The Imagined Economies Of Globalization

Shortlisted for the Inaugural International Political Economy Group annual book prize '...amongst the most important books yet written on globalization' - Review of International Political Economy "In this original and very accessible work Cameron and Palan make a major contribution to the narrative turn in political economy. Skillfully combining sustained theoretical critiques and contemporary empirical analyses, this politically engaged book promotes a paradigm shift that sheds new light on the changing relations among the economy, the political, and the social. It will quickly become a major reference point for its account of globalization as a persuasive story and a flawed reality. I recommend it unreservedly" Bob Jessop How do theories, discussions and debates about globalisation shape the very subject they reflect on? How are conceptions of the state, society and politics are changing in the age of globalisation? This book critically introduces the main contemporary debates on globalization and demonstrates how conventional versions or narratives of globalization have served to shape policy responses at both state and corporate levels. Rather than accepting the disintegration of the state thesis, the authors present an alternative transition from the nation-state as a homogenous `imagined community', to a more complex and fluid series of normative economic spaces or `imagined economies'. They illustrate how this respatialization of the contemporary state is rapidly taking shape in concrete institutions, processes, people and places serving to recast the boundaries of the social, political and economic in fundamental ways. By accessibly demonstrating the way in which the discourse of globalization has itself become an integral part of the politics of globalization, The Imagined Economies of Globalization serves as an ideal introduction to key contemporary debates in politics, international relations, geography, international political economy and sociology.

Globalization is theorized in this book as an emerging new stage of capitalism. Robert Went takes us on a journey from the historical roots of globalization through to its relevance in the modern day. The Enigma of Globalization is a timely addition to an important debate and covers such themes as: * International trade * Free trade and international movement of capital * The role of the world economy This accessible and intriguing book is a must, not only for students and academics working in the field, but will also prove an interesting read for all those with a general interest in the modern global political economy.

The way we conceptualise the economy and ourselves as homo economicus has profound consequences for our lives. The contributions to this anthology take debates about the financial crisis, about recent austerity measures or about the Brexit referendum a step further. A common denominator of these dynamics are underlying ideas of the economy. Each author identifies a facet of Britain's imagined economies. They connect seemingly separate fields such as finance and fiction in order to better understand current political changes. In addition, the book offers an urgently needed interdisciplinary view on the performative power of economic thought - and in this respect moves far beyond merely British perspectives. This work was published by Saint Philip Street Press pursuant to a Creative Commons license permitting commercial use. All rights not granted by the work's license are retained by the author or authors.

This exciting book, available in paperback for the first time, provides an illuminating account of contemporary globalisation that is grounded in actual transformations in the areas of production and the workplace. It reveals the social and political contests that give 'global' its meaning, by examining the contested nature of globalisation as it is expressed in the restructuring of work.Rejecting conventional explanations of globalisation as a process that automatically leads to transformations in working lives, or as a project that is strategically designed to bring about lean and flexible forms of production, this book advances an understanding of the social practices that constitute global change. Through case studies that span from the labour flexibility debates in Britain and Germany, to the strategies and tactics of corporations and workers, the author examines how globalisation is interpreted and experienced in everyday life. Contestation, she argues, is about more than just direct protests and resistances. It has become a central feature of the practices that enable or confound global restructuring.This book offers students and scholars of international political economy, sociology and industrial relations an innovative framework for the analysis of globalisation and the restructuring of work.

Ray Kiely examines the conservative discourse of "winners" and "losers" of globalization that has emerged since the financial crisis. He provides a detailed examination of new US and UK conservative movements and how these have shaped responses to globalization that challenge neoliberal and third way approaches.

In 2010, Taiwan and China concluded a landmark trade agreement: the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) that sought to pave the way for closer commercial ties by lowering tariffs on several trade items. Just a decade earlier, both sides of the Taiwan Strait were ratcheting up rhetoric that seemed to point to growing political uncertainty across a region once a hotspot during the Cold War. What was behind this political sea change? The paradox of state policy in the cross-Strait political economy over the past three decades is that despite increased economic activity between both sides, national identity remains an important barometer in framing the prospects and limits of policymaking. In accounting for this paradox and how actors have dealt with it through problem definition and trade policy adjustment, this research utilizes economic imaginaries, a discursive field that shapes the conceptualization of economic life. As discourse and structure are dialectical in relation to one another, an economic imaginary represents an analytical concept to map out ideational shifts concerning economic life and national identity. Specifically, the author aims to address the following questions with the regard to the reconceptualization of cross-Strait commerce in Taiwan government policy: - What ideas and practices are selected and drawn upon by political elites in Taiwan to create new economic imaginaries? - How are these ideas being negotiated and resisted in rebuilding of social relations? - What are the areas of unevenness and contradictions within the discursive process? This research utilizes a combined methodological approach toward navigating economic imaginaries, including critical discourse analysis, analysis of collective action frames and the critical junctures that challenge their hegemonic power. Drawing upon expert interviews, key policy texts from political and intellectual elites, critical discourse analysis demonstrates the linkage between imaginaries and framing actions by revealing the cognitive mapping of the cross-Strait political economy, the dominant discourses that inform them and the ways in which hegemonic ideas are reproduced within the discourse.

For a century, economists have driven forward the cause of globalization in financial institutions, labour markets, and trade. Yet there have been consistent warning signs that a global economy and free trade might not always be advantageous. Where are the pressure points? What could be done about them?Dani Rodrik examines the back-story from its seventeenth-century origins through the milestones of the gold standard, the Bretton Woods Agreement, and the Washington Consensus, to the present day. Although economic globalization has enabled unprecedented levels of prosperity in advanced countries and has been a boon to hundreds of millions of poor workers in China and elsewhere in Asia, it is a concept that rests on shaky pillars, he contends. Its long-term sustainability is not a given.The heart of Rodrik>'s argument is a fundamental 'trilemma': that we cannot simultaneously pursue democracy, national self-determination, and economic globalization. Give too much power to governments, and you have protectionism. Give markets too much freedom, and you have an unstable world economy with little social and political support from those it is supposed to help. Rodrik argues for smart globalization, not maximum globalization.

Since the 1980s, globalization and neoliberalism have brought about a comprehensive restructuring of everyone’s lives. People are being ‘disciplined’ by neoliberal economic agendas, ‘transformed’ by communication and information technology changes, global commodity chains and networks, and in the Global South in particular, destroyed livelihoods, debilitating impoverishment, disease pandemics, among other disastrous disruptions, are also globalization’s legacy. This collection of geographical treatments of such a complex set of processes unearths the contradictions in the impacts of globalization on peoples’ lives. Globalizations Contradictions firstly introduces globalization in all its intricacy and contrariness, followed on by substantive coverage of globalization’s dimensions. Other areas that are covered in depth are: globalization’s macro-economic faces globalization’s unruly spaces globalization’s geo-political faces ecological globalization globalization’s cultural challenges globalization from below fair globalization. Globalizations Contradictions is a critical examination of the continuing role of international and supra-national institutions and their involvement in the political economic management and determination of global restructuring. Deliberately, this collection raises questions, even as it offers geographical insights and thoughtful assessments of globalization’s multifaceted ‘faces and spaces.’