Performing the economic man, governing inflation

Prevailing analyses of globalisation and the Internet posit global politics as the outcome of the Internet's physical-geographical reach. This reach is assumed to compromise the traditional sources of political power associated with the sovereign state by transgressing its territorial boundaries. The shortcoming of this approach is that it fails to acknowledge the degree to which the state and its sovereignty are discursively constituted as normative principles that legitimate a particular type of political order. Thus, in order to locate the transformative potential of globalisation, attention must be directed to globalisation's discursive dimensions. To do this I focus on two metaphors of globalisation global village and global marketplace. In this paper, I outline how these metaphors constitute and legitimate global political order and the impact this has on the global character of the Internet. I specify how each metaphor shapes what the Internet is, who it is for, what kind of global potential it represents according to its understanding of what constitutes legitimate global political order. The structure of global political order cannot, therefore, be easily derived from the Internet's physical reach. We can still study the Internet as emblematic of globalisation and global politics; however, doing so necessitates exploring how the structure and character of the Internet is tied to, and changes with, the production of new systems of global legitimacy and political order.

This article conducts a discussion on the questions: how does global political economic order generate legitimacy? Of which, this article wishes to shed some lights on the mechanism of legitimacy construction at the international level and provides theoretical explanation of how newly growing powers participate in the current construction of the global political economic order and establish legitimacy of the global order they advocate. This article uses "legitimacy" and "global order" or "world order" or "international order" as the keywords and conducts search on datasets of Google Scholar, Jstor, Tylor & Francis, Elsevier to researches since 2000 onward to gain as wide scope as possible. After screening, 17 articles are included to review the source of legitimacy. This literature review thus concludes that compellence, substantial interests, and value as three sources of legitimacy. Then this article investigates "Belt and Road Initiative" as the case and the English School of International Relations theory to provide a path of building legitimacy of the global political economic order via common interests and value shared. Furthermore, by utilising the English school's perspective, common interests and common values generate legitimacy of the order, this article also finds that China's participation in constructing and shaping global order through the "Belt and Road" Initiative encounters two major legitimacy challenges: performance challenge and value challenge. This article then argues that China needs to consider the interest convergence path and value convergence path of generating legitimacy for global order China advocates.

This book provides an introduction to the analysis of global political order — how patterns of governance and institutionalization in world politics have already changed; what the most important challenges are; and what the way forward might look like. The first section develops three analytical frameworks: a world of sovereign states capable of only limited cooperation; a world of ever-denser international institutions embodying the idea of an international community; and a world in which global governance moves beyond the state and into the realms of markets, civil society, and networks. Part II examines five of the most important issues facing contemporary international society: nationalism and the politics of identity; human rights and democracy; war, violence, and collective security; the ecological challenge; and the management of economic globalization in a highly unequal world. Part III considers the idea of an emerging multi-regional system; and the picture of global order built around US empire. The conclusion looks at the normative implications. If international society has indeed been changing in the ways discussed in this book, what ought we to do? And, still more crucially, who is the ‘we’ that is to be at the centre of this drive to create a morally better world? This book is concerned with the fate of international society in an era of globalization and the ability of the inherited society of sovereign states to provide a practically viable and normatively acceptable framework for global political order. It lays particular emphasis on the different forms of global inequality and the problems of legitimacy that these create, and on the challenges posed by cultural diversity and value conflict.

Global Liberalism and Political Order: Toward a New Grand Compromise? Edited by Steven Bernstein, Louis W. Pauly Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007. 240 pp., $70.00 (ISBN-13: 978-0-7914-7045-9). In his seminal article, John Gerard Ruggie (1982) described the foundation for the emerging world order during the decades that followed World War II as “embedded liberalism”—a grand compromise between liberal international economic policy and domestic political interventionism, which was designed to protect the welfare state. Is the world as we know it today any different from those days? If the answer is yes, is there a movement toward a new compromise, and is that compromise a “grand” one? These questions are the focus of Steven Bernstein and Louis Pauly's Global Liberalism and Political Order , which seeks to understand the foundations for global political authority and the role of legitimacy in granting that authority. The book constitutes an unusually reflective, theory-based, and coherent contribution to the literature on the discontents of globalization (see, for example, Stiglitz 2002) and the alleged legitimacy crisis of global governance (Bodansky 1999; Zurn 2004). Unlike the vast majority of edited books, each contributor stays true to the central theme. The book also enables readers to revisit Ruggie's original concept and arguments in their historical setting and to revisit them in the context of a post-Cold War world characterized by accelerating globalization. Global Liberalism and Political Order is accessible and thought provoking. It gives both the student and the scholar a framework for a deeper understanding of the current dynamic world order. It may even provide valuable insights for those who want to change that order. In the first chapter, Bernstein introduces the editors' quest in clear and comprehensive terms and provides a necessary grounding discussion on the often underestimated role of legitimacy and agency in global governance. Bernstein summarizes the contributors' conclusion that “the dynamics of global legitimation may be changing.” A range of …

Several recent explanations for major-power war focus on purported cycles in global economic activity or in global political order. I shall argue that a better understanding of interrelationships among the economic long wave, the global leadership cycle, and armed conflict can be gained if we (1) expand the study of interstate conflict beyond the limited domain of great power or systemic wars and (2) treat the long wave and the leadership cycle as quasi-independent and interrelated processes, each contributing to the conflict dynamics of the interstate system. Theoretical foundations for these two recommendations are drawn from the core works in this field. A model based on this new approach is developed and tested empirically along with four formal representations of the core frameworks. Poisson regression is employed using data on interstate disputes (1816–1976) to test resulting hypotheses. Analysis shows that broadening the explanatory domains of existing frameworks is valid and that the “coevolving systems” model is measurably superior to all tested competitors. I conclude that these two global processes are best viewed as coevolving systems and that future studies of systemic conflict should take this approach.

The Stability of a Cosmopolitan Political Order: Between Federalism and Functionalism

The complex and asymmetric relationship between the nation state, 'capital' and global structures of governance makes the pursuance of rights to development easier said than done. As I have discussed in previous Chapters, the global capital market has shifted the locus of effective political power away from the nation state, while at the same time testing its regulative authority. This also impacts on the distribution of roles and responsibilities between state and non-state actors in a world that is politically and economically interconnected. Although the current global political and economic order continues to be based on local territorial sovereignty, its prospect is clearly shaped by global and intergovernmental networks. The network of organisations, which effectively governs the new 'global order', is captured by the umbrella term 'global governance' (Risse, 2005: 350). In this Chapter I will consider whether institutions of global governance can, as suggested by proponents of Cosmopolitanism, be reformed and restructured to deliver a mechanism for addressing inequality, poverty and environmental issues at all levels from the local to the global. In other words could institutions of global governance enhance state capacity to deliver rights? How expedient is it to engage a diversity of agents in development, thereby extending responsibility for delivering rights beyond the state? Could the concept of global justice be the key to the effective delivery of rights for the individual or community?

This chapter begins the task of delineating legitimate global institutional boundaries by arguing that we need to abandon the assumption, entrenched within traditional liberal democratic theory, that democracy must take place within a ‘closed’ society (paradigmatically, a nation-state). Instead, it is argued that democrats should embrace the prospect of a ‘pluralist’ global political order, comprised of multiple agents of public power held to account by their multiple overlapping stakeholder communities. What this requires is that multiple state and non-state agents of public power in global politics should be identified as the legitimate subjects of democratic control in accordance with their autonomy-constraining impact on populations. Correspondingly, individual stakeholders should be accorded participatory entitlements as the legitimate agents of democratic control, in accordance with the impact of this public power upon their lives.

Common Ownership as a Basis for Human Rights: Political Not Metaphysical

Amid shifts in the global power structure, the defence industry is emerging as a crucial sector for economic development and national security. It is closely related to the industrial structure and developed in the form of the military-industrial complex (MIC). This article examines South Korea’s defence industry development strategies to explore actionable insights for Poland. By integrating technological advancement with robust support for the defence sector, South Korea has crafted a unique model that strengthens technological autonomy and security in a volatile global economic and political order. The impact of South Korea’s defence industry on its national economy is evident in employment generation, technology innovation, and dynamic partnerships with the private sector, underscoring its role in economic resilience and competitiveness. The article highlights the potential benefits for Poland, which faces its own geopolitical challenges and modernisation needs, in drawing from South Korea’s experiences. With a strategic focus on enhancing civil-defence sector cooperation, technological innovation, and international partnerships, Poland could bolster its industrial growth and defence capabilities, contributing to long-term economic security and regional stability.

Amid shifts in the global power structure, the defence industry is emerging as a crucial sector for economic development and national security. It is closely related to the industrial structure and developed in the form of the military-industrial complex (MIC). This article examines South Korea’s defence industry development strategies to explore actionable insights for Poland. By integrating technological advancement with robust support for the defence sector, South Korea has crafted a unique model that strengthens technological autonomy and security in a volatile global economic and political order. The impact of South Korea’s defence industry on its national economy is evident in employment generation, technology innovation, and dynamic partnerships with the private sector, underscoring its role in economic resilience and competitiveness. The article highlights the potential benefits for Poland, which faces its own geopolitical challenges and modernisation needs, in drawing from South Korea’s experiences. With a strategic focus on enhancing civil-defence sector cooperation, technological innovation, and international partnerships, Poland could bolster its industrial growth and defence capabilities, contributing to long-term economic security and regional stability.

This article examines the evolution of international thought through the notion of ‘political space’. It focuses on two important domains of international politics, the nation-state and the global, to reflect on spatial categories in the discipline of International Relations (IR). Since its inception, the concept of the nation-state has dominated mainstream IR theory. Yet an investigation of how international order has been theorized over IR’s first century shows that this era has also been defined by globalist visions of political order. Nowadays, globalization is sometimes seen as the apex of the historical interplay of particularity and universality. The progression towards global political and economic order, however, is today undermined by the resurgence of state-centric political nationalism which seeks to challenge the legitimacy of the global political space. By examining how past international thinkers including Alfred Zimmern, Barbara Ward, Hans Morgenthau, E. H. Carr and John Herz, imagined and interpreted the relations of space and politics in the national and global spheres, this article suggests that spatial thinking offers an insightful approach for theorizing international relations. The article argues that the global and national spaces attain their political meanings through divisions as well as interactions and connections. The focus on divisions, exemplified in the writings of Barbara Ward, helps to make sense of the modus operandi of power in the national and global political spaces by investigating differences, tensions and instability.

The phenomenon of political antisemitism during the turbulent interwar period has received considerable attention from scholars.1 In surveying the large number of publications on the subject, the student of history is struck by the dynamism of antisemitism as an ideology of crisis and as an expression of national and global uncertainty. During the interwar period, antisemitism and the myth of the Jewish World Conspiracy, penetrated the political culture of almost every nation on earth. My own research has attempted to examine antisemitism as a global phenomenon by exploring its appearance in New Zealand, a country with a small Jewish community far removed from the socalled 'Jewish Problem'.2 Focusing on events between 1929 and 1939, this research has unearthed some hitherto overlooked personalities and events. This article will examine the life and work of Arthur Nelson Field, New Zealand's most prolific antisemitic agitator. Field's life reveals some interesting aspects of New Zealand's political history and provides a valuable insight into the circle of dedicated English-speaking activists who worked tirelessly throughout the interwar years to expose the imagined Jewish conspiracy. The economic slump of the 1930s was a particularly painful period for New Zealand as a small loyal outpost of the increasingly moribund British Empire. The experience of the first world war had already done much to shatter the certainties of the old international order, upon which New Zealand's sense of national security relied. The economic crisis of the 1930s presented a new and politically demoralizing conundrum that brought into question New Zealand's place in the British Empire and the country's vulnerability in an increasingly global economic and political order. As the crisis developed, there

This article contributes to the discussion on the European roots of cultural history by exploring the nineteenth-century understanding of cultural history from a Finnish perspective. The article argues that the Finnish case opens a fresh perspective to the history of cultural history by connecting it with the French historiography instead of German Kulturgeschichte. In Finland there is a special tradition of cultural history dating back to the early twentieth century, inspired by the German tradition of Kulturgeschichte. This article focuses on the earlier period, on the mid-nineteenth-century discussion concerning the scope of history and the ways the works of several European historians were reviewed in Finland. In this discussion the orientation was not so much in the German tradition but towards the French way of writing history. An important element in the Finnish discussion was the separation of political or official history from the so called inner history of the people, which was considered as more fundamental and comprehensive than political history. This orientation towards the history of the people was considered as cultural history. The article explores the question of ‘cultural history’ in Finland by drawing on the writings of influential Finnish thinker Johan Vilhelm Snellman (1806–1881).

For the three decades of the Northern Ireland ‘Troubles’ (1968–98), the United Kingdom experienced within its borders a profound and polarizing conflict. Yet relatively little research has addressed the complex effects, legacies and memories of this conflict in Britain. It occupies a marginal position in British social, cultural and political history, and the experiences and understandings of those in or from Britain who fought in it, were injured or harmed by it, or campaigned against it, have been neglected both in wider scholarship and in public policy. In the peace process since 1994, British initiatives towards ‘post-conflict’ remembering have been limited and fragmented. This ground-breaking book provides the first comprehensive investigation of the history and memory of the Troubles in Britain. It examines the impacts of the conflict upon individual lives, political and social relationships, communities and culture in Britain; and explores how the people of Britain (including its Irish communities) have responded to, and engaged with the conflict, in the context of contested political narratives produced by the State and its opponents.Setting an agenda for further research and public debate, the book demonstrates that ‘unfinished business’ from the conflicted past persists unaddressed in Britain; and advocates the importance of acknowledging legacies, understanding histories, and engaging with memories in the context of peace-building and reconciliation. Contributors include scholars from a wide range of disciplines (social, political and cultural history; politics; media, film and cultural studies; law; literature; performing arts; sociology; peace studies); activists, artists, writers and peace-builders; and people with direct personal experience of the conflict.