Although many anthropologists have studied transnational groups, few consider the way in which social organisation takes place in globalising environments. An examination of the use of symbols of Germanness and cosmopolitanism in the selfpresentation of German businesspeople in London suggests that, in doing so, they are not defining themselves as a solidary group so much as they are engaging in complex negotiations between global and local social entities. Combining Anthony Cohen's theory of the symbolic construction of groups (1985) with Erving Goffman's of strategic self-presentation (1956), I begin by examining Sklair' s (2001) hypothesis that transnational businesspeople form a detached, globalised, solidary "transnational capitalist class." I then consider the ways in which symbols are actually used in transnational business, through a case study focusing around the London branches of two German banks, the Head Office of one of them, and German-focused institutions in the UK. My analysis reveals that not only is transnational businesspeople' s use of symbols more complex than the construction of a single social group, they also use the multivalency of symbols to shift their selfpresentations and affiliations in response to the activities of other actors. I conclude by postulating a new way of looking at transnational social formations, incorporating Sklair's theory, Castells' "Network Society" ( 1996) and Appadurai's "Global Landscapes": the Transnational Capitalist Society model (TCS). This is a theoretical construct comprising all actors engaging in business activity across borders at any given time; it also includes the links between transnational social formations, and local entities inasmuch as they engage in transnational capitalism. An examination of the symbolic self-presentation of German transnational businesspeople thus suggests that, not only are they not a solidary, detached "class," but the complex, shifting nature of their interactions points to the need for a more diffuse, multiply engaged model for considering transnational social formations.

With the spreading of globalization during 1980s, discourses about demise of nation states and relevance of post-national forms of institutions for contemporary politics have been widely accepted in social sciences. Cosmopolitanism, with its suggestions of extending democracy and citizenship beyond national boundaries, being world citizens, and creating universal political institutions has been considered as the project in line with these supposed conditions of globalization. This study evaluates theories in social sciences that are in favor of cosmopolitanism as a political project appropriate for the globalized world. It is argued that supporting disappearance of national borders and emergence of world citizenship is talking from the perspective of an upper class minority who have necessary resources to travel to other countries and who don&rsquo / t experience visa difficulties. It is claimed by some social theorists that a transnational capitalist class started to emerge. Although members of this class live in separate countries, they have common interests and similar lifestyles with each other much more than they have with their fellow nationals. These people regard themselves as world citizens, as they have a high access to foreign countries and share common lifestyles with foreigners. In this study, in the case of Turkish high level managers in a multinational corporation, it is aimed to describe the life style characteristics of these managers, considering the life style conceptualization of Bourdieu, and to understand to what extent these managers can be regarded as a part of transnational capitalist class, and whether they perceive themselves as world citizens.

Critics have alleged that the process of negotiating sovereign debt relief is unduly politicized and favors a global capitalist elite over national and democratic interests. This study evaluates the legitimacy of these criticisms by analyzing the cases of Russia and Poland in the six year period after the end of state communism in the 1990s. An alternate hypothesis, that the words of state leaders both in public and in meetings with influential global capitalist agencies determine the outcomes of key negotiations, is advanced through a careful analysis of video recordings of key speeches as well as other sources. A comparison of these cases is used to develop insights into the political role of transnational financial institutions and global capitalism. / Master of Arts

In this dissertation, I argue that transnational elites within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have been integrated within a Transnational Capitalist Class (TCC) economically, militarily and politically through relationships that transcend the boundaries of the nation-state. These relationships exist within the context of a global capitalist structure of accumulation that is dependent on the maintenance of a repressive state apparatus in the GCC. There have been few attempts to analyze the relationships that Middle Eastern political and economic elites have developed with global elite networks. This work fills an important gap in the scholarly literature by linking the political and economic power of the GCC elites to transnational capitalist class actors in the U.S. and Western Europe. The TCC is comprised of actors who derive their wealth and power from ownership of production or financial activities on a global scale. The embeddedness of GCC elites within the TCC came with the de-centralization of capital accumulation occurring from the 1970s through the present that has linked regional and local capitalists to the ownership activities of transnational capitalist firms. The GCC is an important case study for analyzing the structure and consequences the current phase of globalization due to its relative vi importance in providing resources and financing for transnational globalization. Therefore this project contributes to our assessment of the role played by transnational elites in the GCC and the regional and global consequences of their power struggles based in part on a theoretical framework derived from Neo-Gramscianism.

Discourse has the power to organize thought—and therefore, to limit imagination. The purpose of this project is to trace the contours of climate change discourse constructed by transnational fossil fuel corporations, to make visible the ideological barriers it creates to imagining post-capitalist alternatives. It is undertaken in the context of a well-established urgency for global collaboration to halt, mitigate, and adapt to the social, economic, and ecological impacts of climate change, and takes as its point of departure the fundamental link between ecological degradation and the capitalist mode of production (with its accompanying imperatives of accumulation and profit), as well as the necessity of counter-hegemonic praxis to pursuing system-transformative change on the scale required for humanity to negotiate the looming crisis in a just and ecologically viable way. Conceptualizing popular media as a discursive battleground in which the voices of corporations (through the evolving mediums of advertisement) are privileged, I employ critical discourse analysis to explore the framing of climate change messages by five major transnational oil and gas corporations, toward developing an analytical framework for the burgeoning climate change movement grounded at the intersection of global corporate capitalism and ecological degradation. Climate change messages included images, videos, and narratives intended for public consumption which spoke to the source, resolution, and/or future of human-induced and climate-related ecological problems. These were drawn from corporate websites, blogs, Facebook and Twitter feeds, and YouTube channels over the course of 2016. As action research, I have undertaken this project with the explicit aim of empowering climate movements – of which I count myself a part – to imagine alternative futures. To contribute to this aim, I have created a media literacy toolkit that links corporate climate change messages with the interests they represent to make visible the dynamics of power that mobilize those interests. / Graduate

[pt] Este trabalho propõe uma interpretação alternativa da eleição de Donald Trump à presidência dos Estados Unidos, a partir de uma releitura do conceito de ultraimperialismo, de Karl Kautsky. Para esta releitura, o trabalho se apoia na literatura marxista sobre o imperialismo, nas contribuições teóricas de Antonio Gramsci e Robert Cox, e no conceito de Classe Capitalista Transnacional. É empreendia uma análise histórica do desenvolvimento do império estadunidense em sua dimensão doméstica – a emergência do bloco hegemônico em torno do New Deal – e externa, a expansão do modelo hegemônico à ordem mundial. A partir de uma análise histórica e ideacional, é observado o papel do conservadorismo e do neoliberalismo, dentro dos EUA, na formação do novo bloco que alcança supremacia mundial a partir dos anos 1980. Este bloco tem orientação globalista, ou seja, tem por objetivo a integração de todas as economias nacionais ao capitalismo global. Argumenta-se que o bloco é liderado por classes capitalistas transnacionais que empregam o poder estatal para avançar essa integração, enquanto a articulação entre conservadorismo e neoliberalismo legitima o processo. Neste contexto, o império estadunidense assume o papel de Estado líder em um cartel de países capitalistas avançados – o ultraimpério – promovendo integração desigual e mantendo relações de dependência. As contradições deste arranjo, somadas às contradições do bloco globalista, contribuíram para a ascensão de Donald Trump, que foi capaz de articular, eleitoralmente, um desafio à agenda globalista. Conclui-se argumentando que a permanência dessas contradições resultará em novos fenômenos como Trump, no futuro. / [en] This work proposes an alternative interpretation of Donald Trump’s election to the presidency of the United States, through a rereading of Karl Kautsky’s concept of ultra-imperialism. For this, the work is supported by the Marxist literature on imperialism, on Antonio Gramsci’s and Robert Cox s theoretical contributions, and on the concept of Transnational Capitalist Class. It undertakes a historical analysis of the development of the US empire in its domestic dimension – the emergence of a hegemonic bloc around the New Deal – and external, the expansion of the hegemonic model to the world order. It is observed, through a historical and ideational analysis, the role of conservatism and neoliberalism, inside the US, in the formation of the new bloc that achieves world supremacy from the 1980s onwards. This bloc has a globalist orientation, that is, its objective is to integrate all national economies to global capitalism. It is argued that the bloc is led by transnational capitalist classes that employ state power to advance this integration, while the articulation between conservatism and neoliberalism legitimates the process. In this context, the US empire assumes the role of leading state in a cartel of advanced capitalist countries – the ultra-empire – promoting uneven integration and the persistence of relations of dependency. The contradictions of this arrangement, added to the contradictions of the globalist bloc, contributed to the rise of Donald Trump, who was able to articulate, in the elections, a challenge to the globalist agenda. In the conclusion, it is argued that the permanence of these contradictions will result in new phenomena like Trump, in the future.