Antecedents of Resistance: Populism and the Possibilities for Democratic Globalizations

This essay theorizes globalization as not new, but rather a new iteration of the ongoing liberal dialectic between capitalism and democracy now writ large on the entire world. Using theoretical insights from Polanyi's analysis of the rise and fall of laissez-faire in the 19th century from his classic, The Great Transformation, we argue that the "double movement" of the late-19th century is parallel to the expansion and of resistance to neoliberalism today. The argument of this essay is that globalization is the current outcome of liberal institutional development. Too often it has been viewed as a structural inevitability not amenable to democratic action. Just as in previous historical moments, capitalism and democracy enable and constrain one another in developing liberal societies. The American Populists farmers' response to their time is an instructive frame through which to interpret the development of the resistance to the current incarnation of economic liberalization.