Author: Sharon Hartles (2017)
Notions of free market principles such as: globalisation, capitalism and neo-liberalism, together with state and corporate 'power' relations influence state power. The power relations between states and corporations construct and maintain crime and justice systems to protect certain interests such as the institutions of the state and corporations and their representatives over others such as populations, non-human species and the environment. Power in this context is the constraint of behaviours, actions and events emanating from unequal social relations and structures of dominance and subordination which are exercised coercively or through consensus. Power relations between states and corporations must be studied in situ, or the practices which make up societies and is best explained through a political economic approach because it places power relations within economic, political, cultural and social discourse, is time and place specific and illustrates prevailing modes of thought and dominant value systems (Tombs, 2008).
A European approach,is believed to have been adopted and implemented through agreed policies between European countries because it stimulates economic progress and world trade, which reconstructed and maintains peace evidencing why free market trade principles are thought to underpin social stability (and have done so since the late 1940s after World War II) (OECD, 2017). The theory of free market trade principles illuminates a series of intertwining concepts including: globalisation, capitalism, and neo-liberalism but to list a few. Globalisation is an ongoing process integrating shifts of economic, political, cultural and social phenomena interceding in national, international (interactions between different countries), transnational (cutting across more than shared boundary of two nation-states) and supranational (global, inclusive of international/transnational) terrains for the purpose of informing one global system. Capitalism is an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, such as corporations rather than by the state and finally neo-liberalism is an economic and political doctrine that priorities free market forces, privatisation, deregulation and emphasises minimal state intervention.
From a political and economic viewpoint these principle factors underpin state and corporate power relations and influence the way in which state power to criminalise harms perpetrated by corporations is shaped. Corporate representatives actively and directly sway the enactment of legislation, regulatory policy, standards set, obscuring and moving certain issues off political agendas (Luke, 1994). Corporate representatives' therefore work overtly and covertly within state governments on local and global levels (Barker et al., 1999). The concepts of white collar crime and networks of elites evidences how powerful businesses/organisations such as corporations and states routinely commit crimes aided by the preserve of the powerful. Corporate representatives and state representatives implement and administer black letter law, known as, standard elements or principles of law and their 'offences' are processed as regulatory violations rather than crimes (Sutherland, 1945). It is clear to see why criminal laws, within Western nation states reflect the interests, ideology and cultural worldviews of particular powerful groups (Box, 1983).
Sutherland's expanded definitions take account of regulatory offences and recognise criminal behaviours across the social spectrum rather than focusing on criminal behaviour restricted by the traditional gaze on the working classes. Reiman's (2007) text The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison advocates the label of crime, defined as a violation of black letter law, and the status of crime conferred and ascribed onto acts within a nation state or jurisdiction, which are prohibited by the enactment of criminal laws is reserved for the dangerous actions of the poor. State and corporate representatives construct crime and justice making notable why these concepts are problematic and why 'A conception of crime without a conception of power is meaningless'(Muncie, 2001, quoted in Muncie et al., 2010, p. 31).
State-corporate crime or corporations and states intercede to produce social harm, corporations have the power to shape state law in the context of globalisation (Kramer et al, (2002). State-corporate crime sheds light on how states and corporations are able to: exert political power, manifest the ability to keep some criminal acts out of public view by means of denial and economic power, and conceal criminal acts within the complexities of business law and self-regulatory procedures for their joint mutual benefit.
References
Kramer., R. Michalowski., D and Kauzlarich., D (2002) 'The Origins and Development of the Concept and Theory of State-Corporate Crime' [Online] Available at
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.515.7792&rep=rep1&type=pdf (Accessed 9th April 2017)
Muncie, J., Talbot, D., and Walters, R. (2010) ‘Interrogating crime' pp. 1 – pp. 36 in Muncie, J., Talbot, D. and Walters, R. (eds) (2010). Crime: Local and Global Cullompton Willan Publishing
OECD. (2016) 'BETTER POLICIES FOR BETTER LIVES' 'History' [Online] Available at
http://www.oecd.org/about/history/ (Accessed 15th April 2017)
Tombs, S. (2008) ‘A political economy of corporate killing’, Criminal Justice Matters, vol. 70, no. 1, pp. 29–30. [Online] (Accessed 2nd April 2017)
________________________________________________________________________________
Please cite this article as:
Hartles, S (2017) What factors influence state power? [Online] Available at https://sharonhartles.weebly.com/what-factors-influence-state-power.html (Accessed)
ATTRIBUTION
All works are Open Access articles distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original works are properly cited.
© Sharon Hartles 2022.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Notions of free market principles such as: globalisation, capitalism and neo-liberalism, together with state and corporate 'power' relations influence state power. The power relations between states and corporations construct and maintain crime and justice systems to protect certain interests such as the institutions of the state and corporations and their representatives over others such as populations, non-human species and the environment. Power in this context is the constraint of behaviours, actions and events emanating from unequal social relations and structures of dominance and subordination which are exercised coercively or through consensus. Power relations between states and corporations must be studied in situ, or the practices which make up societies and is best explained through a political economic approach because it places power relations within economic, political, cultural and social discourse, is time and place specific and illustrates prevailing modes of thought and dominant value systems (Tombs, 2008).
A European approach,is believed to have been adopted and implemented through agreed policies between European countries because it stimulates economic progress and world trade, which reconstructed and maintains peace evidencing why free market trade principles are thought to underpin social stability (and have done so since the late 1940s after World War II) (OECD, 2017). The theory of free market trade principles illuminates a series of intertwining concepts including: globalisation, capitalism, and neo-liberalism but to list a few. Globalisation is an ongoing process integrating shifts of economic, political, cultural and social phenomena interceding in national, international (interactions between different countries), transnational (cutting across more than shared boundary of two nation-states) and supranational (global, inclusive of international/transnational) terrains for the purpose of informing one global system. Capitalism is an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, such as corporations rather than by the state and finally neo-liberalism is an economic and political doctrine that priorities free market forces, privatisation, deregulation and emphasises minimal state intervention.
From a political and economic viewpoint these principle factors underpin state and corporate power relations and influence the way in which state power to criminalise harms perpetrated by corporations is shaped. Corporate representatives actively and directly sway the enactment of legislation, regulatory policy, standards set, obscuring and moving certain issues off political agendas (Luke, 1994). Corporate representatives' therefore work overtly and covertly within state governments on local and global levels (Barker et al., 1999). The concepts of white collar crime and networks of elites evidences how powerful businesses/organisations such as corporations and states routinely commit crimes aided by the preserve of the powerful. Corporate representatives and state representatives implement and administer black letter law, known as, standard elements or principles of law and their 'offences' are processed as regulatory violations rather than crimes (Sutherland, 1945). It is clear to see why criminal laws, within Western nation states reflect the interests, ideology and cultural worldviews of particular powerful groups (Box, 1983).
Sutherland's expanded definitions take account of regulatory offences and recognise criminal behaviours across the social spectrum rather than focusing on criminal behaviour restricted by the traditional gaze on the working classes. Reiman's (2007) text The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison advocates the label of crime, defined as a violation of black letter law, and the status of crime conferred and ascribed onto acts within a nation state or jurisdiction, which are prohibited by the enactment of criminal laws is reserved for the dangerous actions of the poor. State and corporate representatives construct crime and justice making notable why these concepts are problematic and why 'A conception of crime without a conception of power is meaningless'(Muncie, 2001, quoted in Muncie et al., 2010, p. 31).
State-corporate crime or corporations and states intercede to produce social harm, corporations have the power to shape state law in the context of globalisation (Kramer et al, (2002). State-corporate crime sheds light on how states and corporations are able to: exert political power, manifest the ability to keep some criminal acts out of public view by means of denial and economic power, and conceal criminal acts within the complexities of business law and self-regulatory procedures for their joint mutual benefit.
References
Kramer., R. Michalowski., D and Kauzlarich., D (2002) 'The Origins and Development of the Concept and Theory of State-Corporate Crime' [Online] Available at
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.515.7792&rep=rep1&type=pdf (Accessed 9th April 2017)
Muncie, J., Talbot, D., and Walters, R. (2010) ‘Interrogating crime' pp. 1 – pp. 36 in Muncie, J., Talbot, D. and Walters, R. (eds) (2010). Crime: Local and Global Cullompton Willan Publishing
OECD. (2016) 'BETTER POLICIES FOR BETTER LIVES' 'History' [Online] Available at
http://www.oecd.org/about/history/ (Accessed 15th April 2017)
Tombs, S. (2008) ‘A political economy of corporate killing’, Criminal Justice Matters, vol. 70, no. 1, pp. 29–30. [Online] (Accessed 2nd April 2017)
________________________________________________________________________________
Please cite this article as:
Hartles, S (2017) What factors influence state power? [Online] Available at https://sharonhartles.weebly.com/what-factors-influence-state-power.html (Accessed)
ATTRIBUTION
All works are Open Access articles distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original works are properly cited.
© Sharon Hartles 2022.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________