Le gouvernement du monde par l'Amérique a-t-il un avenir ?

Abstract

Part 1 questions widespread beliefs that globalisation has ended national capitalisms or has overcome the classical contradiction between the national and international within capitalism. It argues that current efforts to pacify this contradiction in a strongly institutionalised set ofglobal markets are fragile and that political struggle between capitalist states still plays an important role in international economics. Part 2 argues that the bipolar Cold War structure of international politics gave the United-States a robust system for anchoring its political dominance over the capitalist core. Part 3 explores the great geopolitical challenges facing the Untied-States in Eurasia following the Soviet Bloc collapse and the rise and opening of China and argues that Washington has not coped with these challenges very successfully since 1989. Part 4 argues that the US today is not proving able to establish a viable, consensual basis for global macro-economic management or for handling core dominance over the South and it faces a very serious, chronic problem of international political legitimation of its political domination. Part 5 claims that the Bush administration is attempting to deal with these problems through shifting the international political agenda onto terrain where American political instruments are supreme - the military field. The article concludes by noting some implications of this analysis for the Left.