Faculty Member, Politics and International Relations
LSE Fellow in International Political Economy
London School of Economics
Thesis Title: Uncovering Symbolic Power: Power Analysis, Southern Countries, and the World Trade Organisation
About
I have recently completed my DPhil (PhD) in International Relations at the University of Oxford. I am now teaching International Political Economy at the London School of Economics. My interests include the conceptual analysis of power and legitimacy; the international political economy; the multilateral trading system, including the evolution of the Doha Round (notably in agriculture); IR theory; and political sociology. I have a particular interest in the work of Pierre Bourdieu.
In my thesis I seek to investigate how one can advance a more critical understanding of power in relation to the World Trade Organization (WTO) by drawing upon Pierre
Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic power. It argues that conventional perspectives on power in the trading regime have tended to contain legalistic and behaviouralist biases
that have cut short, or worked against, the development of more critical notions of power and legitimacy. A focus on symbolic power aims to address these deficiencies by
analysing those systems of knowledge and rhetorical techniques that are, at one and the same, instruments of communication, political domination and, potentially, resistance. The central question addressed is: how does symbolic power manifest itself in the WTO system? There are three main arguments. First, I argue that while one can see the effects of symbolic power throughout the trading regime, it becomes particularly important at certain moments, most notably in struggles over classifications and at points when certain interests are codified into law. Second, I argue that symbolic power is accumulated and deployed through different mechanisms of legitimation, of which two are analysed in this thesis: framing and mimicry. Third, I argue that symbolic power should be understood as operating in a complex relationship with compulsory power and institutional power in regards to both its internal properties and external dynamics. The objective of the thesis is therefore not to arrive at a single master category or theory of power, but to open analysts of the WTO to a more rigorous and, at the same time, flexible interrogation of this core concept. In terms of the empirical application of these conceptual ideas, I examine two Southern-led coalitions in agriculture that have emerged during the Doha Round. The first centres on a group of African countries that campaigned for the reform of the international cotton regime, while the second addresses a larger coalition that has attempted to rethink food security and rural development concerns. The thesis concludes with an indication of areas for future research and some suggestions for policy initiatives.
In addition to this work, I am also presently the Research Officer for an Oxford project called 'The Politics of WTO Reform', run in collaboration with the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
Contact Information
Department of International Relations, London School of Economics, Houghton Street, London, WC2A 2AE