The Globalization Decade : A Critical Reader

The AN INTRODUCTION 5 essays by Panitch and Tsoukalas take up this task, drawing on the work of Nicos Poulantzas in the classic 'state theory' debates of the 1970s to track the chang- ing'institutional materiality' of the state in the management of the globalization process. [...] One of the great strengths of the essays in this collection is that the human costs of the neo- liberal agenda are always at the centre of their concern: from Manfred Bienefeld's prescient warning of the prospect of social disintegration across the develop- ing world, and the resulting threat of global polarization; to Wally Seccombe's analysis of the devastation wrought by 'shareholder capitalism [...] THE INTERNATIONALIZATION OF THE STATE Any attempt to reassess Left strategies in the context of globalization must begin with the understanding that although the nature of state intervention has changed considerably, the role of the state has not necessarily been diminished. [...] The impact of Cox's book in challenging the dominant realist approach to the study of international relations has been comparable to the impact of Miliband's The State in Capitalist Society challenge to the pluralist approach to the study of comparative politics almost twenty years earlier. [...] Within these parameters, the state exercised power and choice in the organization and development of production and classes, although its actions 'in these matters are, in turn, conditioned by the manner in which the world order impinges upon the state'.20 It is in the specific context of the rise and fall of the hegemonic world order of 18 THE GLOBALIZATION DECADE Pax Americana that Cox situates