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The Eclipse of the State? Reflections on Stateness in an Era of Globalization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Peter Evans
Peter Evans*
Affiliation:
University of California
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Abstract

The economic logic of the current international economy does not predict the “eclipse of the state”. Economic globalization does restrict state power, but transnational capital needs capable states as much or more than does domestically oriented business. National success in the current global political economy has been associated not with minimal states but with states that are capable, active, and engaged. Pressure for eclipse flows from the conjunction between transnational economic forces and the political hegemony of an Anglo-American ideology that, in J. P. Nettl's words, “simply leaves no room for any valid notion of the state”. Even this combination of economic and political pressure is unlikely to eclipse the state, but it is likely to put public institutions on the defensive, eclipsing any possibility of the “embedded liberalism” described by John Ruggie. A “leaner, meaner” state is the likely outcome. The possibility of a more progressive alternative outcome would depend in part on whether current zero-sum visions of the relation between the state and civil society can be replaced by a more synergistic view.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 50 , Issue 1: Special Issue , October 1997 , pp. 62 - 87
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1997

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References

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3 Nettl (fn. 1) saw the international arena almost purely in realist terms, arguing that in the international arena the state was “the almost exclusive and acceptable locus of resource mobilization” (p. 563). In Nerd's view, “Here [in the international system] the state is the basic, irreducible unit, equivalent to the individual person in a society” (p. 563). Since the “international function is invariant”, “even where the notion of the state is very weak, as in Britain and the United States, the effective extrasocietal or international role is not affected” (p. 564).

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32 In the Third World there is, of course, a long-standing tradition of seeing the state in these terms, that is, as a “tool of imperialism.'' In the United States a lively folk tradition is rapidly developing along analogous lines. As nonsensical as fears of “black helicopters” and visions of the U.S. government as a pawn of the UN may be, this folk mythology does reflect an underlying sense that U.S. administrations are more responsive to transnational actors than to domestic pressure from below.

33 For a review of early efforts in this direction, see Evans, Peter, Reuschemeyer, Dietrich, and Skocpol, Thedi, eds., Bringing tie State Back In (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially the initial essay by Skocpol.

34 See discussion in Evans (fn. 23), chap. 2.

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37 Speech by Senator Kyl in the Senate, January 20,1995, quoted in Fred Block (fn. 14).

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39 For example, in the view of Garrett (fn. 16), “‘New Growth’ theory contends that active government involvement in the economy (for example, public spending on education, physical infrastructure, and research and development) may actually increase productivity and hence competitiveness by providing collective goods that are undersupplied by the market” (p. 658). Others, like Paul Krugman, would argue that government efforts to exploit the theoretical possibilities revealed by the new growth theory are likely to do more harm than good; see, for example, Krugman, , Peddling Prosperity: Economic Seme and Nonsense in the Age of Diminished Expectations (New York: W. W. Norton, 1995)Google Scholar. Nonetheless, even Krugman would not deny that new theoretical possibilities have been opened up.

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44 Civil society was, of course, the most universalistic basis for organizing communities. Exclusionary ethnic and religious categories represented potent alternative bases for redefining the nation and reconstituting the footing of public authority. While Nettl did not anticipate the upsurge of neoclassical political economy, he did see (fn. 1) the “snapping of the link between state and nation” (p. 560) as a reason for projecting a general decline in stateness, especially in the developing world.

45 Migdal, , Strong Societies and Weak States: State-Society Relations and State Capabilities in the Third World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), 269 Google Scholar.

34 Putnam, , Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 176.Google Scholar In part, the differences between Putnam and Migdal result from their different definitions of a strong society. Migdal focuses on vertical, clientelistic ties and parochial relationships based on primordial affinities like ethnicity and kinship. Putnam focuses on civic associations that foster ties among social equals and that, while they may be deeply rooted in history, are modern rather than primordial in form. Putnam's version of society is, however, the one that is relevant to the vision that the emergence of civil society will permit the withering away of formal leviathans of repressive public authority. What optimistic proponents of civil society have in mind when they work toward fostering its rebirth in Eastern Europe or its reinvigoration in Latin America is presumably neither the strengthening of clientelistic ties nor the reawakening of primordial loyalties and parochial prejudices but rather the kinds of horizontal civic associations that are the focus of Putnam's argument. I am indebted to Patrick Heller for drawing this point to my attention; cf. Heller, “Social Mobilization and Democratization: Comparative Lessons from Kerala” (Paper presented at the annual meetings of the Association for Asian Studies, April 1996).

47 Chazan, , “Engaging the State: Associational Life in Sub-Saharan Africa,” in Migdal, Joel, Kohli, Atul, and Shue, Vivienne, eds., State Power and Social Forces: Domination and Transformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 258.Google Scholar

48 Ibid., 269

49 Ibid., 278

50 See Shue, “State Power and Social Organization in China” in Migdal, Kohli, and Shue (fn. 47), 66.

51 O'Donnell, , “On the State, Democratization and Some Conceptual Problems: A Latin American View with Glances at Some Postcommunist Countries,” World Development 21, no. 8 (1993)Google Scholar. O'Donnell uses the term “browning” to refer to “territorial evaporation of the public dimension of the state” (p. 1358), that is, the spread of areas in which both effective bureaucracies and “properly sanctioned legality” (p. 1359) are lacking.

52 O'Donnell (fn. 51), 1358.

53 Ibid., 1365.

54 See the article by Lam (fn. 54). See also Moore, Michael P., “The Fruits and Fallacies of Neoliberalism: The Case of Irrigation,” World Development 17, no. 11 (1989).Google Scholar

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58 Ibid., 486. See also Skocpol, Theda and Finegold, Kenneth, “State Capacity and Economic Intervention in the Early New Deal,” Political Science Quarterly 97 (Summer 1982)Google Scholar. For a recent reprise of Skocpol's perspective, see Skocpol, , “Unravelling from Above,” American Prospect 25 (March-April 1996)Google Scholar.

59 O'Donnell(fn.51).

60 Rodrik (fh. 21,1996a), 2–3.

61 “Nettl (fn.l), 561.

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65 Ibid.

66 Another potential source of normative change—also unlikely but still intriguing—is to be found in the networks of public organizations and officials that are part of the global order. John Meyer, in a classik article, presents a strong case for the collective power of public officials to shape global norms at the transnational level; see Meyer, , “The World Polity and the Authority of the Nation-State”, in Bergesen, Albert, ed., Studies in the Modern World System (New York: Academic Press, 1980)Google Scholar. Meyer's general model is unconvincing, especially in view of more recent changes in global ideology, but there are some very interesting, if modest, examples of transnational networks rooted in public institutions that have effected change in the global normative order. See, for example, Haas, Peter, “Banning Chlorofluorocarbons: Epistemic Community Efforts to Protect Stratospheric Ozone”, International Organization 46 (Winter 1992).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

67 See Migdal, Kohli, and Shue (fn. 47), especially Kohli and Shue, “State Power and the Social Forces: On Political Contention and Accommodation in the Third World”.