The Myth of the Powerless State (Cornell Studies in Political Economy)

Rating:
Summary: No Convergence will happen
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Globalization increases the role of the state
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: A good analysis of the state capacity
Review: The arguments of Linda Weiss's book are very different from the conventional wisdom of the weakening state capacity and the global triumph of neoliberalism. She seems to try to suggest the ideal model of 'competitive as well as distributive state' based on the assumption that nation-states are still the important and capable units of international economy. According to her discussion, 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 the discussions of welfare states and those of developmental states, which is often missed by the authors in the studies of welfare states or develpmental states.

As a student who studied the German welfare state in South Korea several years ago and now studies the developmental states in the US, I feel that this book is insightful in dealing with the complexity of social reality, such as the 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.

Rating:
Summary: powerless state?
Review: the author¡¯s argument move away vague, impressionistic and general arguments about the supposed powerless state which globalization is meant to have induced. However, the concept of state capacity in his book is so vague that will weaken his argument. On the other hand, the states that the author select to support his conclusion cannot represent all the states in world. With the development of globalization, the capacity of multinational corporations is obviously more and more stronger than small states in the world. In Asian financial crisis, some individuals can destroy a nation¡¯s economy and make is backward about 20 years. From this point, the state become more and more powerless instead of what Weiss think in this book.

Rating:
Summary: A good analysis of the state capacity
Review: Though globalization has put heavy emphasis on role change of the state and makes state seemingly powerless. But Weiss think that argument will be :1, overstating earlier state power, 2, overstating uniforming of state response,3, the political construction of helplessness ,and he convincingly argues that the greater internationalization of economies has actually reinforced the power of the state based on the comparative study of the economic policies of Sweden, Germany, Northeast Asia and Japan .Weiss propose that :first, state adoption rather than decline of functions. second, strong state as ¡° midwives¡± not victims of internationalization ,3 the emergence of catalytic states, consolidating national and regional network of trade and investment.

Weiss ¡®s book ( the myth of powerless state) strengthen the variety of state response to international pressures and to the sources and consequences of that variety of national property and put forward the idea that the impact of external economic pressures on national economies and public policies depends to a larger degree on the strength of goal oriented state agencies closely interacting with key economic actors. Numerous areas where state involvements in the industrial economy remains important and vital to national prosper even as economic develop and mature. As Weiss said in the book, State will be very important institution capable of coordinating change in leading sectors or technologies. The state can solve many important problems of coordination better than market. The source of state capability state capability is a function of economic openness that the more open or internationalize an economy, the weaker the state¡¯s capacity to govern industrial change. . Domestic and global changes do not understand state capacity in general, but rather producing shifts in the basis of state capacity as transformative tasks alter . Weiss used institutionalism approach for this book. There are four institution capacity for industrial transformation: first, bureaucrative structures of coordination 2, high-quality bureaucrats, 3,intelligence-gathering infrastructure. 4, insulated pilot agencies and policy coordination . Weiss used four definitions to study state capacity: 1, capacity as social bargaining: corporatism;2, Capacity as coercion ¡°the strong state thesis¡±; 3, the critique of statism; 4, capacity as policy instruments; 5,capacity as embedded autonomy: organization of state and society . The author also put forward three concepts to analysis state capacity: corporatism; ¡° a selected embeddedness¡±. Governed interdependence and Government-business Corporation. GI(governed Interdependence) will be a very important concept in his analysis. Forms and dynamics of governed Interdependence will be 1, an alternative to leadership reasons fellowship. 2,disciplined support. 3, public risk absorption,4 private-sector governance , 5, public-private innovation allianu; 6, serving capital or shared project .

In conclusion , the author¡¯s argument move away vague, impressionistic and general arguments about the supposed powerless state which globalization is meant to have induced. However, the concept of state capacity in his book is so vague that will weaken his argument. On the other hand, the states that the author select to support his conclusion cannot represent all the states in world. With the development of globalization, the capacity of multinational corporations is obviously more and more stronger than small states in the world. In Asian financial crisis, some individuals can destroy a nation¡¯s economy and make is backward about 20 years. From this point, the state become more and more powerless instead of what Weiss think in this book.