By Adrian Pabst · Wednesday, January 20, 2010 This text was presented in January at the 2010 Telos Conference, “From Lifeworld to Biopolitics: Empire in the Age of Obama.”
Over the past thirty years or so, globalization has supplanted the sovereign national state with the globalized “market-state.” In this complex and non-linear process, the sovereign national state, which provides public investment and universal welfare for the citizenry, has been superseded by the “market-state,” which instead maximizes client and consumer choice by opening up all levels of the economy to global finance and trade, as Philip Bobbitt has documented in his seminal book The Shield of Achilles.[1] Beyond Bobbitt, I have argued elsewhere that the “market-state” fuses centralized bureaucracy with the extension of market exchange to all areas of public policy and the private sphere. In consequence, the institutions of civil society and the practices of civic culture have been largely absorbed into the “market-state” and subordinated to the logic of formal contract and exchange value.[2]
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By Adrian Pabst · Tuesday, March 3, 2009 An earlier version of this talk was presented at the 2009 Telos Conference.
In a little-noticed coincidence, President Dmitry Medvedev and the then Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama delivered major foreign policy speeches in the summer of 2008 in Berlin. Notwithstanding important differences, both recognized the flaws of the prevailing international system and emphasized the need for a new global order that transcends narrow national self-interest and addresses common security threats. Crucially, President Medvedev and Senator Obama each vowed to strengthen U.S.-Russian ties and to build broader alliances.
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By Adrian Pabst · Thursday, September 25, 2008 Last week’s roller coaster on the world’s financial markets highlights the extreme volatility that characterizes the current economic system. Volatility is generated not just by uncertain prospects and a lack of trust in existing institutions and practices but also—and perhaps above all—by new forms of risk linked to complex financial instruments such as derivative trading.
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By Adrian Pabst · Tuesday, July 22, 2008 The Anglican Communion, the world’s third largest grouping of Christians after the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox churches, is on the brink of disintegration. The battle that pits liberal modernizers against Evangelical conservatives is fast dissolving the fabric underpinning Anglicanism, threatening a permanent breakup. Anglican Christianity needs a new direction if another schism is to be averted.
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By Adrian Pabst · Saturday, June 21, 2008 After Ireland’s rejection of the Lisbon Reform Treaty in last week’s referendum, the European Union is in uncharted waters and needs a complete rethink. But the early signs are that Brussels and the national capitals have not grasped the true nature of this latest crisis. Paradoxically, the No vote in Ireland is pro-European. Like the Dutch and the French in 2005 (when both rebuffed the Constitutional Treaty), the Irish support a wider political project—they just want a Union different from the one currently on offer.
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By Adrian Pabst · Tuesday, April 1, 2008 Over the past week or so, Senator Barack Obama has delivered two major speeches that will not only shape his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination but also have the potential to transform American politics.
The first was the widely publicized and debated speech on race, delivered on March 18 in Philadelphia. The second was given on March 27 in Manhattan and focused on the economy. Neither can be simply dismissed as a piece of electoral rhetoric. Each belies the accusation that the junior Senator from Illinois is all about style and lacks any substance. Together, they sketch the contours of an Obama Presidency that could change America and its perception in the world.
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