Showing papers by "Colin Hay published in 2000"
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors identify and seek to resolve a certain paradox in the existing litera-ture on networks and networking and propose a "strategic relational" theory of network dynamics based on a rethinking of the concept of network itself.
Abstract: In this paper we identify and seek to resolve a certain paradox in the existing litera-ture on networks and networking. Whilst earlier policy network perspectives have tended to emphasize the structural character of networks as durable, dense and relatively static organization forms, the more recent strategic network literature emphasizes the flexible, adaptive and dynamic quality of networking as a social and political practice. However, neither perspective has yet developed a theory of network formation, evolution, transformation and termination. In this paper, we seek to rectify this omission, advancing a ‘strategic relational’ theory of network dynamics based on a rethinking of the concept of network itself. We illustrate this perspective with respect to the policy process centred in and around Westminster and Whitehall, drawing on a series of semi-structured interviews with ministers and officials from four departments.
104 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors review the literature on convergence, difference and divergence in the global political economy, differentiating between neoclassical and institutionalist perspectives, and identify the contingent, political and frequently coercive nature of the convergence process.
Abstract: The literatures on globalisation and regionalisation on the one hand and on the institutional distinctiveness of national capitalisms on the other, seem to pull in very different directions. Nonetheless, an increasing number of international and comparative political economists sensitive to the institutional and cultural variability of contemporary capitalism identify tendencies towards convergence — often towards an Anglo-US model of deregulated neoliberal capitalism. In this paper I critically review the literature on convergence, difference and divergence in the global political economy, differentiating between neoclassical and institutionalist perspectives. Resisting arguments which posit a natural selection process initiated by untrammelled free market competition and free capital mobility, I identify the contingent, political and frequently coercive nature of the convergence process. This is illustrated through a discussion of regional selection mechanisms in the context of European Monetary Union and the East Asian financial crisis. In so far as evolutionary selection mechanisms can be identified in the European context, selecting for a more residual social model, these are more a product of the contingent process of European economic integration than they are a necessary consequence of globalisation . Moreover, in so far as similarly convergent processes can be identified in contemporary East Asia, they are less a product of globalisation than of the ‘predatory neoliberalism’ of a beleagured Washington Consensus.
101 citations
01 Jan 2000
TL;DR: The realm of politics is the realm of agency, imagination, of demonic and heroic intent as mentioned in this paper, and it matters in creating the structures which then limit human possibilities. (Piven 1995: 114)
Abstract: The realm of politics — of agency, imagination, of demonic and heroic intent — matters in creating the structures which then limit human possibilities. (Piven 1995: 114)
51 citations
01 Jan 2000
TL;DR: This paper argued that if any residual social democratic optimism is to be revived, globalization's perceived logic of inevitability must first be exposed for the myth that it is, and argued that the conventional mythology of globalization summons an inexorable neoliberalizing logic of inevitable convergence, which replaces a bifurcated logic of institutionally mediated convergence.
Abstract: In Partisan Politics in the Global Economy (1998), Geoffrey Garrett provides arguably the most important intervention to date in the debate on the continued viability of social democratic corporatism in the context of globalization. His book is intended to offer some comfort to beleaguered social democrats while resuscitating arguments that partisan politics continues to matter in an era characterized by heightened capital mobility. In this article I take issue with Garrett's argument, suggesting that far from reviving social democratic optimism, Partisan Politics in fact only marginally modifies the narrow economistic logic of more orthodox 'globaloney'. Where the conventional mythology of globalization summons an inexorable neoliberalizing logic of inevitable convergence, Garrett supplants a bifurcated logic of institutionally mediated convergence. Whereas social democratic corporatism is 'selected for' in nations characterized by social democratic corporatist institutions and traditions, neoliberalism is 'selected for' in the absence of such cultural and institutional specificities. I challenge this revised logic of inevitability, arguing that if any residual social democratic optimism is to be revived, globalization's perceived logic of inevitability must first be exposed for the myth that it is.
18 citations
TL;DR: In Partisan Politics in the Global Economy (1998) as mentioned in this paper, the authors argue that far from reviving social democratic optimism, partisan politics in fact only marginally modifies the narrow economistic logic of more orthodox 'globaloney' where the conventional mythology of globalization summons an inexorable neoliberalizing logic of inevitable convergence.
Abstract: In Partisan Politics in the Global Economy (1998), Geoffrey Garrett provides arguably the most important intervention to date in the debate on the continued viability of social democratic corporatism in the context of globalization. His book is intended to offer some comfort to beleaguered social democrats while resuscitating arguments that partisan politics continues to matter in an era characterized by heightened capital mobility. In this article I take issue with Garrett's argument, suggesting that far from reviving social democratic optimism, Partisan Politics in fact only marginally modifies the narrow economistic logic of more orthodox 'globaloney'. Where the conventional mythology of globalization summons an inexorable neoliberalizing logic of inevitable convergence, Garrett supplants a bifurcated logic of institutionally mediated convergence. Whereas social democratic corporatism is 'selected for' in nations characterized by social democratic corporatist institutions and traditions, neoliberalism ...
12 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that despite Goldhagen's efforts to restore the conscious human subject to the perpetration of the Holocaust, the logic of his thesis in fact serves largely to absolve German subjects of culpability for an act of barbarism he regards as at least latent in an ‘exceptional’ and ‘eliminationist’ anti-Semitism that predates the rise of fascism.
Abstract: Daniel Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (1996) has won its author a succession of accolades, from the American Political Science Association's prestigious Gabriel A Almond Prize in comparative politics in 1994 to the even more prestigious Blatter fur deutsche und internationale Politik's Democracy Prize (awarded last in 1990) It has also occasioned an unprecedented and intense controversy on both sides of the Atlantic In this article I consider the attribution of responsibility for the Holocaust in the Goldhagen thesis and the controversy this has spawned I argue that despite Goldhagen's efforts to restore the conscious human subject to the perpetration of the Holocaust, the logic of his thesis in fact serves largely to absolve German subjects of culpability for an act of barbarism he regards as at least latent in an ‘exceptional’ and ‘eliminationist’ anti-Semitism that predates the rise of fascism I take issue with Goldhagen's identification of Hitler's w
2 citations