Beyond Globalization: Capitalism, Territoriality and the International Relations of Modernity

In an age when so many of the myths of globalization have been shattered, and imperial power projection has eclipsed the anticipated multilateral system of global governance, it is necessary to reconceptualize world order politics, and the relationship between territorial states and global markets more generally. In this important book, Hannes Lacher traces the modern disjuncture of the spaces of economic organization and political governance to the territorial prefiguration of capitalism, and analyzes the distinctive strategies through which states and social forces sought to overcome this gap in historically changing socio-spatial regimes.

This essential new volume leads us towards a critical social theory of international relations that questions, more fundamentally than ever before, the prevailing conceptions of the modern international political economy as a collection of nationally bounded spaces.

This book will be of great interest to students and researchers of international relations, political science, historical materialism, political geography, and sociology.

Far from implying a return to state-centrist Realism, this essential new volume leads us towards a critical social theory of international relations that questions the prevailing conceptions of the modern international political economy as a collection of nationally bounded spaces more fundamentally than ever before. It also shows us that capitalist modernity itself was, from the beginning, characterized by the dualism of global economic integration and the fragmentation of political space, which actually stems from the divergent origins of capitalism and territorial sovereignty.

This book will be of great interest to al students of historical sociology, political geography, international relations and political science.