New chapter in the Oxford Handbook of Global Studies

I have a co-authored chapter (with William I. Robinson) looking over the idea of a transnational capitalist class (TCC), and the different findings and debates on this topic.  The chapter is published in the  The Oxford Handbook of Global Studies, edited by Mark Juergensmeyer, Manfred B. Steger, and Saskia Sassen. Read the full chapter here.

Forthcoming book with Temple University Press

I am happy to announce that Temple University Press will publish in early-2019 my second sole-authored book.  It will be titled: Globalizing the Caribbean: Political Economy, Social Change, and the Transnational Capitalist Class.  

New peer-reviewed article

I have a new research article on Haiti published in the journal Third World Quarterly. It can be read here.  Also listen here for a related recent interview that I did with Pacifica Radio's show Sojourner Truth with Margaret Prescod.  I was also quoted in the Miami Herald in regards to this research.

New TWQ article on one of those countries apparently denigrated by Donald Trump: Global capitalism, Haiti, and the flexibilisation of paramilitarism https://t.co/4moFZdZQBy

— thirdworldq (@thirdworldq) January 15, 2018

Cornell University Interview on my previous and forthcoming books.

Jeb Sprague-Silgado Interview from CUSLAR at Cornell University on Vimeo.

Critical Sociology reviews Asia/Oceania Volume

Alexius A. Pereira, a researcher in Singapore (who received his Ph.D. at LSE), has published an excellent review of my 2016 edited volume.  His review of Globalization and Transnational Capitalism in Asia and Oceania can be read here in Critical Sociology. 

Call for Papers: Paramilitarism in Global Perspective

See below the CFP for a new edited volume that I am co-editting:

The Political Violence of Capital: Paramilitary Formations

In Global Perspective

Editors: Jasmin Hristov, Jeb Sprague-Silgado and Aaron Tauss

         We are seeking proposals /abstracts of 500 words maximum for chapter contributions to the volume. We encourage submissions of proposals for works that address paramilitary violence in any part of the world. The deadline for submitting a proposal is December 1, 2016. Please include your full name, institutional affiliation, and current position in the same Word document as the abstract. Acceptance notification will be sent out by December 15. If accepted, contributors will be given a general list of guiding questions that should be addressed in their work and completed chapters would be due by March 15, 2017. 

     Please insert in the subject line of your email: “paramilitary proposal” and send your document as an attachment to: jasminmanaus[at]gmai[dot]com

      Paramilitary violence is a specific type of violence exercised by non-state actors and/or state agents operating outside the boundaries of legality, on behalf of economically and politically powerful social forces. Its objectives typically revolve around attacking social movements, activists, Leftist politicians and other individuals or groups who challenge the established social order, as well as facilitating land acquisition through the forced displacement of civilians from land of strategic economic importance. Paramilitary groups may also perform other functions such as ‘social cleansing’, and ‘protection’ of private property. Despite its anti-democratic character, over the past decades paramilitarism has evolved as a revamped strategy pursued by dominant groups and elites operating through different state apparatuses primarily in developing countries. Today paramilitary formations are present in varying degrees across the Americas and other areas worldwide. A central characteristic common to all is their alliance with capital and, frequently, a mutually supportive relationship with the state’s coercive apparatus and possibly other state institutions, ranging from complicity to active collaboration. In nations where economic elites are contesting reformist, nationalist, or Left-oriented governments, paramilitary groups have been used to destabilize the regime and undermine its popular support. As is well documented, paramilitary actors have been responsible for some of the most horrifying human rights violations and yet this type of violence is very poorly understood and investigated. In part, this has to do with the fact that paramilitaries are often categorized as “organized crime” which strips the political motivations and social consequences of their actions. 

     This edited volume examines the pervasive and persistent but little understood phenomenon of paramilitarism and its varying expressions throughout the world. Our aim is to reveal some of the most common features that characterize paramilitary groups such as: a)  use of violence to facilitate the accumulation of capital accumulation by transnational corporations and local companies integrated within the global  economy; b) engagement in human rights violations and illegal activities; c) attacks against social movements, Leftist organizations or individuals, and poor rural or urban communities; d)  collaboration with sectors of national and/or transnational state forces, e)  ‘security’ as an ideological cover, and f) a trend towards flexibilization and decentralization of forces. The objective is to compile empirically-oriented investigations that enable us to theorize and understand the role of paramilitaries in the processes of capitalist globalization and the increasing exacerbation of social inequalities. We are especially interested in demonstrating that although frequently the lines between paramilitarism and organized crime are blurry and fluid, paramilitary violence has comparatively much deeper implications and hence cannot simply be reduced to criminal activities. We are also open to exploring different possible configurations in the relationship between paramilitary groups, rival political factions, organized crime, and other actors. 

   

亞洲及大洋洲的跨國資本主義階級和生產關係

A Mandarin Chinese version of my forthcoming article "Transnational capitalist class and relations of production in Asia and Oceania" is now published by the Taiwan/Hong Kong/mainland China based alternative media website Ground Breaking 破土 and also by Chinese Social Sciences Net.   It can be read here (and pasted below).

New article with NACLA on the Dominican Republic

I have a new short article published with NACLA, titled "Polyarchy in the Dominican Republic: The Elite Versus the Elite". Read it here. I was also  interviewed on this topic on Latin Pulse.  An expanded version of the article in español appears in the Dominican media-worker cooperative El Grillo.

A Review of Leo Panitch & Sam Gindin's book on the Political Economy of U.S. Empire

See here for a new piece that I have published in the journal Critical Sociology reviewing Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin's book The Making of Global Capitalism:  The Political Economy of American Empire (2012, Verso).

Cruise Ships and Global Capitalism: The Industry's Shifting Political Economy

I published a short piece here  titled "Cruise Ships and Global Capitalism" which will be part of a forthcoming journal article and a chapter in my  forthcoming dissertation that looks at the sociological and political economy dynamics of the Caribbean's insertion into global capitalism.

Iconic Architecture & the Transnational Capitalist Class: A Talk by Dr. Leslie Sklair

      Below is a three part video of Leslie Sklair, Professor Emeritus in Sociology at LSE (London School of Economics), in which he presents his new research on iconic architecture during the era of capitalist globalization and its role as a hegemonic project of the transnational capitalist class. 


PART ONE

'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 here. Here 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.