Historical Materialism And Globalisation

The article discusses the growing interest in globalization since 1990 and the increasing concern with its political implications. It also highlights the revival of historical materialism in international studies and its relevance in today's world, particularly in the face of the collapse of Soviet-style socialism and the dominance of liberal capitalism. The essays in the article argue against viewing global capitalism as an inevitable force and instead emphasize the dialectic between power and resistance in the contemporary global political economy. They suggest that this dialectic creates new realities and possibilities for collective self-determination.

Interest in globalization has been growing since 1990, and it has become clear that mass popular movements are increasingly concerned with the politics of globalization. In these circumstances, the revival of interest in historical materialism within international studies takes on a broader significance.;Now that Soviet-style socialism has collapsed upon itself and liberal capitalism offers itself as the natural, necessary and absolute condition of human social life on a world-wide scale, this volume insists that the potentially emancipatory resources of a renewed, and perhaps reconstructed, historical materialism are more relevant in today's world than ever before.;Rather than viewing global capitalism as an eluctable natural force, these essays seek to show how a dialectic of power and resistance is at work in the contemporary global political economy, producing and contesting new realities, and creating conditions in which new forms of collective self determination become thinkable and materially possible.