This document outlines a lecture on the relationship between nation-states and globalization. It discusses two approaches: a liberal view that sees states and markets as separate entities, and an open Marxist view that sees the state as regulating capitalism. It then analyzes contemporary processes of state restructuring, noting trends toward independent central banks, market-based regulation, and policies that promote national competitiveness over protecting individual firms. The conclusion stresses that understanding the basic state-market relationship is key to interpreting globalization's impacts.
2. Objectives of Lecture
• Critically explore the relationship
between the development of the nation-
state and capitalism
• Assess competing explanations of ways
in which contemporary processes of
globalization are impacting on states
3. Structure of Lecture
Section One: Exploration of two
approaches to understand relationship
between Market and the State
Section Two: Analyzes of Contemporary
Processes of State Restructuring
4. Section One: Two Competing
Accounts of Capitalism and
Nation-State
• Liberal understanding of state and
market of Cerny and Strange which
understands these as distinct entities
• Open Marxist account of state/market
which understands the state as a
regulatory agent and manifestation of
wider social relations of production
5. • Liberal View:
• Relatively simple. State and Market as
separate (potentially oppositional)
entities.
• If not a zero sum power game between
the two than certainly a balance of
power between the two entities
6. • For Strange and Cerny Expansion of
Markets, particularly transnational
markets undermines the autonomy
and/or effectiveness of national public
policy
• See also Michael Mann, Saskia Sassen,
Popular policy discourse and oddly Hirst
and Thompson
7. • Clearest Statement is provided by Susan
Strange
“The impersonal forces of world markets,
integrated over the postwar period more by
private enterprise in finance, industry and
trade than by the cooperative decisions of
governments, are now more powerful than
the states to whom political authority is
supposed to belong”
8. • Cerny position is more complicated. For
Cerny what is in decline is not so much state
capacity as state autonomy
• Increased openness forces shift from welfare
to competition state
• Shift from welfare to enterprise, self-
sufficiency to flexible shift to market
conditions and macroeconomic to the
microeconomic
9. • Historical Materialist Approach:
• Modern State is a product and reflection
of capitalist relations of production
• Modern State product of absolute
property and the division of economic
and political
10. • The State is thus manifestation of wider
set of social relations
• It is a regulatory agency whose purpose
is to insure the maintenance of
capitalism (the completion of circuit)
• Talk of autonomy is nonsense
11. • There is difference between rather dismissive
approach to globalization of Woods and other
scholars who seriously consider the impact of
changes in the composition of global markets
on how state performs regulatory function.
• For example Burnham and Depoliticisation
12. • Although methods share little in
common and critically influence
understanding of contemporary
processes there is a least a superficial
similarities between the conclusions of
certain Marxists and Cerny. But process
and history are important.
13. Contemporary Processes of
State Restructuring
• In a sense we need to assess different
theories of state transformation through a
empirical analyses testing different theories
• However, there are problems with seeking
empirical answers to questions of state
transformation through a simple analyse of
policy.
14. • The same concrete phenomena can
look very different depending on the
analytical position you approach it from
• For example, Strange/Harvey on
failures of systems of financial
regulation
15. • Also question of establishing
material/ideational cause
• Finally, problem of an wealth of
evidence. A accurate assessment of
global state restructuring requires an
impossibly broad knowledge of political
economy
16. • Nevertheless I would argue that we are
witnessing a new dominant state form
developing and that the composition of state
can be understand as reflecting changes in
composition of global markets. 7 policy
areas.
17. • Monetary policy: Establishing of
Independent Central Banks and rules based
regimes which remove policy from political
contestation
19. • Corporate Governance: Move to system
based upon market/ shareholder discipline
German Corporate Sector Supervisory and
Transparency Act in 1998
US 2002 Sarbanes–Oxley Act
20. • Industrial Policy: Shift from securing
competitiveness of particular national firms
to meso-level competitiveness of the ‘space’
21. • The organisation of public services:
Transformation of state itself into a sphere
of accumulation
22. • Labour Market Regulation:
Individualisation of Wage-Labour
Relation. Flexibility. Welfare states
become tools to promote
competitiveness
23. • Regulatory Reform:
Independent regulatory agencies
Purpose of reform is correct market failures
and enhance competition
Market based regulation
Globally recognized regulatory standards
24. • Serious Problems with attempting to
attribute changes to either ideological
mirage of Globalisation or domestic
politics. However, there is no reason to
necessarily privilege the spatial nor
overstate previous autonomy
25. Conclusion
• How we understand the basic relationship
between state and market/capital is critical to
how we understand globalisation
• Our answers to the key questions concerning
the state almost over determines our answer
to subsequent questions concerning welfare
etc
• Difficult questions to reach definite
conclusions to!
