著者

德永 翔太

出版者

九州大学大学院地球社会統合科学府

雑誌

地球社会統合科学研究 = Integrated sciences for global society studies

巻号頁・発行日

no.3, pp.33-44, 2015

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Politics today is in a critical situation due to economic globalization, which compels governments to implement neoliberal policies that favor market forces. In this situation, politics, which recognizes the value of compromise when diverse interests are present, is not seen to be necessary. The study of politics needs to solve this problematic situation in which politics is being undermined by the forces of the market economy. Studies on the defence of politics have a considerable influence in political economy. They examine neoliberal ideologies closely from a view point of institutional analysis. Based on the arguments of the defence of politics, therefore, this paper tries to analyze the mechanism by which neoliberal ideologies constrain politics. These studies argue that economic globalization should not be a historical given and that it is actually promoted by neoliberal policies. They also points out that neoliberalists make use of fatalism in order to adapt neoliberal policies, escaping from their duties to listen to diverse demands fromvarious interest groups. On the other hand, Japanese studies on the concept of the political imagination try to resolve the situation by emphasizing the power of solidarity against neoliberalism. However, a discussion on the problems of neoliberalism from the point of view of political economy has not yet been carried out sufficiently in Japan. There are two reasons for this: first, it is often assumed that economic globalization is a kind of assumed law of history. Second, it is also considered to be the case that such research can not provide any effective institutional solutions due to a sort of fatalistic view, which believes that nation states will surely lose their powers of control in the era of economic globalization. The aim of this paper is to argue that we should learn from the both studies to solve the recent political predicament evident in nation states.