Twelfth Global Studies Conference

Abstract

The neo-Gramscian vein of scholarship has been a growing body on the topic of the global political-economy. What has for sometime now been viewed as the rise of a Globalist Bloc is becoming substantiated with research to support the theoretical frameworks posited by originators in the field. With the world shifting to a post-GDP model of measuring societal ‘progress,’ the World Economic Forum contributes its own composite index to the debate, attempting to shift the global telos towards its own agenda. Using the research methods of rhetorical analysis and ideological criticism, I answer two questions: Does the World Economic Forum constitute a policy group for the Globalist Bloc? If so, what are the hegemonic ideologies promulgated by such a body. The rhetoric of the World Economic Forum begins to materialize a Globalist Bloc, simultaneously exhibiting that the World Economic Forum is indeed an instrumental method for it to wield hegemonic influence over the global system. What is revealed by the text is that the Globalist Bloc is self-conscious and has the capability of monitoring global civil society’s frustrations, responding to these frustrations in a rather sophisticated manner, and implementing its own desired agenda through the governments of the world. Finally, we are able to see that two of the ideologies closely identified with the hegemony of the Globalist Bloc are the Growth Paradigm and Ecological Modernization.