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The theme issue ‘Making Space for the New State Capitalism’ brings together insights from critical economic geography and heterodox political economy through a series of papers to be published in three installments, each accompanied by an introductory essay written by the guest editors. In this, the first of these introductory commentaries, we highlight some of the potentially productive ambiguities that accompany the new state capitalism rubric. Subsequent introductory commentaries will consider the consequences of embracing relationality, spatiotemporality and uneven development (along with the second group of papers); and the challenges and opportunities of thinking conjuncturally (with the third group of papers).

The Modern Slavery Act was passed in 2015, ostensibly to tackle exploitation. Despite being promoted for its ‘world-leading’ qualities, the legislation’s weaknesses have, even at this relatively early stage of its implementation, been well documented. This is unsurprising; legislators were aware they were passing a bill that could have had stronger enforcement mechanisms, opting instead for a weaker alternative. This article takes these shortcomings as its starting point to ask who, or what, benefits from the Modern Slavery Act, if not those it is purportedly aimed to help. The response is that the main beneficiaries of the Modern Slavery Act are capitalism, and the Conservative government that created the bill. The Modern Slavery Act operates through the modern slavery discourse that positions unfree forms of labour as aberrations that operate outside of capitalism, and once unfree labour practices have been framed in this way, the capitalist free market is identified not as a causal factor but as the solution. In addition, the Conservative government used the Modern Slavery Act domestically as a counterpoint to its hostile environment policy to soften their image for part of the electorate. When viewed as an artefact of capitalist thinking and state management, it becomes clear that the Modern Slavery Act makes a not insignificant contribution to the legitimacy of both capitalism and the government by conferring upon them a degree of legitimacy as the routes through which the unfree will be liberated.

Aiming to raise the debate and new interpretations, we rehearse a reflection to understand different, apparently, unrelated processes through an articulating effort of current issues, whose theoretical formulation and empirical apprehension still generate confusion. To underline that Brazil is not a particular case, we make some critical remarks on the neoliberalization of life and the social production of space. (a) To clarify the financialization mechanisms, (b) highlight some interactions among financial capital actions, backed by the State, the media, and right-wing political movements, and (c) underline how the persistence of patrimonialism and unconcluded modernity intensify such processes. Events unfolding around the world, changes in the Brazilian political and economic conjuncture, since late 2015, suggest the imperative to consider: a) the character of the capitalist State in the current phase of financialization and accumulation; b) the very meaning of neoliberalism; c) the association of financial capital and the State; d) the societal and sociability crisis established, given the dehumanization of the Other and the potential of financialization transform all elements and aspects of life and social space into financial assets. Resumo Com o objetivo de suscitar o debate e novas interpretações, ensaiamos uma reflexão para compreender diferentes processos, aparentemente não relacionados, através de um esforço de articulação de questões atuais, cuja formulação teórica e apreensão empírica ainda geram confusão. Para sublinhar que o Brasil não é um caso particular, fazemos algumas observações críticas sobre a neoliberalização da vida e a produção social do espaço. (a) Para esclarecer os mecanismos de financeirização, (b) destacar algumas interações entre as ações do capital financeiro, apoiadas pelo Estado, a mídia e os movimentos políticos de direita, e (c) ressaltar como a persistência do patrimonialismo e a modernidade inconclusa intensificam tais processos. Os acontecimentos que se desenrolam no mundo, as mudanças na conjuntura política e econômica brasileira, desde o final de 2015, sugerem o imperativo de considerar: a) o caráter do Estado capitalista na atual fase de financeirização e acumulação; b) o próprio significado do neoliberalismo; c) a associação do capital financeiro e do Estado; d) a crise social e de sociabilidade estabelecida, dada a desumanização do Outro e o potencial da financeirização transformam todos os elementos e aspectos da vida e do espaço social em ativos financeiros. Resumen Con el objetivo de suscitar el debate y nuevas interpretaciones, ensayamos una reflexión para comprender diferentes procesos, aparentemente ajenos, a través de un esfuerzo articulador de temas de actualidad, cuya formulación teórica y aprehensión empírica aún generan confusión. Para subrayar que Brasil no es un caso particular, hacemos algunas observaciones críticas sobre la neoliberalización de la vida y la producción social del espacio. (a) Para aclarar los mecanismos de financiarización, (b) destacar algunas interacciones entre las acciones del capital financiero, respaldadas por el Estado, los medios de comunicación y los movimientos políticos de derecha, y (c) subrayar cómo la persistencia del patrimonialismo y la modernidad inconclusa intensifican tales procesos. Los acontecimientos que se desarrollan en el mundo, los cambios en la coyuntura política y económica brasileña, desde finales de 2015, sugieren el imperativo de considerar: a) el carácter del Estado capitalista en la actual fase de financiarización y acumulación; b) el significado mismo del neoliberalismo; c) la asociación del capital financiero y el Estado; d) la crisis societal y de sociabilidad que se establece, dada la deshumanización del Otro y el potencial de la financiarización de transformar todos los elementos y aspectos de la vida y del espacio social en activos financieros.

The purpose of the article is to explain the creation of the Slovenian debt state and its transformation into a consolidation state after the crisis of 2008. When the crisis struck Slovenia in 2009, the banking system was near collapse. Through the recapitalisations of the banking system the public debt began to grow. After a couple of years and under the structural pressures of rating agencies and pressures from the EU, the Slovenian state had to adopt austerity measures to consolidate its public finances, while limiting the scope of democracy. The main finding of the article is that the crisis of 2008 fundamentally changed the Slovenian state Namen članka je razložiti vzpon slovenske države dolga in njeno preoblikovanje v konsolidirajočo se državo. Ko je leta 2009 kriza zajela Slovenijo, je bil bančni sistem blizu kolapsa. Z dokapitalizacijami bančnega sistema je javni dolg začel rasti. Po nekaj letih in pod strukturnimi pritiski in omejitvami bonitetnih agencij ter pritiski iz EU je morala slovenska država sprejeti varčevalne ukrepe za konsolidacijo javnih financ ter omejiti doseg demokracije. Glavna ugotovitev članka je, da je kriza 2008 v temeljih spremenila slovensko državo

Since the 1980s, agricultural markets have been gradually deregulated. The milk sectors of the main dairy-exporting countries have not been shielded from these changes, which has led to a deeper global integration of dairy markets. However, a historical comparison of policies in the United States, New Zealand, the European Union, and Canada, from both a rural economy and regulationist perspective, reveals that a variety of institutional frameworks exist. For instance, Canada’s dairy sector continues to be highly regulated by public authorities, unlike in the case of New Zealand. Both countries, though, along with the United States, guarantee farmers a minimum share of the added value from processing, contrary to what is practiced in France. Market deregulation in the European Union has also brought about different national forms of competition. Based on the dairy sector, this analysis supports the idea of a great diversity of national forms of state and regulation, adapting to the global capitalist and neo-liberal regime. However, the latter generates major contradictions, disputing the sustainability of each of these forms of national regulation. Depuis les années 1980, les marchés agricoles ont connu une dérégulation progressive. Les secteurs laitiers des principaux pays exportateurs ont été marqués par ces changements, ce qui a conduit à une intégration internationale de leurs marchés bien plus forte. À partir d’une approche en économie rurale et régulationniste, est menée une comparaison historique des politiques laitières aux États-Unis, en Nouvelle-Zélande, dans l’Union européenne et au Canada : celle-ci fait montre d’une grande diversité des dispositifs institutionnels nationaux qui coexistent. Ainsi, le secteur laitier canadien continue d’être fortement régulé par la puissance publique, au contraire de la Nouvelle-Zélande. Dans ces deux pays, cependant, et à l’instar des États-Unis, les agriculteurs se voient garantir une part minimale de la valeur ajoutée produite jusqu’au stade de la transformation, contrairement à ce qui est pratiqué en France. La dérégulation des marchés dans l’Union européenne a également conduit à des formes de concurrence très diverses en fonction des États-membres. À partir du secteur laitier, cette analyse soutient l’idée d’une grande diversité de forme d’État et de régulation nationale, s’adaptant au régime global capitaliste et néolibéral. Celui-ci engendre néanmoins des contradictions majeures, mettant en cause la durabilité de chacune de ces formes de régulation nationale. Desde los años 1980 los mercados agrícolas han conocido una progresiva desregulación. Los sectores de lechería de los principles países exportadores estuvieron marcados por estos cambios lo que ha conducido a una mayor integración internacional de sus mercados. A partir de un enfoque de la economía rural regulacionista, se llevó a cabo una comparación histórica de las políticas lecheras en los Esados Unidos, Nueva Zelandia, la Unión Europea y Canadá, que ha puesto de manifiesto una gran diversidad de dispositivos institucionales que coexisten. De esa manera el sector lechero canadiense continúa estando fuertemente regulado por el poder público, contrariamente a Nueva Zelandia. En esos dos países, sin embargo, y como sucede en Estados Unidos, los agricultores tienen la garantía de una parte mínima del valor agregado producido hasta el momento de la transformación, contrariamene a lo que se ha practicado en Francia. La desregulación de los mercados en la Unión Europea condujo igualmente hacia formas de competencia muy diversas en función de los Estados miembros. A partir del sector lechero, este análisis sostiene la idea de que hay una gran diversidad de formas Estado y de regulación nacional, adaptándose al régimen global capitalista y neoliberal. Este engendra sin embargo grandes contradicciones, que ponen en cuestión la durabilidad de cada una de esas formas de regulación nacional.

textabstractThis article develops and defends a triadic account of structural domination, according to which structural domination (e.g. patriarchy, white supremacy, capitalism) is a triadic relation between dominator(s), dominated, and regulator(s)—the constitutive domination dyad plus those roles and norms expressively upholding it. The article elaborates on the relationship between structure and agency from the perspective of both oppressor and oppressed and discusses the deduction of the concept of the capitalist state from the concept of capitalism. On the basis of these definitions, it shows that structural domination under capitalism presupposes collective power but no joint agency or shared intentions on the part of the dominators.

For in excess of 30 years climate change mitigation in New Zealand has stalled over the country’s chief source of emissions: biogenic methane emissions from livestock. This thesis argues that this stasis, and the international condemnation it has provoked, is a key for unlocking a critique of New Zealand’s political economy which extends New Zealand’s scholarship by situating the climate crisis as a crisis of capitalism. This form of crisis derives from the contradiction between capital’s requirement for ongoing expansion, and the ability of its conditions of production (and humanity’s conditions of reproduction) to absorb the corresponding increasing demands on regenerative capabilities. An associated theory of change for achieving meaningful action on climate change can thus be oriented around uniting labour, social and environmental movements in the struggle for democratic, collective control over the conditions of (re)production. The analysis presented here advances ecosocialist scholarship by centring a theorisation of the state as a, if not the, key terrain of struggle over the conditions of (re)production in this conjuncture. The thesis anchors this theoretical exploration in concrete historical analysis of New Zealand’s political economic development since colonisation to the contemporary moment, providing what Cindi Katz terms a ‘countertopography’ oriented around class struggle for socio-ecological reproduction in-against-and beyond the capital relation, as crystallised in the state form over time. In doing so, the thesis aims to fortify and extend a theoretical framework which is of use to the labour, environmental and social movements it considers. Meaningful action on climate change is here unable to be divorced from meaningful action addressing the root cause of social and environmental crisis tendencies in capitalism.

The capitalist state is the indispensable power of a free labor economy. Its class character is not founded on a national basis. Rather it is founded on the world market relations of capitalist wealth and includes a history of suffering. This article scrutinizes ordoliberalism as a veritable statement about the character of capitalist society and its state. In the contemporary debate about the ordoliberalization of Europe, the ordoliberal argument about capitalist labor economy as a practice of government is put aside and instead it is identified with a certain ‘German’ preference for austerity and seemingly also technocratic governance, undermining the European democracies and leading to calls for the resurgence of the national democratic state that governs for the many. In this argument illusion dominates reality. In distinction, the argument attempted here scrutinizes the role of the member states in monetary union as executive states of the bond that unites them. Monetary union strengthens the member states as ‘planners for competition’ and is entirely dependent upon their capacity to govern accordingly.

The relevance of work is caused by importance of correlation of the legal methods established by the power and the economic maintenance of the adjustable relations. In article the general approaches to legal regulation of economy, on the one hand, and to the economic analysis of law – with another are analyzed. The author argues the point of view according to which the correlation "law and economy" and differentiation of the economic analysis of continental and common law is necessary. Arguments in support of the centralized legal regulation and economic management of economy are adduced. Further author's main characteristics "the economic analysis of law" in the changing state of the Russian Federation, since 1990 are granted. In the most general sense methodological and ideological bases of approach to definition of legal regulation of economic management in the socialist and capitalist state are defined. According to the author, capitalism is also the deadlock direction of economic development. The approach existing in an economics represents attempt to extend phenomena of the neoclassical economic theory and neo institutionalism to the spheres of the public relations which are not connected with economy (i.e. economic approach to all social problems). Demand is not exclusively economic category, it extends also to the sphere of the right which is estimated also on availability, the price, alternative costs, usefulness. The author proves need of the researches covering boundary subject of law and economy. Arguments in support of this point of view are adduced. The conclusion is in conclusion drawn that need of researches on a joint of the right and economy is obvious now, and it concerns not only legal, but also equally economic science. At the same time interaction of sciences has to be carried out as equals, and amendments have to concern both fields of knowledge. In this regard researches "the rights and economies" can become one of the most perspective directions of development within both law, and economy.

This paper is an attempt to evaluate Nicos Poulantzas's theory of (capitalist) state based on the general characteristics of his conceptual framework. Poulantzas is a pre-eminent figure in the state theory not only due to the debates that he participated or that are drawn upon his position, but mainly due to the key theoretical means that his framework provides for analysing capitalist state, considering the developmental line of his complicated works. In this sense, this paper shares the view that Poulantzas's works do involve certain features of a relational, a non-reductionist theory of state which provide essential means to grasp the capitalist state with its different types., Bu çalışma, Nicos Poulantzas’ın (kapitalist) devlet teorisini, kavramsal çerçevesinin temel niteliklerini izleyerek değerlendirme çabasıdır. Poulantzas, yalnızca katıldığı veya onun üzerine yürütülmüş olan tartışmalar nedeniyle değil, aynı zamanda ve özellikle, sunduğu çerçevenin kapitalist devletin analizi için sağladığı kavramsal araçlar nedeniyle de devlet teorisinin en önde gelen isimlerinden biridir. Bu bağlamda, bu çalışma Poulantzas’ın kuramının, indirgemeci olmayan, ilişkisel bir devlet teorisinin temel özelliklerini bünyesinde bulundurduğu ve bu yönüyle, kapitalist devlet türlerini kavramak için önemli araçlar sunduğu fikrini paylaşmaktadır.

Artykuł dotyczy przekształceń i modyfikacji dziedzictwa architektonicznego w Polsce po roku 1989. Upadek żelaznej kurtyny wyznaczał początek procesu transformacji ustrojowej prowadzącej od państwa socjalistycznego będącego częścią bloku sowieckiego do państwa kapitalistycznego, funkcjonującego w strukturach Unii Europejskiej. Wdrażanie instytucji i procedur demokratycznych, a także tworzenie wolnego rynku opartego na własności prywatnej stworzyło warunki dla głębokich przemian cywilizacyjnych, które z kolei doprowadziły do znaczących przeobrażeń tradycyjnego krajobrazu kulturowego. Proces kształtowania społeczeństwa pluralistycznego sprzyjał także rozwojowi nowych koncepcji i postaw w sferze dziedzictwa. Jednakże nie wszystkie z nich mają swe źródło w zjawisku, które Pierre Nora określił mianem „eksplozji pamięci”. Praktyki społeczne dotyczące dziedzictwa architektonicznego w niemałym stopniu były również kształtowane przez działania z zakresu polityki kulturalnej państwa. Wraz z pogłębianiem współpracy międzynarodowej i postępem procesów integracyjnych ze strukturami Unii Europejskiej, twórcy tej polityki w coraz szerszym zakresie sięgali do idei i rozwiązań wynikających z doświadczeń rozwiniętych krajów Zachodu. Na ewolucję założeń polityki dziedzictwa realizowanej w omawianym okresie duży wpływ miały także ekonomiczne interpretacje kultury, a zwłaszcza koncepcja kapitału kulturowego jako zasobu wartości kulturowych. Podstawowym celem artykułu jest ukazanie przemian, jakim we współczesnej Polsce ulegają kryteria oceny wartości zabytków. O dynamice tego zjawiska świadczy skala przeobrażeń, którym uległy relikty dawnej architektury w ostatnich dwóch dziesięcioleciach. Artykuł opisuje różne przykłady kontrowersyjnego wykorzystania dziedzictwa budowlanego i analizuje uwarunkowaniami tych rozwiązań, w których autentyczność doświadczeń odbiorców stawiano wyżej niż autentyczność materialnego reliktu przeszłości. This paper concerns post-1989 changes and modifications of Polish built heritage. For Poland, the year of the fall of the Iron Curtain marked the beginning of political and economic transformation: a transition from a socialist state and a member of the Soviet Bloc to a capitalist state integrated with the European Union. The implementation of democratic institutions and procedures, and the rise of free-market economy based on private property, has nurtured profound changes in the standard of living, which in turn triggered significant transformations of the traditional cultural landscape. Along with the development of pluralistic society, new ideas and approaches arose in the heritage sphere. The phenomenon described by Pierre Nora as "the explosion of memory" contributed to these changes, but was by no means their only source. The heritage practices were also shaped by the cultural policy of the state. As international cooperation was deepening, and the integration with the European Union was progressing, the makers of this policy increasingly drew on the ideas and solutions stemming from the experiences of the developed countries of the West. The heritage policy of the period was also influenced by the economic interpretations of culture, especially the idea of cultural capital, understood as an asset of cultural values. The primary objective of this article is to present the changes that the criteria of evaluation of monuments have been undergoing in contemporary Poland. The process is tremendously dynamic, which becomes apparent when one considers the widespread, grand-scale changes to the relics of old architecture in the last two decades. This paper describes examples of controversial uses of built heritage and details the circumstances behind a number of particular cases when the authenticity of visitors’ experience was chosen over the authenticity of a material relic of the past

Optimistic commentators welcome ‘the rise of the South’ as a phenomenon that will transform geopolitical architectures and development thought. This essay situates this alleged rise and ‘South–Sout...

The full-text of this book chapter is not available in ORA. Citation: Clark, G. L. & Dear, M. (1981). The state in capitalism and the capitalist state. In: Dear, M. & Scott, A. J. (eds.), Urbanization and urban planning in capitalist society, Meuthen: London, pp. 45-62.

Progressive education, with its purpose of educating young people to become democratic citizens, has influenced the Swedish educational system for many years. Critical voices have been raised, claiming that progressive education has diminished Swedish pupils’ results. Since 2011, when entrepreneurship as a concept and as a pedagogical approach was instituted in Swedish curricula, the debate has emerged again. In this case, however, the problem was with the pedagogical ideas of the entrepreneurship in school. Critical voices claim that entrepreneurship is a part of the neoliberal agenda and that the language of progressive education has been appropriated and misused in order to create productive citizens who will maintain the capitalist state. This article is written from the perspective of pupils in an upper secondary school, illuminating and problematizing the sense in which the entrepreneurship in school can be said to be progressive in the spirit of John Dewey. The result shows that the entrepreneurship in school contains many similarities with the ideas of progressive education, especially in the way that pupils work and take part in activities. However, the lack of pupils who talk about learning to improve future society or to develop democracy is obvious. Thus, even if working methods seem to be equal, the overall educational goals are different. The goal of entrepreneurship in school is to educate young people to become independent, innovative individuals but in that education mission, there is a risk that democratic values are neglected.

The Nigerian military class turned into Bourgeoisie class has credibility problems in the Nigerian state and politics. The paper interrogates their metamorphosis and masquerading character as ploy to delay the people-oriented revolution. The just-concluded PDP party primaries and secondary elections are evidence that demands a verdict. By way of qualitative analysis of relevant secondary sources, predicated on the Marxian political approach, the paper posits that the capitalist palliatives to block the Nigerian people from freeing themselves from the shackles of poverty will soon be a thing of the past. It is our argument that this situation eft unchecked would create problem for Nigeria’s nascent democracy which is not allowed to go through normal party polity and electoral process. The argument of this paper is that the on-going recycling of the Nigerian military class into a bourgeois class as messiahs has a huge possibility for revolution. The paper recommends that a more holistic approach to governing the Nigerian state should be contemplated. This paper, though descriptive survey, highlighted some of the dangerous manoeuvres of People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the last 16 years, especially under President Jonathan who failed to take decisive steps where and when he needed to.Key words: Bourgeois class, masquerading, credibility, revolution

IntroductionFour recent books on competition and crisis in the 20th century have contributed to renewed interest in Marxist theory and stimulated wide-ranging and vigorous debate. Harvey (2003) and Callinicos (2009) review and seek to reformulate Marxist approaches to imperialism, while Brenner (2006) and Desai (2013) provide detailed accounts of global capital accumulation, competition and crisis during the post-war period. While central to all four books, the nature and role of the capitalist state is not theorised systematically, partly because, as Callinicos (2009) observes, "[t]he Marxist theory of the state is a minefield in which many unresolved problems and unfinished debates lurk" (73). These four authors nevertheless identify mechanisms relating to accumulation, competition and the interstate system which are of central importance to state theory.Marxists must arguably return to this "minefield," as the development of a satisfactory theory of the state is essential to the wider development of Marxist theory. The question of the capitalist state cuts across numerous debates, from economic crisis and welfare systems to political corruption and industrial struggle. The aporias of Marxist state theory have left a trail of unresolved issues; conversely, a renewed effort to clarify these can make a valuable contribution to ongoing debates about capitalism, international relations and geopolitical economy.One of the principal challenges when theorising the state is that the latter must be situated within a complex set of relationships involving accumulation and competition that are articulated across different levels of the social order. As Harvey (2006, xxix) observes, "It is both a virtue and difficulty in Marx that everything relates to everything else. It is impossible to work on one 'empty box' without simultaneously working on all other aspects of the theory." I argue that the state should be theorised in relation to multiple determinations within a stratified social ontology, characterised by emergence and complexity (Bhaskar 1998; Callinicos 2009, 32; Marx 1973, 100-101). This implies that it is not possible to theorise the state in relation to a single mechanism, process or relationship. The challenge is thus to integrate these determinations within broader Marxist theory, maintaining a coherent account of competition, crisis and the state at the national and international levels.The four books discussed here were chosen for a number of reasons. Firstly, while each author accords a central role to the capitalist state, there are striking gaps in their theoretical treatment of this topic. Two of the books provide concrete historical analyses (Brenner and Desai), while the other two (Harvey and Callinicos) provide a more abstract theoretical treatment of Marxist theories of competition, crisis and imperialism. As I will show, all four offer a strategic vantage point for theorising the state, as they emphasise the dimension of the international, which has often been ignored in Marxist state theory (Barker 1978), but is arguably of crucial importance.I will begin by outlining how the authors approach the state and theorise its role, highlighting any difficulties or lacunae in relation to this aspect of their analysis. I will then describe three determinations which together can make a useful contribution to explaining state decision making and help to define the limits to this process. Once developed in an appropriate manner, I believe that these determinations can yield a powerful account, grounding a distinctively Marxist theoretical approach to the capitalist state.Competition and the State: Brenner and the Long DownturnRobert Brenner's work on the causes and consequences of economic crisis during the post-war period has been widely discussed (Clarke 1999; Dumenil, Glick, and Levy 2001). This discussion has centred on his approach to economics and the role he assigns to overproduction in explaining the "long downturn" in capital accumulation since the 1960s, while his treatment of the capitalist state has not been analysed in detail. …

Theorizing the relationship between migration and politics continues to be a haphazard and fragmented affair, both in Europe and beyond. This chapter therefore attempts to establish a common research perspective for one of its subfields, the political regulation of immigration. The first goal is to reinterpret the existing literature by identifying three paradigmatic turns (statist, scalar, semiotic) which crisscross separate schools of thought. Secondly, the chapter acknowledges that possible tensions between the respective turns exist. Therefore it proposes to integrate them drawing on a grand theory. In this vain, cultural political economy (CPE) is advanced to provide a sound ontological framework which can guide future research on social transformations and their impact on migration. Following from this, the chapter lastly shows that CPE uncovers the economic dimension of immigration as a thematic blind spot. However, it rearticulates immigration regulation by embedding it in a broader material-constructivist perspective on the capitalist state.

I am an archaeologist. A long time ago, I studied the Sassanian dynasty of Persia (modern Iran), under Dr Bivar at the School of Oriental and African Studies. The opportunity for fieldwork never arose for socio-political reasons. For a number of years, I have worked closely with serving military personnel, dealing with military archaeology, (the archaeology of military sites and personnel) in Britain, Belgium and France, and with Ministry of Defence (MoD) archaeologists who work with the military on training ranges in Britain. I was actively involved in political debate prior to the invasion of Iraq, being at the time a Labour party officer in the constituency of a cabinet minister. I was then, and remain now, opposed to the invasion of Iraq, in itself and as part of the ‘War on Terror’. I organised a session at the 2008 World Archaeological Congress (WAC) in Dublin entitled “Working with the Military: Not Evil, Just Necessary” which contained papers by US and Dutch military archaeologists, UK MoD personnel, a lawyer, and myself. This session ran despite massive opposition from those elements within WAC who refuse any dialog with the military. It also had the dubious privilege of close police protection after the police received “credible threats of disruption” (pers. comm. C. Smith). The British military is a legitimate arm of a western capitalist state. If we are to take a moral stance on working with the military we must also do the same in relation to the police (forensic work), the education system, and ultimately any source of funding derived from capitalist organisations rather than from open public collection. The fact that we do not is an indication of pragmatism. There are archaeologists who refuse/oppose all these things, though largely they remain employed by and within the education system. If we are to single out the military for our boycott, then we should apply that boycott at all locations where archaeology and the army intersect. All army training ranges were used in the preparation for the invasion of Iraq, and they support the continued occupation. A refusal to work with the army in Iraq should be accompanied, inter alia, by a refusal to work with them on Salisbury Plain, and on the Otterburn ranges in Northum

This paper is an attempt to fill an important gap in the existing literature on trade unions by providing a more adequate theoretical formulation of trade union environments. The discussion suggests that unlike the environment of business and related organisations whose causal texture isunderstood in terms of uncertainty, complexity, instability and turbulence that of trade unions needs to be understood in terms of hostility. In the capitalist state, environmental hostility denotes the existence of a set of subjective and objective barrier conditions that are consciously erected and sustained for the purpose of limiting labour’s self-conscious and self-liberating understanding and actions. These barrier conditions vary in range, density, and scope. Different combinations of levels of density, range and scope of barrier conditions lead to different levels of hostility in the environment which may range from the mildly hostile, through the hostile to the deeply hostile. The discussion also attempts to indicate theset of conditions that lead to the existence of one rather than another type of trade union environment and the implications that these should have for trade union action.