The era of hyperglobalization once hailed as the 'end of history' was characterised by boundless capitalist expansion. The neoliberal revolution gave rise to a politics of scale aimed at the centralization and unification of states and state systems: the replacement of national with global governance or, in Europe, of the nation-state with a supranational superstate, the European Union. The 'New World Order' proclaimed by the United States in the wake of the Soviet collapse proved to be ungovernable by democratic means. Instead, it was ruled through a combination of technocracy and mercatocracy, failing spectacularly to provide for political stability, social legitimacy and international peace. Marked by a series of economic and institutional crises, hyperglobalization gave rise to various kinds of political countermovements that rebelled against and ultimately stopped the upward transfer of state authority in its tracks. This book analyses the ongoing tug-of-war between the forces of globalism and democracy, of centralization and decentralization, and unification and differentiation of states and state systems, and how they are tied to the advance of global capitalism and the prospects for its social and democratic regulation. Exploring the possibility for states and the societies they govern to take back control over their collective fate, the book is an attempt at a renewed theory of the state in political economy. Inspired by the work of Karl Polanyi and John Maynard Keynes, it discusses the potential outlines of a state system allowing for democratic governance within and peaceful cooperation between sovereign nation-states.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: Political Economy beyond Globalism: States, War, and Capitalist Democracy Part I: The Demise of Centralism 1. Global Politics and Regional Planning The Neoliberal Interlude A Critical Moment 2. The Demise of the New World Order Globalisation and Hyperglobalisation A New European Order: The European Union Forever Unfinished 3. Stuck: Between Globalism and Democracy What Next? A Tug of War Left Globalism Culture versus Unculture Democracy as a De-proletarianised Value System 4. Breaking the Deadlock: Democracy and the Politics of Scale Economic Crisis and State Systems Megalomania? Decomposing Complexity Part II: After Three Decades 5. A Dual Crisis I: Capitalism Stagnation The Neoliberal Crisis Sequence The Central Bank State as the Last Stage of Neoliberalism Keynes from the Ashes? Debt without Remorse? The Emergency State Clueless The Great Uncertainty Capitalism and Nothing Else 6. A Dual Crisis II: Democracy States between Democracy and Globalism Globalism against Democracy Democracy against Globalism Post-globalist Democracy? Part III: States and State Systems 7. Integration and Differentiation Gibbon: Unity or Diversity? The Contemporary State System: A Survey Metamorphoses of the Nation-State Statehood and the Constitutive Particularism of Human Socialisation Excursus I: Scotland and Catalonia Excursus II: Germany in Comparison 'Taking Back Control' Confederation or Empire? The Dimensions of States and State Systems, and their Political Economy 8. The European Union: From Neoliberal to Geopolitical Integration Europe as Battleground and Place of Desire Before Ukraine: Critical Fault-Lines, Impending Failure More Unity through Less Unity? Integration by Militarisation? After Ukraine Liabilities Old and New Beyond Superstate and Empire Learning from Europe Part IV: Beyond Globalist Centralisation 9. Mega-statism and Its Limitations The Contradictions and Limits of Neoliberal Globalisation: Eight Theses Globalisation and Hyperglobalisation Global Market Economy, National Democracy Unity from Above: Global Governance Global Governance as Technocratic Utopia Another Plan A Global Governance as Liberal Empire COVID: The (Long-Hidden) Costs of Globalisation COVID and the Fiscal Crisis of the State: A Conjecture 10. Small-Statism and Its Possibilities Simon: Decomposing Complexity Keynes: National Self-Sufficiency Deglobalisation and Alternative Development Global Polycentrism Disentanglement: COVID and the Supply Chains The Keynes-Polanyi State: National, Sovereign, Democratic Better Smaller 'Economic Patriotism': Globalism and Back Big Crisis, Small States The Question of Money Democratic Particularism and Global Collective Goods Cooperative, Not Imperial: A Prospect of a New International Order Epilogue Index