| Editors | Ezgi Pınar, Gökhan Demir, Hülya Kendir |
| Publication Secretary | Ümit Özger |
| Issue Editors | İhsan Ercan Sadi, M. Gürsan Şenalp |
In This Issue: War at Our Doorstep: Fascism, Imperialism, and Geopolitics in the 21st Century
Global Capitalism, Israeli Colonialism, and the Palestinian Resistance Against Apartheid
William I. Robinson, M. Gürsan Şenalp ve Hoai-An Nguyen
The discussion in this article stems from the idea that there is a pressing need for analyses that address the genocide in Palestine – beyond the victimhood frameworks of identitarian politics – within the context of the present-day functioning of global capitalism, the structural dimensions of state violence, and the possibilities of collective resistance. The question the article seeks to answer is this: Why has the violence of colonial settlement, waves of ethnic cleansing, and apartheid imposed on Palestinians for seventy-five years now escalated into genocide? In this context, we argue, first, that what is happening in Gaza cannot be understood in isolation from the deep crises of global capitalism, which even transnational capitalist elites cannot remain indifferent to. Israel’s policy of annihilation towards Gaza is, in one sense, part of the ethno-nationalist struggle waged by the “Jewish state” against elements it perceives as threats to its own existence. However, in another sense, this new form of violence, positioned at the center of global geopolitical restructuring, should be seen as a real-time “alarm bell” for the millions who are being increasingly pushed into the ranks of the “surplus-humanity.” Big tech monopolies have secured a central position within the military-industrial-academic-security complex, creating new profit areas through AI-based surveillance systems, algorithmic data processing techniques, and urban warfare/destruction practices. This process is consistent with both militarized accumulation and accumulation by repression dynamics; for while mass surveillance and control mechanisms are being built on a global scale, urban spaces are being transformed into arenas of capital accumulation through direct violence.
Keywords: Global Capitalism, Militarized Accumulation, Genocide, Israel, Palestine
Dialectics of the Anthropocene: Extractivist Green Transition, Geopolitics, and the Class Struggle
Yelda Erçandırlı
In this study, I develop the concept of the dialectic of the Anthropocene and argue that the so-called green transition, though framed as a response to ecological devastation, in fact functions as a capitalist class project designed to sustain capital accumulation. Drawing on a historical materialist understanding of the nature-society relation, I analyze the structure of the green transition as one grounded in imperialist extractivism and examine its points of intersection with contemporary forms of class struggle. I conceptualize the Anthropocene not as the generalized result of human activity, but as a historical crisis moment produced by the relations of domination that capitalist modes of production have established with nature. This moment contains contradictions that hold the potential to transform the social system from which it emerged—but only through collective political praxis. Rather than marking a radical rupture in energy regimes, the green transition should be understood as a reconfiguration of accumulation strategies by capitalist states, aimed at securing imperial interests under the rubric of ecological modernization and climate securitization. Within this framework, war functions as a structural mechanism that facilitates the appropriation of nature and the spatial domination of capital, providing the geopolitical infrastructure of the green transition. The dialectic of the Anthropocene, as developed here, offers a theoretical framework for interpreting the ecological crisis in terms of class antagonisms and positions class struggle not merely as a form of resistance, but as the foundational and necessary condition for any socio-ecological transformation.
Keywords: Dialectics of Nature-Society , Geopolitics, Extractivism, War, Class Struggle
From Global Trade Imbalances to Trade Wars: Hegemony, Empire, or Rivalry Among Monopolies in the World Economy?
Bülent Hoca
In the 2000s, the rapidly growing trade imbalance between the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was largely interpreted in the mainstream as a matter of adjustable exchange rates, consumption anomalies, or savings anomalies. However, over the past twenty-five years, rather than diminishing, such global imbalances have intensified, culminating in trade wars. In this period, the PRC has emerged as a powerful competitor to the United States by drastically altering the balance in economic, commercial, technological, and financial domains. This study demonstrates the methodological roots of the equilibrium principle in mainstream economics, which assumes a tendency toward equilibrium, and argues that some critical approaches share this methodological perspective to a certain extent. From this standpoint, the study critically examines these approaches based on their reliance on the notion of equilibrium, contending that the tensions in the world economy should be explained not through concepts such as world-system, or empire, but rather through uneven development and the intense competition among monopolies.
Keywords: International trade, World economy, Global imbalances, Rivalry, Hegemony
Global Capital, Dissolving Republic, Commercialized Violence: A Critique of the Privatization of Military Security
Mehmet Yaşar Kaya
This article takes a historical materialist perspective that associates the privatization of military security not with the weakening of the state, as mainstream approaches claim, but with the political transformation in favor of capital accumulation in the neoliberal era. The transfer of the use of military force to private actors is not merely a technical reorganization; it refers to the reorganization of violence within market relations. In this process, the notion of public security dissolves along with its historical contradictions; the security service gains a flexible and uncontrolled functioning shaped according to the interests of capital; and it stops being a question of political responsibility. Civil wars in Africa, the invasion of Iraq and the current war in Ukraine are discussed as examples reflecting different stages of this transformation, and it is shown how the privatization of military coercion is intertwined with contemporary imperialist interventions and global capital strategies.
Keywords: Privatization of security, neoliberalism, coercion, imperialism, historical materialism
A Comparative Analysis of Contentious Politics in India and Brazil: The Mobilization-Policy Nexus
M. Fuat Kına
This study introduces an analytical model to explore the dynamics of claim-making by comparing the rural contentious politics in Brazil and India, thereby examining the multifaceted relationship between social movement mobilization and government policies. Both the Brazilian and Indian governments attempted to demobilize significant, sustained, and radical rural social movements through social assistance programs—Bolsa Familia and NREGA, respectively. Despite similar intentions, these strategies yielded contrasting outcomes in the two contexts. The “substitution” strategy adopted in the 2000s, aimed at replacing the land-based demands of the rural poor with social assistance, sought to quell radical mobilizations. While effective in Brazil, the Naxalite movement in India managed to counteract the demobilizing impact of this strategy through strategic responses. Using Brazil as a benchmark, this study endeavors to elucidate the notable divergence observed in India by employing the Most-Similar-Systems-Design. Accordingly, the paper proposes the Mobilization-Policy (MP) Nexus as a novel analytical framework. The MP Nexus illuminates the strategic conflict between political authorities and movements, highlighting how government strategies of concession and substitution differ in their impact on mobilization.
Keywords: Social assistance, welfare, social movements, contentious politics, mobilization-policy nexus
Book Review / The Gaza Catastrophe: The Genocide in World Historical Perspective Onur Özgür
Book Review / Capitalist Outsiders: Oil’s Legacies in Mexico and Venezuela Yavuz Yavuz
