Global Governance

Ahead of her Time? Susan Strange and Global Governance

Sell, Susan K. In Susan Strange and the Future of Global Political Economy: Power, Control and Transformation, edited by Randall Germain, 39-50. London: Routledge, 2016.

This chapter argues that Strange's work is of enduring significance because it helps us forge a practical understanding of critical global problems. Global environmental problems, global financial crises, and global inequalities are three of the small set of global problems regularly pointed to by promoters of the new global public policy degree programs established over the last decade. In the contemporary world, the knowledge structure serves the production and financial structures, not the other way around. Strange's analysis contains an argument about the recent wave of economic globalization. She sees the globalization of private finance and the globalization of production as, in part, responses to changes in technology to things like containerized shipping and the Internet changes that came from that contemporary knowledge structure. The programs like the one that Mahbubani created at NUS with Kofi Annan reflect a global governance paradigm that emphasizes subsidiary as a way to enhance both accountability and legitimacy.

Keywords: Global Governance; Structural Power, Power; General Framework

Contributor(s): Susan K. Sell and Editor: Randall Germain
Keywords: Global Governance, Structural Power, Power, Strange-Influenced Works, 2010's
Source and Medium: Book Chapter

Year of Publication: 2016

Return of the State? The G20, the Financial Crisis and Power in the World Economy

Nordberg, Donald. Review of Political Economy 24, no. 2 (2012): 289-302.

The Group of Twenty and the new world order it is meant to signify have prompted a wave of triumphalism around the world from those who, like French President Nicolas Sarkozy, bemoan the influences of ‘Anglo-Saxon capitalism’ and from neo-Marxists, who view the economic crisis as a harbinger of the resurgence of states over markets. A little over a decade ago, however, the late doyenne of international political economists, Susan Strange, wrote eloquently about the reasons why the state was in retreat, its structural power draining away in favour of markets. Have the intervening dozen years, with their recurrent crises in markets and corporate governance, demonstrated the need for a return of the state? This analysis of the G20 London communiqué, using criteria that Strange advanced, suggests that far from asserting a return of the state, the G20 signifies its persistent weakness and concludes that the G20 leaders, at least, sense a more complex network of power relationships, and that structural power rests in the network.

Keywords: Authority; Markets; Money and Finance; Global governance

Contributor(s): Donald Nordberg
Keywords: Authority, Markets, Money and Finance, Global governance, Strange-Influenced Works, 2010's
Source and Medium: Journal Article

Year of Publication: 2012

Global Money and the Decline of State Power

Underhill, Geoffrey R.D. In Strange Power: Shaping the Parameters of International Relations and International Political Economy, edited by Thomas Lawton, James Rosenau, Amy C. Verdun, 115-135. London: Routledge, 2000.

Abstract Content

Keywords: Global governance; Globalization; Money and finance; Authority; Markets; States

Contributor(s): Geoffrey R.D. Underhill, Editor: Thomas Lawton, Editor: James Rosenau and Editor: Amy C. Verdun
Keywords: Global governance, Globalization, Money and finance, Authority, Markets, Strange-Influenced Works, 2000's
Source and Medium: Book Chapter

Year of Publication: 2000

Money and Power in World Politics

Cohen, Benjamin J. In Strange Power: Shaping the Parameters of International Relations and International Political Economy, edited by Thomas Lawton, James Rosenau, Amy C. Verdun, 91-114. London: Routledge, 2000.

Keywords: Global governance; Money and Finance

Contributor(s): Benjamin J. Cohen, Editor: Thomas Lawton, Editor: James Rosenau and Editor: Amy C. Verdun
Keywords: Global governance, Money and Finance, Strange-Influenced Works, 2000's
Source and Medium: Book Chapter

Year of Publication: 2000

Regional Blocks and International Relations: Economic Groupings or Political Hegemons?

Tovias, Alfred. In Strange Power: Shaping the Parameters of International Relations and International Political Economy, edited by Thomas Lawton, James Rosenau, Amy C. Verdun, 321-342. London: Routledge, 2000.

Keywords: Global governance; Regionalism; International Relations

Contributor(s): Alfred Tovias, Editor: Thomas Lawton, Editor: James Rosenau and Editor: Amy C. Verdun
Keywords: Global governance, Strange-Influenced Works, 2000's
Source and Medium: Book Chapter

Year of Publication: 2000

The Dynamics of Paralysis: Japan in the Global Era

Lehmann, Jean-Pierre. In Strange Power: Shaping the Parameters of International Relations and International Political Economy, edited by Thomas Lawton, James Rosenau, Amy C. Verdun, 295-320. London: Routledge, 2000.

Keywords: Global governance; Japan

Contributor(s): Jean-Pierre Lehmann, Editor: Thomas Lawton, Editor: James Rosenau and Editor: Amy C. Verdun
Keywords: Global governance, Strange-Influenced Works, 2000's
Source and Medium: Book Chapter

Year of Publication: 2000

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

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

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

The Power Gap: Member States and the World Economy

Strange, Susan. In Economic Policy Making and the European Union, edited by Frank Brouwer, Valerio Linter, Mike Newman, 19-26. London: Federal Trust, 1994.

Strange criticises arguments that suggest the European Union is a sui generis political institution. She criticises such claims, self avowedly, not from a lengthy engagement with European political analysis, but from a more global concern with political economy. She suggests that except for the Commission there is little to distinguish the EU from some other intergovernmental organisations. And given the Commission's inability to move on anything but essentially trivial matters she remains sceptical of the entire European project, remaining as she contends merely a sophisticated free-trade area. The problem, however, is not a particularly European one; the decline of state power vis-a-vis the global economy has been evident for some time. Only by recognising the problems for sovereign political authorities in the global political economy and planning for new constitutional developments in Europe to address this problem can this 'power gap' be narrowed. Strange here implicitly draws on the elements of her work that have supported the 'state-in-decline' thesis even though at other times she seems less willing to accept the absolute decline of state power than such arguments suggest.

Keywords: Europe; Global Governance; States; Global System; European Integration

Contributor(s): Susan Strange, Editor: Frank Brouwer and Editor: Valerio Linter
Keywords: Europe, Global Governance, States, 1990's
Source and Medium: Book Chapter

Year of Publication: 1994

Wake Up, Krasner! The World has Changed

Strange, Susan. Review of International Political Economy 1, no. 2 (1994): 209-219.

Strange offers a criticism of Krasner's realist position, drawing on her recent work and an understanding of structural power. She also offers brief critiques of political and economic liberalism as being essentially internally inconsistent, before suggesting that it is they rather than the 'societal' approaches that are having theoretical problems with recent developments in the international political economy. Realism and liberalism lack the heuristic power of her own (and others) structuralist approach. She concludes by arguing that all the many different groups of actors/interests in the international system must be recognised and analysed not just states.

Keywords: Global Governance; Theory; Structural Power, Power; Realism; Global System

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

Year of Publication: 1994

The Transformation of the World Economy

Strange, Susan. In Mapping the Unknown: Towards a New World Order (Yearbook of the Swedish Institute for International Affairs 1992-1993), edited by Lidija Babic, Bo Huldt, 43-49. London: Hurst and Co., 1993.

In this short article Strange reviews many of the same arguments that have been featured above. However, here she argues that the transformation of the world economy is not so much the product of state/firm interactions, rather it is firms that are playing (and will continue to play) the more important role in structural change. This finally represents a complete reversal of the position of 'Follow-up commentary On Money and World Politics' (1984). Strange also argues that the supposed problems of the emergence of trading blocs (the three main blocs being centred on the US, Japan and Europe - the triad) are not crucial to the stability of the global economy, as she had implicitly argued in her discussions of protectionism. The problems and structural transformation of the global economy are rooted in the financial structure, and it is here that the US needs to assert its leadership for the future good of the international system.

Keywords: Corporations; Global Governance; Hegemony; Structural Power, Power; Theory; Transnational Corporations; Global System

Contributor(s): Susan Strange, Editor: Lidija Babic and Editor: Bo Huldt
Keywords: Corporations, Global Governance, Hegemony, Structural Power, Power, Theory, 1990's
Source and Medium: Book Chapter

Year of Publication: 1993

Traitors, Double Agents or Rescuing Knights

Strange, Susan. Working Paper for Table Ronde No. 4 ‘Les Individus dans la Politique Internatioanle’. Association Française de Science Politique, Quatrième Congrès, 1992.

In this working paper Strange links her approach laid out in States and Markets (1988) and links it to the research she had recently published on the role of firms in the global system Rival States, Rival Firms: Competition for world market shares (with John M. Stopford and John S. Henley, 1991). This leads her to conclude that a greater role for firms (and their decision-makers, their managers) must be recognised by social science, and that the 'nation state' is less and less useful as a concept for the study of the global system. Once again Strange's frustration with the myopia of her colleagues is scarcely concealed.

Keywords: Corporations; Global governance; Structural Power, Power; Theory; Transnational Corporations; Global System

Contributor(s): Susan Strange
Keywords: Corporations, Global governance, Structural Power, Power, Theory, 1990's
Source and Medium: Working Paper

Year of Publication: 1992