Editorial

Abstract

How is progressive politics developing in the wake of the multiple global crises that we currently face? What does it mean to be politically progressive in contemporary politics? Is the electoral turn the only path for today’s progressive politics? This special issue seeks to explore the current range of opportunities and obstacles facing advocates of progressive politics following more than a decade of eventful developments since the 2008 global economic crisis. It focuses especially on two core themes which we consider to be central to the journal Global Political Economy. First, we explore the nature of the current crisis/crises in the contemporary global political economy. Second, we highlight the forms of progressive politics that we consider to have the potential to respond to that crisis. In doing so, we seek to delineate the scope for resistance, dissent and emancipation in the contemporary global political economy; and, in doing so, focus our attention on the contested nature of that global political economy, and the trajectories for change which instances of contestation have the potential to produce.