"There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon.The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable by-laws of business." - Arthur Jensen, Network (1976)
The state is dying. IR theorists of old must be tearing out their hair atop their tenured ivory towers. How can the state, that thing which has dominated political discourse since the time of Thucydides be considered to be at an end? For many decades, IR scholars have been looking at this fixed international system, a frozen avenue dominated by anarchy as told by Morgenthau.
Keohane and 'Joseph Nye the (Political) Science Guy' present this as a very myopic view of the international system. Similar to the bureaucratic politics model, they tell us that the international system is not just states and anarchy and there is a lot that goes into it from within. Ignoring the internal matters within the state, as well as the thousands of extremely powerful actors like oil companies and General Motors and Apple is narrow-minded.
The world is a business now. Not just a business, it is also a clash of ideologies. It is a world of transnational terrorism, an idea that so many states have tried to quell but which has stood its ground and is affecting international affairs in an unprecedented way. ISIS was a handful of individuals that have created widespread panic in the international system. So states aren't the only actors left anymore.
The other day, John Oliver did a whole segment about how an Argentinian boat was held hostage by a hedge fund for defaulting loans. Here, we have a country of 42 million people at the mercy of a company called NML where it actually managed to get a hold of not just any boat, but a warship! Back in 2007, a group of bondholders even tried to capture the Tango 01, which is Argentina's zesty South American version of Air Force One.
While Nye and Keohane don't say that we're at a complete twilight of the state as Prem Shankar Jha argues, they certainly do recognise the growing importance of transnational actors and how their interests are everywhere. The Mr. Beales of IR theory will have to rethink their stance.
The state is dying. IR theorists of old must be tearing out their hair atop their tenured ivory towers. How can the state, that thing which has dominated political discourse since the time of Thucydides be considered to be at an end? For many decades, IR scholars have been looking at this fixed international system, a frozen avenue dominated by anarchy as told by Morgenthau.
Keohane and 'Joseph Nye the (Political) Science Guy' present this as a very myopic view of the international system. Similar to the bureaucratic politics model, they tell us that the international system is not just states and anarchy and there is a lot that goes into it from within. Ignoring the internal matters within the state, as well as the thousands of extremely powerful actors like oil companies and General Motors and Apple is narrow-minded.
The world is a business now. Not just a business, it is also a clash of ideologies. It is a world of transnational terrorism, an idea that so many states have tried to quell but which has stood its ground and is affecting international affairs in an unprecedented way. ISIS was a handful of individuals that have created widespread panic in the international system. So states aren't the only actors left anymore.
The other day, John Oliver did a whole segment about how an Argentinian boat was held hostage by a hedge fund for defaulting loans. Here, we have a country of 42 million people at the mercy of a company called NML where it actually managed to get a hold of not just any boat, but a warship! Back in 2007, a group of bondholders even tried to capture the Tango 01, which is Argentina's zesty South American version of Air Force One.
While Nye and Keohane don't say that we're at a complete twilight of the state as Prem Shankar Jha argues, they certainly do recognise the growing importance of transnational actors and how their interests are everywhere. The Mr. Beales of IR theory will have to rethink their stance.
I think the Network slightly exaggerated the dying out of states (especially considering it was released in 1976. Sure, its not the only actor left, but it is still VERY power in the system.
ReplyDeleteInspite of the risk of being called 'anti-state', I think the dying of states might be interesting. State boundaries strict us as much as they 'free' us.
Yeah I'm slightly anti-state in that sense too but Network isn't meant to be an exaggeration but rather an Orwellian warning of sorts. And look how ahead of its time the predictions turn out to be.
ReplyDeleteBut the "state" has not existed in a static form since the time of Thucydides. That period was dominated by city-states, then came empires, and eventually we've arrived at nation-states.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of the states dying out, this will not happen until the international system really starts to collapse. Based on the cascading ecological crises that we face, it is a distinct possibility that it may happen in our lifetimes.
But then we may be entering into a Hobbesian state of nature, which would be several steps back.
Then again, perhaps Google and Apple can save us?
The state is dying metaphorically. The state of the future will be lobby groups and international corporations
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