ABSTRACT
Throughout the world we are witnessing the emergence of a new, powerful mode of ordering that implies a far-reaching re-patterning of both the social and natural worlds. Following Hardt and Negri (2001), Howe (2002), Stiglitz (2002, 2003), Chomsky (2005) and others, I refer to this new mode of ordering and associated forms of governance as Empire. In politico-economic terms, the emergence of Empire is strongly associated with increased mobility of enlarged flows of capital throughout the globe. Central to Empire as a form of governance is control and appropriation. According to Hardt and Negri (2000, pxii), Empire is ‘a decentered and deterritorializing apparatus of rule that progressively incorporates the entire global realm within its open, expanding frontiers’. Consequently, controllability is central to Empire as a mode of ordering, and this often requires a far-reaching reordering of the social and the natural.
