The authors argue that the nation is not the natural space for the circulation and reproduction of capital, and that this is vitally important in understanding the restructuring of economic activity since the mid-1970s. Rapidly increasing global integration of production, realisation of profit, and the circulation of financial capital have been recognised widely. Yet little consensus has developed about cither the theoretical or empirical impacts of globalisation on changing spatial divisions of labour within developed capitalist countries. The authors outline a model of globalisation in which an increasingly internationalised process of accumulation is expressed in, and reproduced through, the changing social relations of production which remain bounded territorially by nation-states. The model is built up from a synthesis of some apparently disparate theoretical positions on capitalist restructuring crises taken by researchers during the 1980s. These include theories of the internationalisation of capital and those dealing with restructuring within nation-states after the now much-debated transition out of the regime of accumulation which produced the long boom after 1950. Some of these theories have focused too narrowly on the circuit of production to the exclusion of the increasingly complex world trading links and with a severe underestimation of the importance of global financial capital during the 1980s. Methodological implications of the model are investigated and the role of the state in a globally integrated economy is illuminated.

Over the past decade, the urban condition of Sydney has been increasingly discussed using the language of globalization. Yet the increasing sensitivity of global city theorists to issues of representation alert us to the problems of confidently using the global as an adjective to describe two nouns (Sydney and city) of uncertain mooring. We review various uses of these signifiers by territorially embedded and embodied actors (  journalists, academics and politicians), and suggest that to unreflectively label either the whole or some parts of this metropolis ‘global’ is a deeply problematic process. Pendant ces dix dernières années, la situation urbaine de Sydney a été traitée de plus en plus souvent en termes de mondialisation. Toutefois, la sensibilité accrue des théoriciens de la ville planétaire aux aspects de représentation attire l’attention sur les problèmes liés à un usage fiable de planétaire comme adjectif descriptif de deux noms (Sydney et ville) présentant un ancrage incertain. En étudiant plusieurs usages de ces signifiants par des acteurs intégrés et définis au plan territorial ( journalistes, universitaires et politiciens), l’article suggère que qualifier sans réfléchir tout ou partie de cette métropole de ‘planétaire’ est un processus extrêmement problématique.

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Despite widespread agreement that the economies of nation-states have become more closely integrated globally, there has been little concrete analysis of how this has occurred. In this paper a large Australian-based firm which has emerged rapidly as a transnational agribusiness and brewing conglomerate in the 1980s is examined. The fractions of capital now reorganised as Elders IXL Ltd have adopted over time various capital accumulation strategies, forging, in each period, distinctive linkages with the global economy. To cope with restructuring crises during the 1970s, Elders has rapidly built a new global geography of production, trade, and investment, accompanied by extensive rationalisation and divestment in its Australian operations. The role of international finance capital has become increasingly important, and domestic restructuring can be understood only in terms of the new global strategies.