Global Interdependency and Strategic Neocorporatism: The Social Identity Dynamics of Progressive Social Movements Utilizing International Sustainable Development Regimes

Abstract

The integration of social movement, social identity, and neocorporatist state theory contributes to a framework to conceptualize political strategies for accommodating global interdependence. Cold war–era benign corporatist models focused on smaller European states dependent on international trade for their economic prosperity. The Trump administration’s hostility toward institutionalized multilateral international cooperation denies the imperative to confront the tragedy of the commons unfolding from the negative externalities causing anthropogenic climate change. Complex interdependency incentivizes the creation of international regimes. Social identity theory highlights the pitfalls and pathways in responding to the increasing salience of social movements intersecting with global interdependence. The progressive institutionalization of international human rights regimes includes sustainable development imperatives that can provide strategic opportunities to promote the pluralization and evolutionary transformation of the state. Worldwide tensions emerge from nationalist reactionary populist constituencies amid increasingly complex global interdependence. Great power competition for power and influence within the nuclear setting intensifies in a world in which the sources of power and influence depend increasingly on provision of sustainable development resources. Neocorporatist frameworks together with social identity theory offer an approach to conceptualize the impact of progressive international social movements on the evolution of the state as an ethical behavioral norm system.