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Papers by Maksim Kokushkin

Challenging the Legitimacy of Normative Positivism: Institutionalist Alternatives to Dominant Analyses of Economic Action, Feb 14, 2016

In standard Habermasian terms, legitimacy is the recognized worthiness of a political order that ... more In standard Habermasian terms, legitimacy is the recognized worthiness of a political order that justifies and solidifies that order " s domination. It may thus appear that the concept of legitimation can only be applied to the political sphere, for instance to analyze the emergence of a political system such as Western Democracy. However, the growing political influence of neoliberal economic thought and policies allows the application of the concept of legitimacy to the knowledge underlying neo-liberalization. This article investigates the delegitimation of normative positivism, the epistemological premise of dominant analyses of economic action. The decontextualizing logic of those analyses continues guiding neo-liberal policies despite the evidence that these policies do not produce the promised results. At the same time, the marriage between political capitalism and positivist economic analyses presents both the knowledge and the resulting policies as the only possible solutions to the multiple crises of capitalism. Hence, I advocate for an increased reliance on institutionalist epistemologies that emphasize historical and cultural contextuality. In doing that, I highlight promising examples of institutionalist thought that can help accelerate the delegitimation of normative positivism and thus create openings for studying the alternatives to capitalism.

*FREE ACCESS to the published article currently available through the link below.* This paper in... more *FREE ACCESS to the published article currently available through the link below.*
This paper investigates the resurgence of neo-liberalism during and after the Great Recession by exploring shock therapy reforms in the American state of Michigan. Using the framework of variegated neo-liberalization we demonstrate that even failed neo-liberal policies can be reused in divergent geographical and historical contexts. Further, we suggest that the jurisdictional and territorial autonomy of the state of Michigan allows its government to initiate market disciplinary restructuring in some cases at the expense of potential solutions to the crisis. In this process, the federal state’s government actively overrides local and city governments and their voters. The resulting new policy configurations continue and deepen structural changes that favour neo-liberal ideologies. Our most telling example is a unique new neo-liberal formation, emergency management, a legitimate institution that allows an appointed individual to
suspend democratic procedures and dismiss democratically elected local officials under the premises of a crisis of governance. Since neo-liberalization works in non-linear, but cumulative ways, one could expect that the emergency management model can be replicated outside the state
of Michigan or the USA. We conclude that the broad neo-liberal project has no problem suspending, circumventing, or removing democratic procedures in its continued metapowering effort to create lasting structural change.

Journal of Arts and Humanities

This paper explores the applicability of standpoint theory within and outside of feminism by exam... more This paper explores the applicability of standpoint theory within and outside of feminism by examining a journal debate in Signs about standpoint theory from 1997. The debate took place at a crucial point of transition between second- and third-wave feminism. I trace two versions of standpoint theory – “standpoint theory is” and “standpoint theory can” – and their relationship with multiple levels of exclusion and inclusion. I find that by relying on a fixed social location, the first version incorporates a contradiction that results in the exclusion of standpoints different from that fixed social location. The second version of standpoint theory then resolves the contradiction and offers tools available to feminist scholars and activists, scholars in related fields, and scholars who work in fields outside of feminism. Specifically, I suggest that research focusing on varieties of capitalism and alternatives to capitalism can benefit from adopting standpoint thinking and move away from analyses emerging from the West.

Sociology Compass

Post-communist transitions are generally thought to be a part of the past. However, most students... more Post-communist transitions are generally thought to be a part of the past. However, most students of those transitions now acknowledge that the processes of transition in the countries in Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union are far from over. Instead of reaching a point where all countries converge towards normal capitalism, the experiences of the countries from the region are extremely diverse. This article surveys the literature on post-communist transitions and argues that transitologists have experienced a shift from viewing transitions as mostly similar and converging to viewing transitions as uniquely complex and diverging. To advance this argument, the article: (i) systematizes the literature along methodological lines; (ii) uses a policy paradigm (namely, the Washington Consensus) as a metaphor to illustrate the tensions in the literature; and (iii) connects the shift away from one-size-fits-all policies with the evolution in the literature from being formally prescriptive and abstract to being context-sensitive and emphasizing complexity.

... mini-coup under the pretext of giving Zhivkov a long-awaited farewell, sending him into retir... more ... mini-coup under the pretext of giving Zhivkov a long-awaited farewell, sending him into retirement, and replacing him with another high party and state official (Dimitrov, 2006). With some hints of political opposition emerging and sparse protests happening, the ...

Drafts by Maksim Kokushkin

It is not uncommon to conceive of the Occupy Movement as a powerful civic protest that failed to ... more It is not uncommon to conceive of the Occupy Movement as a powerful civic protest that failed to mobilize politically. The literature on #Occupy is limited to: a) academic accounts of how the movement fits existing theories about social movements; and b) activist accounts telling #Occupy's story and supporting its contributions. Traditional social movement theories are inadequate, because they are deeply invested in 20 th century political efficacy agendas or because they focus on specific identity-related issues without a thorough political analysis. On the other hand, activist and supporter accounts of #Occupy stories are empirically rich, but fail to explore the broader implications of the movement and its relationship with modern capitalism and democracy. Hence, neither approach offers a systematic analysis of how #Occupy changes the social movement landscape of the 21 st century. This article argues that such portrayals leave out the deliberate refusal of #Occupy to enter the existing power structures. To reveal the movement's deeply political nature, this article uses a communicative action framework to analyze statistically representative samples of posts from #Occupy's blog and its counter-blog. The analysis applies a fuzzy-sets logic to the qualitative data coded and examined with the software package ATLAS.ti. The resulting evidence demonstrates that unlike social movements that seek to integrate into a capitalist political economy, #Occupy engages in communicative action aimed at challenging the very premises of capitalist power structures. Hence, future research should investigate #Occupy's legacy for collective action in the 21 st century and for potential democratic futures beyond modernity.

Challenging the Legitimacy of Normative Positivism: Institutionalist Alternatives to Dominant Analyses of Economic Action, Feb 14, 2016

In standard Habermasian terms, legitimacy is the recognized worthiness of a political order that ... more In standard Habermasian terms, legitimacy is the recognized worthiness of a political order that justifies and solidifies that order " s domination. It may thus appear that the concept of legitimation can only be applied to the political sphere, for instance to analyze the emergence of a political system such as Western Democracy. However, the growing political influence of neoliberal economic thought and policies allows the application of the concept of legitimacy to the knowledge underlying neo-liberalization. This article investigates the delegitimation of normative positivism, the epistemological premise of dominant analyses of economic action. The decontextualizing logic of those analyses continues guiding neo-liberal policies despite the evidence that these policies do not produce the promised results. At the same time, the marriage between political capitalism and positivist economic analyses presents both the knowledge and the resulting policies as the only possible solutions to the multiple crises of capitalism. Hence, I advocate for an increased reliance on institutionalist epistemologies that emphasize historical and cultural contextuality. In doing that, I highlight promising examples of institutionalist thought that can help accelerate the delegitimation of normative positivism and thus create openings for studying the alternatives to capitalism.

*FREE ACCESS to the published article currently available through the link below.* This paper in... more *FREE ACCESS to the published article currently available through the link below.*
This paper investigates the resurgence of neo-liberalism during and after the Great Recession by exploring shock therapy reforms in the American state of Michigan. Using the framework of variegated neo-liberalization we demonstrate that even failed neo-liberal policies can be reused in divergent geographical and historical contexts. Further, we suggest that the jurisdictional and territorial autonomy of the state of Michigan allows its government to initiate market disciplinary restructuring in some cases at the expense of potential solutions to the crisis. In this process, the federal state’s government actively overrides local and city governments and their voters. The resulting new policy configurations continue and deepen structural changes that favour neo-liberal ideologies. Our most telling example is a unique new neo-liberal formation, emergency management, a legitimate institution that allows an appointed individual to
suspend democratic procedures and dismiss democratically elected local officials under the premises of a crisis of governance. Since neo-liberalization works in non-linear, but cumulative ways, one could expect that the emergency management model can be replicated outside the state
of Michigan or the USA. We conclude that the broad neo-liberal project has no problem suspending, circumventing, or removing democratic procedures in its continued metapowering effort to create lasting structural change.

Journal of Arts and Humanities

This paper explores the applicability of standpoint theory within and outside of feminism by exam... more This paper explores the applicability of standpoint theory within and outside of feminism by examining a journal debate in Signs about standpoint theory from 1997. The debate took place at a crucial point of transition between second- and third-wave feminism. I trace two versions of standpoint theory – “standpoint theory is” and “standpoint theory can” – and their relationship with multiple levels of exclusion and inclusion. I find that by relying on a fixed social location, the first version incorporates a contradiction that results in the exclusion of standpoints different from that fixed social location. The second version of standpoint theory then resolves the contradiction and offers tools available to feminist scholars and activists, scholars in related fields, and scholars who work in fields outside of feminism. Specifically, I suggest that research focusing on varieties of capitalism and alternatives to capitalism can benefit from adopting standpoint thinking and move away from analyses emerging from the West.

Sociology Compass

Post-communist transitions are generally thought to be a part of the past. However, most students... more Post-communist transitions are generally thought to be a part of the past. However, most students of those transitions now acknowledge that the processes of transition in the countries in Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union are far from over. Instead of reaching a point where all countries converge towards normal capitalism, the experiences of the countries from the region are extremely diverse. This article surveys the literature on post-communist transitions and argues that transitologists have experienced a shift from viewing transitions as mostly similar and converging to viewing transitions as uniquely complex and diverging. To advance this argument, the article: (i) systematizes the literature along methodological lines; (ii) uses a policy paradigm (namely, the Washington Consensus) as a metaphor to illustrate the tensions in the literature; and (iii) connects the shift away from one-size-fits-all policies with the evolution in the literature from being formally prescriptive and abstract to being context-sensitive and emphasizing complexity.

... mini-coup under the pretext of giving Zhivkov a long-awaited farewell, sending him into retir... more ... mini-coup under the pretext of giving Zhivkov a long-awaited farewell, sending him into retirement, and replacing him with another high party and state official (Dimitrov, 2006). With some hints of political opposition emerging and sparse protests happening, the ...

It is not uncommon to conceive of the Occupy Movement as a powerful civic protest that failed to ... more It is not uncommon to conceive of the Occupy Movement as a powerful civic protest that failed to mobilize politically. The literature on #Occupy is limited to: a) academic accounts of how the movement fits existing theories about social movements; and b) activist accounts telling #Occupy's story and supporting its contributions. Traditional social movement theories are inadequate, because they are deeply invested in 20 th century political efficacy agendas or because they focus on specific identity-related issues without a thorough political analysis. On the other hand, activist and supporter accounts of #Occupy stories are empirically rich, but fail to explore the broader implications of the movement and its relationship with modern capitalism and democracy. Hence, neither approach offers a systematic analysis of how #Occupy changes the social movement landscape of the 21 st century. This article argues that such portrayals leave out the deliberate refusal of #Occupy to enter the existing power structures. To reveal the movement's deeply political nature, this article uses a communicative action framework to analyze statistically representative samples of posts from #Occupy's blog and its counter-blog. The analysis applies a fuzzy-sets logic to the qualitative data coded and examined with the software package ATLAS.ti. The resulting evidence demonstrates that unlike social movements that seek to integrate into a capitalist political economy, #Occupy engages in communicative action aimed at challenging the very premises of capitalist power structures. Hence, future research should investigate #Occupy's legacy for collective action in the 21 st century and for potential democratic futures beyond modernity.