Tuesday, March 20, 2012

'Transnational State' entry in the Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Globalization

     I have published a new piece in The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Globalization that looks at the analytical abstraction of an emergent transnational state and its apparatuses. The full article can be read hereHere is the abstract: 
The theory of an emergent transnational state (TNS), as coined by sociologist William I. Robinson (2001), claims that through globalization a nascent political, juridical and regulatory network is coming into existence worldwide. This notion rests upon the idea that a dominant social force, a transnational capitalist class (TCC), propels globalization through transnational corporations (TNCs) (Robinson & Harris 2000). The TCC, to promote and ensure its power, requires a concomitant political project. Such a political project would involve, for example: (i) promoting investor confidence in the global economy, (ii) setting up mechanisms and institutions for responding to economic, political, and military crises that threaten the stability necessary for global markets, and (iii) establishing a degree of macroeconomic policy uniformity across borders.