This paper discusses the structural crisis of global capitalism and the prospects for systemic transformation in the next several decades in world historical perspective. We consider the contemporary network of global counter-movements and progressive national regimes that are seeking to transform the capitalist world-system into a more humane, sustainable and egalitarian civilization. How has the global financial crisis affected the network of counter-movements and regimes, including the Pink Tide populist regimes in Latin America, the Arab Spring democracy movements and the anti-austerity movements in Europe and the U.S.? We consider how the New Global Left is similar to, and different from, the global counter-movements in earlier world revolutions. The point is to inform collectively rational responses to the current crisis and to consider the prospects for the formation of a democratic global commonwealth.

We examine the practice of nepotism in the Arab World and analyze how a rational-legal model of bureaucracy was never able to take hold. We draw upon ideas from institutional theory and related notions of legitimacy to provide an explanation of nepotism’s extraordinary persistence. Then we use arguments to speculate how the appearance of institutional entrepreneurs who are advocates for a new hybrid form of nepotism might begin to colonize a social space created by larger political and economic changes that are sweeping the Arab World. Those entrepreneurs must persuade other members of an extended family that the current practice of nepotism is typically destructive of a firm’s competitive performance. In addition, they will argue that nepotism as currently practiced violates teachings of Islam. This second argument is likely to be particularly effective with an audience that sees Islam as a source of universal notions of justice and fairness.