Historical materialist scholarship has, from the time of Marx, reflected the manner in which economics transcends national borders. Bastian van Apeldoorn (2004: 143) encapsulates this sentiment, writing that “the world of international relations has from the start been inextricably bound up with the expanding capitalist world economy and thus embedded within and shaped by transnational social relations growing out of that globalizing capitalism.” The discussion surrounding the internationalization and transnationalization of the state is an important contemporary development in the critical vein of International Political Economy (IPE) scholarship and a concern for historical materialist thinking. The key insights from its proponents surround the adjustment of a national state’s policies and laws according to the exigencies of the international economy and the manner in which a variety of domestic political regimes are both constituted and challenged by transnational class forces. Theorists such as Robinson (1996; 2004) have argued that we may even speak of a transnational capitalist class that promotes low-intensity democracy to legitimate the project of neoliberal globalization. In our estimation, the need to investigate the relation between democracy as a hegemonic practice providing nation-states with partially-inclusive political institutions to legitimate an unequal global social structure of accumulation is particularly urgent. Most importantly, it remains important to trace this relation as it is instantiated in a variety of state forms in the current historical epoch by competing and conflicting social forces under a particular world order.

We wish to present a synopsis of contemporary thinking on the internationalization/transnationalization of the state and its contradictory relation to the implantation of low-intensity democracy in the case of Haiti, where an alliance of transnational capitalist forces with local elites has repeatedly failed to politically anchor an extremely polarized neoliberal structure of accumulation (Fatton 2002; Shamsie 2007). The case study serves to give concrete expression to a key tension of world order and presents a basis for further conversation.

2 Recommend this Post
      view other notable posts

Ray Silvius
Email this author | Profile and posts by Ray Silvius

Neil Burron
Email this author | Profile and posts by Neil Burron

Email this Post
Citation Styles
Print this Post
Save as PDF
Share & Bookmark