The Problem of Sovereignty: Nations, Corporations and Power Relations
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Carolina Digital Repository THE PROBLEM OF SOVEREIGNTY: NATIONS, CORPORATIONS AND POWER RELATIONS Andrew Davis A dissertation submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Communication. Chapel Hill 2018 Approved by: Lawrence Grossberg Michael Hardt Christian Lundberg Torin Monahan Michael Palm © 2018 Andrew Davis ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Andrew Davis: The Problem of Sovereignty: Nations, Corporations and Power Relations (Under the direction of Lawrence Grossberg) The contemporary moment is characterized by a multitude of crises, which I argue are the result of the historical transformation of sovereignty. While sovereignty exerts itself through different forms in different socio-historical contexts, it is fundamentally a question of the organization, relations, mechanisms, and operations of power. Within the context of the United States in the 21st century, the question of sovereignty is best addressed in relation to two narratives that are commonly offered to explain this context and its multiple crisis. The first—neoliberalism—understands the current era as being characterized by the reorganization of economic, political and social life to operate according to market forces. The second—fascism—is theorized primarily as an ideology or particular type of political regime, and is often used in popular discourse as a slur against one’s political adversaries, regardless of their actual politics. This dissertation reframes these narratives in order to provide a better understanding of the current moment. Regarding neoliberalism, I turn our attention away from “the market” to the dominance of the business corporation in the organization of social and power relations. The current moment is better understood as the era of corporism—a condition whereby economic, political and social relations are organized according to the sovereignty of the business corporation in relation to the nation-state. This is supported by an iii examination of three institutions/phenomena (i.e. ALEC, DARPA and the Singularity) that indicate the assertion of corporate sovereignty in 21st century America. I then turn to the question of fascism, considering a set of theories that do not usually inform political scholarship in order to demonstrate the continued relevance of understanding the crises we face as a form of fascism, without lapsing into unfounded name-calling. This is supported by a re-examination of ALEC, DARPA and the Singularity, and an examination of the private military and security industry (PMSI), that indicate the fascist character of these forces of corporate sovereignty. By reframing these narratives, I demonstrate the transformation of power relations between the U.S. nation-state and legal form of the business corporation as a crisis in the transformation of sovereign power. iv To two who departed during the writing of this—Stuart Hall and Anthony Bourdain. Your influence looms large, far greater than words can capture. And to one who arrived—my nephew, Christian Andrew Brinkley. May you live healthy, happy, long, and with love. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation would have been absolutely impossible without the influence, guidance, patience and generosity of Larry Grossberg—my advisor, mentor and friend. I also want to acknowledge the enormous impact of Michael Hardt, Chris Lundberg, Torin Monahan, and Mike Palm. Collectively and individually, you push me to be smarter, to work harder, and to constantly rethink what I think I know about the world. A number of friends/collaborators/colleagues—particularly Carey Hardin, Megan Wood, Chris Dahlie, and Adam Rottinghaus—helped me think through and shape the ideas that I grapple with in these pages. Thanks and love go to everyone in the Department of Communication at UNC- CH—faculty, graduate students and staff—as well as the people at the MRC and all of my students (past and present), for creating a wonderful academic home for me for the past seven years. I omit names here only for the sake of brevity. You know who you are and I will acknowledge you in person. The same goes for all of my friends, who helped me remember that there is a world outside my research. Thanks to the Garner family for making me feel at home in North Carolina. Finally (and most importantly), my family—dad, mom, Mary Margaret, Christian, Richard, Monte, Aunt Pat, Uncle Dick—kept me sane in the midst of the crisis that is a Ph.D. program. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: The State of Disunion…………………………………………………………..1 Chapter 1: A Demonstration of Calculations, or, Cultural Studies as Conjunctural Analysis…………………………………………………………………….19 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………..19 Conjuncture as Concept……………………………………………………………...21 Conjunctural Analysis………………………………………………………………..28 A Note on the Role of Theory and Method in Cultural Studies……………………..34 Part I: From Neoliberalism to Corporate Sovereignty……………………………………….37 Chapter 2: Neoliberalism and Its Discontents……………………………………………….38 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………..38 Neoliberalism………………………………………………………………………...39 To Corporism………………………………………………………………………...46 A Corporist History of the United States…………………………………………….51 The Construction of Corporate Sovereignty, 1: The Era of Nation-building…………………………………………………..53 The Construction of Corporate Sovereignty, 2: The Era of Monopoly Capital………………………………………………..61 The Assertion of Corporate Sovereignty, 1: The Era of Conglomeration………………………………………………….66 The Assertion of Corporate Sovereignty, 2: The Era of Corporism………………………………………………………..69 vii Chapter 3: Corporate Sovereignty and Sovereignty…………………………………………74 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………..74 Corporate Sovereignty……………………………………………………………….75 Sovereignty…………………………………………………………………………..83 Signposts of Corporate Sovereignty in the Era of Corporism……………………….87 American Legislative Exchange Council…………………………………….89 Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency………………………………95 The Singularity……………………………………………………………...102 Implications of ALEC, DARPA and the Singularity on Our Understanding of Corporate Sovereignty……………………………………...109 Part II: Fascism……………………………………………………………………………..118 Chapter 4: Aren’t You a Little Short for a Stormtrooper? Or, The Limits of Fascism………………………………………………………………….119 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………119 Fascism and Its (Popular) Discontents……………………………………………...120 The Limits of Political Theory……………………………………………………...124 The Fetishization of Theory and Multiplicity………………………………………138 Chapter 5: A Conjunctural Understanding of Fascism……………………………………..145 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………145 Fascist Forces……………………………………………………………………….147 A Political-economic Account of Fascism…………………………………149 A Technological/Technocratic Account of Fascism………………………..156 A Socio-psychological Account of Fascism………………………………..160 viii Articulations of Fascist Forces in the Corporist Conjuncture………………………169 ALEC (Revisited)…………………………………………………………..170 DARPA (Revisited)………………………………………………………...173 The Singularity (Revisited)…………………………………………………178 Leviathan’s Utopia………………………………………………………………….180 Conclusions: Moving Forward in Failure…………………………………………………..198 Works Cited………………………………………………………………………………...203 ix INTRODUCTION: THE STATE OF DISUNION To suggest that we are in the midst of a crisis seems simultaneously understated yet hackneyed. It can often feel as though we are bearing witness to an unprecedented multiplication and intensification of crises—political, economic, racialized, gendered, ecological, religious—that can only be resolved (or, more accurately, temporarily ameliorated) in an expedient fashion before the next crisis demands attention. In order to understand these crises, we develop narratives about where we are and how we got here; we deploy concepts and theories to make sense of our collective failure to solve our most pressing concerns. In the following pages, I unpack two narratives that are commonly deployed to explain the contemporary moment and its multiple crises. The first of these—neoliberalism—conceptualizes the current era as being broadly characterized by the reorganization and realignment of economic, political and social life to operate according to the workings of the market, with “market” understood as the realm of free, competitive economic activity. I challenge this narrative by arguing that, with a few exceptions, much of the scholarship on neoliberalism does not do enough to account for the role of the corporation, the institution that has had (and continues to have) a dominant role in constructing, shaping and determining economic markets. I argue that the concept of neoliberalism (while useful in many respects) is insufficient for understanding the role of the corporation in the current moment. Following the lead of Carolyn Hardin, I argue that the era commonly referred to as neoliberal is better understood as the era of corporism—a 1 contextually-specific cultural relation between the nation-state and the corporation whereby rights, security and even individual subjectivities are framed primarily in reference to the rights, security and status of the corporation as a legally-recognized person. The second narrative I unpack is that of fascism. While a substantial body of work has been dedicated to theorizing fascism, use of the term fascist in public discourse to account for crises in American political and cultural