PROKLA. Journal of Critical Social Science
PROKLA - Journal of Critical Social Science is a German peer-reviewed journal that has been working on topics from the fields of political economy, political science, social history and sociology since 1971. The focus is on social power relations, polarizations in the international system and the social relations with nature. The issues are put together according to thematic focuses.
Ecological modernisation is a key arena of current geo-economic competition. After Chinese companies have emerged as global leaders in the solar industry and electric mobility, Chinese companies are now also taking a leading role in the hydrogen economy. In this article, I examine the development of China’s hydrogen economy and argue that geo-economic motives are not only a key driver of its development; China’s state-capitalist hydrogen strategy also has the potential to shape the geo-economic structure of the global hydrogen economy in the long term.
Copyright (c) 2026 PROKLA. Journal of Critical Social Science
In response to geoeconomic tensions and the climate crisis, the EU has adopted a range of industrial policies, widely interpreted in the literature as marking a post-neoliberal turn. We challenge this reading through a critical examination of InvestEU, the central guarantee instrument designed to mobilise private investments by absorbing downside risks. We show that the programme's architecture does not transcend neoliberal logics but deepens them. This not only undermines the stated objectives of a green transformation but exposes a fundamental contradiction at the heart of EU open strategic autonomy.
The German debate on the new geoeconomics ignores the economic history of colonialism and imperialism and overlooks Marxist theories of imperialism from the past hundred years. The new narrative surrounding shifts in power within the global political economy is primarily grounded in a fictional account of the liberal economic world order of the 20th century. To understand the current crises and upheavals, critical social research would therefore be well advised to once again devote greater attention to the analytical and political-strategic potential of an updated analysis of imperialism.
In an attempt to analyse the intensifying global economic conflicts, the concept of geoeconomics has gained traction in recent years. Based on a genesis of the concept, we identify three building blocks of a critical geoeconomic perspective. These address continuities and breaks of geoeconomic strategies with the organizational forms of market-liberal capitalism; the material anchoring of unequal global economic relations as a result of geoeconomic competition; and the underlying capital interests and exploitative relationships. Finally, we develop starting points for a critique of geoeconomics, which remain largely marginalized in the current discourse.
Political Forms of Globalised Capitalism
In order to develop a historical-materialist theory of capitalist states, which adequately reflects the present historical situation it may be helpful to discuss conceptional problems of heretofore dominant conceptions. Their inadequacy in the face of the political forms of globalised capitalism may also have been caused by their neglection to consider colonial states as capitalist states. In order to determine the political forms of globalised capitalism it is suggested to consider the structural preconditions for any form of capitalist production.
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS'; color: black; mso-style-textoutline-type: none; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-dpiwidth: 0pt; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-linecap: flat; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-join: bevel; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-pctmiterlimit: 0%; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-dash: solid; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-align: center; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-compound: simple; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-language: DE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">How is the war against Ukraine transforming the state-society complex in Russia? This paper draws attention to the organic crisis of the ruling bloc encompassing three dimensions: crisis of capital accumulation, crisis of labour reproduction, and crisis of legitimacy. Unable to reproduce the power configuration by eliciting the consent of subordinate groups, the ruling bloc resolves to violence in an attempt to overcome the crisis. The paper reintegrates war in the study of capitalism by exploring the manifestations of violence as enterprise, labour, and ideology.
This article critiques the implicit functionalism of the thesis put forward by Brand et al., which argues that the failure to fulfill key state functions explains the lack of progress in moving away from fossil fuels within the framework of state decarbonization efforts. Furthermore, it challenges the thesis of the state’s delegitimization by examining the role of political parties. To answer the question of the limits of decarbonization, the analytical focus should be placed more strongly on the power resources and political – and in some cases structural – opportunities available to the leading social forces.
Geoeconomics as the End of Neoliberalism?
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS'; color: black; mso-style-textoutline-type: none; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-dpiwidth: 0pt; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-linecap: flat; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-join: bevel; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-pctmiterlimit: 0%; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-dash: solid; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-align: center; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-compound: simple; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-language: DE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">In this article, I engage with the debate on the »geoeconomic state« and challenge the view that it represents a fundamental break with neoliberalism and the competition state. Drawing on the US-China conflict, I argue that geoeconomic policies are aimed at securing technological leadership and improving market access amid intensifying global competition. To support this argument, I historicize US-China relations and analyze the US’ geoeconomic responses, highlighting continuities and shifts in the relationship between state and economy. From this perspective, geoeconomic policy can be understood as a reconfiguration of neoliberal globalization within the framework of the competition state.
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 120%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS'; color: black; mso-style-textoutline-type: none; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-dpiwidth: 1.0pt; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-linecap: flat; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-join: miter; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-pctmiterlimit: 400.0%; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-dash: solid; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-align: center; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-compound: simple; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-language: DE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">In light of increasing militarization worldwide, it is worth discussing the argument that geopolitical disputes have increasingly taken a back seat to conflicts of a geo-economic nature. This is illustrated here by the example of relations between China and the United States. The question arises as to what extent the cooperation, but also the intensified competition, between the two countries has been accompanied by rearmament measures, with the Taiwan issue always taking center stage from the Chinese perspective.
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Aptos; color: black; mso-font-kerning: 1.0pt; mso-style-textoutline-type: none; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-dpiwidth: 1.0pt; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-linecap: flat; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-join: miter; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-pctmiterlimit: 400.0%; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-dash: solid; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-align: center; mso-style-textoutline-outlinestyle-compound: simple; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-language: DE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">The concept of tech competition statehood proposed here examines transformations in state action in the face of U.S. and Chinese digital dominance from the perspective of those seeking to catch up. Rather than moving away from the regulatory creation of locational advantages, they rebalance the emphasis between inward- and outward-looking, economically and politically oriented competitiveness projects in strategically-selective ways. The EU and India, for example, are attempting to contain digital markets regionally, utilizing not only industrial policy and regulation but also strategic public procurement and the discursive legitimization of their own tech ambitions as morally superior.
A prevailing interpretation of the current era describes the profound transformation in the global economic landscape as the »age of geo-economics«. This is said to be characterised by intensifying inter-state competition, trade wars, sanctions regimes and investment controls, as well as a race for technological supremacy and control over value chains. In this context, the intertwining of security policy motives and economic strategies is receiving considerable attention. In this issue, we examine the current state of »geoeconomics« and take a critical look at the prevailing interpretation found not only in International Relations and Political Economy, but also in influential think tanks and foreign policy circles, in which geoeconomics – understood as the logic of global economic competition – is set against geopolitics – understood as the logic of war.
Man spricht deutsch: Eine trügerische Erfolgsgeschichte
The European crisis is giving rise to highly controversial statements on the role of Germany. The paper highlights Germany’s role as the single most important problem maker, rather than problem taker, in the course of the current revival of neoliberal economic policy reforms in Europe. Major roots of the deepening imbalances in the Eurozone are ascribed to a reshaped German model of capitalism which is analysed as a hybrid of surviving powerful features of ‘Rhenish’ capitalism and neoliberal upheavals in the labour market. As a consequence, the austerity regime imposed on other countries by the German government may be economically beneficial for Germany in the short run but will most presumably prove to be a disaster in the longer run both for individual countries and for Europe as a whole.
Copyright (c) 2018 PROKLA. Zeitschrift für kritische Sozialwissenschaften
Authoritarian populism as a neoliberal crisis management strategy
In his contribution, Alex Demirovi? uses the term authoritarian populism coined by Stuart Hall and understands it as a particular form of neoliberal crisis management. Similar to the Thatcherism that Hall had in mind, authoritarian populism in the current period is a policy pursued by parts of the power block. It does not contradict neoliberalism, but continues it by other means. As in the preceding phases of neoliberal politics, it is no longer a matter of hegemony, but of seeking to avoid concessions to the dominated classes.
Dennis Eversberg: A conflict within the empire. Three theses on the relation between authoritarian nationalism and the imperial mode of living. The article analyses the success of authoritarian nationalist party „Alternative für Deutschland“ (AfD). Firstly, it is argued that voting for the AfD was not a ‘displaced’ form of reaction to actual or feared experiences of economic disadvantage or relegation. In fact, the AfD’s voter voted for the party because they support its authoritarian nationalist ideas. Secondly, authoritarian nationalism’s character as a vertical class alliance between parts of the elites on the one and segments of the middle and lower classes on the other hand is highlighted – an alliance that wants to reverse the transformation from post-war organized capitalism to the contemporary flexible capitalist regime. Thirdly, it is argued that the current conflict between “progressive neoliberalism” (Fraser) and authoritarian nationalism takes place on the firm ground of a shared consensus about the imperial mode of living. It is a conflict about the modernization of this mode of living and about how to best defend it. A critique of the global injustices it causes and perpetuates, or credible demands for overcoming it, can only be articulated from a globally solidary position that rejects this bipolar discursive constellation altogether.
The AfD, the working class and the left - no problem?
The AfD, the working class and the left – no problem? The question of how to explain the success of the AfD in Germany and which counter-strategies are appropriate is controversially discussed within the social left. In Germany, two camps have emerged which seem to be irreconcilably opposed. Either the rise of the AfD is explained by the social left’s neglect of social issues and the working class, or it is understood as an expression of racism and prosperity chauvinism in the middle of society or in the entire population. Thomas Sablowski and Günter Thien criticize this viewpoint.
What are the contemporary conditions of Western modern democracies that make a politics of fear so successful at this present moment? In this article, the author analyzes the relationship between politics and fear in order to move beyond a simple instrumentalization thesis. Focusing on two perspectives: the view of state sovereignty and the phenomenon of neurosis, the author argues that the contemporary Western modern politics of fear can be understood as an expression of a crisis of state sovereignty, which becomes apparent in the nation state as well as in a new mode of political subjectivation. It is a ghostly sovereignty that finds both a form and an addressee in a neurotic subject.
Trevor Evans: The economic expansion in the US since 2009 and Donald Trump’s ambitions to ‘drain the swamp
The current economic situation in the United States can be seen as the result of three factors. The first is the long-term shift to a neo-liberal order. The second factor is the US business cycle. Periods of economic expansion in the 1980s, the 1990s and the early 2000s were each brought to an end by increasingly severe crises, the most recent of which in 2007-2009 came perilously close to causing a collapse of the US financial system. The most recent expansion, which began in mid-2009, has been unusually weak, and is already relatively long by comparison with other recent expansions.The third factor is the presidency of Donald Trump which began in January 2017. Despite a populist rhetoric and the dependence of his electoral victory on mobilising white working-class support, in government he has pursued an unashamed series of measures which primarily benefit the very richest sectors of US society.
The recent populist wave that swept Eastern Europe put an end to the illusionary victory of liberal democracy across the region. This applies especially to Poland, the country with the most impressive civil society movement, Solidarnosz, and the frontrunner of radical market reforms. Despite the best economic performance of all post-communist countries, the populist party Law and Justice (PiS) came to power for a second time in 2015, only to impose its reactionary national-catholic model on the media, the law system, and the public sector. The success of PiS cannot be explained by the immanent strength of its populist rhetoric but points to the wilful neglect of its liberal predecessors of regional heterogeneity, precarious working conditions, and sharpened inequalities. While the electorate supports the valid points of PiS’s socio-economic programme, it is not inclined to follow its internally divisive and externally confrontational anti-EU ideology.
On the shoulders of the EU project against the „Status Quo“
The article discusses the rise of authoritarian populism in the context of Turkeys neoliberalisation experience since 1980. For long time, populist politics in Turkey successfully claimed to be the voice of the suppressed against the ruling. In fact, they used an oppositional political language meanwhile processing the material interests of the hegemonic forces. Despite receiving considerable support, particularly from the European public, authoritarian populism fell into an deep crises throughout the recent years – the result is it radicalisation which is often mistakenly debated as the start of populism in Turkey.
1917: Experience and memory. What remains of the Russian Revolution?
In recent times, populism not only is on everyone’s lips, but it has also been contested as scientific term. While some consider recent political developments as a repolitization and response to postdemocracy, others interpret populism as authoritarian and antipluralistic form of politics. However, a closer look reveals that the common term is very often rather obscuring. Scrutinizing the three mayor historic references of the debates on Populism – the Russian Narodniki, the US People´s Party, and the national-popular governments in the 1930-50s in Latin America –, the article reveals that quite contrasting movements have been labeled as populists. Furthermore, different theoretical strands, which described them as such discerned very different aspects as their populist core. After laying out these differences, the articles asks for the explanatory potential of these approaches and discusses the question if there is an intrinsic authoritarianism to populism.
The present issue continues the research of issue 185 on the topic "state of emergency". In recent years, there have been numerous accelerated developments and political crises that have led to authoritarian government practices and contributed to a change in political forces. There is much to suggest that, in this context, the success of parties described as right-wing populist is more than just an expansion of the party spectrum and parliamentary space, but rather a new political regime. The rise of parties and politicians, which are characterized as "right-wing populist" in the prevailing discourse, has been a defining theme in recent years. The concept of right-wing populism refers to that of left-wing populism. Both terms are used pejoratively in the dominant discourse. Right-wing and left-wing populism are regarded as two variants of the same thing. This is based on a scheme that divides the political space into a positively connotated centre and two negatively connotated extremes: Right-wing and left-wing populism are, so to speak, regarded as softened forms of right-wing and left-wing extremism. In other words, right-wing and left-wing populism, according to the prevailing understanding, move precisely at the border between the centre (what is considered normal) and the extremes. They are treated according to the pattern of totalitarian theory. Yet the judgement on populism has already been established before its mode of operation has even been analysed (cf. D'Eramo 2013; Link 2017). From a critical, emancipatory point of view, the equation of right and left forces must be rejected. In addition, the question arises whether parties in which racist, sexist or fascist positions are represented are not played down by labelling them as right-wing populists. It is also distracted from the fact that, for example, the CDU or the BILD-Zeitung have also fallen back on ideological elements that are today classified as right-wing populism; the "bourgeois camp" or the "centre" are thereby exculpated. However, the concept of populism should not be given up hastily.
The regulation of the economic crisis within German capitalism since 2008 seems to follow the basic structures of the so-called „Modell Deutschland”: in industrial relations a corporatist arrangement between capital, state and labour tried to absorb the consequences of the crisis, and the traditional export industry supported the new economic growth since summer 2009. The article analyses the internal and external dynamics of its transition between structural change of the world economy and conditions of political decision-making since its proclamation in 1976. In conclusion today the German „Exportmodell” is no longer based on class compromises in German society on the one hand and on European balances between interests of economic stabilization and modernization on the other hand, but a force that is able to undermine alternative paths of economic development in Europe.
In the past decade, there has been a wave of acquisitions in the German automotive supplier industry by private equity. The financial investors seemed to reorganize the sector but this process was abruptly halted because of the world economic crisis from 2008. A number of companies high above average owned by private equity fell into insolvency and, overall, the power structures in the value chain of the industry remained stable. This is illustrated by means of empirical data of 163 corporate takeovers. The example illustrates that the financial market capitalism is not able to establish a stable production regime yet.
In 2010 the German constitutional court obligated legislative and government to revaluate the rate of welfare payments. Hence a window of opportunity opened for poor people’s movement activists to initiate a broad debate on scarce benefits in the German workfare regime of „Hartz IV” and to promote significantly higher benefits. We discuss the crucial factors of their campaign’s failure such as the weakness of the hardly existing movement of the unemployed, the interests of parties and administration, and the important politico-economic function of „Hartz IV”.
Finanzdominierte Akkumulation und die Krise in Europa
The present crisis in Europe is just one form of a multiple crisis of the social formation dominated by the capitalist mode of production. More specifically it is a crisis of the financedominated regime of accumulation which developed as a response to the crisis of Fordism since the 1980s. In this article, first we analyze the contradictions of the finance-dominated regime of accumulation and the contradictions of the crisis management of the ruling classes.
Corporate Social Responsibility – vom Reputationsmanagement zum politischen Projekt
Luise Görges, Ulf Kadritzke: Corporate Social Responsibility – from Reputation Management to the Strategic Advance of Corporate Power. This history of CSR exemplifies the advancement of corporate power in the process of capitalist globalization. Initially started in response to reports on the violation of human rights, the transnational corporations (TNCs) managed to design the CSR concept as a voluntary and highly selective commitment to bridge the gap between the rhetoric and the reality of corporate conduct. With the worldwide rise of the neoliberal paradigm in economic and social policy, these CSR-concepts were combined into a capital-dominated CSR-complex. The article tries to reconstruct the scientific, political and ideological roots of the concept and the steps transforming the corporate CSR-movement into a successful ‘industry’. But the company-driven CSR is consistently confronted with actors and actions of a new social movement (including NGOs as well as unions). These organizations of civil society steadily uncover the social consequences of corporate global strategies. The so far asymmetric balance of power may nevertheless give NGOs and their allies– backed by the new media – a chance to lay open corporate misconduct and demonstrate the main ‘performance’ of global corporate power: the deepening of class polarization and ecological instability.
Vanessa Redak: Europe’s next model: The impact of risk measurement on finance theory, regulatory practice and industry behaviour. The importance of Finance theory and risk modelling has dramatically increased over the past decades in academic life, banks and the finance industry, and in regulatory and supervisory bodies. This increase not only nurtured the somewhat illusory belief that risk is measurable but also changed the lending behaviour of banks and the funding function of financial intermediaries with potential ample effects on the accumulation process.
Wirtschaft, Wissenschaft und Politik: Die sozialwissenschaftliche Bedingtheit linker Reformpolitik
Leonhard Dobusch, Jakob Kapeller: Economy, Economics and Politics: On the Socioscientific Conditionality of Progressivism. Neoliberal hegemony in politics and neoclassical dominance in economics are closely intertwined. For a comeback of reform-oriented progressivism, which is dependent upon reliable and pluralistic socio-scientific research, overcoming this neoclassical dominance is a conditio sine qua non. Paradigmatic change in economics is, however, unlikely to happen even after neoclassical deficiencies have become obvious in the course of the financial crisis, due to several reciprocally enforcing institutional factors such as career opportunities, disciplinary discourse culture, and citation-based research evaluation. Based on this analysis, we sketch inner- and extradisciplinary avenues for (re-)pluralizing economics as a discipline.
Soziale Proteste in Israel: die Eroberung neuer sozialer Räume
This assay recaps the social struggle in Israel that begun in the summer of 2011. It offers some comparison between praxis and discourse of protest in Israel and some of the other social struggles of 2011. Mainly, this assay captures some of the main coordinates of the social struggle that are unique to the Israeli politico-economic context, namely the effort to constitute a social sphere that is based on economic justice while suppressing the dominant political divide over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For this end I will review those methods of building new common grounds, claims that the protest in Israel was able to disseminate, and its achievements so far.