Autonomy: Capitalism, Class and Politics (Rethinking Political and International Theory)

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Structures also manifest in positional terms. How actors are situated relative to one another—including which roles they occupy—shapes who can deploy the rules and resources of power politics see Nexon b , chap. Contemporary realism famously identifies anarchy—the lack of a common authority to make and enforce disputes—and the distribution of material capabilities as the root cause of global power politics: Many liberals accept this connection between anarchy and power politics, but argue that changes in structure accentuate, limit, or even eliminate realpolitik Jackson and Nexon Some realists, for their part, argue that American dominance, for example, makes balancing futile: Research on global power politics, we contend, should depart from the realist focus on anarchy.

Much of global politics takes place under conditions of super- and subordination cf. Ample scholarship demonstrates that norms, identities, modes of production, trade relationships, institutional affiliations, and other factors have positional and relational consequences in world politics e.

And we agree that anarchy focuses on an idealized Westphalian moment, and obscures the effects of myriad structures—race, class, gender, regional, postcolonial—on world politics Grovogui ; Barkawi ; Agathangelou and Ling ; Acharya At the same time, these structural changes in no way eliminate global power politics. Rather, they mutate and transform them Keohane and Nye Structural variation produces different pathways for collective mobilization: Variation in the formal properties of structures creates different opportunities for collective mobilization Simmel Recent work on transnational movements highlights how the structure of relations positions actors and shapes joint actions Carpenter , ; Carpenter et al.

Montgomery argues that the organization of illicit nuclear networks creates opportunities and constraints for how interested parties might effectively intervene to disrupt it.

Exploration of the formal properties of structure helps account for power in the global political economy Oatley et al. Similarly, work on the distinctive dynamics of power politics of empires ties them to their rimless hub-and-spoke structure Nexon and Wright ; Barkey ; MacDonald Some actors are better positioned than others to deploy the military, economic, and symbolic capital that inheres in structures to increase their influence in world politics.

This position gives brokers material and cultural resources to mobilize collective action across different coalitions Goddard ; Carpenter Finally, variation in content changes possible pathways of collective mobilization: While Waltz stripped cultural content from international structure, heterodox approaches rightfully argue that there are patterned systems of meaning in the international system; this symbolic and cultural content can enable, constrain, and constitute power politics. Practice-turn-theorists treat structure as patterns of exchange of various kinds of capital within and across fields Adler-Nissen , ; See also Pouliot ; Go , ; Neumann and Pouliot Still others might think of position through the lens of discursive configurations.

Power politics may have moved from the battlefield to the Congress, but it remained a fierce struggle for influence on the continent. Of course, some dynamics of global power politics play out under conditions of anarchy. Still, much of global power politics does not. Moreover, even anarchical relationships vary with respect to form and content, as well as how they relate to adjacent structural contexts and processes. But none of this implies the irrelevance of realpolitik or of mechanisms and processes identified in realist theory. Rather, viewing global politics as composed of multiple opportunity structures for collective mobilization allows scholars to pay attention to how structural variation shapes power-political competition—in particular, the workings and prevalence of mechanisms, instruments, and logics of power politics.

What does it mean, then, to study power politics as collective mobilization, to focus on the mechanisms of power politics while remaining agnostic about the actors, instruments, and structures of realpolitik? In the face of increasing insecurity, Russia rejects a variety of constraining institutions. Moscow instead turns towards the ultimate instrument of power politics, the mobilization of military might. The underlying purpose of this mobilization? To treat this as simply conventional balancing under anarchy, then, misses the rich institutional context of power politics—most notably counter-order efforts involving a range of military and non-military instruments Cooley ; see also Cooley Wedge strategies, at a minimum, involve efforts to preclude joint action among two or more actors.

They appear in myriad circumstances. In interstate balancing, per Crawford, they aim to fragment a potential overwhelming coalition Nexon a , — In imperial rule, they aim to preclude and limit resistance against the metropole Barkey , ; Nexon and Wright When actors—states or otherwise—strive for universal domination, they aim to forestall or shatter counterbalancing Hui , ; Wohlforth et al.

They can provide ways of mitigating alliance dilemmas by preventing collusion among states with incentives to entrap a great power Cha In international institutions, diplomats may avail themselves of them to secure desired policy outcomes. Indeed, many different kinds of actors—states, transnational movements, multinational corporations, epistemic communities, and so forth—in global politics may use wedge strategies to conserve or expand their influence.

Wedging operates via a number of different combinations of power resources. It can rely on the threat or use of force, or the promise of economic costs and benefits. Context obviously affects both the activation of mechanisms and how they translate into outcomes. It shapes more than the orientation of these efforts—whether they amount to, for instance, divide-and-balance, divide-and-rule, or divide-and-conquer gambits. They also condition the effectiveness of wedge strategies in terms of the formal arrangement of social relations and the way it positions relevant actors.

All of this is power politics. But it heralds not a return to some highly stylized understanding of the Cold War as seen through structural-realist theory. It involves, rather, long-standing dynamics of power politics playing out in a world where efforts at collective mobilization cut across state boundaries, rely on myriad instruments of power, and operate in the shadow of a fragmenting but still powerful US-led institutional order. We find many of these conditions and processes across time and space, including during the Cold War. Westad ; Saunders And calling them atavistic—as some sort of return to realpolitik —obcures the degree that all of the relevant players—including the United States, European powers, and the European Union—were engaging in power politics, of one form or another, all along.

We focused throughout this paper on how a dynamics of power politics research program, centered around dynamics of collective mobilization, provides orthodox and heterodox approaches with common ground in security studies. It abandons unnecessary ex ante commitments to state centrism, the priority of military and economic capabilities, and the relevance of anarchy as an ordering principle.

These mechanisms and processes, we argue, are transposable. Dynamics of integration and fragmentation potentially operate regardless of the specific actors—states, transnational actors, or whatever—involved, the particular instruments—forms of power—at stake, and the structural context in which the relevant power-political maneuvers take place. As noted at the outset, specific studies of power politics might engage in more conventional forms of analysis that start with actors and their attributes—such as their preferences and interests.

But the level of abstraction that travels across different theoretical traditions involves the mechanisms of collective mobilization and power politics.

At the same time, attention to mechanisms demands scholars pay attention to historical and structural variation as well. Traditional approaches to power politics create a false dilemma, one that demands we choose between developing transposable accounts of structural dispositions in global politics and attention to their historical and spatial variation.

Theorizing around mechanisms demands that we consider the conditions under which causal and constitutive processes operate: They help explain which power-political maneuvers come into play, their effectiveness, and other aspects of their dynamics. In crucial respects, they explain how processes, mechanisms, and logics translate into specific outcomes. Ultimately, we need to find common points of intersection among various realist and heterodox approaches.

This will ensure that power politics remains central to the study of global security. It creates a basis for more precise forms of agreement and disagreement: Indeed, despite the decline in major power wars and the use of force, despite the growth of international institutions, despite the supposed increased importance of economic and symbolic instruments, the struggle for power constitutes an immutable feature of international relations.

In essence, we agree with the founders of the field of security studies: We would like to thank the editors of the Journal of Global Security Studies , participants in the workshop for this issue, anonymous reviewers, as well as Stefano Guzzini, Paul MacDonald, and Alexander Montgomery for helpful comments and suggestions.

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If we had taken more of these up, we are sure this would have been a better piece. Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Sign In or Create an Account. Close mobile search navigation Article navigation. Realism and Its Critics in Security Studies.

The Dynamics of Global Power Politics. The Dynamics of Global Power Politics: Abstract We call for a research program focused on the dynamics of global power politics. For a good summary of these arguments, see G.

Autonomy : capitalism, class, and politics / by David Eden | National Library of Australia

We model both the sensibility and aspects of the argument on McAdam et al. The study of the dynamics of power politics thus finds kinship with calls to take practices, transactions, and relations themselves as basic units of analysis Jackson and Nexon , ; Adler and Pouliot ; Adler-Nissen ; Bueger and Gadinger It extends from states to non-state organizations, from activated and integrated political groups to aspirational ones. On the distinction between actor-centric and other processes, see Jackson and Nexon Collective mobilization may involve positive-sum gains in influence for participants, but in competitive arenas it necessarily reduces the relative influence of others.

Of course, within mobilization, relative power is also usually not simply positive-sum. The process itself, of course, amounts to an example of collective mobilization. As noted elsewhere, most efforts at interfering with the collective-mobilization capacity of others entail joint action of one kind or another. For an overview of these criticisms, see Nexon , Chapter 2.

We loosely adapt these from Bourdieu-inspired international relations theory. See Goddard and Nexon for an extensive discussion of this claim, and how it applies even to structural-realist understandings of anarchy. Which some realist writings take as a threshold for significant power political activity. See the debate about soft balancing referenced elsewhere. Competing Ideological Frameworks in International Politics. Negotiating the International Intervention in Libya.

The Case of Syria. Political Agency, Audience and Context. Ethics and the Politics of Security.

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Insights from the Human Security Network. Human Dignity Amos Nascimento. Real Green Manuel Arias-Maldonado. Table of contents Contents: Introduction; The perspective of autonomy; Life put to work, the theory of Antonio Negri and Paulo Virno; Exodus and disobedience, the political practice of the republic of the multitude; Critique: Includes most valuable insights not just for those interested in the practical reason of communisation, but also for readers interested in the idea of social autonomy more generally.

This really is an indispensable book. In this excellent and timely book Dave Eden renews autonomist politics, building on critical but overlooked thinkers such as the Midnight Notes Collective and John Holloway. Drawing out the resonances between different perspectives, Eden brings previously ignored voices into current debates reconceptualizing the nature of autonomy, the commons, and struggles against capital.

Realism and Its Critics in Security Studies

For this reason alone, it makes for required and sobering reading. While it is not intended as one, the book does work very well as a partial introduction to the tradition and to the ideas of Negri and Virno, the MNC and Holloway in particular His mastery of the literature is truly enviable. While it leaves us with some questions, these do not subtract from what is otherwise a compelling discussion of the stakes of theorizing capitalist hegemony, and just how we might recruit the diverse literatures of Autonomist Marxism in the task of its critique.

New Political Scientist 'This book provides a very good contribution towards our understanding of the politics of emancipation.

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Autonomy : Capitalism, Class and Politics

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