Revisiting a Philosophy of Praxis: Forces, Spaces and Myths of the North-South Divide.

The discursive North-South dichotomy is even more obfuscating than the former East-West misnomer. It presents a mosaic world order comprised of fixated territorial unities, coherence within those containers and clear distinction from others of this kind. This glosses over frequent changes in border definitions, social entity (re)constructions and selective permeability of both. Monolithic classifications seem even more questionable since technological leapfrogging in transport and communication increasingly renders geographical proximity obsolete as source of shared interests, similar information and joint action. Genealogical or interpretive Transnational Historical Materialism analyses therefore decipher global relations as continuous struggles and conflicts between different human collectives that seek to secure their socio-economic reproduction. Coalitions transgress formal borders of identified entities and will develop according to the specifics of a concrete issue analyzed. Such analysis shows how collective wills seek to reproduce, stabilize and expand particular socio-economic orderings by turning them into general political programs. Processes towards compromise and securing of leadership are marked by logics of cooptation and intersubjective constitution of scales as structuring sites of political action. Just as nation states, international organizations are such scales, reproduced by genuine actor constellations whose decisions have transformative effects on the constellation of forces in global development. By the example of WTO negotiations it will be shown that neither territorial, nor formal classifications represent power plays in current international relations. The outlook briefly problematizes how modern liberal democracy ideals play an integral role in the extension of “Northern” hegemonic dominance. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]