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PoliticalEconomy6:1 Spring1999:27-54
Reviewof International
ABSTRACT
This article argues that the most fundamental challenge of globalization
(both as a concept and as a sociopolitical process) lies in our need to
reassess its bearing on the meaning and potential of democraticpraxis.
My purpose then is first to offer a critiqueof neoliberalglobalizationfrom
the vantage point of democratictheory, exposing how this form of market
ideology is inherently antithetical to democratic principles. The second
part of the articleshows how two centralthemes in the thought of Antonio
Gramsciand KarlPolanyi may be usefully combinedto produce a forceful
counter-hegemonicmodel to contest the depoliticization,atomizationand
commodification endemic to neoliberal globalization. Whereas Polanyi
demonstratedthe repercussionsof such dominationin the economic lives
of people, Gramsci was concerned to show the political domination
that necessarily precipitatedit. I argue that Polanyi's critique of the self-
regulating market and his discernment of society's 'double movement',
when bridged to Gramsci'stheory of ideologicalhegemony and his notion
of 'good sense', supply vital components of a criticaltheorizationof glob-
alization as well as practical strategies of resistance to the anti-politics
of market ideology. Ultimately, I submit that this critical integration of
Polanyi and Gramsci into the globalization debates produces a much
needed analytic strategy which maintains a primacyon politicalagency,
criticallyspecifiesthe national-international
distinction,and makesa method-
ologicalvirtueof radicaldemocratictheory.
KEYWORDS
Globalization; democratic theory; hegemony; market ideology; 'good
sense'; 'double movement'.
to the idea and practice of social democracy - which at its root has a
conception of justice which derides this false separation of economics
and politics - and this is precisely why democratic theorizing must
encompass non-territorialnotions of popular sovereignty and solidarity
as well as contest the false separation of economics and politics.
In some ways praxis is ahead of theory, as we see more and more
transnationalsocial forces agitating at the global level.14 Unless we chal-
lenge current private/public distinctions and revive the Habermasian
notion of the public sphere, capital and markets will continue to
dominate discourse and thus severely delimit social power.15Bowles
and Gintis contributeto this projectby reminding us that 'the capitalist
economy cannot be judged to be private simply by virtue of the
prominent role played by markets' and by prescribing institutional
mechanisms that promote what Hannah Arendt called 'new public
spaces for freedom' (Bowles and Gintis, 1986:2045).16 This is especially
challenging, however, in the context of the global political economy.
Global capitalismrenders the dualities of public/private and politics/
economics all the more problematic,as national governments may now
justify disengagementsof social welfare commitmentsin the paradoxical
terms of preserving national sovereignty in an increasingly interdepen-
dent world. For example, note the following argument by Wolfgang
Streeck regarding the EuropeanUnion:
National political systems embedded in a competitive international
marketand exposed to supranationallyungoverned externaleffects
of competing systems are tempted to protect their formal sover-
eignty by devolving responsibilityfor the economy to the 'market'
- using what has remained of their public powers of intervention
to limit, as it were constitutionally,the claims politics can make
on the economy, and citizens on the polity. ... If citizens can be
persuaded that economic outcomes are, and better be, the result
of 'marketforces', and that national governments are, therefore,no
longer to be held responsible for the economy, national domestic
sovereignty and political legitimacy can be maintained even in
conditions of tight economic interdependence:with the nation-state
having offloaded its responsibility for its economy to the 'world
market', its own insufficiency and obsolescence in relation to the
latter ceases to be visible.
(Streeck,1996:307-8)
If indeed 'persuading citizens' is effected, then the hegemony of
market ideology will be achieved. The significant point is that this is
indeed a crucial ideological struggle. And, from the dialecticalperspec-
tive, it must be emphasized that this period of shifting social relations
is historicallyproducedand politicallycontestable.
Thus, for those concerned
35
REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY
CONCLUSION
The primary aim of this articlehas been to demonstratethat ideological
hegemony, as currently manifested through neoliberalism'schampion-
ing of market society, has damaging consequences for democratic
praxis, whether at the local, national, regional or global level. The
greatest risk is that the market metaphor (for conceptualizing world
order and for organizing social life) sublimates politics. It debilitates
political discourse by maintaining the outmoded distinctions of public/
private, politics/economics and national/international. Yet, politics is
the vehicle of public deliberationwhereby genuine social compromises
may be reached and those forces beyond the direct control of ordinary
citizens may at least be contested and made accountable. If market
ideology prevails, the very ideals of democracy are put into jeopardy
as the mythic ideal of the free market trumps the real potential of
politics. The joint legacy of Polanyi and Gramsciis their common inter-
rogation of this phenomenon - albeit from different vantage points and
distinctive intellectual backgrounds.
As I contended at the outset of this article, a critical integration of
Gramsci and Polanyi into the globalization debates yields an analytic
strategy which maintains a primacy on political agency, specifies the
47
REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY
NOTES
1 See, for example, both authors' contributionsto B. Hettne's edited volume
entitled International
PoliticalEconomy:Understanding GlobalDisorder(1995).
Here we find two leading Gramscian IPE scholars discussing Polanyi's
48
BIRCHFIELD:CONTESTING THE HEGEMONY OF MARKET IDEOLOGY
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