Masvingo area, which differs markedly from many other parts of the country) are revealed through a combination of thematic lenses and linked sets of empirically oriented questions addressed in nine of the book's eleven chapters. (The other two are an introductory chapter that discusses debates on land reform and agrarian paths more generally, and a concluding chapter that revisits the five myths and explores "lessons" and policy priorities for supporting developments in the new resetdements.) Among other things, our attention is drawn to the varied origins and motivations of new setders and forms of land occupation across different sites, and the fragmented nature of the newly emerging agrarian structures (chapter 2). We learn of significant differentiation among households, substantial mobility on and off the schemes, including cross-border migration, and multiple livelihood strategies, which together have resulted in both "successes" and "failures" (chapters 3 and 8). Claims are made of unexpected if uneven levels of investment in plots, some production successes, the emergence of various agriculture-related enterprises, and new dynamics of "accumulation from below" (chapters 4, 5, and 10). This is despite a climate of sustained economic crisis and what is referred to as a "vacuum in policy thinking" (235) - here, the authors carefully side-step naming a highly party-politicized if not militarized policy sphere since 2000. In addition, we learn about the "highly complex rural labour market" (139) in the new resetdements (chapter 6), which the authors argue counters an over-emphasis by others on displacement and job losses. We also discover how land reform has altered the way in which "real markets" operate (chapter 7), with new commodity chains "opening opportunities for some and closing options for others" (149). Finally, the research reveals the complex struggles over territory, structure, and authority occurring in the new resetdements, and the surfacing of "hybrid" forms of governance that pose key challenges for state-making as well as for agricultural development (chapter 9). …

Academics and activists who have followed the discussions of globalization in the World Social Forum literature and in progressive publications will readily agree with Soederberg that globalization does not simply signify an “inevitable and unstoppable” (26) process. In focusing on the concept of global governance, she contributes to the critical problematization of an international economic regime which all too frequently is treated as benevolent in its consequences and independent of politics. Soederberg strongly resists mythological descriptions of global (and regional) financial and other economic regimes, by pursuing an historical - materialist analysis of the emergence of the relevant organizations and institutions, always identifying the role of power, political influence and political planning in their construction. She nimbly walks the reader through a plethora of institutions which even the informed lay-person and political activist will not know how to distinguish. She obviously possesses enormous knowledge of their workings and their history. In this sense this is a very useful book to read, particularly for those who are not specialists in the fields of international relations, Third World development or the politics of international financial institutions.

This paper revisits Buzan’s book (From international to world society? English school theory and the social structure of globalization, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004), in the light of both the seven papers in this special issue, and the English School literature on world society written since then. The paper focuses on two themes. First, it addresses the different meanings in the usage of ‘world society’. It distils these down into three forms: normative, political and integrated world society, and shows how these relate to, and extend, the earlier taxonomy of interhuman, transnational and interstate domains. Second, it pushes forward on the question of how we might understand the concept of primary institutions in relation to world society. I show how some, but not all, of the primary institutions of interstate society have deep roots in world society. I then propose that the key primary institution for normative world society is collective identity, and for political world society, advocacy.

Contemporary international relations are rife with the ideological struggle over the potential nature of the rapidly changing world order. Two distinct paradigmatic positions have surfaced. One champions economic, cultural, and political globalization conducted under the leadership of the Western world. The other advocates a more particularistic approach that fends for a balance of interests, multiplicity of politico-cultural forms and multiple centers of international influence. The latter doctrine, often referred to as the multipolar world theory, is the subject of this paper. The discussion argues that the idea of a multipolar world order has emerged as Russia’s main ethical and ideological position advanced in the international arena. Its philosophical tenets buttress Russian society intellectually at home, providing the expedients to pursue the country’s foreign policy goals abroad. The paper examines a substantial value package with roots in both Russian and Western philosophy that sustains ...

The ethics of benefit sharing has been a topical issue in global health research in resource-limited countries. It pertains to the distribution of goods, benefits and advantages to the research participants, communities and countries that are involved in research. One of the nuances in benefit sharing is the ethical justification on which the concept should be based. Extensive literature outlining the different principles underlying benefit sharing is available. The purpose of this paper is to examine the proposed principles using Aristotelian principles of justice. The paper assesses the central idea of Aristotelian justice and applies and evaluates this idea to benefit sharing in research, especially when commercial research sponsors conduct research in resource-limited countries. Two categories of Aristotelian justice-universal and particular-were examined and their contribution to the benefit-sharing discourse assessed. On the one hand, benefit sharing in accordance with universal justice requires that for-profit research sponsors obey the legal regulations and international standards set for benefit sharing. On the other hand, benefit sharing in accordance with particular justice transcends obeying legal requirements and standards to a realm of acting in an ethically accepted manner. Accordingly, the paper further examines three perspectives of particular justice and develops ethical justification for benefit sharing in global health research. As Aristotelian justice is still relevant to the contemporary discourse on justice, this paper broadens the ethical justifications of benefit sharing in global health research. ispartof: Journal of Medical Ethics vol:43 issue:6 pages:417-421 ispartof: location:England status: published

The aim of this paper is to bring into conversation two apparently disparate debates in the fields of politics and International Relations. The first is a debate over celebrity humanitarianism that is divided between optimistic scholars, who see in it an enhancement of democracy, and pessimistic scholars, who link it to capitalist imperialism or a throwback to older colonial tropes. The second is a debate over a (new) American empire which has prompted scholars in IR to redress IR’s historic ‘elision’ of empire and to offer new network theories of empire. The paper argues that these two debates each address the shortcomings in the other and offers speculation on what celebrity humanitarianism might have to do with empire by bridging the connections between structuralist political theories of empire and the cultural accounts offered by postcolonial theory.

Review Essay Foundations of Modern International Thought, David Armitage (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 300 pp., $85 cloth, $27.99 paper. A Search for Sovereignty: Law and Geography in European Empires 1400–1900, Lauren Benton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 340 pp., $94 cloth, $28.99 paper. Globalization and Sovereignty: Rethinking Legality, Legitimacy, and Constitutionalism, Jean L. Cohen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 442 pp., $103 cloth, $37.99 paper. Sovereignty apparently never ceases to attract scholarly attention. Long gone are the days when its meaning was uncontested and its essential attributes could be safely taken for granted by international theorists. During the past decades international relations scholars have increasingly emphasized the historical contingency of sovereignty and the mutability of its corresponding institutions and practices, yet these accounts have been limited to the changing meaning and function of sovereignty within the international system. This focus has served to reinforce some of the most persistent myths about the origin of sovereignty, and has obscured questions about the diffusion of sovereignty outside the European context.

Norrin M. Ripsman and T.V. Paul Globalization and the National Security State New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. 296 pp. $ 29.95 (paper) ISBN 978-0-19-539391-0Globalization is a defining factor of our time. Although the literature about it is extensive, generalizations about globalization are often made in a somewhat cavalier fashion. Efforts to treat it with theoretical and methodological rigour are thus welcome. This is what Norrin Ripsman, a young and upcoming scholar at Concordia University, and T.V. Paul, a respected senior IR scholar at McGill University, do in this fine book.An important corollary of the rise of globalization, or so it has been argued, is the decline of the nation state. Yet, is this the case?Ripsman and Paul carve out a particular dimension of the nation state-national security-and proceed to test the hypothesis implied in that corollary thoroughly and systematically. On the face of it, this is an overly ambitious and almost unmanageable task. With some 200 countries in the world, how does one go about it convincingly, while keeping a measure of parsimony and conceptual elegance?By organizing their units of analysis into manageable categories-the global security environment, on the one hand, and the major powers, states in stable regions, states in regions of enduring rivalry, and weak and failing states, on the other-they solve this particular challenge. A culling of the literature on "globalization-as-the-demise-of-the state," with a special focus on security, leads them to four key propositions at the global level, and 10 at the state level. At the global level, they are: 1) interstate conflict should decline; 2) worldwide defence spending and military manpower should be declining; 3) multilateral regional and global institutions should be increasingly important in the provision of security; and 4) the incidence of global terrorism should have increased dramatically.Space does not allow a full listing of the 10 propositions they set forth at the state level, but they are along the same lines: a shift from military doctrines favouring offence to those espousing defence/deterrence; another from hard to soft balancing; a third, having military establishments changing from war fighters to police forces; with all of these topped by the privatizing of security and the pursuance of security through regional institutions.The authors then proceed to test these propositions in each of their categories, in which they pick certain countries. This testing is done with actual data wherever possible, as well as with military doctrines and "defense white papers," which presumably show actual threat assessments and thus changing perspectives on national security in a globalizing world.Ripsman and Paul ask a monumental and significant question-arguably among the most important in the field of international relations (IR) today-and are remarkably sure-footed in their detailed discussion of how it plays out around the world, thus giving strong empirical foundations to the overall gist of their argument. Some may be surprised to read, as a finding, that Pakistan has not privatized some of its security functions, given that if there is one state that has outsourced some of its most aggressive actions to terrorist groups it is precisely Pakistan, but, by and large, the authors get their regional scenarios right.Perhaps counterintuitively, they find that, far from being on the way out, if not to its demise or at least some form of early retirement, the national security apparatus of the nation state is very much alive and kicking. …

In recent years, there has been an influx of Korean popular culture throughout the world, including East Asia, Southeast Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Korean popular culture, also known as the “Korean Wave” (Hallyu in Korean) ranges from television dramas, movies, popular music (K-pop), dance (B-boys), video game, food, fashion, tourism, and language (Hangul). The main focus of this paper is to examine the essence of the Korean Wave and its impact on the world. In particular, this paper aims to explore the relationships between the spread of the Korean Wave and political and social changes in a global perspective. That is, does the Korean Wave affect the political position and diplomatic leverage of Korea in any meaningful way? Toward this objective, this paper first examines the relevant literature of international relations for policy and culture change, especially with regards to globalization, interdependence, soft power and world value change. Then, recent developments of the Korean Wave are reviewed and critically analyzed in order to ascertain political and policy implications for Korean diplomatic and practical directives. Finally, we will draw an interpretive conclusion and recommendations toward the plausibility of the Korean Wave as a policy tool for Korea’s cultural diplomacy.

Based on the broader context of globalization as politics, this paper adopts the following assumption: cities through their transnational cooperation networks and economic projects are the expression of a new political actor that has shifted its scale of operations, and have thus partly emancipated themselves from the monopoly of the nation-state in the deployment of transborder public action. In pursuance of developing this assumption, this paper approaches the discussion on municipal paradiplomacy in three parts: firstly, it presents the historical and theoretical background of paradiplomacy in Brazil; secondly, it looks into the empirical reality of several Brazilian municipalities and their international actions; thirdly, it presents a series of critical questions for analyzing cities and their transnational networks as new political actors in the global arena. Empirically, this paper raises key issues related to the multiple ways in which municipalities throughout Brazil develop transnational activities, whereas analytically it aims to provide a better understanding of their soft-border approach, as well as their pragmatic association between a renewed identity in the global scenario and an innovative strategy of local international management.

PurposeThe paper aims to explain why and how, in the USA, a very particular interpretation of economic liberalism, faring though different historical contexts, has generated, since the 1970s, a new kind of capitalism whose language, logic, legitimating paradigm and associated practices have become, thanks to “organic intellectuals” and active networks of power and influence, the “newspeak” and compass of chief executive officers from around the world, despite their always direst societal consequences.Design/methodology/approachUsing history as a support to investigate the domestic and international relations contexts that bore financialized globalization, the paper is strongly located into political sociology. As such, and if we consider that political sociology is the “science of power”, the paper tries to identify precisely the networks of power and influence which transformed a specific interpretation of liberalism and business into a dominant paradigm and specific kind of capitalism, in the USA and the rest of the world. The approach helps to understand which sets of ideas and authors were deemed worth supporting by business and political networks of power and influence and how both sides drew on their reciprocal resources to transform their cosmogonies into dominant paradigms and real politics (corporate and States).FindingsThe paper provides a global but precise understanding of the complex processes that allowed some vested interests to impose their vision of economics and business on a domestic, then world, scale. It also questions the relevancy of that vision according to a presentation of the negative societal externalities the associated policies generated and according to the official investigations that have been conducted on the corporate and banking misdemeanors that it contributed to generate.Practical implicationsThe paper illustrates a method of investigation that can be used to develop the “global view”, a prerequisite to making decisions in full knowledge of causes and consequences and thus a means to train future “globally responsible leaders”.Social implicationsBy revealing the hidden interests behind financialized globalization and the societal consequences of their power plays, the paper indirectly demonstrates the urgent need for an “alter‐economy” geared to meet the fundamental needs of societies and to preserve their natural environment in the long term.Originality/valueThe paper offers a different perspective on economics and business which is seldom presented in business schools where, owing to the discussed dominant ideology, politics is considered irrelevant to understand business and economics and where the latter are nearly always presented as vectors of good.

PurposeEven though the promise of globalization has faded and it is no longer the fashionable topic it once was, national policy‐makers must still deal with its widespread economic, political and social effects. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between, on the one hand, differing levels of human development between countries, and, on the other, the extent to which countries pursue national policy objectives disciplined by what has been described as the “universal values” underlying the globalization process.Design/methodology/approachThe concepts of globalization and world society values are first defined and discussed in a policy‐related context. The relationship between globalization values, national policy settings and human welfare and freedom is explored by means of a simple SEM model.FindingsThe results of the SEM model indicate that there is a clear link between higher levels of human development where countries' normative policy settings concord with world society values. A more important outcome is greater insight into the critical role that social connectedness plays in explaining differences in levels of human development.Originality/valueThe paper presents an exploratory analysis of globalization and national policy formation.

This review paper focuses on the most recent cycle in the debate about the history and future of the ‘New American Empire,’ both in relation to the rise and fall of the Roman Empire specifically, and against the wider backdrop of the extensive debate about the US position in the changing global order more generally. It argues that much of the literature, including some of the books under review, rest on a misreading of history (Roman or otherwise) and a flawed grasp of the fate of the American ascendancy in relation to the contemporary crisis of the nation-state system and the far from unexpected boom–bust cycles of ‘genuinely existing’ liberal capitalism (globalization) in the twenty-first century. The washout on Wall Street in the latter part of 2008 could only come as a surprise to those who have not been paying attention to the vicissitudes of ‘genuinely existing’ liberal capitalism over the past 30 years or more. The paper argues that the American ascendancy, contrary to much of the contemporary prognostication, remains in its prime and Pax Americana will only begin a downward spiral when it has been successfully challenged and displace by an equally powerful and systemic alternative. In the meantime, the New American Empire, especially under new leadership, looks set to continue and even flourish.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to consider the most likely future for the American empire. It is a speculative essay that takes as its starting‐point Slaughter's argument that the American Empire is unsustainable.Design/methodology/approachThe paper shows that at this moment of flux in international affairs America enjoys unprecedented power but is meeting growing opposition. After a review of how America came to be in its current position the argument develops along different lines, exploring the capacities of states that might challenge the USA and exploring the new networks between states and other agencies that exclude America.FindingsThe paper finds that, while these networks have become increasingly dense, they are as yet insufficiently coherent to challenge US hegemony. If the USA adopts a less aggressive approach to the management of globalization it can build a new international architecture that will adorn its hegemony and avoid the new networks becoming a noose that will strangle its power. The US reaction to the new web of interstate and non‐governmental relationships that exclude it, and are motivated to some extent by a desire to challenge its authority, has the potential to determine the longevity of American power and the future path of international affairs.Originality/valueThe paper provides a measured perspective to distinguish between the idea of America and the reality of its foreign policy.

This paper develops a critical international political economy analysis of the processes that we commonly understand as globalization and their application in the development of Poland's transition from state socialism. It does so by tracing the rise of social forces shaped by the restructuring of social relations of production and the form of state in Poland. The paper argues that a series of important social shifts occurred to move Poland towards a neoliberal strategy of capitalist accumulation with the failure of state-socialism as a development project and the uncoupling of the social basis of Communist Party hegemony. It is social forces most intimately associated with transnational capital, irrespective of their party or social position, that are most successful in the struggle over competing reform strategies. These strategies eventually coalesce through material and ideological changes associated with a new openness to transnationalized circuits of capital.

Trafficking in persons (TIP) is one of the fastest growing areas of global criminal activity and one that is of monumental concern to the US government and the international community. It is estimated that 800,000–900,000 persons, mostly women and children are bought, sold or forced across international borders every year. An estimated 45,000–50,000 persons are trafficked to the US every year. In fact, current estimate by the International Labor Organization (2005) put the minimum of persons in forced labor at a given time as a result of trafficking at 2.45 million. This lucrative criminal activity generates between $10 and $12 billion annually, making it the third largest illicit business after drugs and arms trade. The paper argues that the 21st century TIP represents a global demand for cheap and vulnerable labor which is facilitated by the process of globalization and the existence of underground and informal economies mostly in industrialized countries. TIP constitute serious problems which affects every country. Post- September 2001, the US has been proactive in fighting to eliminate TIP and persuading other countries to join in the campaign to end this trade. This paper therefore examines the efforts by the US government to combat TIP.

Petros Nousios, Henk Overbeek and Andreas Tsolakis (eds.) Globalisafion and European Integration: Critical Approaches to Regional Order and International Relations, Routledge: London, 2012, 280 pp: 9780415-611848, 80 [pounds sterling] (hbk) This collection of papers is rooted in a conference held at the University of Warwick in June 2009. As such, it is aimed at a fast-moving target: the swift and sometimes unexpected developments across Europe during the ongoing global and especially Eurozone crises, and what this means for the study of European integration. Nevertheless, any disadvantages that may accrue from being unable to cover new developments and twists in the crises--because they occurred after the manuscript was completed--are overcome by the case for critical approaches to European integration that the current period makes much more apparent. Critical political economy perspectives on European integration have become increasingly prominent over the last 15 years, but within the field of European studies, they are very much a minority view. As an example, I recently had a debate with a doctoral student who asserted that this state of affairs was due to the unwillingness of critical political economy scholars to engage with the mainstream literature. My view was that these attempts have been made, yet the field is largely impervious to alternative viewpoints. Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, a number of the papers in this volume are written by authors whose earlier arguments--on both European integration and/or the field of European studies--have been vindicated to a large degree. Therefore, it is possible that some readers will not find much value-added in the volume, because chapters by (for example) Alan Cafruny and Magnus Ryner, Kees van der Pijl, Hans-Jurgen Biding and Henk Overbeek contain arguments that are well-known among critical political economy researchers. In my view, this would be a mistake, for there are still a number of new elements--not least the post-2007 period of crisis; and the chapters dovetail nicely with those written by authors who have come to this topic more recently (Owen Parker, Hubert Buch-Hansen and Angela Wigger, Jan Drahokoupil and Martin Myant), or bring new aspects to the discussion (Werner Bonefeld, Bob Jessop, Andreas Bieler). Furthermore, the concluding chapter by Peter Nousios and Andreas Tsolakis does an excellent job in looking forward to the years ahead. In essence, many of the chapters revolve around the thesis that, following the drive for a single European market in the 1980s, European integration has become an increasingly neoliberal process. Primary in shaping this process has been transnational capital, particularly the financial fractions, in inscribing deeply into the EU's institutional architecture a series of policies and regulations which have proved to be increasingly hostile to labour (in terms of both the percentage of GDP taken up by labour and labour as a social and political actor) and, more broadly, the notion of a European 'social' model (for two classic statements, see Gill 1998, or van Apeldoorn 2002). The reasons offered vary across the chapters. For instance, Werner Bonefeld argues that contemporary neoliberal processes are rooted in the fact that the capitalist state is fundamentally a liberal state, which points us towards more classical accounts (such as Hayek's) on supranationalism as the means of containing democratic demands. Owen Parker's Foucauldian analysis in the subsequent chapter, on the other hand, challenges Marxist accounts on what he sees as an overly strong focus on the extension of market rationalities rather than their ethical ambiguities--but there are clear points of agreement. Although there are many benefits to be gained from alerting us to the ignorance by mainstream scholarship of the capitalist elephant in the room (cf. Bruff 2011), and the significance of these insights for understanding the current crises, there is a danger of overstating the case. …

This paper traces the ‘securitization’ of US foreign economic policy since the advent of the Bush administration.1 It argues that in the context of US economic and military preponderance in the world order, the US has been unable to resist the temptation to link foreign economic and security policy. While there was evidence of the securitization of economic globalization in US policy from day one of the Bush administration, it was 9/11 that firmed up this trend. For the key members of the Bush foreign policy team, globalization is now seen not simply in neo-liberal economic terms, but also through the lenses of the national security agenda of the United States. Economic globalization is now not only a benefit, but also a ‘security problem’. 9/11 offered the opportunity for what we might call the ‘unilateralist–idealists’, in the Bush Administration, to set in train their project for a post-sovereign approach to American foreign policy. The paper identifies some intellectual contradictions in current US strategy and raises a series of questions about the implications for world order of the consolidation of the trends identified in the paper.

Until recently, the study of international politics was confined mostly to economic, military, and diplomatic aspects. In the aftermath of the Cold War and the advent of globalization, however, culture has been on the rise in the discipline. A new approach has come to appreciate the affect of culture on the nature and structure of power. It is the aim of this paper to identify and discuss the components of cultural power and their contributions to a nation's power from an international point of view. The thesis of this paper is that cultural power is different in character from economic power, military might, and diplomatic choice are factors, but are more symbolic and perceptible. At the same time, cultural power is also as influential as other aspects of power and can be a source of diffusion, absorption, and domination.

In response to recent calls for systematic and in-depth studies of the impact of international forces on local accounting practices, discourses and institutions, this essay explores the interconnectedness of national politics with global forces and the ramifications of this interaction for the regulation of accounting and the state–profession relationship. The paper employs Held's (1991) framework [Held, D. (1991). Democracy, the nation-state and the global system. Economy and Society , 20 (2), 138–172.] on the role of the nation state in the age of globalisation, extended to encompass insights from the realist paradigm on international politics, to examine the international aspects of an attempt by a group of indigenous auditors in Greece to recapture their monopoly status, following the ‘liberalisation' of the Greek auditing profession in 1992. The paper explores changes in the state–profession relationship in the era of ‘globalisation' and documents the catalystic role of major states (the USA), politico-economic blocks (the EU), and other powerful international actors. It is posited that the politics of international accounting professionalism in the ‘globalisation' era are becoming more polycentric with (lesser) nation-states as merely one level (of diminishing importance) in a complex system of superimposed, overlapping and often competing national and international agencies of governance. The lessons to be learned from the Greek experience seem to be relevant to a number of countries — weaker or more important players in the world economy and politics — as they realign the assemblage of government in accounting and in other domains, in response to the progressive internationalisation of the world economy.

This paper seeks to bring a time perspective to the discourses of globalization and development. It first connects prominent recent gender-neutral discourses of globalization with highly gendered analyses of development, bringing together institutional-structural analyses with contextual and experiential data. It places alongside each other 'First World' perspectives and analyses of the changing conditions of people in the 'developing' world who are at the receiving end of globalized markets, and the international politics of aid. To date, neither of these fields of expertise has made explicit the underpinning time politics of globalization. Naturalized as status quo and global norm these temporal relations form the deep structure of globalization and its neo-colonialist agenda. The paper uses feminist epistemology to explicate the taken-for-granted time politics of globalization and time-based ontology to render visible the gender politics of globalization. The combined conceptual force makes connections where few exist at present, maps complex processes and traces naturalized relations. It offers not a new or better theory of... but an approach to globalization that makes transparent hitherto opaque relations of power and it identifies openings for change, resistance and alternative political practice.

This project draft discusses the issues facing a nation state in the dynamic processes of globalization. First, the term globalization is tentatively defined as a decentralized process of condensation and homogenization of space and time. Then, the ambivalent structure of the globalization discourse, i.e. its semantic and pragmatic dimensions, are shown. The neo-liberal viewpoint is explored of the erosion and weakening of the nation state within the global capitalist power, both in terms of its (state's) traditional functions, and in terms of its internal and external sovereignty. Against the neo-liberal thesis about the decline of the nation state many empirical arguments have been offered. Some of these are presented in this text. The main point of this argumentation consists in a general view that the decline of the nation state is strongly linked with the process of globalization. In view of the critical argumentation included in the paper, it is argued that in the environment of global processes only the societies which have a strong state behind them have a chance to succeed. Politics, not economy, still dominates international relations. Emphasis on state politics opens a new perspective in discussing the process of globalization. Current globalization processes cannot be judged accurately unless geopolitical interests and the changing balance of world power are understood. Finally, the paper points to the ideological nature of the neo-liberal discourse of globalization, questioning another basic assumption of the latter, namely, the idea that the process of globalization is at the same time a process of emancipation. By challenging the positing of a necessary link between globalization and emancipation we formulate a position that allows for a normative critique of current processes.