States, Markets & Civil Societies

We have talked a lot in these past two weeks about the role of state authority and the dynamic of that relationship with the private authority of corporations. As Mike mentioned, class was really helpful in talking about the concepts Jackson introduced, the way states exert control over corporations. I also really thought it was helpful when Jason talked to us about the triangle relationship among states, markets, and civil societies. I thought it would be interesting to use this discussion to relate to a modern case study.

Here is the article I refer to below: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/07/16/us_sanctions_russian_banks_and_energy_companies

The news reported yesterday that Obama has issued strong sanctions against Russia in an attempt to pressure Moscow out of the Ukraine conflict. This is an interesting relationship because you have three states – Russia, Ukraine, and the United States-, open markets in Europe, markets with China, and US markets – and the civil societies of these states and neighboring countries. In this particular example we see the US, a state, trying to pressure another state to act in a particular way. These sanctions, however, may not have the effect the US hopes for because there are multiple markets that still remain open to Russian firms, even if the US markets don’t. The article also notes that Russia and China developed an international development bank to avoid the Western dominance in the international financial system. We can observe that states are working with other states to leverage the markets in their favor and avoid the state repercussions that could be felt on their civil societies. These sanctions have the potential to negatively affect Russian corporations (named specifically were energy and finance firms) and this is another way states can leverage corporations. If these sanctions result in being too expensive for the corporations, this may affect the other markets they interact in as well as the civil society affected by those corporations. These are just some of the ways in which we can observe the states, markets, and civil societies leveraging each other in a modern case.

In a complex case, with multiple states, markets, and civil societies, it is interesting to observe how all of these have the ability to leverage one another on the international stage.