Transnational State Formation and the Global Politics of Austerity

Abstract

A perennial concern among scholars of globalization is the relationship between global social formations and national and subnational political and economic developments. While sociological understanding of "the global" has become increasingly rich, stressing the complex relationship between material and cultural pressures, an undertheorized nation state often sits on the receiving end of the sociologist's model of globalization. The goal of this article is to help move the sociology of globalization out of the analytical trap of globalnational dualism by developing an account of the transnationalization of political authority. Building on neo-Marxist and Weberian theories of the transnational, or global state, which explicate the macro-structural dynamics that have led to the transnationalization of the state as such, I look at the process of the transnationalization of political authority from an institutional perspective, one that focuses on processes of transnationalization within, and across, specific state agencies. These theoretical points are empirically motivated through an historical investigation of the transnationalization of monetary authority and its relationship to the international diffusion of policies of austerity from the era of the classical gold standard through the economic crisis of 2008.

Digital Transnational Dissidence and State Control: A Conceptual Reflection on the Practice and Limits of Digital Transnationalism

“…From collaboration with civil society in dealing with refugee crises to public-private partnerships in defence industry and critical infrastructure security, or to transnational regimes of governance, states have become a key contributor and collaborator of transnationally governed domains. The national qualities of the states, accordingly, have been transnationally redefined (Major, 2013). National economies have had to adapt to global economic changes and thus have been reorganised to better collaborate and/or compete with transnational multi-national companies or cross-national production chains.…”

Beyond the Hegemony of Neoliberal Ideas: Ideational Diversity and Policy Variegation in the Neoliberal State

“…Sociologists view the state as a polymorphic ensemble of institutions, a heterogeneous and unequal field within which actors (elected and unelected officials, bureaucratic units, and professional groups) with different bureaucratic and professional logics and organizational interests vie for power, autonomy, resources, and legitimacy (Bourdieu, 2005; Laumann and Knoke, 1987; Major, 2013; Morgan and Orloff, 2017). Similarly, the neoliberal state is characterized by “struggles over and within the bureaucratic field aiming to redefine the perimeter, missions, priorities, and modalities of action of public authorities” (Wacquant, 2010: 217).…”

“…To advance pro-market neoliberal policies in the face of opposition, neoliberal advocates inside the state muster new power resources, including the professional authority of economics and the support of international organizations and networks. This new power structure has generally led scholars to regard non-neoliberal state actors as disempowered, no longer possessing the resources they once had, with diminished capacities for influencing contemporary policy debates (Bourdieu, 2005; Dezalay and Garth, 2002; Fourcade-Gourinchas and Babb, 2002; Jessop, 2002; Major, 2013; McMichael, 1996; Polillo and Guillén, 2005; Wacquant, 2009, 2010).…”

What is a global field? Theorizing fields beyond the nation-state

“…Moreover, the idea of relative vertical autonomy offers a conceptual basis from which it is possible to theorize relations between global and national levels in ways that avoid simple dualisms, an issue that has been long and rightly problematized in the globalization literature (eg Brenner, ; Sassen, ; Major, ). As the ‘relativity’ of field autonomy suggests that national and global field levels are only partially independent, we must approach them, by the same token, as still relatively interdependent .…”