Military regimes: power and force

Abstract. It is generally held that coups are the start of full military intervention. As a consequence, studies intent on contrasting the performance of 'military' as opposed to 'civilian' governments have used the event of a military coup as the essential criterion for distinction. The evidence clearly shows, however, that the distinction is not so easily drawn. Further, consideration of the only systematic attempt to delineate types of military regimes in respect of civilian involvement suggests that the dichotomised view of military and civilian regimes should be replaced by attention being drawn to power and force in all political systems. This view is supported by a classification of Third World political systems which reflects these two dimensions. Ironically, the study of military governments installed by coups d'état has actually served to obscure the importance of force in politics.     

The interaction between economics and politics: modelling cycles

Abstract. In this article simulation results are used to analyze the capacity of a general politico-economic model, developed by one of the authors, to generate cycles of various lengths. The model describes behaviour of individuals and organizations in the economic as well as the political sphere. The interaction between both spheres gives rise to short term (business) cycles as well as long term (Kondratieff) cycles. The analyses concentrate on the effect variations in the political sector (regarding, e.g., party identification on non-economic grounds, the sensitivity of voters, and the discount parameter for past economic results) have on the cycles found.     

Soft money and hard choices: Why political parties might legislate against soft money donations

In contrast to the bulk of the campaign finance literature that highlights political action committee (PAC) contributions and single donations, this paper emphasizes soft money and the rationale for dual contributions. Employing a formal model of unregulated contributions and political access, we show that donors will rationally choose to contribute to both political parties. While the parties accept these dual contributions, they lead to an imbalance between the benefits of contributions and the costs of providing access. This race to acquire unlimited soft money leads to a situation where the parties agree to campaign finance reform legislation.     

Financial derivatives and the theory of money

Abstract

Financial derivatives are used and counted as money, but it is unclear exactly what sort of money they are. This article explores the monetary role of financial derivatives in securing the global financial system. It finds that derivatives commensurate the values of different forms of financial assets, and, in the process, they facilitate continuity across different forms of money. In this role they are a form of commodity money, but very different from conventional understandings of commodity money. In developing this idea, the paper engages recent debates in Economy and Society about the nature of money. In particular, it takes issue with Ingham's state theory of money, which cannot adequately engage exchange rate volatility and extra-national roles of money, and Lapavitsas’ approach to a Marxist theory of money, which relegates commodity money to a historical abstraction.     

Remitting subjects: migrants,money and states

Abstract

Scholars’ and policy-makers’ interest in the remittances that migrants send home to relatives has increased dramatically in the past two decades. Focusing on remittances from the United States to El Salvador, we examine how academic studies, public discourse, and state accounting practices simultaneously produce and reveal the nature of this phenomenon. By treating the money that migrants send home as both national resource and foreign currency, central banks and international financial institutions define remittances as a ‘cost-free’ source of national income. Further, debates about remittances’ social and economic impact focus on whether remitting promotes or undermines particular values associated with neoliberalism, such as self-sufficiency, entrepreneurship and empowerment. Our analysis thus sheds light on new configurations through which money, states and migrant citizens are linked.     

Reversal of fortune: the politics and economics of the superconducting supercollider

Congress approved the superconducting supercollider (SSC), but later cut all funding after construction for the project had begun. We claim that this reversal was due, in part, to a problem of time inconsistency. Representatives from states in contention to receive the project had an incentive to support it early in the process. Once Texas was chosen as the SSC site, the other contender states had a greatly diminished incentive to continue to support it. Our empirical results show that the probability of switching from ‘for’ to ‘against’ the project is significantly higher for representatives from the former contender states.     

Military Intelligence and Controversial Political Issues: The Unique Case of the Israeli Military Intelligence

Contrary to intelligence services in other democracies worldwide, the activity of the Israeli Directorate of Military Intelligence, AMAN, is not merely centered around collection and research regarding military intelligence matters. Instead, AMAN covers the majority of intelligence activity arenas, including intelligence regarding state-related issues. This field of activity presents a situation where AMAN's officers, and predominantly, its research division, are compelled to deal with sensitive issues embedded well within Israeli political and public controversy. This is commonly illustrated in the field of ‘Intelligence for Peace’ in general and more specifically in the Palestinian arena. Intelligence research surrounding the question of Palestinian commitment to peace throughout the Oslo Process and following the onset of the al Aqsa Intifada – activity classified as ‘Intelligence on Intentions’ – placed AMAM at the heart of political debate in Israel and resulted in bitter internal disagreements in AMAN as well as tensions between the intelligence service and the political leadership. Throughout the years, numerous recommendations have been repeatedly voiced to end AMAN's monopoly over Israel's national intelligence assessment (including aspects of intelligence regarding state-related issues). These recommendations were based predominantly on hindsight evaluations, such as AMAN's repeated failures in intelligence assessments. This paper calls for gradual termination of AMAN's activity of intelligence regarding state-related issues, in light of its contradiction with the appropriate military–political separation in a democratic society. Moreover, it places AMAN at the heart of the political debate dividing Israeli society.     

Passions and interests revisited: the psychological foundations of economics and politics

Homo Politicus, Homo Oeconomicus. Can these two abstract human types meaningfully be distinguished? Is there a characteristic set of motivations that drive human beings in so far as they are political actors and a different set that drive their economic lives? What are the psychological foundations of economics and politics? The answers to these questions have significant implications both for the study and the practice of economics and politics. If homo politicus is essentially identical to homo oeconomicus, it is safe to generalize from the study of economic behavior to political phenomena. If not, such a procedure will distort our understanding of politics. Similarly, if we design political institutions and public policies assuming that people will behave as they do when they confront economic choices, we may find our intentions thwarted if we have neglected the distinctive motivations characteristic of political action.     

Common cents: situating money in time and place

This article addresses the issue of how the market and the non-market are to be understood especially by concentrating on the theory of money. For mainstream economics, the market is simply an institution facilitating exchange, money being the key instrument for alleviating the inefficiencies of barter. In contrast, recent work in other social sciences, such as that by Zelizer, distinguishes among markets, and various roles of money, depending on cultural and social content. While being sympathetic to such an approach, we claim that the commodity is a better analytical starting point than the market. Based on Marx's work, we then show what commodities have in common and establish a common essence for money as generalized purchasing power. This is a peculiarly bland essence that allows money to undertake the variety of social roles identified by Zelizer.     

Risk and Trouble: Adam Smith on Profit and the Protagonists of Capitalism

To better account for deepening global inequalities, political theory could greatly enhance empirical and normative work by answering a fundamental question: What is profit? When engaging political‐economic questions, however, theorists often begin thinking from the concept of private property. This, I argue, has obscured the central role of profit as an organizing category for capitalist societies since the eighteenth century. Grounded in the dynamic and uncertain processes of production and accumulation, profit displaces the proprietary citizen and subject of natural rights and gives rise to new social protagonists, who lay claim to increasingly asymmetric rewards. In particular, the article calls attention to a dangerous contemporary sensibility, which sees profit as inherently unlimited. As a viable, robust alternative, it presents Adam Smith's idea of profit as a regular, uniform rate that acts as a productive constraint on business activity, shapes character, and safeguards against risk by widely distributing its costs.     

Further reflections on the ontology of money: responses to Lapavitsas and Dodd

Abstract

The debate on the nature of money, its origins and conditions of existence has been recently taken further in separate articles in Economy and Society by Lapavitsas and Dodd. Both criticize Ingham's elaboration of Keynes's contention that the money of account is the primary concept in a theory of money. Lapavitisas reiterates and extends his Marxist analysis of money's origins as a universal equivalent in commodity exchange. This fails to explain the existence of a money of account, without which genuinely market exchange cannot take place. Dodd's claim to furnish a much-needed analytical refinement in the analysis of money, used to criticize Ingham's position, is shown to be based on a re-statement of an established and widely accepted distinction in monetary theory.     

Indebted life and money culture: payday lending in the United Kingdom

Critical social scientific research holds that credit–debt is a principal economic and governing relation in contemporary economy and society, but largely neglects money’s role in indebted life. Drawing on qualitative research in the payday loan market in the United Kingdom, the paper shows that borrowers typically relate to loans in monetary rather than financial terms and incorporate them into practices of payment, spending and online banking. To analyse how indebted life is variously experienced and enacted through money, the concept of money culture is developed to refer to money’s culture, money’s meanings and money’s affects. Borrowers enter into and negotiate payday loans through a digitally mediated money culture that both mobilizes and runs counter to money’s powerful fictions as circulating universal equivalent and calculative means of account.     

Controlling money during socialist economic reform: the Chinese experience

Contrary to the easy job that some conservative economists imagine, the task faced by the socialist monetary authority in controlling the money supply during economic reform is a daunting one, as recent experience in China indicates. It is difficult to estimate the demand for money in the mixed system that has emerged from the reform process, with all its structural disequilibria. Given prevailing economic and political interferences, keeping the money supply within targets is also beset with problems. Monetary issues have not received much attention in the conventional discourse about socialist economics, before or during reform. Hence the Chinese central bank often has to take uninformed action on events that it cannot effectively control. The results could be very serious, even tragic. In any case, it seems that the bank should not shoulder the main blame.