Bob Jessop

The Future of the Capitalist State

Devlet - Dün, Bugün, Gelecek

Bob Jessop presents an up-to-date account of his distinctive approach to the dialectics of structure and strategy in the exercise of state power. While his earlier work critically surveys other state theories, this book focuses on the development of his own strategic-relational approach. It introduces its main sources, outlines its development, applies this approach to four case studies, and sketches a strategic-relational research agenda. Thus the book presents a comprehensive theoretical statement of the approach and guidelines for its application. Key features of the book include: an account of the authors theoretical development; a review of recent developments in state theory and the cultural turn in political economy; critical strategic-relational re-readings of major state theorists Marx on political representation, Gramsci on the spatiality of state power, Poulantzas on the state as a social relation, and the later Foucault on statecraft; applications of the strategic-relational approach to important issues concerning the contemporary state: its gendered selectivity, the future of the national state, the states temporal sovereignty, and the relevance of multi-scalar meta-governance in Europe for the more general future of the state. The book concludes with recommendations for future strategic-relational research in political economy and state theory.

State Power

Russell Wheatley

Karl Marx's Social and Political Thought

Christoph Scherrer

Brigitte Young

The recent financial crisis exposed both a naïve faith in mathematical models to manage risk and a crude culture of greed that embraces risk. This book explores cultures of finance in sites such as corporate governance, hedge funds, central banks, the City of London and Wall Street, and small and medium enterprises. It uses different methods to explore these cultures and their interaction with different financial orders to improve our understanding of financial crisis dynamics. The introduction identifies types of cultural turn in studies of finance. Part I outlines relevant research methods, including comparison of national cultures viewed as independent variables, cultural political economy, and critical discourse and narrative policy analysis. Part II examines different institutional cultures of finance and the cult of entrepreneurship. Part III offers historical, comparative, and contemporary analyses of financial regimes and their significance for crisis dynamics. Part IV explores organizational cultures, modes of calculation, and financial practices and how they shape economic performance and guide crisis management. Part V considers crisis construals and responses in the European Union and China. This book’s great strength is its multi-faceted approach to cultures of finance. Contributors deploy the cultural turn creatively to enhance comparative and historical analysis of financial regimes, institutions, organizations, and practices as well as their roles in crisis generation, construal, and management. Developing different paradigms and methods and elaborating diverse case studies, the authors illustrate not only how and why ‘culture matters’ but also how its significance is shaped by different financial regimes and contexts.

Financial Cultures and Crisis Dynamics

Charlie Malcolm-Brown

Critical Assessments

Richard Westra

Robert Albritton

This volume brings together original and timely writings by internationally renowned scholars that reflect on the current trajectories of global capitalism and, in the light of these, consider likely, possible or desirable futures. It offers theory-informed writing that contextualizes empirical research on current world-historic events and trends with an eye towards realizing a future of human, social and economic betterment.

The 21st Century, Present and Future

Political Economy and Global Capitalism

Henk Overbeek

Emerging in the late 1970s, the Amsterdam School's (AS) most distinctive contribution to international political economy was the systematic incorporation of the Marxian concept of capital fractions into the study of international politics. Contending that politics in advanced capitalist countries takes place in a fundamentally transnationalized space in which the distinction between 'domestic' and 'international' has blurred, it shows how in this space, politics is structured by competing comprehensive concepts of control. Presenting a concise and instructive introduction to the origins, development and significance of this distinct approach, this book provides a unique overview of the School's contemporary significance for the field. Offering a new generation of critical scholars the opportunity to become acquainted at first hand with some of the contributions that have shaped the work of the AS, the contributions present critical commentaries, discussing the merits and shortcomings of the AS from a variety of perspectives, and undertake a (self-) critical evaluation of the current place and value of the AS framework in the broader landscape of approaches to the study of contemporary capitalism. Written for scholars and students alike, it will be of interest to those working in international political economy, international relations and political science, political sociology, European studies and branches of academic economics such as regulation theory and institutional economics.

The Amsterdam School Perspective Reconsidered

Transnational Capital and Class Fractions

This volume develops a novel approach to state theory. It offers a comprehensive review of the existing literature on the state and sets a new agenda for state research. Four central themes define the scope of the book: an account of the bases of the operational autonomy of the state; the need to develop state theory as part of a more general social theory; the possibilities of explaining 'capitalist societalization' without assuming that the economy is the ultimate determinant of societal dynamics; and a defence of the method of articulation in theory construction. In developing these issues, Bob Jessop both builds on and goes well beyond the view presented in his earlier books, The Capitalist State (1982) and Nicos Poulantzas (1985). The result is a highly original statement which will become a center-point of discussion. The volume confirms the author's standing as one of the most important post-War Marxist state theorists.

Putting the Capitalist State in Its Place

State Theory

Karim Knio

Crises have been studied in many disciplines and from diverse perspectives for at least 150 years. Yet recent decades have seen a marked increase in the crisis literature, reflecting growing awareness of crisis phenomena from the 1970s onwards. Responding to this mainstream literature, this edited collection makes six key innovations. First, it distinguishes between crises as event and crises as process, as well as crises as accidental events or as the result of system-generated processes. Second, it distinguishes crises that can be managed through established crisis-management routines from crises of crisis management. Third, it focuses on the symptomatology of crisis, i.e., the challenge of moving crisis symptoms to understanding underlying causes as a basis for decisive action. Fourth, it goes beyond the cliché that crises are both threat and opportunity by distinguishing valid accounts of the origins and present nature of a crisis, from more speculative accounts of what potentially exists. Fifth, it explores how crises can disorient conventional wisdom, thus provoking efforts to interpret and learn about crises and draw lessons after a crisis has ended. Finally, the sixth element is the move away from the conventional focus on executive authorities and disaster management agencies, instead turning attention towards how other social forces construe crises and attempt to learn from them. Offering important insights into the pedagogy of crisis throughout, this collection will offer excellent reading to both researchers and postgraduate students.

Dynamics, Construals and Lessons

The Pedagogy of Economic, Political and Social Crises

Ngai-Ling Sum

This fascinating volume offers a critique of recent institutional and cultural turns in heterodox economics and political economy. Using seven case studies as examples, the authors explore how research on sense- and meaning-making can deepen critical s

Putting Culture in its Place in Political Economy

Towards a Cultural Political Economy

Una carrera de más de treinta años en la ciencia política y su amplio conocimiento de autores como Gramsci, Poulantzas o el propio Marx hacen de Bob Jessop el politólogo marxista más reputado en lo referente a la teoría del Estado, y de este libro la obra más completa sobre esta materia. Entendiéndolo como realidad y como concepto, analiza las trayectorias sociopolíticas que ha seguido el Estado y los principales enfoques provenientes de la teoría estatal. Jessop, que percibe el Estado como una relación social y no como una "cosa" ni como un sujeto, rechaza por tanto explicaciones esencialistas y opta en cambio por desarrollar herramientas metodológicas con las que estudiar sus formas cambiantes, sus funciones y sus efectos. Esto, en la situación actual, se traduce en el estudio de una realidad en crisis. Las diferentes dimensiones del Estado afrontan actualmente tensiones y amenazas que provienen de diferentes ámbitos (la política, la economía, el desarrollo tecnológico, los movimientos sociales...) y le hacen propenso al fracaso. Por ello, muchas de las principales aportaciones de este libro tienen que ver con la identificación de estas amenazas, así como de los recursos de los que dispone el Estado para hacerles frente. En este sentido, aborda problemas tan acuciantes como la emergencia del autoritarismo en las democracias de los sistemas capitalistas o la normalización de las políticas de austeridad y de los estados de excepción. Asimismo, se ocupa del estudio de otros conceptos clave como el de hegemonía o el de gobernanza, y ayuda a clarificar a qué nos referimos cuando hablamos de “estados fallidos” o de “estados canallas”.

El Estado

Wood J C Staff

Crit Assessments

Karl Marx

21.Yüzyil, Bugün ve Yarin

Siyasi Iktisat ve Küresel Kapitalizm

Debates about the role and nature of the state are at the heart of modern politics. However, the state itself remains notoriously difficult to define, and the term is subject to a range of different interpretations. In this book, distinguished state theorist Bob Jessop provides a critical introduction to the state as both a concept and a reality. He lucidly guides readers through all the major accounts of the state, and examines competing efforts to relate the state to other features of social organization. Essential themes in the analysis of the state are explored in full, including state formation, periodization, the re-scaling of the state and the state's future. Throughout, Jessop clearly defines key terms, from hegemony and coercion to government and governance. He also analyses what we mean when we speak about 'normal' and 'exceptional' states, and states that are 'failed' or 'rogue'. Combining an accessible style with expert sensitivity to the complexities of the state, this short introduction will be core reading for students and scholars of politics and sociology, as well as anyone interested in the changing role of the state in contemporary societies.

Bob Jessop

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