A Tougher Gordian Knot: Globalisation, Imperialism and the Problem of the State1

Abstract

This article aims to provide an overview of the debates around globalisation, and to rehearse an empirical, ideological and theoretical critique of Globalisation Theories. This assessment focuses on the inability of these approaches to understand the state and modern sovereignty as, respectively, a capitalist state and a modern capitalist sovereignty, that is, as part of the social relations of power which constitute the capitalist mode of production. The globalisation debates, which were more often than not predicated on some degree of antagonism between the global process and the nation-state, have proved unable to account for a nation-state which has historically advanced in a close organic relationship with global capitalism. The problem of the state is then used to introduce a review of Marxist contributions to the understanding of imperialism. A brief genealogy of Marxist thought on this subject introduces a discussion of theories of the new imperialism, which have gained considerable purchase in the wake of the United State's reinforced pursuance of an imperial agenda after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and are again assessed from the angle of the under-theorised notion of the state. This critical review of the imperialism–globalisation debate is meant to underscore the need for a fully fledged Marxist theory of the state which will be able not only to avoid the mistakes built into liberal views about international affairs, but which will also elucidate the relationship between domestic capitals and the state administration, so as to better explain the specific forms of interstate conflict.