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Taking Back Control?: States and State Systems After Globalism
Taking back control? States and state systems after globalizationThe era of hyperglobalization once hailed as the 'end of history' was characterised by boundless capitalist expansion. The neoliberal revolution gave rise to a politics of scale aimed at the centralization and unification of states and state the replacement of national with global governance or, in Europe, of the nation-state with a supranational superstate, the European Union.The 'New World Order' proclaimed by the United States in the wake of the Soviet collapse proved to be ungovernable by democratic means. Instead, it was ruled through a combination of technocracy and mercatocracy, failing spectacularly to provide for political stability, social legitimacy and international peace. Marked by a series of economic and institutional crises, hyperglobalization gave rise to various kinds of political countermovements that rebelled against and ultimately stopped the upward transfer of state authority in its tracks.This book analyses the ongoing tug-of-war between the forces of globalism and democracy, of centralization and decentralization, and unification and differentiation of states and state systems, and how they are tied to the advance of global capitalism and the prospects for its social and democratic regulation.Exploring the possibility for states and the societies they govern to take back control over their collective fate, the book is an attempt at a renewed theory of the state in political economy. Inspired by the work of Karl Polanyi and John Maynard Keynes, it discusses the potential outlines of a state system allowing for democratic governance within and peaceful cooperation between sovereign nation-states.
416 pages, Hardcover
Published November 19, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 29, 2025
Anyone remember ‘The New World Order’? I recall that phrase cropping up everywhere in the early 1990s. It came out of George Bush senior’s administration around the time of the collapse of the Soviet empire and the lead-up to the first Gulf War. This was also the time of Francis Fukuyama’s epochal ‘The End of History and the Last Man’, which posited that history, understood as the evolution of ideological systems, had reached its culmination in Western liberal democracy combined with market economics.
That era marked the high-point of what German sociologist Wolfgang Streeck, in this masterful volume, describes as hyper-globalisation, an era of boundless capitalist expansion and the global dominance of neoliberalism as an ideology. The argument was that the nation state would give way to global ‘governance’ and a ‘liberal rules-based international order’. In reality, writes Streeck, this was an expression of US hegemony in a what had suddenly become a unipolar world. Scale was everything. Technocracy, the rule by elites, replaced democracy and societies were to be embedded in global economic ‘realities’ rather than economies being embedded in societies and subject to local laws..
The problem was that this ‘new world order’, imposed from above, proved to be ungovernable and undemocratic. The ideology reached its end-point with the global financial crisis of 2008. Technocracy and ‘meritocracy’ as a justification for inequality robbed countries of their political stability and social legitimacy. People were disenfranchised by excessively mobile capital, which robbed governments of their discretion to rule in the interests of their populations.
Since that implosion in 2008, Streeck writes, the world has been in a stalemate. The dominant operating system collapsed. Globalisation and neoliberalism have failed, but there is nothing to replace them. The Brexit referendum and the rise of Trump and authoritarian ‘strong men’ are inevitable symptoms of the system’s breakdown. As for the 2020 pandemic, this just reinforced the illusion about the efficiency of globalisation and the danger of relying on ‘just-in-time’ supply chains .
“The politics of the New World Order undermined the historical compromise between capitalism and democracy by setting in motion a deep transformation of democratic institutions and practices,” Streeck writes. “This excluded growing sections of the population of capitalist democracies from the democratic class struggle by removing the capitalist economy from the reach of democratic politics.”
“But the attempt to merge the world into an all-encompassing, unified political economy governed by universal norms and values rather than by local politics stirred up powerful popular resistance that proved invincible, in spite of the application in various parts of the globe of inordinate military force.”
As suggested by the title of the book, ‘Taking Back Control? States and State Systems After Globalism’, Streeck argues not for a more socialist form of globalism but for deglobalised systems of production, marked by shorter supply chains and smaller, more governable states. The rejection of globalisation does not mean the end of internationalism but is a recognition of the realities of global diversity and the need for cooperation amid difference, not forcing US exceptionalism on the rest of us.
Throughout the book, Streeck draws on the influential ideas of two of the greatest 20th century thinkers on political economy - the Englishman John Maynard Keynes and the Austro-Hungarian intellectual Karl Polanyi, whose classic book ‘The Great Transformation’ was published the same year as his ideological opposite Friedrich Hayek’s ‘The Road to Serfdom’. It was Polanyi who foresaw the likely failures of wide-eyed universalism after WWII and instead pleaded for small scale regionalism, marked by peaceful coexistence of diverse regimes.
As we clearly move from a unipolar to a multipolar world (despite the sabre rattling against China by a failed US state under Trump), it is this vision of cooperation within revived nation states shorn of imperialist intentions that I find more persuasive.
It should be clear to anyone at this point that neoliberalism and the era of unfettered capitalism has come an end. Countries like Australia must reclaim their own sovereignty and stop looking to a global hegemon for security against imagined enemies. Capitalism cannot exist for long without democracy.
That era marked the high-point of what German sociologist Wolfgang Streeck, in this masterful volume, describes as hyper-globalisation, an era of boundless capitalist expansion and the global dominance of neoliberalism as an ideology. The argument was that the nation state would give way to global ‘governance’ and a ‘liberal rules-based international order’. In reality, writes Streeck, this was an expression of US hegemony in a what had suddenly become a unipolar world. Scale was everything. Technocracy, the rule by elites, replaced democracy and societies were to be embedded in global economic ‘realities’ rather than economies being embedded in societies and subject to local laws..
The problem was that this ‘new world order’, imposed from above, proved to be ungovernable and undemocratic. The ideology reached its end-point with the global financial crisis of 2008. Technocracy and ‘meritocracy’ as a justification for inequality robbed countries of their political stability and social legitimacy. People were disenfranchised by excessively mobile capital, which robbed governments of their discretion to rule in the interests of their populations.
Since that implosion in 2008, Streeck writes, the world has been in a stalemate. The dominant operating system collapsed. Globalisation and neoliberalism have failed, but there is nothing to replace them. The Brexit referendum and the rise of Trump and authoritarian ‘strong men’ are inevitable symptoms of the system’s breakdown. As for the 2020 pandemic, this just reinforced the illusion about the efficiency of globalisation and the danger of relying on ‘just-in-time’ supply chains .
“The politics of the New World Order undermined the historical compromise between capitalism and democracy by setting in motion a deep transformation of democratic institutions and practices,” Streeck writes. “This excluded growing sections of the population of capitalist democracies from the democratic class struggle by removing the capitalist economy from the reach of democratic politics.”
“But the attempt to merge the world into an all-encompassing, unified political economy governed by universal norms and values rather than by local politics stirred up powerful popular resistance that proved invincible, in spite of the application in various parts of the globe of inordinate military force.”
As suggested by the title of the book, ‘Taking Back Control? States and State Systems After Globalism’, Streeck argues not for a more socialist form of globalism but for deglobalised systems of production, marked by shorter supply chains and smaller, more governable states. The rejection of globalisation does not mean the end of internationalism but is a recognition of the realities of global diversity and the need for cooperation amid difference, not forcing US exceptionalism on the rest of us.
Throughout the book, Streeck draws on the influential ideas of two of the greatest 20th century thinkers on political economy - the Englishman John Maynard Keynes and the Austro-Hungarian intellectual Karl Polanyi, whose classic book ‘The Great Transformation’ was published the same year as his ideological opposite Friedrich Hayek’s ‘The Road to Serfdom’. It was Polanyi who foresaw the likely failures of wide-eyed universalism after WWII and instead pleaded for small scale regionalism, marked by peaceful coexistence of diverse regimes.
As we clearly move from a unipolar to a multipolar world (despite the sabre rattling against China by a failed US state under Trump), it is this vision of cooperation within revived nation states shorn of imperialist intentions that I find more persuasive.
It should be clear to anyone at this point that neoliberalism and the era of unfettered capitalism has come an end. Countries like Australia must reclaim their own sovereignty and stop looking to a global hegemon for security against imagined enemies. Capitalism cannot exist for long without democracy.
December 7, 2025
Opnieuw een urgent boek, dat flink aanzet tot nadenken en dat ook somber stemt. Wolfgang Streeck is socioloog en beschrijft in dit boek de meest wenselijke wereldorde die na de afgang van het neoliberalisme nodig is. Zijn focus ligt daarbij op Europa. Niet als grootmacht, maar juist als mogelijkheid het anders te doen. Streeck is geen fan van de Europese Unie, die hij vooral ziet als neoliberaal vehikel en als na-apen van de VS (jaren '90 stijl). Het streven naar meer internationalisme en grotere staatsvormen zijn volgens hem slecht voor de democratie en voor de samenleving. Streeck pleit voor terugkeer naar kleinere staten die in goede afstemming en harmonie samenleven en -werken. Met als voorbeeld de allereerste Europese samenwerking direct na de Tweede Wereldoorlog en ook de huidige samenwerking van Scandinavische landen in de Nordic Council. Europa zien als één groot Rijk is een doodlopende weg met een grote muur aan het eind. Streeck wil terug naar Keynes en Polanyi en de afspraken van Bretton Woods, maar dan passend in de huidige samenleving. Minder grote staten, minder megabedrijven, weg met hyperglobalisatie, meer samenwerking van autonome staten.
Pittig boek, complexe materie, veel economie voor een socioloog. Toch heel interessant om kennis te nemen van dit pleidooi en om hierover na te denken. Zouden ze ook in Den Haag en Brussel moeten doen.
Helaas concludeert Streeck dat de oorlog in Oekraïne het realisme van zijn pleidooi geen goed doet. Ook vreest bij een tweede verkiezing van Trump, hoewel hij ook niets op heeft met de koers van de Democraten onder Biden. Het boek is vlak voor de herverkiezing van Trump geschreven. Hoe snel een boek als dit ingehaald wordt door de tijd. Ik zou graag nog een hoofdstuk toegevoegd zien over 2024 en 2025.
Pittig boek, complexe materie, veel economie voor een socioloog. Toch heel interessant om kennis te nemen van dit pleidooi en om hierover na te denken. Zouden ze ook in Den Haag en Brussel moeten doen.
Helaas concludeert Streeck dat de oorlog in Oekraïne het realisme van zijn pleidooi geen goed doet. Ook vreest bij een tweede verkiezing van Trump, hoewel hij ook niets op heeft met de koers van de Democraten onder Biden. Het boek is vlak voor de herverkiezing van Trump geschreven. Hoe snel een boek als dit ingehaald wordt door de tijd. Ik zou graag nog een hoofdstuk toegevoegd zien over 2024 en 2025.
February 16, 2025
A compelling argument against furthering upward integration and centralisation; the administration of such governance would ultimately be highly technocratic, only serving to remove popular forces further away from democratic institutions than they already are.
Additionally reiterates the usual arguments against economic globalisation in a succint and well-researched manner.
Additionally reiterates the usual arguments against economic globalisation in a succint and well-researched manner.
February 21, 2025
For political nerds, boring for casual readers
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews