Anti-Globalist and Alter-Globalist Movem | Australian Political Analysis Review

Anti-Globalist and Alter-Globalist Movements in the US

Although globalisation is sometimes cited as a source of friction in domestic states, neo-liberalism has posed a significant challenge to traditional Westphalian state sovereignty

Article by Jasper Wiggins

Image: ABC News - The Walt Disney Company

Introduction

Australian Political Analysis Review - Open Source Independent Education

Although globalisation is sometimes cited as a source of friction in domestic states, neo-liberalism has posed a significant challenge to traditional Westphalian state sovereignty. Recent movements against globalisation have coincided with the election and rise of far-right parties in Europe and South America, confirming a correlation between political grievances and nationalist rhetoric. Indeed, from the outset, this analysis establishes that neo-liberal economic interdependence has implicated state sovereignty by deflating some functions of states to supranational bodies. Moreover, resistance to cosmopolitanism has suggested identity crisis in the contemporary US discourses. Finally, examining alter-globalist approaches offers a constructive but incomplete framework for challenging the dominance of financial institutions as the primary beneficiaries of US-led hegemony. Although neo-liberalism is contested in anti-globalist analysis, its institutional practice reduced the function and sovereignty of states’ monetary policy, while problematised the socio-cultural inequalities in the US as a question of national identity.

Anti-Globalisation Movements and the Relationship between Supranational Institutions and Sovereignty

Neo-liberals observe the realist preference of economic protectionism as counterintuitive given the high level of economic integration in the contemporary global political economy where states benefit from interdependence. This relationship between political economy and the state has reconfigured Westphalian sovereignty in a way where states conceded parts of their function to supranational entities to set credit ratings, determine national bond prices, and thus influence currency valuations (Harmes, 1998, p.96 and 101). Neo-liberal institutionalism furthermore diverges from mercantilism, positioning the domestic economy as subsidiary to the global political economy. This gave supranational bodies some degree of autonomy from states, which can be quantified by Hobson’s international and domestic agential power framework (Hobson, 2000, p.4-6). Neo-realists by contrast, disagree with neo-liberalism’s enrichment of global financial markets. Rather, they attribute higher domestic agential power to state economies to preserve their competitiveness (p.7). This is however different from liberal agential power that can be distinguished between classical liberal and neo-liberalism as both strands emphasise the scale of government intervention as influencing the market (Gilpin, 1987, p.27-28). On the contrary, offensive realists critique both approaches, arguing that globalisation can be overcome by statehood defined by the material capacities of superpowers and great powers. For example, John Mearsheimer (2022) argued that the further sanctions of the Biden Administration on Russia after the 2022-full scale invasion sought to ‘knock Russia’ out of the ‘great power’ club and remove its insulation from cooperation with the rules-based order (p.25). Despite Russia’s revisionist inclinations, US aspiration supporting Russia’s removal from the Permanent 5 reflected a realist approach to reduce the security and stability of the international system by expanding the US’s influence over the Security Council.

The Reactionary Side-Effects of Anti-Globalisation and Cosmopolitanism on US Identity and Culture

Resistance to cosmopolitanism emerged from concerns about identity and sovereignty under domestic pressures of globalisation. According to Steven Slaughter (2017), post-colonial analysis highlighted how globalisation may overrule colonial legacies and infringe self-determination in subaltern states. According to Slaughter, this has resulted in the preference of communitarianism, given the socio-economic realities of some of these societies already implicated by corruption and poor government (pg.423-25). In contrast, Mathew Sparkes (2022) considered the scope of post-colonial perspectives as core to his ‘interregna of change’, and thus determined them either as a winners or losers of globalisation. This perspective challenged Westphalian sovereignty as it threatened the de-nationalisation of their identities with ‘westernised’ norms (p.30, 22, 27). Moreover, Sparke considered reactionary responses to globalisation in the US, counter-intuitive to democratic participation and cultural diversity (pg.20). Significantly, Republican grievances were not directed at cosmopolitan sources such as financial institutions as evidenced in the Occupy Wall-Street Movement, but rather at the whim of President Trump’s rhetoric against migrants. Rather, Trump denounced them xenophobically, indicating far-right rhetoric as unhelpful and overtly racist in anti-globalist analysis (Slaughter, 2017, pg.422).

Alter-Globalism and the Recession of Embedded Liberalism: Has Neo-Liberalism Gone Too Far?

Margarett Thatcher’s characterisation of neo-liberalism as being without alternative spoke to the contemporary implications of deregulation across the West. Indeed, while incomes did increase, the competition for capital became fiercer. In 2004, the American Political Science Association (2004) recognised that while income tax returns per share had increased in America, this had only occurred for a majority of white American families (pg.3-4). By contrast, economic inequalities associated with the offshoring of labour, closure of automobile sectors, and the promotion of ‘global integration’ disproportionately affected Black American families who were found to be less likely to participate in elections (pg.3). This was problematic for Manfred Steger and Erin Wilson (2012) as neo-liberalism became more associated with generating a monetary return than emphasising democratic accountability. Moreover, Steger and Wilson defined ‘alter-globalism’ by distinguishing between ‘justice globalism’ and neo-liberalism (pg.439-441). Their approach aligned with constructivists, emphasising the need for ‘self-identifying’ with political programs (pg.440). Participatory democracy for instance, existed as a model for greater democratisation of international intergovernmental institutions to represent people’s values more accurately. Similar to the Occupy Movement, Steger and Wilson considered a participatory approach to legitimising the cross-section of identities, while intersubjectively placing emphasis on the human agency of elections. However, Alexander Wendt (1999) set the parameters of constructivist ideation, recognising the ‘rump material’ reality of economic neo-liberal institutions as remaining profoundly more influential than the resources of the World Social Forum (pg.4).

Finally, Marxist and post-Marxist approaches critique globalisation as a product of neo-liberal capitalism championed through US hegemony. On a more theoretical level Immanuel Wallerstein’s ‘Word Systems Theory’ proposed the structural distinction between the wealth-extracting ‘core’ and inferior ‘semi-periphery-periphery’ exchanges (Petras, 1981, pg.149), (Tilly, 1993, pg.11). Wallerstein’s framework is significant in the discussion of globalisation because it challenged core-periphery relations as inequality-causing due to the concentration of financial capital in Washington and London. This was measurable by the limited structural role of the International Monetary Fund in crisis affected states as an apparatus of hegemony (Kapur, 1988, pg.125). Vanguardist-Marxist Rosa Luxemburg further scrutinised this idea, predicting the internationalisation of capitalism as something internal to its need for surplus-production and perpetual expansion through foreign markets (Gilpin, 1987, pg.63). In this way, the IMF can be construed by Marxists as socialising US-led negative-sum financial norms in vulnerable countries that may struggle to make debt repayments due to internal instability and corruption without legal accountability.

Conclusion

At the heart of this analysis, neo-liberalism as a globalisation-expanding doctrine has to some extent, reduced the sovereignty of domestic states - relative to theoretical interpretations. From the outset, neo-liberalism’s outsourcing of state functions to supranational entities has somewhat reduced state sovereignty. On the other hand, grievance with domestic experiences under globalisation can characterise ring-wing elements of contemporary US discourse as an identity crisis favouring protectionism. Finally, the examination of alter-globalisation movements suggests that no other viable and structural approach to political economy exists without the continuation of liberal institutionalism. Although neo-liberalism is contested in anti-globalist analysis, its institutional practice has reduced the function of states’ monetary policy, and by extension, sovereignty. This has problematised globalisations inequalities in the US as a question of national identity.

Bibliography

Harmes, A. (1998). ‘Institutional Investors and the Reproduction of Neoliberalism.’ Review of International Political Economy, 5(1), 92–121. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4177258

Hobson, J. (2000). “What’s at Stake in the Second State Debate?’ Concepts and Issues.’ In The State and International Relations.1-14. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Gilpin, R. (1987). ‘Three Ideologies of Political Economy.’ In The Political Economy of International Relations. Princeton University Press

Irwin, D. A. (2017). ‘The False Promise of Protectionism: Why Trump’s Trade Policy Could Backfire.’ Foreign Affairs, 96(3), 45–56. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44823730

Kapur, D. (1998). ‘The IMF: A Cure or a Curse?’ Foreign Policy, 111, 114–129. https://doi.org/10.2307/1149382

Tilly, C. (1993). ‘Cities and States in World History.’ In Coercion, Capital and European States, AD 990-1990’ Basil Blackwell.

Petras, J. (1981). ‘Dependency and World System Theory: A Critique and New Directions.’ Latin American Perspectives, 8(3/4), 148–155. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2633477

Wendt, A. (1999). ‘Social Theory of International Politics’, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), Chs 1 (partial), 3, 4, 6. (pp. 22-44, 92-190, 246-312) https://www.olivialau.org/ir/archive/wen2.pdf

Jasper Wiggins

30/10/2024