Political Capitalism Research Articles

Demands, displays, and dreams of “Black joy” during times of crisis

ABSTRACT Based on collaborative research and reflections on media depictions, marketplace experiences, and Black life in Belgium and Britain, this article embraces Black joy, while critiquing societal demands and (re)presentations of it. Informed by scholarship on racialised emotions, Black interiority, and Black emotional epistemologies, we analyse how the idea of “Black joy” has been (re)presented in media in ways connected to racialised, classed, and national discourses of “we-ness” during the coronavirus (Covid-19) crisis. By analysing public (re)presentations of Black people, we critically consider how “Black joy” becomes “Black JoyTM” – a defanged expression, enabling brand advertising by tapping into the racial and capitalist politics of marketable and mediated Black emotions and intimacy. We ask, “when, how, and why are the everyday emotions and experiences of Black people (re)presented by contemporary marketplace institutions as joyful?”. Consequently, we theorise the relationship between Black joy, crises, and forms of Belgian and British advertising and media.

Capitalist political economy and the political economy of capitalisms: 2022 Rik Davidson/Studies in Political Economy Book Prize

In 2022, Heather Whiteside of the University of Waterloo was recognized with the Rik Davidson/Studies in Political Economy Book Prize for her book Capitalist Political Economy: Thinkers and Theories (Routledge, 2020). This article is an edited version of the book prize talk that she delivered at the Canadian Political Science Association’s 2023 Annual Meeting, held at York University in Toronto. Professor Whiteside summarizes the book briefly and presents some recent works on the political economy of capitalisms, specifically regarding proprietary settler colonialism and Coast Salish capitalism.

Can political ecology be decolonised? A dialogue with Paul Robbins

AbstractIn the intricate tapestry of environmental discourse, the field of political ecology emerges as a powerful lens through which we scrutinise the interplay of power, nature and society. This paper stages a dialogue with Paul Robbins to examine environmental justice, the decolonisation of political ecology, colonialism, sovereignty, climate change and capitalism. The dialogue challenges the conventional narratives of sovereignty and underscores the imperative of genuine decolonisation—beyond metaphorical interpretations—calling for the restitution of land and authority to Indigenous Peoples and other historically marginalised communities. The dialogue highlights the importance of moving away from capitalist systems that exacerbate environmental degradation. The dialogue calls for decolonising political ecology by including diverse perspectives, methodologies and ontologies and underlines the importance of control over productive resources. It emphasises that addressing the impacts of colonialism requires recognising and honouring the sovereignty of Indigenous Peoples and suggests that political ecology can contribute to decolonisation by focusing on sovereignty and supporting legal and institutional frameworks that empower marginalised communities. The paper discusses the way forward and the future trajectory of political ecology by suggesting that future research in political ecology should focus on diverse economies, embrace emerging technologies and rework academic institutions to value knowledge co‐production.

Political dynasties and democratization: A case study of Taiwan

Political families in transitional societies are often seen in the context of corruption, democratic regression, deterioration of socio-economic development, inequality, and deprivation. High levels of dynasticism, however, also exist in advanced democratic societies. Using the example of Taiwan, this article explores the factors behind the evolution of electoral dynasties and how the behavior of hereditary politicians has been conditioned by democratization. More specifically, the article argues that legacy politicians are not per se the Pandora’s box of low-quality politics. Rather, they act like other networks of personal relations. As such, self-imposed ethical standards and inherited cultural norms may substantially restrain the intrinsic particularistic potentials of such networks, but in the long run only political modernization can prevent them from cultivating political capitalism—the predatory use of public resources. That is, political modernization conditions the behavior of electoral dynasties. It transforms particularistic networks into more progressive and programmatic forms of dynasticism.

Humanitarianism and racial capitalism in the age of global shipping

In what ways does humanitarianism uphold racial capitalism? The article draws on and expands Cedric Robinson’s arguments about the relationship between humanitarianism and racial capitalism in his Black Marxism. It does so by focusing on the Mission to Seafarers in the countries of the Persian/Arabian Gulf. The Mission has worked alongside state institutions and businesses, both before and after independence from Britain, to facilitate maritime trade through these Arabian ports. In the context of seafarer exploitation, these institutions – the extractive, the governing and the caring – need to ensure worker productivity to facilitate racial accumulation of capital. I argue that the Mission acts as part of the structure of political economic order to produce a racially striated, capitalist politics of care to individuated and atomised seafarers, acting to conciliate conflicts between seafarers and shipowners, maintain seafarer productivity and diminish the possibility of collective mobilisation.

Digital African Literatures and the Coloniality of Data

AbstractDigital iterations of African literary texts present scholarly opportunities to interrogate how literature produced and circulated on digital media becomes entangled with the capitalist politics of datafication. In the data paradigm described in the article, literary representations are subject to the workings of neoliberal capital and the constraints of algorithmic systems. Through a postcolonial approach that puts the digital humanities in conversation with African literary studies, the article transcends how digital technologies have evidently changed African literature and tackles the costs of digital literary cultures and networks from Africa. I examine data relations through an African literary culture, which, in the current moment, indisputably exhibits the attainment of new and complex elements including the integration of digital affordances in the production and critical reception of texts. How African literary expressions in a digital age circulate in market-driven digital platforms like Facebook and YouTube makes the subjects of data capitalism or the coloniality of data as important for African literature as the expanded literary networks enabled by the digital.

Credit ratings and financialized political capitalism in a Chinese development zone

China’s state driven urbanization and the revenues earned through conversion of land from rural (legally non-commodified) to urban (legally commodified) status have been studied intensively. What makes this new urban land valuable is less discussed in the context of financializaton. Through a study of bond financing in one of China’s “national level new areas”, Tianfu New Area, on the outskirts of Chengdu, south-western China, this paper argues that financialization is not only created through conversion of land, but also through the capitalization of perceived political favour. The link between state and market is frequently conceptualized as consisting of non-transparent vested semi-corrupt networks between the state and well-connected state owned or private enterprises. We argue that an additional link exists between state and market through financialized political capitalism. This is a system where certain narratives and interpretations of policy suggest an implicit guarantee of bailouts of those debtors who are perceived to be politically important. These narratives and perceptions of political ranking become factors in determining credit ratings and issuing bonds both on the Chinese and the global market and thus the creation of capital based on real estate in China.

The Critical Pessimism of Theodor Adorno

In response to widespread environmental concerns, a global pandemic, and authoritarian creep there has been insufficient political will to grapple with these pervasive problems. This lack of a political response is troubling, yet people are condemned as irrational, unpatriotic, or worse – conservative – if they do not maintain optimism about a better future. There is widespread repudiation of pessimism on the left, meanwhile there is little guarantee the future will deliver a brighter tomorrow. Philosophical pessimism may seem an unexpected position from which to consider the incongruent relationships among the myth of progress, contemporary political stagnation, capitalism, and climate change. However, a critical version of this orientation offers a ballast to toxic positivity, as well as a unique orientation to the myth of progress and the domination of nature. One that enables a reframed relationship to the climate crisis, income inequality, and creeping authoritarian populism.

Political Capitalism and Rent-Seeking

Political capitalism is an economic and political system in which the economic and political elite cooperate for their mutual benefit. Rent-seeking is one of the mechanisms that the elite use to generate gains to themselves at the expense of the masses. Analyzing rent-seeking within the political capitalism framework yields insights about the rent-seeking process. There is a barrier to entry in rent-seeking process which reduces competition for rents and increases the return to the rent-seeking group. This produces a net gain that recipients of rents—the economic elite—share with the political elite for their mutual benefit. One result is that rent-seeking losses are smaller than would be possible in the traditional theory. When such limits on rent-seeking are ineffective and discriminatory, massive rent-seeking can occur which dissipates the benefits of rent-seeking and generates the kind of losses Krueger (1974) discussed in her classic article.

Sovereign Debt and Political Capitalism in South Africa – Effects on Economic Growth and Quality of Life

Sovereign Debt and Political Capitalism in South Africa – Effects on Economic Growth and Quality of Life

Питання термінування владних повноважень як маркер стратегій сучасного капіталізму: особливості ситуації в країнах Латинської Америки та Карибського басейну

As part of the goal of the work, an attempt was made to clarify some theoretical lines of forming ideas about the meaningful essence of the future in the context of the implementation of certain political and economic strategies of today and the design of the appropriate institutional conditions. In the context of the tasks set, some aspects of the concepts of liberal-meritocratic capitalism and state political capitalism are analyzed, the lines of institutional differences in the development of political and legal mechanisms, the nature of changes in the political regime are highlighted. The symptomatic nature of the development vector, the factor of indefinite extension (or cancellation) of powers of power in the context of general tendencies of content is affirmed. From this theoretical and methodological point of view, significant changes in the situation in some countries of the LAC region are considered. It is concluded that the trend of political and geographic expansion of the most relevant variants of capitalism will continue: 1. liberal meritocratic capitalism (based on the model of US capitalism) and 2. the newest state political capitalism (the matrix is the model of China). Significant transformations in the plane of institutional and legal processes, which ultimately symbolically and illustratively focus on the problem of the term of power, will act as a marker of a certain vector of development of a country. They will, among other things, be presented at the level of theoretical developments on the dilemma democracy – statehood, controllability, conceptual tasks of understanding stability of power in the face of qualitatively new challenges of our time and will be expressed in different ways in constitutional creativity, legal methods concerning attempts to change the balance between the branches of government in favor of the executive branch, with derivative measures to remove restrictions on the length of time in senior government positions. It is emphasized that, according to research by the R. Inglehart and K. Welzel Center, people in the LAC region are accustomed to thinking in the framework of broad collectivist projections and their value-oriented attitudes, which, combined with efforts to find messianic motives for socio-economic transformations, can lead to development strategies that are local in origin, which will become important in the perspective of the universal dimension.

Post-Soviet Civil Society in Transition: Leftist Social Movements in Lithuania

The existing discourse on leftist movements in post-Soviet countries characterizes them as weak and isolated. This research analyzes the case of Lithuania, which has had parliamentary left parties since the democratic transition. Despite this, a new leftist movement recently began to emerge. Therefore, I answer the question, how can we explain the emergence of new leftist political groups in the context of a continued prominence and authority of the “old” left in the Lithuanian government? I analyze the case on several levels. The macro-level analysis is based on the European Value Study (EVS) 3rd pre-release of 2017 data, while for meso/micro-level analysis I conducted 8 interviews with the members of the new leftist movement. The research reveals that a precarious society was formed by those who lost out in the democratic transition. The opportunity for the leftist movement to arise was due to a sense of disappointment stimulated by the long-lasting inefficiency of political parties and their inability to deal with precarious conditions in the country. The new leftist movement was formed recently because of the frustrations of the first post-Soviet generation, rising from the discrepancy between dominating class-based capitalist politics and social issues, including identity politics, which stimulated the search for alternative explanations of the socio-economic structure. Moreover, because of the nature of this generation, the new leftist movement is dual -- an anti-austerity-care movement, fighting not only for the improvement of the precarious conditions they are facing but also taking care of the most vulnerable ones and thus creating a more inclusive and equal democracy.

Symposium on Middle East and North African (MENA) conflict. Part 1: An introduction

Since their independence, countries across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have witnessed subsequent waves of social and political conflicts. Armed and non-armed conflicts have almost become a defining feature of a region that has been struggling to find its own identity and a system that best represents its diverse communities and guarantees stability. Calibrated post-war power-sharing formulas of governance have produced authoritarianism, clientelism, elitism and a political post-war economy, where corruption, nepotism, injustice, and crony capitalism are rampant.

A framework to guide planetary health education

A framework to guide planetary health education

THE VISIBILITY OF THE TOY IN WESTERN PAINTING FROM RENAISSANCE TO THE MODERN ERA

Although children are the first thing that comes to mind when it comes to games, we encounter with games in all areas of the life in the adult world. The toy, on the other hand, is the objective dimension of the game and takes place in our lives as an imitation of a real being or as simple objects attributed with meanings. Game opens a free space for the player besides the existing world. Toys as game objects are not only personal items in this free space, they also reflect the cultural, economic, political and technological state of their eras in every aspect. When we consider art as a reflection of the culture, the image of games and toys in the art history is more associated with children. The meanings attributed to toys were parallel with the perspective towards the children in every period. The toy as an object first appears in European painting in the 15th century. Along with humanism, the developing bourgeoisie, subsequent scientific and technological advances, family life and values given to children naturally changed the point of view on toys. The rapidly changing world with the wars in the 20th century turned the toy into a mass-produced industrial product, which encouraged consumption culture. Thus, the toys detached from their original context and started serving as an intermediary in the transformation and the manipulation of societies in the hands of the cultural industry, social and political propaganda and capitalism. In this context, the toy object that is the subject of painting is a document witnessing the history. The aim of this study is to examine the visibility of the toy, which is the subject of European painting from the Renaissance to the modern period, in the history and to discuss the effect of cultural differences related to time and space on the toys through art. Keywords : Game, toy, children, culture, art

The Transition from Oligarchic Governance to Managerial Governance and Assessment of the Effectiveness of Public Administration in Azerbaijan

This article studies public administration in Azerbaijan, which is approaching the 30th anniversary of its re-independence, and characterizes its current state. Since 29 years of the last three decades have belonged to the rule of one family, there is no doubt that the effects of the transformation of power from father to son have led to different results compared to post-Soviet countries. Therefore, the mainline of the article is the structure of governance in Azerbaijan, participation in decision-making, the role of oligarchs in the establishment of the political elite and capitalism. The conclusion is that the supreme model of governance in Azerbaijan is composed of the components of monarchy, oligarchy, kleptocracy, and corporate state. The corporate state model has become more prominent in Azerbaijan, as the ruling family has superior rights and privileges in public administration. In this country, independent civil society, free press, and other democratic institutions have been neutralized by various means, mainly by ruling family and oligarch groups, regions have been distributed among oligarchs, arable lands among high-ranking officials and agro-parks belonging to their families5, in other words, a form of state governance has been established in Azerbaijan on the basis of modern aspects of the corporate republic model that existed in the 16th and 17th centuries. Although the controlling stake of the corporate state named Azerbaijan is concentrated in the hands of the ruling family and the remaining shares belong to oligarchs with the status of minor shareholders, their number continues to decline as the process of transformation from oligarchic governance to managerial governance expands. The relationship between the government and the population in this corporate state recalls the relationship between the company's managers, who do not protect the labor rights of their employees, and employees, who are dissatisfied with their managers.

Політичні цикли в умовах формування інформаційно-мережевого суспільства

In the cyclical dynamics of the capitalist world system, politics and economics are closely intertwined, which is manifested in the development of political business cycles of individual countries, as well as in the development of cyclical political and economic processes in the long run on a global scale. The development of political business cycles is due to the influence of interrelated factors - competition of political forces, economic expectations and political preferences of voters. The immanent to the capitalist world-system deep internal contradictions lead to a variety of forms of long-term socio-economic cycles, including such a form as political cycles of a global nature. In the modern conditions of transition from the industrial-market system to the information-network society, the factors continue to exist and the contradictions emerge that both lead to the development of political cycles. Technical and technological transformations that contribute to the formation of information and network society, are strengthening the possibilities of ideological and propaganda activities that affect the cyclical political and economic processes. In such conditions, political cycles are becoming more and more emergent, which is largely due to the influence of social networks, computer games, and "new media" on people's political preferences and their political activity. The cyclical processes of establishing economic and political hegemony in the capitalist world system determine the dominance of the political cycles of leading countries over those of less developed countries. Improving production and dissemination technologies enhances the ability of leading countries to influence the political cycles of less developed countries, and the use of "soft power" is becoming an increasingly important tool of geopolitical struggle in the process of deployment of long-term global political cycles.

A Critical Reflection on Neoliberalism

: In this interview, we first scrutinise the meaning of classical liberalism and its revision by New liberalism in the twenties as social liberalism to demonstrate the conceptual confusion in using the term ‘neoliberalism' as an economic doctrine. We then discuss the emergence of American neoliberalism as developed by the economic and law departments of the University of Chicago in the seventies notably by the Monetarist school. The anti-inflation program of Milton Friedman and Washington consensus provide a particular version of neoliberalism as economic policy. However, neoliberalism also pertains to a transitional, and non viable post-Fordist accumulation regime that has collapsed by 2007-2008 crisis. We also demonstrate the opposition against neoliberal economic policy not only by left critics but also by many right and center economists, politicians and scholars. Finally, we refute the idea of considering the political economy of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) as neoliberal. Borrowing Vahabi’s theoretical framework, we characterise parallel institutions and foundations as political capitalism with the predominance of predatory para-statal sectors. The limits of reformist and transformationalist discourses are revisited in light of political economy of the IRI, and the need for a social and political revolution is concluded.

Review of Classical Political Economics and Modern Capitalism: Theories of Value, Competition, Trade and Long Cycles by Lefteris Tsoulfidis and Persefoni Tsaliki

This book review presents and critically evaluates core issues raised in the recently published book titled: Classical Political Economics and Modern Capitalism: Theories of Value, Competition, Trade and Long Cycles coauthored by Lefteris Tsoulfidis and Persefoni Tsaliki. The book under review is one of the very few efforts to comprehensively cover major topics of the classical political economics approach. Among these topics included are the following: the theory of value, economic reproduction, and true competition in domestic and international markets as well as long economic cycles in the movement of key economic variables. A salient feature of the book is that the “laws of motion” of modern capitalism are derived and supported by empirical evidence based on refined economic data and appropriate input–output or econometric analysis. The overall evaluation is at the end of the present review along with a critical account for further research efforts.

Remaking New Orleans: Beyond Exceptionalism and Authenticity ed. by Thomas Jessen Adams and Matt Sakakeeny

Reviewed by: Remaking New Orleans: Beyond Exceptionalism and Authenticity ed. by Thomas Jessen Adams and Matt Sakakeeny Alexandra Giancarlo Remaking New Orleans: Beyond Exceptionalism and Authenticity. Edited by Thomas Jessen Adams and Matt Sakakeeny. (Durham, N.C., and London: Duke University Press, 2019. Pp. [x], 358. Paper, $28.95, ISBN 978-1-47800287-1; cloth, $104.95, ISBN 978-1-4780-0182-9.) [Due to an editorial error, the following review was published in the May 2020 issue attributed to the incorrect reviewer. It is published here again, with the correct reviewer's name. The editor apologizes to Dr. Giancarlo and regrets the error.] The claim that New Orleans is an exceptional place is nothing new. Especially for those who "discovered" the city after Hurricane Katrina—perhaps as volunteers, volunteers-turned-transplants, or one of the city's millions of tourists per year, all of which are categories of analysis featured in this collection—the city seems set apart from the mundane and removed from [End Page 766] the constricting social mores typical of the rest of the United States. This exceptionality, perhaps epitomized by a laissez-faire attitude toward sexuality and alcohol consumption, is as old as the city itself, but it has evergreen relevance for today's residents, visitors, scholars, and policy makers. In the edited collection Remaking New Orleans: Beyond Exceptionalism and Authenticity, contributors attack New Orleans's supposed distinctiveness on multiple fronts and not only call into question the city's exceptionality (which, admittedly, would be somewhat of a superficial critique on its own) but also examine how the city's posturing as singular occludes analyses that do not fit the tourist-oriented mold of authenticity. Importantly, the authors take aim at how New Orleans's so-called exceptionality obscures its role in capitalist political economic structures. Their complex analyses suggest that, in fact, the promotion of the city's uniqueness is "integral to the hegemony of capitalist social relations. The attachment to exceptionalism and authenticity is at the very heart of neoliberalism, positing difference rather than exploitation as the central injustice of the contemporary world" (pp. 7–8). The book is divided into four chronological sections. Part 1, "Constructing Exceptional New Orleans," focuses on how writers, travelers, and historians in the colonial period contributed to the early construction of the city and its denizens as exceptional—"the invention of a romanticized New Orleans" (p. 13). Part 2, "Producing Authentic New Orleans," examines how various social actors and groups within the city—such as the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club, fans of the first black professional wrestling headliner Junkyard Dog, and white volunteers after Hurricane Katrina—negotiated the fraught terrain of authenticity. The chapters in Part 3, "What Is New Orleans Identity?," introduce considerable nuance into commonly held narratives about the city's historical sexual permissiveness, race and class, and Vietnamese belonging. Part 4, "Predictive City?," provides the volume's most incisive critiques of the city's postindustrial neoliberal orientation, which has only accelerated since Hurricane Katrina, exacerbating socioeconomic inequality, slashing the government safety net, and disenfranchising exactly those groups—primarily working-class black residents—on whom much of the city's touristic allure depends. An introductory chapter aptly outlines the book's premises and describes its theoretical orientation. The book is strongest in the later sections as the narrative moves from past to present. The editors have marshaled an admirably gender, discipline, and race diverse group of scholars to cover the book's more than three centuries' time span. Although the overall package is polished and feels cohesive, the chapters vary in quality and theoretical robustness (par for the course with multipleauthor anthologies). Many chapters offer truly original insights in their capturing of lesser-known cultural, political, or historical aspects of the city. Vern Baxter and Maria Casati's examination of the controversy surrounding the building of Pontchartrain Park (chapter 9), a black suburb built in the early 1950s, is one such example of a lesser-explored part of the city's history. Baxter and Casati capture the history of "'boring black people'"—terminology invoked by Helen A. Regis in chapter 6 to describe middle-class African American residents who cannot boast affiliation with...