Theory of the Global State: Globality as an Unfinished Revolution

by Martin Shaw

• ISBN13: 9780521592505
• ISBN10: 052159250X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-02-26
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This ambitious study rewrites the terms of debate about globalization. Martin Shaw argues that the deepest meaning of globality is the growing sense of worldwide human commonality as a practical social force, arising from political struggle not technological change. The book focuses upon two new concepts: the unfinished global-democratic revolution and the global-Western state. Shaw shows how an internationalized, post-imperial Western state conglomerate, symbiotically linked to global institutions, is increasingly consolidated amidst worldwide democratic upheavals against authoritarian, quasi-imperial non-Western states. This study explores the radical implications of these concepts for social, political and international theory, through a fundamental critique of modern 'national-international' social thought and dominant economistic versions of global theory. Required reading for sociology and politics as well as international relations, Theory of the Global State offers a historical, theoretical and political framework for understanding state and society in the emerging global age.

Table of Contents

Preface	xi
Introduction: globality in historical perspective	1	(24)
Three narratives of transition	2	(5)
Conceptualizing change	7	(2)
The meaning of global	9	(3)
Fallacies of the globalization debate	12	(3)
Grasping the revolution	15	(3)
Key problems in the theory of globality	18	(2)
Method, argument and structure	20	(5)
Part I Critique
Critique of national and international relations	25	(42)
The problem of nationality and internationality	27	(3)
Sovereignty and universality	30	(4)
Capitalist modernity	34	(9)
State, geopolitics and industrial society	43	(4)
Culture, nationality and ethnicity	47	(4)
Internationality and anarchy	51	(7)
War and society	58	(4)
Revolution and civil war	62	(5)
Intimations of globality: Hamlet without the Prince	67	(34)
Social science as stamp collecting	68	(2)
Crisis of ancien regime social science	70	(6)
Limits of the international	76	(4)
Economism and sociologism in global theory	80	(10)
Transformations of internationality	90	(4)
Seeking the global Prince	94	(7)
Part II History and agency
Internationalized bloc-states and democratic revolution	101	(43)
Contradictions of the high national-international era	102	(3)
Dialectics of total war	105	(5)
1945 and the national-democratic revolution	110	(6)
A post-national, pre-global world	116	(4)
Global institutions and consciousness	120	(4)
Cold War and the integrated bloc-state	124	(9)
Democratic revolution, Cold War and war	133	(4)
Towards globalism	137	(2)
The real'revolution in the revolution'	139	(5)
Global revolution, counterrevolution and genocidal war	144	(29)
The final crisis of the bloc-system	145	(6)
Revolution and counterrevolution, 1989-91	151	(7)
From counterrevolution to genocide	158	(2)
Worldwide scope of revolutionary change	160	(6)
Global-democratic revolution and state formation	166	(7)
Part III State
State in globality	173	(22)
Globality and social categories	174	(5)
The singularity of state	179	(6)
Defining state in plurality	185	(7)
Global state: singularity and plurality	192	(3)
Relations and forms of global state power	195	(37)
Centres of power, borders of violence	197	(2)
The global-Western state-conglomerate	199	(9)
Quasi-imperial nation-states	208	(3)
New, proto- and quasi-states	211	(2)
The global layer of state	213	(7)
State relations and 'intervention' in globality	220	(5)
Changing conditions of sovereignty	225	(4)
National and international in the global era	229	(3)
Contradictions of state power: towards the global state?	232	(27)
Crises of the quasi-imperial nation-states	233	(4)
Dilemmas of new states	237	(2)
Evolving structure of the Western state	239	(5)
The superpower, the Union and the future of the West	244	(7)
Towards a global state?	251	(4)
Limits and contradictions of global state power	255	(4)
Part IV Conclusion
Politics of the unfinished revolution	259	(12)
Old politics and new	260	(5)
Completing the global revolution	265	(6)
References	271	(16)
Index	287