Globalization against Democracy
A Political Economy of Capitalism after its Global Triumph

This book explores how global capitalism has reconfigured state-market relations, and how interactions among capital, labor and consumption threaten global democracy.

Guoguang Wu (Author)

9781107190658, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 27 April 2017

348 pages, 2 b/w illus. 9 tables
23.5 x 15.6 x 2.3 cm, 0.56 kg

Globalization has reconfigured both the external institutional framework and the intrinsic operating mechanisms of capitalism. The global triumph of capitalism implies the embracing of the market by the state in all its variants, and that global capitalism is not confined to the shell of nation-state democracy. Guoguang Wu provides a theoretical framework of global capitalism for specialists in political economy, political science, economics and international relations, for graduate and undergraduate courses on globalization, capitalism, development and democracy, as well as for the public who are interested in globalization. Wu examines the new institutional features of global capitalism and how they reframe movements of capital, labor and consumption. He explores how globalization has created a chain of connection in which capital depends on effective authoritarianism, while democracy depends on capital. Ultimately, he argues that the emerging state-market nexus has fundamentally shaken the existing institutional systems, harming democracy in the process.

1. Introduction
2. Capitalism in institutional reconfiguration by globalization: a theoretical framework
3. Institutional oligopoly and embedded coordination: concentrative movements of capital
4. Human (im)mobility, social poverty and political inability: 'economic man' on the segmented labor market
5. The shaping of the caged anarchy: standardized consumption, atomized consumers
6. Global inequalities challenge democracy: sociopolitical impacts of transnational stratification
7. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Political economy [KCP], Constitution: government & the state [JPHC]