Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Statecraft in the Global Financial Crisis: An Interview with Kanishka Jayasuriya

By: Jeb Sprague
Journal of Critical Globalisation Studies

Kanishka Jayasuriya

Kanishka Jayasuriya, Professor of Political Science at the University of Adelaide, Australia and author of two monographs – Reconstituting the Global Liberal Order: Legitimacy and Regulation (2005) and Statecraft, Welfare and the Politics of Inclusion (2006) – argues that changing forms of governance and new regulative laws are enabling the transnationalization of institutions within national states. He also interprets these changes as giving rise to a new type of institutional struggle unique to globalisation. For social scientists in general and political economists in particular, Jayasuriya’s work provides a useful lens through which to understand intra-state transformation in the global epoch. By rejecting Realist/Weberian conceptions of the state and drawing inspiration instead from materialist state theory, he understands state transformation as a reflection of ongoing processes linked to socio-economic forces that are novel to the historical present. And in the wake of the global financial crisis, he argues, we should not see the state as either disappearing or returning, for it is continuing to transform in ways peculiar to the age of globalism. The real question is for whom states will act in the future. In order to answer this, Jayasuriya suggests that we must look to transformations occurring within the national state, for it is these that are changing statecraft as we know it.

In this interview, Jayasuriya discusses some of his main concepts and theories, such as the regulatory state; meta-governance; the transition from ‘social constitutionalism’ to ‘economic constitutionalism’; and describes how each of these relate to the ongoing crisis of global capitalism. He clarifies his views on the idea of a transnational capitalist class, arguing that there must be “different fractions within it”; and goes on to discuss the connection of his theories on state-transformation with the related works of William Robinson and Martin Shaw. Finally, he discusses some of the theorists that have influenced his work – such as Nicos Poulantzas, Carl Schmitt, Franz Neumann, and Amartya Sen – and briefly describes his areas of ongoing research.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Repay historic debt to Haiti: An open letter to French President Nicolas Sarkozy

Myself and many others have published a petition calling on the French government to repay it's historic debt to Haiti, which today is valued at over 17 billion euros. View the petition on the website Rabble.ca

Pétition: M. Sarkozy, rendez à Haïti son argent extorqué

Moi-même et beaucoup d'autres ont signé une pétition demandant au gouvernement françaispour rembourser la dette c'est à Haïti. Cette dette s'élève à 17 mil-liards d'euros. Lire la pétition sur le journal Libération.  

Monday, August 2, 2010

全球化的双重危机:从墨西哥湾到亚利桑那


杰布 斯普拉格(Jeb Sprague)& 西赛尔 罗德里格斯(Cesar Rodriguez) 。

从漂浮着絮状原油的墨西哥湾,到发生针对移民袭击事件的亚利桑那,如今我们的国家似乎正处于一种持续的紧张状态。而对于在全球化进程中居于核心地位的我们来说,这两则事件都能在我们社会的基本结构中找到其更为深刻的原因。

四月二十日,距离路易斯安那海岸五十英里远的英国石油公司(BP)海上钻井平台发生了爆炸事故,从而导致十一名工人丧生并引发大量原油从海底喷涌而出,这次原油泄漏事件是美国历史上最为严重的一次。而仅仅在三天后,亚利桑那州州长简•布鲁尔就签署了针对非法移民的第1070号新决议法案,要求州警核查一切有非法移民嫌疑的移民的法律地位。尽管这两件事看似毫无关联,但是在一个认为资本的积累远比人的生计和生存环境更为重要的价值体系内,考虑这两者如何复杂的进行相互作用就显得极为重要。