A critical rejoinder to Manfred B. Steger

Abstract

Manfred Steger’s response to our critique of globalization theory studiously avoids a confrontation with our basic thesis that nation-states are the principal agents of globalization and the continuing guarantors of the political and material conditions necessary for capital accumulation on a global scale. Steger still fails to recognize that the state is more than just one important actor in the global arena because a state has the capacity to extract resources (taxes), allocate resources (bureaucracy), and enforce decisions (police, military, and judiciary) that are binding on an entire society. No global nonstate actors identified by Steger have these capacities.

Keywords:

• Capitalist state
• globalization
• Marxist political economy
• theory of the state

Notes

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Barrow, Toward a Critical Theory of States, 6.

2 Barrow and Keck, “Globalization Theory and State Theory,” 183. There is no shortage of definitions and theories of the state. See Hall and Ikenberry, The State; Poggi, The State; Barrow, Critical Theories of the State; Carnoy, The State and Political Theory; Dunleavy and O’Leary, Theories of the State.

3 Barrow and Keck, “Globalization Theory and State Theory,” 179.

4 Barrow and Keck, “Globalization Theory and State Theory,” 179, 186–89.

5 It is curious that Steger responds to our critique by invoking a cluster of globalization theorists who were not the object of our criticism. Bringing them into the discussion as an example of what globalization theory could be is a diversion from Steger’s own published writings. However, if this is the direction that Steger wants to take globalization theory in the future, then we applaud the decision.

6 Steger (Globalization, 66) identifies the “group of globalization sceptics” with scholars who highlight “the central role of politics in unleashing the forces of globalization that argue that the rapid expansion of global economic activity originated with political decisions by neoliberal governments to lift international restrictions on capital. As a result, global markets and new technologies came into their own. The clear implication of this perspective is that territory still matters.” This is an accurate description of our position on globalization, but we prefer the term “globalization realists.” We do start from the standpoint of an international system of nation-states, as opposed to a concept of “the global,” and if this is what Steger means by methodological nationalism, so be it.

7 Barrow and Keck, “Globalization Theory and State Theory,” 181.

8 Barrow and Keck, “Globalization Theory and State Theory,” 181.

9 Easton, The Political System, 106; Easton, Systems Analysis, 21.

10 Tilly, Formation, 3–83; Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States.

11 See “G20 Protests,” http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/06/europe/hamburg-protests-g20/index.html.

12 Barrow, Toward a Critical Theory of States, 159.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Clyde W. Barrow

Clyde W. Barrow teaches in the Department of Political Science at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in Edinburg, Texas, USA.

Michelle Keck

Michelle Keck teaches in the Department of Political Science at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in Brownsville, Texas, USA.