Abstract:

What kind of statehood is necessary to induce transformative change? This contribution seeks to explore debates over recent state transformations and transformative statehood by first invoking Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation as an image of statehood, whose transformative potential is based on the relations of social forces and a holistic understanding of market societies. This picture is complemented by some of the complex and contradictory transformation processes that political science research has shown for the modern state in economic globalization over the past 25 years. Subsequently, the chapter outlines the constellation of a „hidden investment state“ in Europe that has emerged since the Great Financial Crisis, in which the possibilities of a transformative investment policy meet the insistent forces of financial capitalism, thereby illustrating the contradictions of contemporary state transformations.