Morton, Adam David - Bieler, Andreas
The will-o'-the-wisp of the Transnational State
The role of the state in the global political economy or the relationship between the inter-state system and globalisation has been the focus of scholarly debate for some time. Within mainstream International Relations (IR) and International Political Economy (IPE) theories, however, these discussions have run out of steam. On one hand, neorealists such as Waltz (Waltz 2000) and state-centric comparative political economists (Hirst and Thompson 1999; Weiss 1998) argue that globalisation implies mainly an increase in cross-border flows and, therefore, does not change fundamentally the inter-state system. In other words, states remain the only significant actors in international politics and we should, as a result, speak of internationalisation, not globalisation. On the other hand, so-called hyperglobalists make the point that globalisation has drastically changed the international system with non-state actors, especially transnational corporations (TNCs), increasingly taking over core functions, traditionally carried out by states (Strange 1996). In turn, states become mere conduits, adjusting national economies to the requirements of global capital, to whither away as increasingly powerless actors (Ohmae 1990, 1995). The so-called transformationalists are a liberal variant of IR theory, who acknowledge that globalisation signifies dramatic change (Held et al. 1999), but argue that states are being restructured as competition states within the global economy, rather than becoming obsolete (Cerny 2010).
| Lingua | eng |
| Nomi |
[author] Morton, Adam David [author] Bieler, Andreas |
| Soggetti |
Economia Politica
Globalizzazione
Political Economy
Globalization |
