Wolfgang Streeck: “I definitely prefer a cooperative over an empire” — Interview

The “New World Order” proclaimed by G. H. W. Bush after 1990 was to be an order, not without sovereign nation-states, but with just one sovereign nation-state, the United States. That state, acting as a world-state in waiting, was to take the place of the so-called Liberal International Order, which was allegedly multilateral but had in effect increasingly become unilateral and imperial….

"The rules-based order."

Then there is the "German question."

In fact, one reason why I am against the kind of European Union that has been shaping up for the past two decades is that Germany would inevitably be its hegemon, more or less hidden behind a deeply asymmetrical alliance with France. A German European empire lacks both historical legitimacy and the resources needed to compensate dependent peripheral countries for accepting German rule. The result would be perennial tensions between Germany and the rest of Europe, as well as inside Germany over the price to pay for empire....

Solidarity and internationalism are important, but if they are vested in international markets and imperial organizations all you get is neoliberalism and imperial rule; they must be rooted in national politics and fought for from there, or they won’t get very far. 

Brave New World
Wolfgang Streeck: “I definitely prefer a cooperative over an empire”