America's Middlemen

Grynaviski, Eric

doi:10.1017/9781316676950

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…It is no more, it if ever was, a realm composed of organizations that are distinct from states and economies, but a domain where supposedly domestic actors are transnationally assembled under the forces of globalization (Ong and Collier, 2006;Sassen, 2006). Putatively private economic actors serve as the adjuncts and intermediaries of state power, even of the greatest powers (Farrell and Newman, 2019;Grynaviski, 2018;Judge, 2015). Third, these networks of global civil society are the products of power relations.…”

Section: Theoretical Contours: From Tans To Tusnsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, professional intermediaries are the critical nodal points in these TUSN networks. Grynaviski (2018) defines intermediaries as 'actors with political power owing to their position between societies' (p. 18). Their political power is produced by the spaces they create between centres of power: 'the power of betweenness' (Grynaviski, 2018: 2) from wielding power in autocracies and maintaining their lives and dealings in democracies.…”

Section: Spatial Politicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Grynaviski (2018) defines intermediaries as 'actors with political power owing to their position between societies' (p. 18). Their political power is produced by the spaces they create between centres of power: 'the power of betweenness' (Grynaviski, 2018: 2) from wielding power in autocracies and maintaining their lives and dealings in democracies. These actors populate the nodes of networks of business and finance, education and culture, property and status.…”

Section: Spatial Politicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Transnational uncivil society networks: kleptocracy’s global fightback against liberal activism

Cooley

Heathershaw

Oliveira

2023

European Journal of International Relations

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What is the global social context for the insertion of kleptocratic elites into the putatively liberal international order? Drawing on cases from our work on Eurasia and Africa, we sketch a concept of ‘transnational uncivil society’, which we contrast to ‘transnational activist networks’. While the latter denotes the liberalizing practices of global civil society, the former suggests a specific series of clientelistic relations across borders, which open space for uncivil elites. This distinction animates a growing line of conflict in global politics. These kleptocrats eject liberal activists from their own territories and create new spaces to whitewash their own reputations and build their own transnational networks. To do so, they hire political consultants and reputation managers, engage in public philanthropy and forge new relationships with major global institutions. We show how these strategies of reputation-laundering are neither illicit nor marginal, but very much a product of the actors, institutions and markets generated by the liberal international order. We compare and contrast the scope and purpose of civil and uncivil society networks, we explore the increasing globalization of Eurasian and African elites as a concerted strategy to distance themselves from associations with their political oppression and kleptocracy in their home countries, and recast themselves as productive and respected cosmopolitans.

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Section: Theoretical Contours: From Tans To Tusnsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Spatial Politicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Spatial Politicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Transnational uncivil society networks: kleptocracy’s global fightback against liberal activism

Cooley

Heathershaw

Oliveira

2023

European Journal of International Relations

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“…In the process, we draw on research implying that insular powers may enjoy advantages in great power politics-in particular, that insularity may facilitate power projection while Our starting premise is that although insularity cannot explain why great powers expand, it shapes their opportunity structure when they seek to expand. 7 More specifically, insular powers-like other great powers-can face a mix of security and non-security motives to expand that vary across time and space (Glaser 2010;Grynaviski 2018;Shifrinson 2018). Yet, because insularity-as the received wisdom emphasizes-makes the conquest of other great powers difficult, 8 insular powers are pushed to consider alternate ways of expanding.…”

Section: Insularity As Facilitator Of Expansionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Revisiting Insularity and Expansion: A Theory Note

Schuessler¹,

Shifrinson²,

Blagden³

2021

Perspect. polit.

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What is the relationship between insularity—a state’s separation from other states via large bodies of water—and expansion? The received wisdom, prominent in (though not exclusive to) realist theories, holds that insularity constrains expansion by making conquest difficult. We contend, by contrast, that this received wisdom faces important limits. Focusing on U.S. expansion via means short of conquest, we interrogate the underlying theoretical logics to demonstrate that insular powers enjoy two distinct advantages when it comes to expansion. First, insularity translates into a “freedom to roam”: because insular powers are less threatened at home, they can project more power and influence abroad. Second, insularity “sterilizes” power, which explains why insular powers are seen as attractive security providers and why we do not see more counterbalancing against them. On net, existing scholarship is correct to argue that insularity impedes conquest between great powers. Still, it has missed the ways that insularity abets expansion via spheres of influence abroad. One consequence is an under-appreciation for the role of geography writ large and insularity in particular in shaping contemporary great power behavior.

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The ‘Mesopotamian trap’: from the ‘first’ international to dynamic multiplicity

Powel

2024

Int. Theory

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Building on studies of historical non-Westphalian world orders, this article challenges desires to identify a ‘first’ international. The question ‘when was the first international?’ is fundamental to defining disciplinary boundaries and the ontologies that shape them. Such quests are substantialist rather than relational, limiting our understanding of the relations and diversity of agents involved in world ordering. Existing approaches to the ‘first’ international are caught in a ‘Mesopotamian trap’: a combination of social evolution conceptual models grounded in colonial epistemologies, analytical presentism, and the surviving propaganda of ancient urban rulers. This article proposes ‘dynamic multiplicity’ as a new framework to account for the diversity, complexity, dynamism, and relationality of world orders in past and present. Dynamic multiplicity emphasizes: a quantitative and qualitative multiplicity of actors; never-ending and always unfolding relations; the instability and permeability of social actors; the diachronic nature of social action; hierarchical and heterarchical power relations; the multi-scalar spatiality of the social; and sustained and critical interdisciplinarity. It applies dynamic multiplicity to the case of Sumer and ancient West Asia, a so-called ‘first’ international, to reveal a diversity of durable relational actors and contradict assumptions that international relations necessarily lead to world orders of homogenous unit-types.

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America's Middlemen

Cited by 7 publications

References 0 publications

Transnational uncivil society networks: kleptocracy’s global fightback against liberal activism

Transnational uncivil society networks: kleptocracy’s global fightback against liberal activism

Revisiting Insularity and Expansion: A Theory Note

The ‘Mesopotamian trap’: from the ‘first’ international to dynamic multiplicity

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