Rethinking Globalization as Internationalization of Capital: Implications for Understanding State Restructuring

Abstract

The globalization and state debate of the last two decades has been dominated by progressive liberal and left-nationalist approaches. Progressive liberals, including social democrats and some Marxists, argue that not only economic, but also political processes have become globalized. In contrast, left-nationalists - with a similar ideological diversification - treat both economic and political processes as primarily national. What is problematic about both camps is the assumption of compatibility between the space of capital accumulation and the space of state action, whether at the global or national level. This makes it impossible to explain the contradictions of international accumulation as reflected within specific social formations, and to develop class-based political alternatives. There is, however, a third alternative: even when economic processes are internationalized, their administration remains primarily a national affair. This alternative can explain the contradictions of state restructuring within specific social formations without falling into the pitfalls of either abstract internationalism or nationalism.