The 1990's

Works from the years 1990 to 1999

The Westfailure System

Strange, Susan. Review of International Studies 25, no. 3 (1999): 345-354.

In this posthumously published essay, Strange briefly outlines the parallel histories of the territorial system of states and the economic system of markets and suggests that until the last quarter of the twentieth century each benefited the other. However, as she often argued in the 1990s, the political system is now failing in three areas: the states system is increasingly unable to manage instability in the global financial system; the sovereign system is unable to deal effectively with globalised environmental problems; and lastly the political system's interaction with the global market is producing widening socio-economic inequality across the global system. However, only by understanding the role of non-state authority through the study of both international and comparative political economy and a move away from International Relation's state-centricism can the Westfailure system be understood and alternatives assessed. Reprinted in: Authority and Markets: Susan Strange’s Writings on International Political Economy, edited by Roger Tooze and Christopher May. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.

Keywords: Corporations; Global Governance; States; Westfailure System; International Relations

Contributor(s): Susan Strange
Keywords: Corporations, Global Governance, States, 1990's
Source and Medium: Journal Article

Year of Publication: 1999

Globaloney? (Review Essay)

Strange, Susan. Review of International Political Economy 5, no. 4 (1998): 704-711.

In this review of the influential Paul Hirst and Grahame Thompson Globalisation in Question (Oxford: Polity Press, 1996) alongside two other books arguing a similar position, Strange makes a major intervention in the debate over the 'myth' of globalisation. Arguing that the authors (like others) miss the deterritorialisation of commercial power in the global system, Strange allows that there needs to be a corrective to the extreme globalisation thesis of complete transformation, but that a failure to examine what is really happening in the global political economy, while relying on aggregated and out-of-date statistics has led too many political economists to fail to recognise the very real changes in the balance of power between multinational corporations and states. For Strange it is this balance of power that is of major importance for understanding globalisation.

Keywords: Globalization; Theory; Corporations; States; Transnational Corporations; Authority vs Markets

Contributor(s): Susan Strange
Keywords: Globalization, Theory, Corporations", States, 1990's
Source and Medium: Journal Article

Year of Publication: 1998

Mad Money

Strange, Susan. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998.

In this sequel to Casino Capitalism (1986) Strange returns to a concentration on the financial structure. Her final book finds Strange once again emphasising the need to recognise the problems of instability in the global financial sector. Arguing that the system itself needed to be reformed, she once again refused to accept that the current upheavals were inevitable or unavoidable.

Keywords: Money and Finance

Contributor(s): Susan Strange
Keywords: Money and Finance, 1990's
Source and Medium: Book

Year of Publication: 1998

The New World of Debt

Strange, Susan. New Left Review 230, July/August (1998): 91-114.

An extract from Mad Money (1998) in which Strange focuses on the problems of international indebtedness in the 1990s including the Mexican, Brazilian and Asian debt crises and a discussion of central and Eastern European issues. She suggests that the key problem has not been the indebtedness of poor states itself, but the sorts of credit historically extended and the timidity of the solutions to the problems that have arisen. Noting the missed opportunity of a new Marshall Plan for Eastern Europe, she notes not only is there little agreement on the causes of problems but also little consensus about 'what is to be done'.

Keywords: Money and Finance

Contributor(s): Susan Strange
Keywords: Money and Finance, 1990's
Source and Medium: Journal Article

Year of Publication: 1998

What Theory? The Theory in Mad Money (CSGR Working Paper No. 18/98)

Strange, Susan. Coventry: University of Warwick/Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation, 1998.

In this, her final piece of writing, Strange reprise arguments from Rival States, Rival Firms: Competition for world market shares (with John M. Stopford and John S. Henley, 1991) and The Retreat of the State. The Diffusion of Power in the World Economy (1996) to argue that the disciplines of International Relations and International Economics fail to understand contemporary globalisation. Where IR scholars have missed the structural shifts in the global system away from state-centric power with the emergence of new non-state authority, economists have missed the role of the state in promoting these changes, and misunderstand the working of global markets, discounting, or not even recognising the political relations between firms, what Strange refers to as the new diplomacy. In this last piece Strange revisits the criticisms she has levelled at much of mainstream International Studies literature and remains as angry as ever at the myopia of many of her contemporaries, leading to a failure to recognise the real problems of the 'global casino', not least of all issues of finance and technology.

Keywords: Authority; Markets; Money and Finance; States; Theory; Technology; Authority vs Markets

Contributor(s): Susan Strange
Keywords: Authority, Markets, Money and Finance, States, Theory, 1990's
Source and Medium: Working Paper

Year of Publication: 1998

Who are EU? Ambiguities in the Concept of Competitiveness

Strange, Susan. Journal of Common Market Studies 36, no. 1 (1998): 101-114.

Building on the argument of Robert Reich that the location of economic activity (in a state) was more important for its competitiveness than the ownership of companies (whose production was carried out abroad), Strange suggests that unless European policy recognises the importance of society based competitiveness rather than firm-based competitiveness, Europe's economic problems cannot be overcome. Strange then discusses European trade policy (which needs to be more predictable), investment policy (which should be more open), European Monetary Union (which while stabilising may have little effect on inward investment from non-European investors), and welfare issues (which need to continue to cushion technological-unemployment). Strange concludes that while states (and the European Union) cannot directly intervene in markets successfully, they can act as 'good landlords' to encourage the location of activities on their territory, and by doing so gain the benefits which Reich suggests are possible.

Keywords: Europe; Money and Finance; Production; Trade; European Integration

Contributor(s): Susan Strange
Keywords: Europe, Money and Finance, Production, Trade, 1990's
Source and Medium: Journal Article

Year of Publication: 1998

Why do International Organisations Never Die?

Strange, Susan. In Autonomous Policy Making by International Organisations, edited by Bob Reinalda, Bertjan Verbeek, 213-220. London: Routledge, 1998.

In this concluding chapter of a collection of articles drawn from a series of workshops organised under the auspices of the ECPR, Strange reflects on the legacy of The Anatomy of Influence see (1974b) and suggests that a focus on international organisation remains a largely European enterprise due to the continuing dominance of liberal institutionalism and (neo)Realism. After applauding the project in the first section, she then turns to some criticisms of the collection's contributors. She suggests that some of the authors have been unable to avoid capture by their subjects and are too kind to the self-perpetuating bureaucracies and secretariats of many international organisations. She argues that these bureaucracies have a symbiotic relationship with the members' governments and thus are able to ride out many local problems. Lastly she briefly alludes (again) to the failure to include the impact of changes in market conditions, changes in technology and the role of MNCs in the international political economic analysis of international organisations.

Keywords: Corporations; Europe; International Institutions; Theory; Transnational Corporations

Contributor(s): Susan Strange, Editor: Bob Reinalda and Editor: Bertjan Verbeek
Keywords: Corporations, Europe, International Institutions, Theory, 1990's
Source and Medium: Book Chapter

Year of Publication: 1998

An International Political Economy Perspective

Strange, Susan. In Governments, Globalization, and International Business, edited by John H. Dunning, 132-145. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.

In this chapter Strange lays out her idea of what International Political Economy is, including a wide-ranging view of politics (not just the activities of politicians and governments) and a focus on structural power. This then leads her to discuss the problems that globalisation presents for governments, business and people. She concludes that these problems require a re-examination of authority and justice both by states and by international business and adopting an IPE perspective facilitates such analysis. By trying to make a bridge between business research and international relations Strange returns again to the theme of breaking down disciplinary boundaries, see for instance 'International Political Economy: Reuniting three fields of intellectual endeavour' (1989).

Keywords: Globalization; Political Economy; Theory

Contributor(s): Susan Strange and Editor: John H. Dunning
Keywords: Globalization, Political Economy, Theory, 1990's, Susan Strange
Source and Medium: Book Chapter

Year of Publication: 1997

Globalisation and Capitalist Diversity: Experiences on the Asian Mainland

Strange, Susan, editor. Florence: European University Institute/Robert Schulman Centre, 1997.

This volume collects together papers presented at a conference organised by Strange at the EUI on 2-4th May 1996. Strange herself only contributed an introduction outlining the papers in the volume and discussing the organisational background to the conference. Strange argues that comparative politics scholars and international business academics need to 'build bridges' between the two disciplines to better understand the interaction between states and firms. Additionally Strange wanted the conference to bring together European and Japanese academics to discuss the relationship between firms and states in Asia's economic development. Unsurprisingly, this relationship between states and firms, most specifically in the case of Japan and China was the central subject of discussion. However Strange concludes that while the papers collected in the volume broadly agreed on the importance of Asian development for the global economy, the participants were unable to agree on the interaction of states and firms. Finally Strange suggested that mainstream realist and neo-realist approaches to international relations were of little help and what was required was an interdisciplinary comparative international political economy, which she had been advocating for the previous twenty years.

Keywords: Political Economy; Theory; Realism

Contributor(s): Editor: Susan Strange
Keywords: Political Economy, Theory, 1990's
Source and Medium: Edited Volume

Year of Publication: 1997

Territory, State, Authority and Economy: A New Realist Ontology of Global Political Economy

Strange, Susan. In The New Realism: Perspectives on Multilateralism and World Order, edited by Robert W. Cox, 3-19. Basingstoke: Macmillan Press/United Nations University Press, 1997.

Strange argues that the global economy is in the midst of a transition; the close incidence of political authority, economic activity and geographical territory no longer holds. This has been caused by two main groups of factors: firstly changes derived from science and technology; and secondly structural changes within the global finance structure. Authority has shifted, or is shifting, from states to other actors in the international political economy. She disputes Rosenau's hypothesis of the emergence of a second world of turbulent complexity, disturbing the old world of international relations, instead arguing that it is all the same world, just more complex! Reprinted in: Authority and Markets: Susan Strange’s Writings on International Political Economy. Roger Tooze and Christopher May, editors. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.

Keywords: Authority; Knowledge; Markets; Money and Finance; States; Authority vs Markets; Technology

Contributor(s): Susan Strange and Editor: Robert W. Cox
Keywords: Authority, Knowledge, Markets, Money and Finance, States, 1990's
Source and Medium: Book Chapter

Year of Publication: 1997

The Erosion of the State

Strange, Susan. Current History 96, no. 613 (1997): 365-369.

Strange briefly revisits the globalisation debate and suggests those who argue that as the state still exists, globalisation can be ignored are very mistaken. She then goes on to outline three dilemmas of globalisation: the economic, in that increasingly there is no political authority able to govern and control market relations; the environmental, while on one hand market actors are driven by the profit motive to use up environmental resources, countervailing power is largely absent; the political, there is a major democratic deficit in the governance structure of the global system. Strange then links these aspects of globalisation to technical change and increased mobility of capital. However, a concentration on the state misses the 'new diplomacy' between firms and other non-state actors as well as states themselves as outline in Rival States, Rival Firms: Competition for world market shares (with John M. Stopford and John S. Henley, 1991) . She then restates briefly her argument from The Retreat of the State (1996). The Diffusion of Power in the World Economy (1996), the state is losing its authority due to: the decline in importance of war-making and security; its inability to control the value of the currency; and its increasingly lack of credibility as a provider of welfare. Thus, to deny the decline of the state is to deny that something needs to be done about it unless big business is to come to rule the international system.

Keywords: Authority; Globalization; Markets; States; Authority vs Markets

Contributor(s): Susan Strange
Keywords: Authority, Globalization, Markets, States, 1990's
Source and Medium: Journal Article

Year of Publication: 1997

The Future of Global Capitalism: or Will Divergence Persist Forever

Strange, Susan. In The Political Economy of Modern Capitalism: Mapping Convergence and Diversity, edited by Colin Crouch, Wolfgang Streeck, 182-191. London: Sage, 1997.

In this response to the contents of the volume in which it appears, Strange distances herself from comparative political economists studying different forms of national capitalism, and argues for a global perception of a more systemic view of capitalism. She notes that technological change and the mobility of capital and knowledge have produced a number of overlapping diversities in different sectors rather than a single state based set of diversities. The new institutional approach misses not only these changes but also the decline of governments ability to influence economic organisation, the growing disparity between the power of states and of multinationals, and the increase in bond financing (as a substitute for taxation) which is problematic for investment. Overall Strange is dismissive of a focus on diversity suggesting the more important problems will be the result of the increasing convergence of capitalism.

Keywords: Global Governance; Knowledge; Theory; Global System; Technology

Contributor(s): Susan Strange, Editor: Colin Crouch and Editor: Wolfgang Streeck
Keywords: Global Governance, Knowledge, Theory, 1990's
Source and Medium: Book Chapter

Year of Publication: 1997

The Problem or the Solution? Capitalism and the State System

Strange, Susan. In Innovation and Transformation in International Studies, edited by Stephen Gill, James H. Mitelman, 236-247. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Again Strange criticises International Relations for not focusing on the systemic problems, not least of all environmental and financial issues which a concern for inter-state relations misses. Thus International Political Economy is open to approaches from political geography, historical sociology and elsewhere that have not been fixated on the relations between states as the key causal factor in the global system. Globalised production and finance are integrating most areas into a global system and it is the system not states which analysis should focus on in the future.

Keywords: Global Governance; Globalization; Money and Finance; Production; International Relations; Global System

Contributor(s): Susan Strange, Editor: Stephen Gill and Editor: James H. Mittelman
Keywords: Global Governance, Globalization, Money and Finance, Production, 1990's
Source and Medium: Book Chapter

Year of Publication: 1997

A Reply to Chris May

Strange, Susan. Global Society 10, no. 3 (1996): 303-305.

In Strange's reply to May's article (Strange Fruit: Susan Strange's theory of Structural-Power in the International Political Economy Global Society 10, 2 (May 1996): 167 -189), she engages with two criticisms made of her theory of structural power. Firstly she suggests that the knowledge structure itself is not necessarily prior as is suggested it might be considered to be if her process of agenda setting power is regarded as central. Furthermore my reworking of the knowledge structure while suggestive was overly dependent on a de-contextualised reading of Schumacher, whom she knew personally and whose views are misrepresented. Secondly, while agreeing with the criticism that she lacks a general theory of change she asserts that such a general theory is not possible, noting that she is however sensitive to particular forms of change. Finally, she concludes by agreeing that Paul Feyerabend's 'methodological anarchism' is helpful in giving epistemological grounds for her eclectic approach.

Keywords: Knowledge; Structural Power, Power; Theory

Contributor(s): Susan Strange
Keywords: Knowledge, Structural Power, Power, Theory, 1990's
Source and Medium: Journal Article

Year of Publication: 1996

Europe's Future in the Global Political Economy

Strange, Susan. In Reflections on the Identity of Europe: Global Transatlantic Perspectives, edited by Thomas Row. Bologna: The John Hopkins University Bologna Center, 1996.

Strange argues in this reflection on the future of Europe that too little analytical attention has been paid to the corporate sector and its role in three important structural shifts in the global political economy: new and faster technological changes that have speeded up the competitive cycle (and reduced the time for investors to recover their outlay on innovation); moves in finance towards a much more globalised financial sector with a reduction in the role of national (or in this case European Union) policy interventions; and a shift in the location of production, facilitated by the other two changes. This, she argues, means that the chief dimension of difference in the global political economy is no longer state political but rather is related to corporate activity and interest. In the face of the relative inaction (caused by political sclerosis at the EU), she argues that to understand the political economy, analysts can no longer ignore or simplify the political economy of the private sector but rather need to include corporations as a central element of their analysis; There is no longer a European orientation to the global political economy separate from the role and activity of international business.

Keywords: Corporations; Europe; Money and Finance; Production; Technology; Transnational Corporations

Contributor(s): Susan Strange and Editor: Thomas Row
Keywords: Corporations, Europe, Money and Finance, Production, 1990's
Source and Medium: Book Chapter

Year of Publication: 1996

The Retreat of the State: State Diffusion of Power in the World Economy

Strange, Susan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

In what might effectively be regarded as the third part of a trilogy, together with States and Markets (1988) and Rival States, Rival Firms: Competition for world market shares (with John M. Stopford and John S. Henley, 1991), Strange examines states' transition towards the sidelines of global political economic relations. Though in the past authority might have been state based, now she argues it is more often based on non-state abilities to bring about (or structure) outcomes. This has to some extent been obscured by the increasing intervention by states in the lives of their citizens, giving an impression of the retention of power. While some states have fared better than others, the US being the prime example of a state retaining significant power, in general Strange sees new sites of authority in the global system are rising to challenge even the strongest states. Relations between states and non-state authority are arrayed along a continuum from the Mafia, threatening and undermining remaining state authority, to the big-six accountancy firms and transnational legal partnerships which work with state based authority and by doing so support it. Lacking the means to autonomously change its interactions with the global political economy, the state has lost the most important and significant aspect of its potential.

Keywords: Foundational Work; States; Structural Power, Power; Theory; Authority vs Markets

Contributor(s): Susan Strange
Keywords: Foundational Work, States, Structural Power, Power, Theory, 1990's
Source and Medium: Book

Year of Publication: 1996

1995 Presidential Address: ISA as a Microcosm

Strange, Susan. International Studies Quarterly 39, no. 3 (1995): 289-295.

After briefly discussing the history of the ISA, Strange points out that it is the International Studies Association, despite the current domination of International Relations. Once again Strange argues for the constructive engagement with other discipline interested in the international system, from political geographers to business economists. Strange points to the relative decline of state-state violence relative to civil and local violence, the increasing interest in the environment, and the dangers stemming from the financial markets, as reasons for widening the ISA's implicit agenda. Stressing that in the post-Cold War world there is only one superpower, Strange argues that for millions America is a common second-country. This is a very powerful position to be in, but it also requires the US. to remain part of the world system - not to flee into isolationism. The ISA as an embryonic epistemic community can do a lot to ensure this does not happen.

Keywords: Global Governance; Hegemony; Theory

Contributor(s): Susan Strange
Keywords: Global Governance, Hegemony, Theory, 1990's
Source and Medium: Journal Article

Year of Publication: 1995

European Business in Japan. A Policy Cross-roads?

Strange, Susan. Journal of Common Market Studies 33, no. 1 (1995): 1-25.

Contrasting European and American proposals for the perceived difficulty of setting up foreign owned subsidiaries in Japan, Strange argues that this is a central issue for any nascent European foreign policy initiative. She argues that it may now be beyond any nationally elected government (even in the US.) to re-impose its hegemonic intent on other states. But some co-ordinated pressure from Japanese and European policy bodies may support the reintroduction into global politics of a more interdependent (and less free-market) approach to commercial and financial diplomacy. This would be to adopt the policy of 'gaiatsu' (pressure from foreigners) to encourage a less disruptive US. foreign policy in these areas. Also published as EUI Working Paper RSC No.94/10.

Keywords: Europe; Japan; Interdependence

Contributor(s): Susan Strange
Keywords: Europe, 1990's
Source and Medium: Journal Article

Year of Publication: 1995

Political Economy and International Relations

Strange, Susan. In International Relations Theory Today, edited by Ken Booth, Steve Smith, 154-174. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995.

Noting that it is over twenty years since she and others argued for the end of the false division between politics and economics, Strange argues that the development of modern IPE has been in reaction to events within the global system. She suggests that there is still a division between an American IPE based conception of the Politics of International Economic Relations, and a non-American approach that bears some similarity to her own framework as laid out in States and Markets (1988) and elsewhere. She once again makes many of the criticisms she has detailed before regarding the discipline's deference to international economics. Strange suggests the way forward is to conceptualise politics more widely, building on the work of moral philosophers and to apply her conception of structural power, as well as the more usual considerations of relational power.

Keywords: Political Economy; Structural Power, Power; Theory; International Relations

Contributor(s): Susan Strange, Editor: Ken Booth and Editor: Steve Smith
Keywords: Political Economy, Structural Power, Power, Theory, 1990's
Source and Medium: Book Chapter

Year of Publication: 1995

The Defective State

Strange, Susan. Daedelus 124, no. 2 (1995): 55-74.

Strange argues that while states remain superficially important as major actors within the global system, the underlying power relations have hollowed out their authority. This authority has in some cases flowed 'upwards' to international institutions, and in other cases flowed down to markets (and also more localised organisations). These movements have led to an asymmetry of structural authority in the global system. Strange also makes some comments regarding the state-centric nature of the discipline of International Relations and suggests a new research agenda based around her conception of structural power and the importance of non-state actors in the functioning of authority. Thus while competition between states continues in some sense, it has been joined by other fields of competition that the disciplines of International Relations and International Political Economy need to contend with if they are to remain relevant to the global political economy.

Keywords: Corporations; International Institutions; States; Structural Power, Power; Transnational Corporations

Contributor(s): Susan Strange
Keywords: Corporations, International Institutions, States, Structural Power, Power, 1990's
Source and Medium: Journal Article

Year of Publication: 1995

The Limits of Politics

Strange, Susan. Government and Opposition 30, no. 3 (1995): 291-311.

Originally delivered as a lecture at the LSE this article finds Strange explicitly engaging with the notion of globalisation. For Strange globalisation is: the development of products for explicitly global and transnational markets; the decline of barriers and distinctions between national economies; the emergence of at least partial labour mobility in addition to the more recognised capital mobility; and the speeding up of transport and communications. While these trends have changed the balance between authority and markets over outcomes in the international political economy, they have also led to an increasingly globalised but asymmetrical array of structural power.

Keywords: Authority; Globalization; Markets; Theory; Structural Power, Power; Authority vs Markets

Contributor(s): Susan Strange
Keywords: Authority, Globalization, Markets, Theory, Structural Power, Power, 1990's
Source and Medium: Journal Article

Year of Publication: 1995