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Abstract
This article examines the question of global order in the contemporary historical conjuncture. I argue that Hardt and Negri's Empire provides a response to such a question. This response is necessary given the manner in which globalisation theory's explanation of global order has been contested by the George W Bush regime. An exegesis of the manner in which Empire delineates global order in the contemporary era provides, moreover, a fruitful encounter between elements of post-structuralist International Relations theory and the subject matter of International Political Economy. The article sketches out the principal characteristics of empire followed by an exegesis of the empirical manifestation of imperial characteristics in the contemporary global order. I argue that the present global order is characterised by the drawing of boundaries or the constitution of thresholds that define what is to be regarded as included and excluded from the imperial realm. Empire vigorously polices these thresholds in order to defer encounters with others that might question its self-asserted timeless pacific civility. Finally, I conclude by noting that the centrality of such boundary constitution to imperial forms suggests that a logic of security underlies contemporary global order. Thus investigations into the political economy of Empire will always already comprise an investigation of imperial logics of security.
Acknowledgement
This paper arose out Marieke de Goede's invitation to consider the relation between Poststructuralism and International Political Economy. I would like to thank Marieke for inviting me to take part in this project. The argument was presented to the British International Studies Association Annual Conference, December 2004 and benefited from several comments made on that occasion. I also received helpful suggestions from Julian Ried. Beate Jahn and Justin Rosenberg commented on a previous argument concerning Empire as a motif for the post-globalisation era and, whilst I was unable to alter that paper in light of their suggestions, my argument here has benefited from of their insights. Of course, the responsibility for the final argument is entirely my own.
Notes
Martin Coward is in the Department of International Relations & Politics, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton, East Sussex BN1 9SJ. Email: [email protected]
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See M Coward, ‘The imperial character of the contemporary world order’, Theory and Event, 8(1), 2005 for a discussion of this literature. An exhaustive list of contributors to the literature is beyond the scope of this paper. However, a representative sample would include: N Ferguson, Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire, London: Allen Lane, 2004; D Gregory, The Colonial Present: Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq, Oxford: Blackwell, 2004; M Hardt & A Negri, Empire, London: Harvard University Press, 2000; D Harvey, The New Imperialism, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003; A Joxe, The Empire of Disorder, New York: Semiotex(e), 2002; M Ignatieff, Empire Lite: Nation Building in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan, London: Vintage, 2003; M Mann, Incoherent Empire, London: Verso, 2003; and E Todd, After the Empire: The Breakdown of the American Order, London: Constable, 2004.
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Cf D Campbell, Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998; and M Dillon, Politics of Security: Towards a Political Philosophy of Continental Thought, London: Routledge, 1996.
Hardt & Negri, Empire, pp 3, xiv.
Ibid, p xii, emphasis in the original.
Ibid, p xiv.
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Hardt & Negri, Empire, p xv.
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Hardt & Negri, Empire, p xv.
See M Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Vol 1, The Will to Knowledge, London: Penguin, 1998; and Foucualt, ‘Governmentality’, in G Burchell, C Gordon & P Miller (eds), The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1991, pp 87 – 104.
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Hardt & Negri, Empire, pp 43 – 62.
See, for example, Ferguson, Colossus; and Harvey, The New Imperialism.
Hardt & Negri, Empire, p xiv.
Cf K Ohmae, The Borderless World: Power and Strategy in the Interlinked Economy, London: Fontana, 1992.
Hardt & Negri, Empire, pp 309 – 312.
Cf R Falk, On Humane Governance, Cambridge: Polity, 1995; M Koenig-Archibugi, ‘Mapping global governance’, in D Held & A McGrew (eds), Governing Globalization: Power, Authority and Global Governance, Cambridge: Polity, 2002, pp 46 – 69; JN Rosenau, ‘Governance in a new global order’, in Held & McGrew, Governing Globalization, pp 70 – 86; and JN Rosenau & E-O Czempiel (eds), Governance without Government: Order and Change in World Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
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Hardt & Negri, Empire, pp 22 – 23, 331.
See D Campbell, National Deconstruction: Violence, Identity, and Justice in Bosnia, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998, p 205; WE Connolly, Political Theory and Modernity, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993; and G Hage, ‘Locating multiculturalism's Other: a critique of practical tolerance’, New Formations, 24(x), 1994, pp 19 – 34.
On the determination of minimum standards, see Sphere Project, The Sphere Handbook 2004, at http://www.sphereproject.org/handbook/index.htm. On the determination of terrorism and fundamentalism, see, for example, the work of the UN Ad Hoc Committee On Assembly Resolution 51/210, at http://www.un.org/law/terrorism/index.html, and of the General Assembly Sixth Committee, at http://www.un.org/law/cod/sixth/57/docs.htm, both of which are engaged in elaborating a definition of terrorism. See also http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2002/L2993.doc.htm for an illustration of the vicissitudes of such a project.
For example, Harvey, The New Imperialism.
A Brewer, Marxist Theories of Imperialism: A Critical Survey, London: Routledge, 1990.
Hardt & Negri, Empire, pp 43 – 62.
Cf Notes From Nowhere (ed), We Are Everywhere: The Irresistible Rise Of Global Anti-Capitalism, London: Verso, 2003.
Hardt & Negri, Empire, pp 28 – 29.
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Walker, ‘Citizenship after the modern subject’, p 173.
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Walker, ‘Citizenship after the modern subject’, p 173.
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