Book Review for Globalization against Democracy authored by Guoguang Wu

摘要

As long-anticipated as such seminal work turns out to be, Guoguang Wu’s Globalization againstDemocracy – A Political Economy of Capitalism after Its Global Triumph offers a groundbreakingaccount of the third-wave globalization and its global implications from a multidisciplinaryperspective. By providing “a coherent, macro theory of global capitalism,” this book constituteda powerful counterargument against the prevailing, though demonstrably increasingly flawedneoliberal interpretation about economic globalization and the subsequent spillover into politicalspheres – a perceived inevitable trajectory that is bound for political convergence of all nationstates toward global democracy. Countering Fukuyama’s “end of history” teleology, Wu arguedthat the global triumph of capitalism in the wake of the Global 1989 had in actuality unleashedtremendous forces against democracy nationally and internationally with the emergence of “theeconomic state” around the world that unexceptionally seeks self-legitimation through a mechanism of “state-market nexus,” in the sense that the two powerful institutions of markets and statepower were no longer mutually exclusive, but rather reinforced each other within and beyondnational boundaries to serve the purpose of promoting economic growth at home and enhancingnational competitiveness abroad.