Reviews | About the Author

Conventional wisdom argues that the integration of the world economy is making national governments less powerful, but Linda Weiss disagrees. In an era when global society and the transnational market are trendy concepts, she suggests that state capacities for domestic transformative strategies provide a competitive advantage. Some of the most successful economies rely on state-informed and state-embedded institutions for governing the economy. In fact, she contends, the strength of external economic pressures is largely determined domestically, and the effect of such pressures varies with the strength of domestic institutions.

Weiss analyzes the sources and varieties of state capacity for governing industrial transformation in contemporary cases: the unraveling of Sweden’s distributive model of adjustment, the evolution of developmental states in Northeast Asia, and the parallel strengths of the German and Japanese systems of industrial coordination. Her comparative perspective allows her to show how different types of state capacity affect industrial vitality and domestic adjustment to global forces. As economic integration proceeds, she concludes, state capabilities will matter more rather than less in fostering social well-being and the creation of wealth.

Reviews

"Linda Weiss shows that enthusiasm for this global market concept exceeds the evidence and is not supported by the magnitude and patterns of change in trade, production, and investment data. . . . The author reveals that states do not have general capacities but rather strengths in particular arenas. She presents an in-depth comparative study of capitalism and state capacity for Japan and the NICs, Sweden, and Germany, with lessons for others, showing why some states are better at transformative strategies than others. . . . General readers; upper-division undergraduate through professional collections."--Choice

"[C]lear and thoughtful. . . . [Linda Weiss's] argument deserves attention from both sides of the political divide."--Times Literary Supplement


"A welcome contribution to the ongoing debate over globalization. . . . This book provides the best general discussion of state power yet available."--Foreign Affairs

"[A] thought-provoking analysis that reflects an influential point of view in contemporary academic circles."--Arthur I. Cyr, Orbis, Spring 2001

"Linda Weiss opens her insightful book with the chapter title 'The State is Dead: Long Live the State.'......[T]he book presents many fascinating specific national measures to secure economic growth...[A] rare critique of the right-wing ideological assault on regulatory regimes...Weiss' larger thesis challenging the idea of an obsolete nation-state in an internationalized economic world is one that labor audiences should address."--Robert Bruno, University of Illinois. Labor Studies Journal, Summer 2000

"The most important contribution of The Myth of the Powerless State lies in the way it puts the state back into the frame for political economy - a welcome antidote to the neglect or denial of the state in much current literature."--Matt Davies, Pennsylvania State University. Review of Radical Political Economics, Vol. 32, 2000
“This is a splendid study in political economy. Weiss uses the comparison between East Asia, Sweden and Germany as the basis for a theoretical analysis of the role of the state as a coordinator and steerer of industrial upgrading. Her style is punchy, her argument is original. Future research will have to take The Myth of the Powerless State as a point of reference.”--Robert Wade, Russell Sage Foundation, New York

“I can unreservedly recommend this book as easily the most intelligent, best-researched and original account available of the relations between states and capitalist economies in the advanced North. Linda Weiss’s careful dissections of economic policies and performance in Japan and East Asia, Sweden, Germany, Britain and the United States demolish most conventional generalizations deriving from neo-liberal, “globalization” or social democratic theories alike. This is macro-sociology of the highest quality.”--Michael Mann, University of California, Los Angeles

About the Author

Linda Weiss is Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Sydney. She is the author of two books, including Creating Capitalism. She is the author of States in the Global Economy and How to Kill a Country.

Political Science / Economic & Monetary Policy
Political Science / Comparative Politics
Economics & Finance

Sales Restrictions

WHP Rights limited to the Western Hemisphere plus the Philippine Republic.