Exclusion and the global political economy: From critique to rethinking

This thesis is about exclusion in the neoliberal global economy. It takes as its starting point the picture of the world painted by Gramscian, feminist and postcolonialist theories of global politics. Each of these critical theories of international relations seeks to reveal and explain how neoliberalism affects workers, women, and postcolonial peoples. Each also argues that the current world order is not inevitable. It is the product of decisions made by specific actors pursuing specific objectives, and it is questioned and resisted by other actors who experience it as an imposition and a series of limitations on their own desire to shape their lives.; The thesis accepts this contention, but it maintains that critical theories suffer from two limitations. First, they are developed by starting from the lives of discrete actors and represent only those actors' experience and understanding of world politics. Secondly, these theories are associated with political projects that answer their actors' primary concerns without necessarily taking into account others'. The result is the risk of substituting one exclusionary order---the one they all critique---for another. It is the contention of this thesis that from a theoretical and normative point of view, it is necessary to draw on different criticisms of global order to account for exclusion in its various forms and to minimise or eliminate it through a transformation of world order.; Using the psychology literature on empathy, the thesis shows that human beings have the capacity to develop an awareness of, and an appreciation for, one another's suffering, but that this capacity is diminished by dominant ways of representing some categories of people. By looking at those who are excluded by neoliberalism and how they have reacted to it with global protests that have been taking place since the 1990s, we can see how many critics of neoliberalism have become more sensitive to the way globalization affects not only themselves but others far away. We can also see that they have made a conscious effort to understand others and associate them in the process of rethinking globalization on more inclusive terms.