This title was first published in 2003. States and social activists alike face a turbulent global political economy as they seek to confront new challenges with new strategies. The same is true of academic disciplines that seek to track discontinuities in old certainties and analyse emerging agendas, action, identities and space. In contrast to approaches that argue that the new global order is simply a fact of life, impervious to political challenge, the contributors to this book emphasize that it is highly contested. States retain considerable power, even if much of it has been directed to constructing globalization rather than modifying its effects; and disadvantaged groups, even the most apparently marginalized, have managed to win improvements in their condition. The book draws attention to the state of flux that characterizes contemporary political economy, both in theory and practice.