Description:
How do governing elites in the global South attempt to remake hegemony in a conjuncture of durable crisis? This is the question at the core of Southern interregnum, a comparative conjunctural analysis of hegemonic projects in Brazil, India, China, and South Africa.
Working with a Gramscian notion of crisis, centred on the interregnum as an enduring period of instability and uncertainty, in which hegemonic authority erodes and competing projects for crisis resolution emerge, the book proposes a novel critical reading of the convulsions that are currently reshaping the political economy of the global South and the world-system.
Mapping the variegated trajectories of elite projects to reconcile accumulation and legitimation - and probing the limits of these projects - the book breaks new ground in the study of the contemporary global South.
Review Quotes:
'Overall, the volume provides a compelling comparative conjunctural analysis of the emerging powers by placing them in the framework of the 'Southern interregnum.' It provides an empirically rich analysis by leading scholars in the field of the contrary and turbulent moment in which governing elites in emerging powers are confronted with complex disjunctures between accumulation and legitimation. The book is therefore required reading for anyone interested in the position of the emerging south countries within the broader global juncture, though the question of whether these domestic crises of accumulation and political legitimacy will necessarily derail the so-called 'rise of the South' remains an open question.'
Kevin Gray, PPE Sydney