Liberalism, Neo-Liberalism and Urban Governance: A State Theoretical Perspective.

This paper discusses the recurrence and the recurrent limitations of liberalism as a general discourse, strategy, and regime. It then establishes a continuum of neoliberalism ranging from a project for radical system transformation from state socialism to market capitalism, through a basic regime shift within capitalism, to more limited policy adjustments intended to maintain another type of accumulation regime and its mode of regulation. These last two forms of neoliberalism are then related to a broader typology of approaches to the restructuring, rescaling, and reordering of accumulation and regulation in advanced capitalist societies: neoliberalism, neocorporatism, neostatism, and neocommunitarianism. These arguments are illustrated in the final part of the paper through a critique of the World Report on the Urban Future 21 (World Commission 2000), both as an explicit attempt to promote flanking and supporting measures to sustain the neoliberal project on the urban scale and as an implicit attempt to naturalize that project on a global scale

From micro-powers to governmentality:Foucault's work on statehood, state formation, statecraft and state power.

This article revisits Foucault's analytics of power in the light of his lectures on governmentality and biopolitics in Society must be Defended (1975-6), Securité,territoire, population (1977-8) and Naissance de la biopolitique (1978-9). Foucault is renowned for his criticisms of state theory and advocacy of a bottom-up approach to social power; and for his hostility to many theoretical and practical manifestations of orthodox Marxism. Yet these lectures, especially those on governmentality, are directly and explicitly concerned with statehood, state formation, statecraft, and state power and the subsequent role of new forms of government and political calculation in guiding capitalist reproduction. They cast new light on Foucault's alleged antistatism and anti-Marxism and offer new insights into his restless intellectual development. Accordingly, this article reviews Foucault's hostility to Marxism and theories of the state, considers his apparent turn from the micro-physics and microdiversity of power relations to their macro-physics and strategic codification through the governmentalized state, and suggests how to develop an evolutionary account of state formation on the basis of these new arguments about emerging forms of statecraft

Institutions and Rules.

This short statement has three aims. First, it suggests that rules and institutionsare a convenient and productive entrypoint for analysing capitalism and mainstream proposals for its reform. But it also suggests that analyses cannot stop there if adequate critiques and alternative strategies are to be developed. Above all we need to move beyond rules and institutions to examine the microfoundations of institutions in particular subjectivities, cognitive frames, modes of calculation, norms of conduct, and forms of embodiment; and to study the macro-contexts that emerge from interaction among institutions and shape this interaction in a complex dialectic of path-shaping and path-dependency. It also suggests how to move beyond rules and institutions. Second, this statement proposes a distinctive theoretical approach based on a combination of trans- and post-disciplinary modes of inquiry. It argues that these can inform both our collective intellectual endeavours and also provide the basis for a critical popular pedagogy. And, third, it identifies some key issues for a research agenda on the political and ethical dimensions of contemporary economic activities. In the spirit of the PEKEA project, our statement is not concerned to provide yet another critique of orthodox economics (for which, see Hodgson 1989; North 1990; Rutherford 1994). Instead we emphasize the socially embedded, socially regularized nature of market economies and address changing economic norms and modes of calculation. This leads us to approach capitalism very broadly in terms of the overall ensemble of socially embedded, socially regularized and strategically selective institutions, organizations, social forces and actions that are involved in sustaining the wage-relation, a labour process and more general system of production organized in terms of profitand- loss, and a complex balance between competition and cooperation among different capitals. Seen in these terms capitalist relations of production are not just economic but is also (always, necessarily) extra-economic. In pursuing these ideas should help to provide a clearer account of the inherently political aspects of contemporary capitalism

Pre-disciplinary and Post-disciplinary Perspectives.

Contributors to this forum are invited to write from their own disciplinary perspective on exciting intellectual developments in their field and to assess their implications for contemporary political economy. They should also address how far political economy is (or should become) an interdisciplinary venture. We find it hard to answer these questions, however, because neither co-author identifies with a single discipline. Indeed, we reject the discursive and organisational construction (and, worse, the fetishisation) of disciplinary boundaries. This means in turn that we cannot describe our approach as inter- or multi-disciplinary in its aspiration�even though, faute de mieux, we draw on concepts,theoretical arguments and empirical studies written from existing disciplinary perspectives. Instead, we describe our shared approach as pre-disciplinary in its historical inspiration and as post-disciplinar y in its current intellectual implications. We are not alone in refusing disciplinary boundaries and decrying some of their effects. Indeed, among the most exciting recent intellectual developments in the social sciences is the increasing commitment to transcending these boundaries to understand better the complex interconnections within and across the natural and social worlds. Thus our own contribution to this forum seeks to bring out some implications of pre- and post-disciplinary analyses of political economy. We advocate the idea of a �cultural political economy� and suggest how it might transform understandings of recent developments in political economy

On Pre- and Post-Disciplinarity in (Cultural) Political Economy

For some time now we have been working both individually and together on a new approach to political economy that does not fit neatly into the standard ways of thinking about political economy as a discipline. Instead, we describe our shared approach as pre-disciplinary in its historical inspiration and post-disciplinary in its current intellectual implications. Of course, we are not alone in refusing disciplinary boundaries and decrying some of their effects. Indeed, there are many signs of increasing commitment among social scientists to transcending such boundaries to better understand the complex interconnections within and across the natural and social worlds. We advocate the idea of a 'cultural political economy' and suggest how it might transform understandings of recent developments in political economy. Before doing so, however, we will situate our proposals for cultural political economy in the broader context of exciting recent developments in political economy

The returns of the argumentative turn

This article reflects on the argumentative turn and its variants in policy studies and offers critical remarks on the potential and limits of analysing policy from this perspective

A cultural political economy of legal regulation of monopoly and competition

contribution to a review symposium on Brett Christophers, The Great Leveler (2016

Globalization: it's about time too!

'Globalisierung wird hier als Prozess verstanden mit vielfältigen Ursachen und Ausprägungen, mit zeitlichen und räumlichen Aspekten sowie einer polyzentrischen Natur. Dabei wird Globalisierung weniger als erklärendes, sondern vielmehr als zu erklärendes Phänomen gedeutet. In der gegenwärtigen sozialwissenschaftlichen Analyse wird Globalisierung in Zusammenhang mit örtlichen, räumlichen und skalaren Veränderungen gebracht. Wie der Titel dieses Papiers aber andeutet, handelt es sich ebenso um ein zeitbezogenes Phänomen: Globalisierung wird somit als räumlich-zeitlicher Prozess verstanden. Die Natur dieses Prozesses, seine Verbindungen mit der Entwicklung kapitalistischer Ökonomien und die Rolle des Staates werden im Fokus dieser Arbeit stehen.' (Autorenreferat)'Globalization here is understood to be a multicentric, multiscalar, multitemporal, multiform, and multicausal process, which has much less of an explanans and more of an explanandum. In recent analysis globalization has been found to be about place, space, and scale. Yet, following its title, this paper argues that it is about time too. In other words, globalization is also a spatio-temporal process. The nature of this process, its relation with the development of capitalist economies and the role of the state, are at the core of this paper.' (author's abstract)

Crises, crisis-management and state restructuring:what future for the state?

This article explores challenges to the state and state power originating in the world market and the world of states. It proposes an approach useful for this and other purposes and identifies reference points for discussing recent challenges. This cannot be the 'state in general' but must comprise well-specified, actually existing state forms. It then explores crises as an objectively overdetermined, subjectively indeterminate condensation of challenges that pose problems of crisis-management and may also lead to crises of crisis-management. It examines the interaction of economic and political crises and their possible role in the alleged decline of liberal democracy

Social imaginaries, structuration, learning, and collibration:their role and limitations in governing complexity

My contribution to this special issue of Zarządzanie Publiczne (Public Governance) undertakes five tasks: (1) present the key concepts for an analysis of complexity and its reduction through semiosis and structuration; (2) elaborate the notions of lived experience (tied to personal identity or consciousness), social imaginary, and ideology (which involves more than social imaginaries); (3) introduce the key concepts for the study of structuration, including spatio-temporal fix, structural coupling, and ecological dominance; (4) introduce the notion of learning as a crucial mediation between lived experience and social structuration; and (5) show how different forms of coordination of complex interdependence have developed to address these problems, how they fail, and how individual and social agents seek to address governance failure through new forms of imaginary and new efforts at collibration. My contribution ends with some remarks on a research agenda based on these arguments and a practical agenda oriented to better governance based on ‘romantic public irony’ as a way of ‘going on’ in a deeply complex world