Towards a New Political Economy of Global Tourism Revisited - Tourism and Development: Concepts and Issues - page 290

examining the systemic sources of power and inequalities at different levels
in the global system. In a seminal paper, Cox (1981) developed the concept
of historical structures , according to which particular configurations of forces
(material capabilities, ideas and institutions) condition rather than determine
the range of actions within the international political economy. Thus, the
structures of power which both condition and emerge from the process of
social change vary according to the historical-geographical configuration of
material capabilities, institutions and ideological forces in particular 'state/
society complexes' (Cox, 1981: 134-137). Accordingly, Cox argues that, 'it
[production] has no historical precedence; indeed, the principal structures of
production have been, if not actually created by the state, at least encouraged
and sustained by the state' (1987: 5).
The political economy of tourism should, therefore, seek to elucidate
upon the antagonistic forces and social relations which give rise to and are
encompassed within specific modes of tourism development. By 'modes of
tourism development', I am referring to the specific historical combination
of technologies and power relations which underpin the organisation of tour-
ism production in any given historical-geographic context. A radical approach
to the political economy of tourism thus challenges the realist perspectives
which characterise, for example, technical approaches to tourism policy and
planning (e.g. Gunn, 1994). Indeed, the weakness of these approaches has
been exposed by Hall (1994c: Chapter 1) for underplaying the relations of
power and bargaining processes between different groups of collective actors,
as a result of its emphasis on rational and overt decision-making processes.
It is equally critical of the applied, business-focused school of tourism
research whereby the success of tourism is examined in terms of the creativ-
ity and innovativeness of individual entrepreneurs and businesses at the
expense of analysing the manner in which their ability to do so is constrained
and enabled by the prevailing distribution of power in a given historical and
societal context (cf. Go, 1997; Poon, 1993). Where destinations are concerned,
the pervasiveness of neoliberal governance and the belief in the self-
regulating capacity of the market to allocate investment where it is needed
most is further illustrated by the importance attached to competitiveness as
the guiding principle of tourism development policy, as exemplified by the
annual publication of the World Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index
(World Economic Forum, 2011).
The attempt to conceive of market behaviour in isolation from the ideolo-
gies and values of the different actors and interest groups, as reflected in the
free market notion of comparative advantage , underplays both the unequal dis-
tribution of incomes and power which may result from 'open' competition in
the tourism market, as well as the political nature of markets whereby the
state has historically conditioned the activities of economic classes, and fur-
thermore, ignores the uneven consequences of unlimited market competition
(see Barratt Brown, 1995: 24-28; Held, 1995: 59-66). Different economic