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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Globalization increases the role of the state, October 10, 2002
This review is from: The Myth of the Powerless State (Cornell Studies in Political Economy) (Paperback)
Linda Weiss brings an unconventional view of the role of state, which contrasts with the prevailing literature on this theme. She considers the Japanese model as very viable, because of its ability to adapt to changes in international environment and transform its industrial structure according the market demands. According to the author, Japan's succes rests in combination of developmental and distributional fuctions. This fact enables the state better transformation of its structure than in market-led economies like USA or GB. Very interesting is the point, that distributional function doesn't weaken the developmental capacity of the state, rather reinforces it. The low income inbalance, the solidarity of firm with its employers also strengthens the capability of state. On the other hand she finds several difficulties with the German model, which exerts huge adaptibility in already existing sectors, but is weak in introducing new progressive technology industries like microelectronics. The German state has responded to this situation by creating of the new ministry for research and its role increased after reunification whereby it provided the largest amount of investments to the East. On these examples author illustrates that the role of German state in the economic development has increased. In case of Sweden came to separation of development and distribution, leading to problems Sweden is currently facing. Author also presents an interesting opinion, that neoliberal states as USA, Great Britain and New Zealand may due to the large income discrepancies and weak public-private coordination face severe adaptation problems. The author pays attention to the issue of globalization too. She concludes that globalization reinforces rather than diminishes the state. On the base of evidence on FDI and international trade she concludes, that the claims about the extent of globalization are strongly exaggerated. The international corporations also remain strongly embedded in their home nation-states which provide them with information and services. On the ground of this evidence the autor concludes, that nation-state in the economic realm is not weaker, but even stronger. In my opionion is this contention true, but in other realms like that of culture the state's role has been undoubtely weakened.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An excellent analysis of state capacity, March 8, 2002
By A Customer
This review is from: The Myth of the Powerless State (Cornell Studies in Political Economy) (Paperback)
The arguments of Linda Weiss's book are very different from the conventional wisdoms of weakening state capacity and the global triumph of neoliberalism. She seems to suggest the ideal model of a 'competitive as well as distributive state' based on the assumption that the nation-states are still the important and capable units of the international economy. According to her discussions, there are many ways to build up such state capacity. Her analysis is very unique in that she tries to combine in her theoretical construction discussions of the welfare states and those of the developmental states, which is often missed by the authors of either one. As a student who studied the German and Swedish welfare states in South Korea years ago and now studies the developmental states in the US, I feel that this book is very insightful in dealing with the complexity of social reality in a historical way free from neoliberal ideology, such as state capacity and globalization. In order for her arguments of the still-not-so-weak state capacity in the contemporary phase of capitalism to get more theoretical strengths, however, it may be better to include in her analyses the external conditions for explaining the different levels of capacities attached to specific states, such as world-systemic position or geopolitical factors because her analyses look to focus mainly on internal factors for the state capacity especailly among the core capitalist states and some Asian NICS. Of course, I agree that this inclusion of external fractors may run the risk of losing some strong points she wants to show, and of making theoretical constuction too messy with naive facts and stories. In her intention to show the better way to understand theoretically the internal factors of state capacity, I find this book is very fresh and insightful.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
No Convergence will happen, June 24, 2002
This review is from: The Myth of the Powerless State (Cornell Studies in Political Economy) (Paperback)
As globalization makes its way, the world seems to converge to the neoliberal free market on the global scale. They argue that in such an environment, the room for state to maneuver increasingly shrinks. Reports about the decline of the welfare state and the death of Japanese-style industrial policy have been captured the scene. The author questions ¡®Is it real?¡¯ In the face of challenge from global market, can¡¯t the state chase the goal of national prosperity and distributive fairness any more? Should the state take the role of midwife of global market? The author argues that globalization has been exaggerated. The world economy is still the field that we are accustomed to. In fact, globalization is a stepped-up internationalization, the author argues. The state is still a important political and economic actor. EU integration, Pacific regional integration of production has been taken as example of globalization. But those are project launched with initiatives of strong states like Germany, Japan. The global market can¡¯t be sustained without resolute backing of states. States still pursue their objectives in the world with rigor. And the convergence toward the model of Anglo-Saxon liberal state is unlikely to come: the author argues that states have different capacities. Sweden has the distributive capacity; Japan has the transformative capacity (so called developmental state); Germany has both capacity. Capability varies from person to person. Just like that, capacities of the state vary. The capacity is how efficiently mobilize which resource. That kind of capacity is hard to attain and take time to shape. Time-proven effective capacity would not be given up. It¡¯s unlikely all the states will converge toward one model. So the state¡¯s ability to adapt to globalization and the path each state will follow must be diverse. The world is still the field where the state competes against each other. In that game, they mobilize resources available to them.
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