Andrew P. Cortell - Böcker

Challenging dominant assumptions in international relations, Altered States demonstrates that national political institutions change more frequently_and less dramatically_than is commonly thought and with important consequences for the political landscape. Combining theory with solid empirical research_including archival evidence and interviews_the contributors explore the causes and consequences of institutional transformation in the United States, Western and Eastern Europe, Russia and the former Soviet Republics, and Cuba. Altered States highlights the dynamic and interactive relationship between national political institutions and reform-minded policy entrepreneurs, a perspective that will interest scholars and policy makers alike.

Argues that institutional context drives economic globalization in the United States and Britain.Has globalization fundamentally altered international relations, producing a race to the bottom in which states compete for economic growth and development by adopting similar liberal economic strategies? Mediating Globalization challenges this increasingly dominant perspective, demonstrating that national governments often respond to global competitive pressures with more, not less, economic intervention. Using interviews, archival research, and secondary sources, Andrew P. Cortell explores the strategies adopted by the United States and Britain with regard to one of the world's most globalized sectors, the semiconductor industry. From the early 1970s through the mid-1990s, he argues, increasing globalization pressures in each country led them to more actively intervene in the evolution of their semiconductor markets, rather than assume a more marginal role. The empirical evidence, moreover, indicates that the two countries adopted similar responses, whether liberal or interventionist, as a consequence of similar domestic institutional incentives rather than constraints identified to emerge from globalization.