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Framing anarchy: a framework to analyse foreign policy based oninteractions among state, market, and civil society actors in
domestic and transnational levels
Mr. Vincius Rodrigues Vieira
(Doctoral Student in International Relations,Nuffield College, University of Oxford)
(E-mail: vinicius.rodriguesvieira@nuffield.ox.ac.uk)
Paper presented at the Third Global International Studies Conference (WISC)University of Porto, Porto, Portugal, 20 th August, 2011
Section: Domestic constraints in foreign policy
Word Count: 10,737 (without bibliography)
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1. Introduction
The world has been witnessing since the 1980s three major phenomena in political
terms: 1) an increasing interconnection and interdependence among states in a context in
which non-state actors play an increasing role in politics; 2) the rise of identity as a relevant
factor in public life as much as class is; and 3) the emergence of powers out of the West, such
as Brazil, Russia, India, and China, the BRICs. 1 Each phenomena posits a theoretical
question: 1) how domestic structures change vis--vis foreign influences; 2) how non-
economic factors interplay with economic ones in shaping national preferences; and 3) what
are the sources of empowerment of countries in world where many see states as losing
importance in comparison to non-state actors located in the market and the civil society?
Current theories of International Relations (IR) face limitations in explaining these
complex interactions, insofar as the linkages between the state and the societal actors in both
domestic and international realms are either ignored or not fully taken into account. These
accounts remain state-centred or economic-centred. Power, however, is not only economic or
political. Power is essentially symbolic, bounded by conceptions of society sets of
constitutive norms related to existence, focused on identity, and survival, with aims to
organise economic production. These conceptions, however, are not shaped and reshaped as
states and societal actors economic and non-economic want. Moreover, power also has a
social component. Such a fact limits the explanations of the origins of policy-making in times
of change, such as the post-Cold War period. During these periods of change, societal actors
are not in constant, well-defined positions, forming stable interest groups. They may transit
across diverse identities to which they are linked in order to either increase or preserve power
in economic and social terms and, therefore, increase their chances to have political leverage
to legitimize their views of the world through discourses and material capabilities.
1
BRICs is an acronym that refers to the fast-growing developing economies of Brazil, Russia, India, and China.It was coined by the bank Goldman Sachs in 2001. These countries now have regular meetings and, in the endof 2010, invited South Africa to join them, forming the BRICS.
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In this paper, I intend to develop an analytical framework that can be generalizable to
situations in which countries became more powerful and, therefore, due to their changing
systemic position, changed or adapted their foreign policy. The framework is based on the
sociological notion of fields/arenas 2 and seeks to explain how systemic transformations
affect in economic and associational terms societal actors located within countries, and
eventually impact policy-making and international regimes. In the development of the
framework, I confront my theoretical concerns with major works of main schools of thought
in IR that sought to integrate domestic and systemic independent (causal) variables. None of
those schools Realism, Liberalism, Marxism, and Constructivism suffice because they
either ignore contexts in which societal actors are influenced by multiple identities or, in
considering identity issues, does not frame them in clear analytical units and leaves out
economic/productive factors, considering them only in the sphere of discourses. Therefore, in
being a theoretical tool that allows the combination of production and identity issues, the
notion of fields can contribute to bridge the divide rationalism-constructivism in IR.
The paper is organised as follows: first, I discuss the ontological assumptions and
epistemological implications of IR theories and the limitations they present in accounting for
phenomena in periods of systemic transformation. Afterwards, I introduce the notion of fields
to IR, defining the fields (arenas of production, association, and redistribution, as well as the
state-as-government in the domestic arena only) that compose both domestic and
international spaces and how societal actors located in both operate bounded by conceptions
of existence and of survival, interacting between different fields. In this stage, to consolidate
my argument, I bring elements of the theoretical accounts that I criticized earlier. The
conclusion revaluates the arguments presented and discusses the trade-offs the framework
implies in terms of empirical research. Whenever it is possible, I illustrate my theoretical
2 Bourdieu 1991, 185.
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arguments with concrete cases, especially from Brazil and India, two of the BRICs whose
foreign policy and systemic position changed after economic liberalisation in the 1990s.
2. Ontological assumptions, epistemological implications, and general limitations
In epistemological terms, IR research has largely been framed by the agent-structure
positivist opposition, which considers both choices and constraints actors face in a given
environment. Although some constructivists (namely the non-post-modernist ones) 3 buy into
this assumption to develop their research, rational-choice scholars have been the most
engaged in this dichotomy. Nonetheless, as Snidal says, the rational- choice approach might
seem ineffective for studying change. The concept of equilibrium is inherently static since it
is defined as the absence of any tendency to change . 4 More flexible than rational-choice
scholarship, constructivist approaches even when they work in terms of agents and
structure do not consider the possibility of detaching actors from the environment where
they are located. Such assumption, however, has not been used as an advantage over
rationalism, including on this rational-choice, to provide better tools to understand continuity
and change in the international system.
This fault-line from both rationalist and constructivist approaches derives from a
common ontological problem: the idea that anarchy is at the origin of the international system
even when, as it is in the case of constructivism, processes of socialization takes place and
bounds actors together. On the one hand, the anarchical assumption makes rationalists to
overemphasize due to different reasons according to the approach systemic constraints
(anarchy itself in the case of structural realists and international regimes as means to deal
with anarchy in the case of Neoliberals). On the other, the same assumption leads
3 Smith (2000, 391) defines three variants of social-constructivism: neo-classical, based on intersubjective
meaning; naturalistic, which derives from scientific realism, being, thus, closer to rationalist scholarship; andpost-modernist, that proposes a break with scientific epistemology.4 Snidal 2002, 82.
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constructivists to deny the fact that constructions (norms and institutions) over anarchy are
not random or only historically-contingent.
To put it simply, nation-states were not created on a tabula rasa . Economic and social
exchanges used to happen between political units prior to the Westphalia Treaty. So the state-
system was created upon a network of material and social-cultural exchanges, bounded by a
given set of ideas. As Fearon and Wendt argue, material is not the same thing as
objective... material factors matter at the limit, but how they matter depends on ideas . 5 The
latter can also be either causal mechanisms or constitutive parts of the social world. 6 In fact,
as Ruggie says, constitutive rules are the institutional foundation of international life. No
consciously organized realm of human activity is imaginable without them, including
international politics . 7 Ideas, thus, have at least three roles in human life: firstly, they frame
material capabilities, such as the value we attribute to goods. Secondly, they frame social
capabilities, like group identities. Lastly, ideas are tools through which we interpret both
capabilities. Thus, unlike Lake and Powell assume, the strategic setting in which choices are
made depends not only on information asymmetries, 8 but also on the cognition of the
available information.
In dealing with the opposition agency-structure, Realism, Liberalism, and Marxism
miss the same point: identities play a role in production and, therefore, in economic foreign
policy, 9 and have more importance in preference formation in times of change since
distribution of power among societal actors is likely to be in flux. To understand the dynamic
of redistribution in critical junctures and, thus, of policy-making and shifts in conceptions of
existence and survival, it is needed to go beyond traditional political economic approaches
and to bring in identities and norms as explicit analytical elements.
5 Fearon and Wendt 2002, 58.6 Ibid., 60.7
Ruggie 1998, 873.8 Lake and Powell 1999, 30-31.9 For a non-systematic account of this argument, please read Sterling-Folker 2009, 137.
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If one takes for granted that economic factors, particularly changing prices, coped
with political ones, such the access to state institutions, the Pluralist-Liberal literature would
suffice for this analysis. In spite of the existence, prior to domestic pluralism, of a literature
that tried to unfold the domestic-international links, mainly through Foreign Policy Analysis
(FPA), 10 the most substantial contribution to the field emerged in the end of the 1980s, with
Putnams two set level game metaphor ,11 which represented an advance within the Positivist
school, dominated at that time by the Neorealism-Neoliberalism debate. 12 However, its
parsimonious design ignores complex interactions between the state-as-government, the
market, and the civil society the major units of analysis in contemporary politics. 13
In the subsequent years, two major trends emerged within Pluralist Theory, one more
focused on economic factors and other that attributed to institutional constrains more
leverage. The first explains changes in domestic coalitions as related mainly to shifts in the
international prices, an argument derived from Neoclassical Economics. 14 The second unites
economic interest with constraints given by institutions 15 and asymmetries of information
within the state and market and between these two arenas. 16 Eventually, however, what
prevail are economic interests, as in Moravcsiks analysis of the process of Europea n
integration. He argues that this process reflected patterns of commercial advantage, the
relative bargaining power of important governments, and the incentives to enhance the
credibility of interstate commitments. Most fundamental of these was commercial interest. 17
Integration advanced while and when there was convergence among the negotiating parts. In
this case, however, preferences are take for granted, perhaps because most of his empirical
10 Among the foundational works in FPA, it is worth mentioning Snyder, Bruck, and Sapin 1954, which focuseson decision-making process rather than only on foreign policy outputs.11 Putnam 1988.12 Among other references, for a summary of this debate please read Nye 1988.13 Hurrell 2007.14 Frieden and Rogowski 1996, 29. For an earlier version of this argument, please see Milner 1988.15
Keohane and Milner 1996, 244 and 251.16 Ibid., 20.17 Moravcsik 1998, 3.
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case took place during a time of predominance of an economic paradigm Keynesianism
and in a region of the world that is the part of the core of the system, being, thus, less
vulnerable to critical junctures and, therefore, likely to face more stability.
Nonetheless, in focusing on price variations, institutional constraints, and information
asymmetries, Pluralism offers a comprehensive and relatively parsimonious account of the
links between preference formation and decision-making in foreign policy. That said, such
accomplishments do not eliminate the pitfalls of that approach. Firstly, there is still no
consensus on how to define relevant domestic factors. 18 Secondly, in accounting for domestic
politics, pluralism that focuses on markets, institutions, and information does not have a clear
theory of the international environment. 19 Finally, the links between grassroots movements in
non-economic issues and economic foreign policy still have to be better explored in
analytical terms.
Therefore, it is logic to hypothesize that identity issues play a role in the process of
transfer of power among economic societal actors, such as firms and sectors. Such hypothesis
reiterates the argument that those actors cannot be conceived only in economic terms, but
also in what concerns identities. For analytical purposes, those actors could be equated to
interest groups. Nonetheless, in order to conceive them in flux, I propose the division of
society in both domestic and international levels into two major fields: an arena of
production and other of association. The former corresponds to the market, where
commoditised flows and monetary accumulation talks place, whereas the latter is civil
society, where identities are reproduced and discourses of appropriation of the social world
are consolidated. Their overlap corresponds to the political arena, which in the domestic
realm needs a fourth arena to coordinate redistribution and regulate the exchange domestic-
international: the state-as-government. Insofar as neither in market nor in civil society actors
18 Moravcsik 1993, 14.19 Ibid., 23.
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always reach a consensus on how production should be appropriated and association should
be organized, they turn to the state-as-government, which assumes a redistributive role in
both material and identity terms. It means that sectors traditionally conceived only in
economic terms, such as primary (raw materials), secondary (industry), and tertiary
(services), are within civil society too and have access to the state-as-government.
Other works already consider civil society as an analytical unit that interacts with the
state and the market. For instance, Moravcsik uses the word civil society to describe the place
where all interest groups either economic or non-economic are located. 20 Also, in his
analysis of European integration, he establishes clear links among actors in domestic and
international levels. In his own words, European integra tion can best be explained as
series of rational choices made by national leaders. These choices responded to constraints
and opportunities stemming from the economic interests of powerful domestic constituents,
the relative power of each state in the international system, and the role of international
institutions in bolstering the credibility of interstate commitments. 21 However, as long as
Moravcsik aims to explain policy outcomes something that by now does not exist in the
Doha Round , he considers preferences and actors as stable, leaving aside the possibility
that the co-relation between economic and identity power might be in flux. Furthermore,
despite the fact that Moravcsik and others had already explored the linkages domestic-
international under Pluralist lenses, there is no notice that the empirical cases were located in
the periphery or semi-periphery of the world-system. Such a fact is enough to argue for the
pursuit of analytical models that fit better in non-Western societies.
In those societies, given the pattern of state-as- governments dominance over societal
actors, state-centric approaches could suffice to explain national preferences in periods
without significant transformations. Historical-Sociological works and Neo-Marxist ones, not
20 Moravcsik 1998, 22.21 Ibid., 18.
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to mention the Realist tradition with a clear theory of the state, seem to provide a good
account of this dynamic. In following State-Centric Realist premises, 22 Brooks and Wohlforth
consider that, under capitalist markets, economy became disentangled from the political
arena, which, in turn, implies in distinct interests from political actors, such as political
parties and those located within the state and economic ones 23. Nonetheless, they do not
mention if a relative detachment from the political arena happened with the arena of
association. Neoclassical Realism, which tries to integrate both systemic and unit-level
variables, 24 also leaves aside civil society as an arena relatively autonomous from economic
interests and where non-economic interests arise. Such a critique is further elaborated ahead.
Marxist approaches, when they consider the domestic arena, also tend to focus on the
state, which is considered an extension of the bourgeoisie power. 25 Only class identity is
taken into account, a factor that does not suffice to explain Brazils and Indias cases due to
the same reasons domestic pluralism does not either. Arrighis account of successive world -
hegemonies advances this question, insofar as it addresses how one hegemon establishes
dominance not only through material capabilities, but also in entailing common values that
holds the units of the international system together. 26 This is a Neo-Marxist approach, which
is based upon analytical categories defined by Gramsci to overcome the materialist excesses
of original Marxism. Among these categories, there is civil society, which stands [b]etween
the economic structure and the state with its legislation and its coercion, 27 serving as the
locus of resistance and legitimation of the system through informal norms and collective
actors. That is, ideas and norms have a role in processes of change and continuity in both
domestic and systemic terms. For Neo-Marxists, however, systemic trends ultimately prevail,
22Among the major works of this tradition, there is Gilpin 1981, and Krasner 1978.23 Brooks and Wohlforth 2008, 98.24 Lobell, Ripsman, and Taliaferro 2009, 13.25
Krasner 1978, 25.26 Arrighi 1993.27 Gramsci 1971, 208.
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28 which complicates the detachment of those trends from local shifts. In the Brazilian and
Indian cases, systemic accounts would predict a further liberalisation than actually happened
and, therefore, a foreign policy more cooperative with the West. International Political
Economy, which combines the interplay betw een the power and wealth motive (micro-
level) or between international capitalism and its political organization (macro- level) 29,
could attain analytical concerns with non-economic factors, but it leaves aside identity issues
as domestic pluralism does.
Constructivism and other approaches that emphasize processes of socialisation
among which I include the Historical-Sociological literature have analytical elements to
understand the interplay between economic and non-economic issues. Nonetheless, due to the
lack of clear units of analysis, those approaches cannot explain how ideas interact with
material factors. Those accounts only say why that interaction happens: material-identity
exchange is a matter of fact because we live in a socially constructed world. However, Wendt
recognizes that ideas are not alone in the social world. There is rump materialism , a
residual category of elements that, in spite of being socially shared, are not based on culture,
such as geographical and natural factors. 30 The problem, though, lies in the fact that it is still
unclear how rump materialism interacts with socially -built beliefs. Furthermore, in spite of
the fact that Constructivism sets up processes of change, such as reflexivity (social learning),
the mechanisms through which they operate remain under-theorized. 31 Under this account,
ideational structures have more than a regulative effect on actors behaviour, constituting
them in a mutual relationship. Actors, thus, can, through acts of social will, change
structures. 32 What is still missing is how constraints to reframe the world operate even in non-
static periods. This requires theorizing how the Wendtian conceptions of self that states have
28 Teschke 2008, 173.29 Guzzini 1998, 160.30
Wendt 1999, 130-1 and 136.31 Drulk 2006.32 For a summary of this argument, please read Copeland 2006.
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are changed. Also, the lack of clear analytical units generates a contradiction within
Constructivism. Structured as a critique of Neorealism and, to a less extent, to Neoliberalism,
Constructivism preserves the rationalist state-centrism, in which the market and the civil
society are missed as analytical units. Up to date, there is no notice of systematic account of
Constructivism in economic factors. Moreover, the social genesis and maintenance of identity
has not been systematized either. Manns and Tillys Historical -Sociology attempted to do so,
but their analytical units remain fuzzy and with unclear distinctions between the domestic and
international realms. Furthermore, while a broad conception of international identity explains
preference-formation in the analysed cases (a why question), the how question remains
unanswered.
3. Defining fields in International Relations
The concept of fields was created by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. In his
own words, [t]he field as a whole is defined as a system of deviations on different levels and
nothing, either in the institutions or in the agents, the acts or the discourses they produce, has
meaning except relationally, by virtue of the interplay of oppositions and distinctions. 33
Following other Constructivist works, this is a political-cultural approach, as long as it
presupposes that each field composes a set of norms, which defines relations between actors
within it . According to Fligstein, the first author who has applied Bourdieus concept to
markets, fields contain collective actors who try to produce a system of domi nation in that
space. 34 This, however, does not mean pure power, but also rules, as long as a field is an
autonomous universe, a kind of arena in which people play a game which has certain rules,
rules which are different from those of the game that is p layed in the adjacent space. 35 Mann
also employs the term arena in his social theories, but specifically to refer to the international
33
Bourdieu 1991, 185.34 Fligstein 2001, 15.35 Bourdieu 1991, 215.
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realm. However, as Hobden argues, Mann never defines it, although suggests that it is a place
for competition and conflict similar to the Bourdieuan idea of fields. 36
The mechanisms which Constructivism misses can be unpacked once the constitution
of the fields I defined above and the patterns of relationships among them are clarified. Each
field 37 is a political-cultural construction, which, however, is influenced by relationships of
power and norms in contiguous fields and subfields, as collective societal actors might be
conceived. Conceptions of existence and of survival set limits to societal action, particularly
in what concerns the process of reframing fields. Those definitions and dynamics will be
explored ahead. For now, it suffices to say that, in conceiving the market, the civil society,
the political arena, and the state-as-government as fields that are bounded by conceptions of
existence and survival, the model considers how capital/capabilities (material and social
conditions to exercise power) and the interpretation of those capabilities of a given country
change vis--vis its own constraints and those of the world-system and how those both
constraints changed. Unlike in the agent-structure dichotomy, in an analytical model based on
fields the description of both domestic and international arenas is not static. In this model,
there are grey zones, located at the periphery of these arenas. The peripheral areas which
are not necessarily geographical, but, as the other arenas above described, abstract/theoretical
representations of social domains of action lack clear rules. More than nothing, power
prevails there, as happens in illegal activities, not directly legitimized by the state-as-
government ( figure 1 ).
In each arena, societal groups try less to maximise their interests than to survive
materially and in terms of identity vis--vis each other. These identities, expressed in
conceptions of existence and survival, in turn, shape national trajectories 38 and might be
influenced by conceptions that come from outside the domestic realm. In the international
36
Hobden 1998, 132.37 Bourdieu 1991, 185.38 Zysman 1994.
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sphere, these conceptions hold together the system, which is better understood if conceived as
a society, 39 and are legitimised in the international political arena through acts of consent and
power in which hegemons and international organisations play a central role.
Figure 1Fields and transversal subfields/sectors domestic and international arenas
Source : Own elaboration, based on Rodrigues Vieira 2010, 33.
3.1. Conceptions of existence and conceptions of survival
Actors cannot reframe fields as they want. There are limitations, given not only by the
rules and power distribution within each arena and the connections with societal actors in
other fields. Long-term narratives which emerge through multi-causal processes, ranging
from state policies to the action of epistemic communities40
frame fields, composing a
dimension of norms that enables different degrees of collective action in productive,
associational, and redistributive terms. These long-term narratives correspond to conceptions
of existence and survival.
39 Bull 1995.40 Finnemore and Sikkink 2001, 402.
Domestic arena International arena
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Conceptions of existence, however, last longer than conceptions of survival because
they are less linked to practical issues, being more applicable to asynchronic links. Both,
however, are what constructivists would call constitutive norms. 41 Conceptions of existence
tie together different eras based on foundational myths in order to attribute, across history,
meaning to societal units of organisation. These conceptions are always historically
structured, fictions with real effects, historical narratives. They are meta-paradigms that
eventually structure power and rules (regulative norms) 42, although might be incrementally
changed through shifts in the distribution of productive and associational capabilities, or
suddenly broken apart in revolutionary situations that create tabula rasa contexts. Among
these conceptions, there are nationalist discourses, religions, philosophies of life. To use
Manns definition, it is an ideological power, which eventually set norms of behaviour. 43 In
studies within IR, conceptions of existence are relevant as long as they contribute to bind
together societal actors in attributing them a collective identity that conforms and is
conformed to micro-identities that emerge from subfields, such as ethnic groups. The most
relevant conception of existence in an IR study is nationalism.
An example is the discourses on racial democracy 44 and on secularism 45 which framed
ideas about national identity and both social and state action during most of the 20 th Century
in Brazil and India, respectively. In both Brazilian and Indian cases, those nationalist
discourses aimed to incorporate at least in symbolic terms into the nation any person who
were born in, respectively, Brazils and Indias territory, no matter their ethnic or religious
background. Nonetheless, conceptions of existence may be replaced by new ones in times of
social disruption, as it was the case of Nazism in Germany, in 1930s, which became its own
national creed after the Weimar Republic.
41 Finnemore and Sikkink 1998, 891.42 Ibid.43
Hobden 1998, 120.44 Rodrigues Vieira 2008.45 Katzenstein, Kothari, and Mehta 2001.
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Also, those conceptions of existence provided and, to some extent, still provide
most of the acceptable limits for institutional reforms. For instance, Racial Democracy in
Brazil and Secularism in India implied in nationally-based projects of development, including
in material/economic terms as the ISI experience shows. If, in the 1990s, reforms in Brazil
and India sought to dismantle the inward-looking development strategy that had been in place
since the 1930s, later in the decade and more clearer in the 2000s, interventionism became
fashionable again. 46 This is evidence that the change in the mainstream conception of survival
in the world economy, from Keynesianism to Neoliberalism in the 1970s and 1980s, 47 faced
limits in Brazil and India thanks for the conceptions of existence existent in each nation-state
and which were more suitable for state interventionism than for economic laissez-faire. In
spite of losing relative economic leverage, groups can resist or at least adapt themselves to
process of change if they are more linked to mainstream conceptions of existence in the
country. The hypothetical mechanisms through which it happens will be detailed ahead. For
now, it suffices to keep on mind that conceptions of existence constrain changes in
conceptions of survival even in times of critical junctures.
Conceptions of survival structure immediate actions of societal actors through
framing patterns of production and association with immediate focus in economic
organisation. As conceptions of survival, Keynesianism and ISI supported state-
interventionism, generating expectations among entrepreneurs on state-relief, while
Neoliberalism emphasises competition, stimulating less state-centric solutions, without
meaning a smaller role for the state, which does play a role in creating markets and
promoting de-regulation. 48 They tend to last for a shorter time and are less stable than
conceptions of existence because they are more susceptible to external junctures and have an
46
Bresser-Pereira 2009; Kohli 2009.47 Hall 1986.48 Polanyi 2001.
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immediate character. Crises in production, for instance, may require new paradigms that will
be converted into policies and, in turn, reframe societal action.
An example is the collapse of Keynesianism in the 1970s as both a set of economic
ideas and a set of policies for social organisation, which opened room for the development of
deregulatory policies based on the Neoliberal economic paradigm that had been acquiring
respectability among academics in the previous years. 49 On the other hand conceptions of
existence are much more dependent on arenas that in which the flows tend to be more
national/endogenous-based, as it is the case of the field of association and the state as
government. In fact, it is not a coincidence that states-as-territories where societal actors
within the arena of association and the state as government lack internal cohesiveness and a
coherent and legitimate discourse that binds them together are more vulnerable to foreign
pressures, as it was the case of just-born African states that in the 1980s onwards were
submitted by international organisations, such as the World Bank and the International
Monetary Fund, to structural-adjustment programs which later revealed to be unfit to local
realities. 50
However, Brazil and India resisted to liberalisation until almost 20 years after the
first challenges to Keynesianism. So it is inevitable to ask whether these empirical facts
challenge the notion of critical juncture as a period of systemic transformation that affects all
members of a given system, such as the international one. The literature on historical-
institutionalism has devoted some attention to achieve a better definition and a better tool to
define a critical juncture, although there is no consensus on that. That said, evidence suggests
that one can talks about systemic junctures important facts that cannot be defined a priori
that impacts systemic units up to a point that they face a critical juncture 51 as it was the case
49 Hall 2010. 50
For an example of how international organisations projects may be totally unfit for local realities and lack understanding of conceptions of existence and survival, please see Ferguson 1990.51 Pierson 2004, 12.
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of Brazil and India in the beginning of the 1990s. Due to economic crisis, both countries
embraced liberalisation amid confidence crisis from the international society and deficits in
the balance of payments. 52
Therefore, I contend that the resilience of conceptions of survival depends, on the one
hand, on the coherence and legitimacy of conceptions of existence among the constituencies
of a given country. This legitimacy, in turn, derives from the balance of economic and social
power within countries. On the other hand, this balance impacts the process of continuous
legitimation of the conceptions. Imbalances, such as inequality and sudden changes in a given
status quo through critical junctures, undermine, first, the dominant conception of survival
and, if this conception is not adapted to produce a new balance in productive and
associational terms, the conception of existence is undermined. Another possible outcome is
the corruption of the conception to the limit that the society that organises itself upon that
same conception can still recognise itself as distinct from others.
3.2. Fields of societal action
To employ a Hegelian metaphor, conceptions of existence and survival are the
superstructure/constitutive dimension that shapes /conforms the base, the practical
realm, composed, in the presented model, by three major arenas: production, association, and
redistribution, respectively correspondent, in current times, to the market, the civil society,
and the political arena. These fields exist in both national and transnational levels. In the
domestic arena or state-as-territory there is a fourth arena: the state-as-government.
Societal actors organise themselves in subfields that are transversal to each arena. The
ability to have power hereby defined as the capacity of shaping a given field or fields
according to ones interests in any field is given by the leverage of each societal actor in
terms of production and association. Power, thus, ultimately corresponds to symbolic
52 Bresser-Pereira 2009; Jenkins 1999.
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power the power to influence the frame and reframe conceptions of existence, of survival,
and processes of redistribution in the political arena and within the state as government. It is
not enough to have economic leverage without associational power 53 and, thus, without
linkages with the prevailing conceptions of existence and survival in a given country.
Symbolic capital, thus, is equal to power under this equation, which comprises economic and
social capital.
This model resembles Gr amscis ideas on civil society, the market and the state. In his
framework, whereas the market corresponds to the economic sphere, which can be defined as
the arena where individuals and firms exchange goods, services and assets, 54 the civil society
serves as the locus of resistance and legitimation of the system 55 through informal norms and
collective actors (which I have been calling societal groups) that operate based on those
norms. Nonetheless, in the proposed framework, civil society does not stand between the
market and the state: it is a distinctive arena. It has an autonomous dynamic that eventually
contributes to its legitimation and to the legitimation of the entire domestic arena: what
happens in the market also contributes to the formation of conceptions of existence and
survival and, therefore, to overall legitimation. Also, the need to conceptualise civil society in
transnational terms demands its redefinition, insofar as there is no authority similar to states
to conform it in the international arena.
Firstly, I define the arena of production, followed by a discussion on the arena of
association. As mentioned before, the overlapping between both corresponds to the arena of
redistribution, where political disputes take place in both domestic and international arenas.
Finally, I define the state-as-government in a Neo-Weberian fashion. In all steps, I frame the
discussion on the literature on IR that seeks somehow to integrate the domestic and
53
As suggested by Bourdieu 1991, 170.54 See Fligstein 2001.55 Gramsci 1971, 208.
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international realms, especially in what concerns the ultimate focus of this thesis
formulation of economic foreign policy.
Arena of production: The contemporaneous capitalist market corresponds to the arena of
production in both domestic and international scales. Its roots which can be found on
medieval trade networks precede the formation of the state-system, with commercial
exchanges among Europe, Asia, and North Africa. The creation of nation-states and their
consolidation enhanced further the development of production as long as they established
markets through institutions with the aim to reduce transaction costs 56, such as a common
currency, and conquered, in some cases, exclusive markets abroad through colonisation. The
trend, however, was that economic actors were subordinated to state-based projects even
when colonisation enterprises guaranteed significant freedom for private actors. With the
development of capitalism and multiplication of economic actors, the field of production
gained leverage vis--vis the state as government. In fact, as mentioned before, production
precedes to the formation of the interstate system. In the cases of colonised countries, such as
the case of Brazil and India, it is more evident than in the core of the system.
Markets have already been conceptualised as fields, challenging the existence of
universal rational behaviour in economics and the Neoclassical view that predicts
convergence in market organisations as a result of the pursuit for efficiency. 57 In conceiving
markets as fields, economic sociologists imply that 1) markets are political-cultural
creations, 58 2) they are embedded in other social relationships, 59 such as the ones that seek
redistribution (politics) and association (civil society), and 3) more than maximisation of
56 North 1981.57
Fligstein 2001, 68.58 Ibid.59 Granovetter 1985.
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profits, actors, particularly firms, seek stability in order to survive, 60 and try to use the state to
keep and develop rules and policies to attain such a goal.
IR scholarship that seeks to integrate market actors and factors to explain
transnational links has, in general, a more restricted view of the market and, therefore, of its
relations with actors based within other fields, particularly those in the state-as-government.
An example is the Realist tradition that recognizes the role of economic factors in IR. Gilpin
considers that there is, at least in the modern world, a reciprocal relationship between
economics and politics: 61 economic factors influence state behaviour and changes in the
political arena, whereas groups in the domestic arena attempt to organise economic relations
to increase their relative share in the national surplus. 62 Other Realists, however, does not
defend the profit-maximising principle, emphasising the idea of stability that the market-as-
fields approach defends. For instance, Krasner, i n his study of U.S. governments role i n the
supply of raw materials for the American economy, identifies that such supply is important
not only for military purposes, but also in times of peace, when [u]nstable supplies and
prices can upset the general functioning of the economy and strain on the political system. 63
It could explain why Brazil, in spite of the prospective expansion of exports of primary goods
with the openness of agricultural markets, resisted, during most of the negotiations at the
Doha Round, to make further concessions in industrial tariffs. 64
Domestic Pluralism sides more with the profit-maximizing rationale, although some
authors within this tradition provide a clearer account of the interactions between actors in
production and the state. Frieden and Rogowski demonstrate that, with liberalisation, there is
a trend that sectors whose production and profits increase will support further openness in
60 Fligstein 2001, 70.61 Gilpin 1975, 21.62
Gilpin 1981, 67-68.63 Krasner 1978, 39.64 Narlikar 2010.
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economy, whereas segments harmed by the process will seek protection from the state. 65 This
happens because, even when a government keeps the national economy relatively closed, a
facilitation of trade thanks for technological changes (such as in transportation) impact
domestic economies. In bringing politics into market, Rogowski takes a step towards an
institutional approach. For him, beneficiaries of a process of change in economy will try to
deepen it through political means, whereas the increase in economic leverage is likely to
correspond to an increase of political power. Therefore, the shifts in income will be translated
into disputes to influence the policy-making, 66 a process that will be further discussed ahead,
as state-as-government is conceptualised. An example can be the increasing influence of the
agricultural sector over Brazilian government after the liberalisation.
Marxism in IR considers that struggle of classes is at the centre in the dispute for
power in the market. In this process, eventually the dominant class captures the state to make
it work on its behalf. In transnational terms, systemic Structural-Marxist theories, such as
Wallersteins world -systems, suffices in explaining overall patterns of integration of the
periphery into the world economy. 67 However, in considering the system as the unit of
analysis, this approach misses the dynamics of change that may emerge within countries and
empower them. Neo-Marxists face the same limitation, 68 although at least they work with the
concept of civil society, the departing point to overcome economic-centred accounts of the
links between societal actors and the state.
Arena of association: known in current times as civil society, it is the field where both
individual and collective actors gather in groups to claim for participation in the outcomes of
production and for a given pattern of redistribution. These claims may happen indirectly,
through the structuration of new conceptions of existence and survival with the aim to replace
65 Frieden and Rogowski 1996, 29; Milner 1988, 15.66
Rogowski 1989.67 Wallerstein 200768 Teschke 2008, 173.
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the dominant ones. Those groups are not necessarily derived from production relationships,
arising from non-economic patterns of interaction, such as religions and ethnic groups.
As in the arena of production, the basic constitutive elements of the arena of
association precede the formation of the international system. Prior to the state system, there
were transnational identities, such as the ones based on religion and ethnicity. In most cases,
these patterns of association were linked to forms of political power, such as the Catholic
Church in Western Europe during the Middle Age. However, the fact that these arenas that
initially were polities does not exclude other: those patterns of association remained as
historical legacies or were re-elaborated through conceptions of existence that compete with
national identities, composing part of the arena of association. Also, even when countries
followed primarily the logic of sovereignty and controlled its population strictly to extract
resources for war, the arena of association already existed, although was not analytically
relevant, given the low degree of freedom of its members. With the expansion of civil and
political rights, societal actors within the arena gained more freedom to organise themselves.
Within Social Sciences, civil society as an analytical unit usually corresponds to
the space of social life open and autonomous from the state and in which actors share a set of
values that enable them to act collectively. 69 Among those set of values, there are conceptions
of existence. Nonetheless, the autonomy from the state is not constant. It is notorious that
authoritarian regimes reframe, through the state apparatus, the organisation of civil society to
back their policies. It happened in Latin American corporatist states, between 1930 and 1950,
when labour unions could only operate as extensions of authoritarian regimes, such as
Getlio Vargass presidency in Brazil (1930-1945). 70 Likewise, co-optation of civil society
may also happen due to its disintegration, with the atomisation of individuals, as it is argued
69 Diamond 1999, 221.70 Rodrigues Vieira 2008.
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to have happened in the interwar period in Germany with social disruption and the rise of
Nazism.
Usually the degree of autonomy of civil society is co-related to the degree of
democracy. The theoretical roots of this relationship lies in Toquevilles Democracy in
America , which establishes a causal link between independent/autonomous association
among people and the strength of democracy and government accountability. 71 Later,
political theorists and social scientists enriched the idea of civil society with the concept of
social capital. According to Coleman, this kind of capital corresponds to norms and
expectations related to economic activities that do not arise from strict economic patterns. 72
Putnam expanded this concept, including, as factors of high social capital, trust and the
density of networks among societal actors in order to develop co-ordinated actions. 73
Bourdieu, nonetheless, offers a different definition of social capital, more useful as a
theoretical tool to understand interactions within the arena of association. According to him,
[s]ocial capital is the aggregate of the actu al or potential resources which are linked to
possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalised relationships of mutual
acquaintance and recognition which provides each of its members with the backing of the
collectively-owned capital, a credential which entitles them to credit. 74
Considering this last definition, I assume that a societal actors social capital is high if
the most important identities it is attached to are entrenched with the predominant
conceptions of existence and survival in the country where the actor is based. Thus it is not
possible to precisely talk about social capital of a society, but only of the social capital of
each of its groups, as one defines the economic capital of a firm or an economic sector.
Furthermore, Toquevilles notion of civil society can be left aside if on assumes that trust is
71 Tocqueville 1835.72
Coleman 1990 , 302.73 Putnam 1993 , 173.74 Bourdieu 1986.
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not the most important factor for social cohesiveness. It can be enhanced from the state-as-
government or through redistributive arrangements.
Now it is needed to mention a caveat about the separation of the social space of a
country into three distinct arenas. Analytically, there is a gain to separate association from
production rather than fusing both concepts in a wider definition of interest groups that
includes social capital, therefore going beyond economic and organisational strength based
on rational-choice assumptions. 75 This separation makes evident the existence of non-
economic factors and its influence over public policies including international economic
negotiations whose main target is the production becomes more evident. Thus, shifts in
non-economic arrangements are better recognisable, as well as their impact in policy-making.
Reification of production and association through the static notion of interest groups ignore
these dynamics.
Arena of redistribution: The combination of societal groups capabilities in production and
association is directed correspondent to their potential strength (capital) in the arena of
redistribution, that is, the political arena. I argue that the essence of politics is redistribution ,
although in social science this concept is often associated to left-wing parties. The fact,
however, is that political disputes always impact power distribution, in spite of the fact that a
power-holder hardly assumes that is working on the expansion of inequality. The key to
persuade constituencies and hold power in either democratic or non-democratic regimes
lies in having some degree of symbolic capital, what enables a societal actor to defend its
standpoint. 76
In this context, it is worth to bring in Bourdieus expanded definition of this kind of
capital. According to him, symbolic capital is nothing other than capital, of whatever
kind, when it is perceived by an agent endowed with categories of perception arising from the
75 The classic statement on this conception of interest groups comes from Olson 1971.76 Bourdieu 1986.
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incorporation of the structure of its distribution. 77 The field of production of symbolic power
was never well defined by Bourdieu. The obvious point one can derive from his theoretical
framework, however, is that power is essentially symbolic, insofar as it creates the social
world. The currency for power, under this logic, is capital, which has an economic
(productive) and social (identity) dimension. This combined capital can be converted into
political capital with aims to influence or control the state-as-government. Political capital,
says Bourdieu, is a form of symbolic capital and the product of subjective acts of
recognition and, in so far as its credit and credibility, exists only in and through
representation, in an d through trust, belief and obedience. 78 With this capital, one can have
access to the centralised regulation of social relations, 79 which includes the legitimation of
conceptions of existence and survival through the state.
That is, actual symbolic power derives from the combination of strength in
association, production, and redistribution. Symbolic power matters because redistribution
gains legitimacy according to conceptions of existence and survival, on the one hand, and to
the distribution of power/capabilities in association and productive terms. The more a societal
group buys into dominant conceptions of existence and survival, the more likely it is to gain
economic and associational leverage. Likewise, the more a group improves its position in
productive and associational terms, the larger is its ability to influence patterns of
redistribution, although not necessarily it will convert its economic-social capital into
political power. Ideas, here, are essential, because they have the power to mobilise. 80 In fact,
Bourdieus concept of struggle over representation and identity particularly in ethnic and
77 Bourdieu 1991, 238.78
Ibid., 192.79 Hobden 1998, 121.80 Bourdieu 1991,190.
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regional terms is twofold: involves mental images and social demonstrations that
manipulate those images. 81
These processes aim to bring societal actors into the state-as-government to either
control or influence it, and, therefore, to impact public policies. As in any other field, the
institutional design of the political arena varies from country to country. For instance, under
representative democracy, there are political parties, state-society councils, and interest
groups. This last case deserves a point of clarification: some actors usually conceived as
interest groups, such as business associations, labour unions, or even large firms are not
essentially located in the political arena. Nonetheless, these societal actors may move from
the arena of production as it is the case of firms and from the arena of association as it is
the case of labour unions and business associations to use their power and defend a given
pattern of redistribution. Also, it is worth mentioning that, specifically in the case of Brazil
and India, since the end of the 1970s at least there is a fourth relevant actor that transits
constantly between civil society and the political arena: social movements. Before the advent
of democracy, redistribution operated mainly through other means besides what is known as
politics, such as war, rent-seeking, aristocracy, oligarchy all of which may have residual
effects even up to nowadays. It is the case in Brazil and India, where political parties are now
stable, 82 although need to be complemented by other subfields, such as social movements 83 or
even family-controlled firms, 84 to link societal actors in the arena of redistribution with the
state-as-government.
State-as-government: it is also a field, which establishes a symbolic and territorial domain
over the parts of the arenas of production, appropriation and redistribution that compose the
domestic arena. All states-as-territories have a state-as-government, although it varies in
81 Ibid., 221.82
For the Brazilian case, please read Power 2010 . On India, please see Katzenstein, Kothari, and Mehta 2001.83 Gowda and Sridharan 2007.84 Ross-Schneider 2009 .
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terms of institutional design and linkages between the sections of the other arenas that are
part of either the domestic or international realm. Also, states-as-government are not
necessarily unique entities, with complete internal coherence. They have multidimensional
functions and tools. 85 It may have specific bureaucracies (clusters) that are more effective in
designing and implementing public policies than others thanks for specific institutional
characteristics, such as the qualification of professionals as well as their commitment to
work.
In the literature on states in the developing world, Brazil and India are seen as
inchoate states, which, despite their bureaucratisation, remain partially subjected to rent-
seeking. 86 As far as this work is concerned, the most relevant section of the state-as-
government is the one that is responsible for international trade negotiations. In the case of
Brazil, it is the Ministry of Foreign Relations (known as Itamaraty ), whereas in India the
Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MoC) designs the strategies at the WTO. Both are,
according to the literature on the topic, 87 bureaucracies with more autonomy and internal
coherence than most of both Brazilian and Indian states. Itamaraty and MoC for instance,
have no political appointees but the head of ministry, who is selected by the head of
government. MoC, however, as mentioned in the introduction, has linkages with internal
societal actors, from firms to business groups. That said, the fact is that the state, through the
ministry, remains as a strong gatekeeper for societal demands. 88 In fact, especially in federal
systems, such as the Brazilian and the Indian, stateness is a negotiated process with domestic
actors. 89 These notions on the Brazilian and Indian states are affiliated to the Neo-Weberian
tradition; 90 a reaction to the theoretical models that emphasised domestic pluralism and
85 King and Lieberman 2009, 547 88.86 Evans 1995; Kohli 2004.87 On India, please read Narlikar 2008. On Brazil, please see Vigevani and Cepaluni 2007.88
Narlikar 2008, 277.89 King and Lieberman 2009, 558.90 The most famous work on this is Evans, Rueschemeyer, and Skocpol 1985.
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interdependence based on non-state actors. 91 Unlike in the Marxist models, under Neo-
Weberianism the state is not a product of class relations, but rather a unit with some degree of
autonomy from other societal actors. 92
Historical-Sociology has analytical tools to connect Neo-Weberianism with IR
through Realism. Historical-Sociology disagrees with anarchical systemic assumptions, but
overlaps with State-Centred Realist accounts on how the state-as-government interacts with
societal actors in both domestic and international level. 93 Insofar as the state conceived as
an autonomous actor formulates foreign policy, its structure defines what is national interest
and power. Thus, what actually matters is state power. 94 As Krasner summarises , a statist
paradigm views the state as an autonomous actor. The goals sought by the state cannot be
reduced to some summation of private desires. These objectives can be called appropriately
the national interest. 95 Neoclassical Realism tries to integrate these assumptions to systemic
dynamics, as long as it builds upon the complex relationship between the state and society
found in classical realism without sacrificing the central insight of Neorealism about the
constraints of the international system. 96 However, in doing so, it still faces at least five
problems. First of all, it overemphasizes security issues over economic ones. Secondly, it still
offers no account of the mechanics of the relationships within the state and the nation-state.
Thirdly, as a consequence, the role of identities that emerge from civil society remains un-
theorised, as in domestic pluralism. 97 Fourthly, insofar as it has no understanding of the
market and the civil society, it cannot clearly explain challenges to the state from non-state
actors. Lastly, it is restricted to FPA, rather than putting state decisions into a bigger picture
in times of change.
91 An example of such approach is Risse-Kappen 1995.92 For this, please read Hobdens (1998, 93) analysis of Theda Skocpols States and Social Revolutions .93 Hobden 1998, 139.94 Zakaria 1998, 9 and 187.95
Krasner 1978, 5-6. 96 Lobell, Ripsman, and Taliaferro 2009, 13.97 The principles of this approach can be found at Moravcsik 1997.
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3.3. Interactions among fields
The theoretical gain in conceiving social arenas as fields lies in the fact that they allow us to
make macro and micro analysis of social processes depending on the research focus, while
grasping causal mechanisms of change. For analytical purposes, I define three basic
movements in the interaction between the arenas: A) international junctures to domestic
changes in production and association; B) domestic changes in production and association to
domestic changes in redistribution; and C) changes in redistribution to changes in public
policies. All these movements impact conceptions of existence and survival.
Before detailing each movement, a caveat is necessary. This model is potentially
applicable to explain shifts in power in the international system unless the analysed state is a
hegemon. A systemic factor (an international juncture) is always the contextual variable that,
with historical legacies manifested through conceptions of existence, leads to changes in
foreign policy (the dependent variable). However, the outcome depends on steps B and C,
which encompass both the independent (distribution of economic and social capital among
societal actors) and the intervening (access of societal actors to bureaucracy, as well as its
internal organisation) variables of the model.
Movement A: The international-domestic movement happens when new conceptions of
existence and/or survival emerge and gain predominance in the international arena. Thanks
for the more openness of economic than of non-commoditized flows, conceptions of survival
are more likely to be challenged than conceptions of existence. However, the extent to which
conceptions of survival in the domestic scale adapt themselves to the international one is
given by the conceptions of existence and if they are linked to the strongest sectors in both
production and associational arenas.
Simmons and Elkins argue that choices for picking up liberalising economic foreign
policy tools are influenced by the choices of other governments as much as they are by
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exogenously given domestic institutions or preferences that can be traced back to domestic
political or economic structures. 98 As the proportion of countries that adopt a given policy
in this case liberalisation increases, the reputatio nal costs of being attached to old -
fashioned conceptions of survival increase as well. Also, there is a learning process based on
other experiences, especially in those of countries that are culturally-similar. 99 This ideational
side of economic reform do vetails with Bourdieus account of how the social world is built.
According to him, the structuring principles of the world view are rooted in the objective
structures of the social world and because the relations of power are also present in peoples
minds in the form of the categories of perception of those relations . 100 If a country, however,
has a civil society deeply linked to the conception of existence that is dominant, the harder it
will be to accept international junctures without local adaptation. Otherwise, such an outcome
is less likely to happen if the arena of association is pervaded by strong transnational links
(e.g.: ethnicity and religion) correspondent to conceptions of existence that dispute primacy
with national ideals. Figure 2 exemplifies this process in a critical juncture.
Figure 2Movement A: Interaction conception of survival and sovereignty/intl. embeddedness
Source : Own elaboration
A civil society committed to the predominant conceptions of existence and survival,
as well as an economy that is not sensitive to exogenous shocks, compose the core of what I
98
Simmons and Elkins 2004, 172.99 Ibid., 176.100 Bourdieu 1991, 236.
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call sovereignty, the ability of a domestic arena to control exogenous influences. Total
sovereignty, however, would demand autarchy, what is impossible for any member of the
international society. 101 Therefore, a high degree of embeddedness in the international system
enables a country to potentially benefit from the exchange with other systemic units. From
these assumptions, I derive proposition 1 : The higher the degree of sovereignty and
international embeddedness of a state, the higher the possibility that it will adapt itself to
emerging conceptions of survival in the international arena and keep credibility in the
international society amid autonomy.
Movement B: Changes in conceptions of survival originated in hegemonic poles at it was
the case with Neoliberalism matter because they impact prices through economic
liberalisation, therefore, the world-wide distribution of power (capital) in the arena of
production. This is linked to the aforementioned domestic pluralist arguments that seek to
integrate domestic and international arenas. And, considering that economic capital is at
the root of all the other types of capital 102 , distribution of associational power is likely to
change as well in such a context. Production is not in opposition to association, as
contemporaneous global civil society theorists argue in the nave claim that opposes social
movements and non-governmental organisations to capitalists. 103 All
sectors/subfields/societal groups have an economic and an identity dimension.
The links between changing prices and politics were already explored by Rogowski.
His conclusions imply that beneficiaries of a process of change in economy will try to deepen
it through political means. Also, the increase in economic leverage is likely to correspond to
an increase of political power. Therefore, shifts in income will be translated into disputes to
influence policy-making. The means through which these disputes take place and their
101
Here I follow Bull 1995 definition of international society.102 Bourdieu 1986.103 An example of this account is Smith 2008.
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consequences depends on the structure of state and society liberalisation finds and reshapes.
Milner and Keohane consider that there are three major pathways through which international
economic changes affect the domestic arena: 1) creation of policy preferences and coalition;
2) triggering domestic economic and political crises; and 3) undermining the control of
government over macropolicy. 104
In any of these contexts, political institutions, in turn, have three roles: 1) blocking
price signals from the foreign markets that may produce realignments in the domestic arena;
2) freezing coalitions and policies; and 3) channelling political responses to changing
prices. 105 All these facts mean that different domestic institutions give rise to distinct patterns
of liberalisation. Institutions, Milner argues, should not only be employed as an analytical
category in state-society relations, but also within the state itself, as long as policy-formation
depends on interest convergence within different branches of government. Information also
matters in explaining outcomes in both negotiation and interest formation processes, as
asymmetries creates inefficiencies and political advantages. 106 Generally the executive power
tends to have more information about relevant issues for negotiations than the legislative and
the electorate. Such divide, however, cannot be taken for granted in states such as the
Brazilian and the Indian ones, where foreign policy making is centralised in the hands of the
head of government and a stable bureaucratic body.
Furthermore, if economic capital has primacy over other manifestations of power, it is
not the only factor that determines the leverage of a societal actor vis--vis others in the
internal arena. The position of a given societal actor, says Bourdieu, depends on the position
it occupies in different fields in terms of power that is reflected in different kinds of capital,
such as economic and social. 107 It means that groups that have production and associational
104 Keohane and Milner 1996, 244.105
Ibid., 251.106 Ibid., 20.107 Bourdieu 1991, 231.
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capabilities not strongly linked to the conceptions of existence and survival tend to face more
difficulty in striving in a changing context. Sectors traditionally conceived as purely
economic are in fact transversal: they hold positions in associational terms as well.
For instance, Indias rice processing industry has workers of different non-economic
groups, mainly lower-caste Hindus. 108 In Brazil, export-led agriculture remains dominant in
regions where values of complex urban societies have not arrived yet. These are relevant
differences from the empirical cases from which liberal theorists derived their conclusions.
Their models were based on homogeneous societies, such as the European ones, already
shaped by the iron cage of capitalism, or heterogeneous societies where logrolling led to
constrain differences in times of prosperity, as it is in the US. 109 In fact, different
combinations of productive and associational powers are the root of different varieties of
capitalism: 110 a given conception of survival fuses with the predominant domestic conception
of existence, triggering a national trajectory. 111 The degree of adaptability of a sector to
changes in the conception of survival depends on its attachment to identities linked to the
conception of existence ( figure 3 ).
Figure 3Adaptation of a sector in terms of economic and social capital after a juncture
Source : Own elaboration
108 Kaur, Gosh, and Sudarshan 2007, 148.109
Snyder 1991.110 Hall and Soskice 2001.111 For trajectories of development, please read Zysman 1994.
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All this leads to proposition 2 : an economic sector gains strength amid critical
junctures when it is able to absorb innovations that arise from new conceptions of survival
while keeping leverage in the arena of association and, therefore, strong linkages to the
conception(s) of existence predominant in a given domestic arena.
Movement C: the trade-off between a Weberian state and a strong civil society does not seem
to be applicable either empirically or theoretically. A strong state is perfectly suitable to a
strong civil society and a strong market. However, the best adjective here to describe a state-
as-government that does not constrain the creative forces of societal actors is not strong. A
pair of variables defines a state such as this: social embeddedness its connections with
societal actors and autonomy its ability to preserve independent interests, which,
eventually, are not corporatist, but represent the national interest, even if defined by elites.
Originally, embeddeness and autonomy were defined by Evans 112 and Hobson. 113 They argue
that state strength (at least within specific bureaucracies) results from autonomy from private
interests and linkages with society.
Embeddeness and autonomy also affect the level of legitimacy of the state. An
imbalance between both variables can cause a rupture or mistrust between government and
societies. Unlike authors such as Jacobs and King suggest, legitimacy does not arise mainly
from redistribution to promote equality or at least to attenuate inequality. Legitimacy is
conquered based on stability of the overall domestic arena, which implies in balancing
winners and losers in terms of power. Also, state has to have a minimum of internal
coherence. Contemporaneous times offer plenty of examples of how state crisis impact other
domestic arenas, being the mostly recent the Great Recession in the US .114 Embeddeness may
take place through different means, which include formal and informal institutions. When
112
Evans 1995.113 Hobson 1997, 235.114 Jacobs and King 2009, 277.
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embeddeness fails in terms of representation, the state becomes more vulnerable to rent-
seeking activities and in failing to produce internal stability even amid lack of redistribution
to reduce inequality loses legitimacy. For instance, in the US, the comparatively weak
administrative capacity of the state has been susceptible to the demands and interests of the
financial sector. 115
This legitimacy, however, has to be kept into the boundaries set by conceptions of
existence and survival. For instance, the clashes over health care reform in the US derives at
least in part from the fact that it challenges principles that bounds the American national
character (e.g.: a Locke an conception of liberty that implies in a reduced role of the state
amid civil society) and the organisation of the economy unlike in Continental Europe,
health has been commoditised in the US since its foundation as a nation and as a market. A
similar process took place in Brazil and India in the 1990s, when liberal reforms in economy
had a more ambitious scope in the beginning than in the outcome. In both cases, the
governments that conducted the initial phase of institutional reform in Brazil, Fernando
Henrique Cardosos PSDB presidency (1995 -2003), and, in India, Narashima Rao s
Congress-led coalition (1991-1995) were, first, led to constrain its ambitions to keep
partially the nationalist legacy of the ISI years, and, after, were replaced in power by
coalitions that at least rhetorically were more aligned with state-centred practices, as it is
the case of Lula da Silvas PT in Brazil and Congress - and even Janata-led governments that
went into power after the second half of the 1990s. Socio-economic capital is not always
converted into political power. As figure 4 shows, such conversion depends on the degrees of
embeddeness and autonomy of the state-as-government.
Originally, the empowerment of the state vis--vis society happens, as Tilly and
Hobson among others argue, due to the extraction of resources, mainly through taxation to
115 Ibid.
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stability within the internal arena and coherence with the dominant domestic conception of
existence and conception of survival unless the coalition in power has a reformist program.
That said, in the elaboration of an issue in economic foreign policy, as it is the case in
negotiation preferences in WTO, issues regarding the international context and related to
sovereignty and international embeddeness at the time of policy elaboration play a role as
well, constraining through modified conceptions of existence and survival the final
preferences chosen as national ones by the state-as-government.
4. Conclusion
The theoretical gain in conceiving arenas of social action as fields lie in the fact that
this analytical tool allows to measure different dimensions of power without reifying sectors
that are traditionally conceived as purely economic. Social capital also matters, insofar as its
leverage determines the strength to which a given set of societal actors is attached to the
predominant conceptions of existence and, therefore, will be able to resist to changes in the
conception of survival. However, adaptations to shifts in economic organisation also matters
insofar as power, which is always symbolic, involves productive and associational leverage.
With productive and associational power, societal actors can participate in a more
decisive way in the arena of redistribution and influence the state-as-government, which,
nonetheless, has the final decision on the elaboration of public policies and legitimation of
new conceptions of society. Old conceptions of existence, however, are employed to
constrain new conceptions of society if there is the perceived risk of disruption within the
fields of the domestic arena. Thus, the limits to reframe them are not only the co-relation of
forces in domestic and international arenas, but also the long-standing conceptions of
existence that constrain societal action as a whole in the domestic arena, which filters the
impact of critical junctures posed by new conceptions of survival in the international system.
As the liberalising experience of Brazil and India suggest at a first glance, it is possible to
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investigate causal relationships within and between these units in an ad-hoc manner remain
opened. In sum, the bounded causality that the notion of fields suggest can be one step
further in bridging the sides of the debate rationalism vs. constructivism in the discipline.
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