------------------------------
From: "Randall W. Kindley" <kindley@maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 03:37:42 -0500
To: INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY <ipe@csf.colorado.edu>
Subject: RE: Globalization's Challenge to Small States (reminder)
[Just a reminder]
Call for Papers
Where: Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE), Geneva
Switzerland (sase@bootes.unm.edu)
When: July 12-14, 1996
Panel
Topic: Globalization as a Challenge to Small States
Timelines: February 10,1996: Two-Page proposal
March 1, 1996: Proposal Selection and Notification*
June 15, 1996: Finished papers to mailed to panel
participants.
Respond to: Randall Kindley
5214 45th Ave. S.
Minneapolis MN 55417-2334
Voice: (612) 721-6752
Fax: (612) 626-2242
e-mail: kindley@maroon.tc.umn.edu
* A total of seven presenters and four alternates will be selected. An
attempt will be made to balance selections among the three issue areas
described below.
Globalization and the Challenge to Small States:
Small states are bellwethers of globalization. The ever faster exchange
of resources, technology and information is making traditional
institutions obsolete, opening formerly closed economies and sectors, and
fostering devolution in governance. Our future is likely to be one in
which relatively small political communities are integrated into a network
of regional, continental and world political and economic associations.
Even these will be fragmented by the uninhibited flow of information and
capital among individuals and organizations. Today's Europe provides an
example. Twenty-nine of the thirty-five non-CIS states west of the
Bosporus have populations no larger than that of the Netherlands. All are
becoming even more trade dependent, while information and electronic
currency spill easily across their boundaries. The former Czechoslovakia
and Yugoslavia have dissolved. Cries for more autonomy ring out in
Scotland and the Basque region. Economic irredentism (e.g., Alpa Adria)
challenges traditional state control.
The goal of this panel will be to assess the challenge of globalization
in three areas: 1) concepts of unit, space and purpose in globalized small
states 2) civic and institutional contexts in globalized small states, and
3) Policies, policy conflict and economic performance correlates in
globalized small states. Papers to be presented will be chosen from these
issue areas. All papers must demonstrate globalization's effect and must
draw on comparisons across cases. Papers must also stress lessons
applicable from research on small globalized states to other venues (e.g.,
large states, provinces and localities of large states or regions, etc.).
Below are some possible topics in the three issue areas:
I. Concepts of unit, space and purpose in globalized small states:
What is globalization and how do differences in definition vary
across sizes of states. How do these differences in conceptualizing
globalization inform policy development?
How are definitions of the nation-state being altered by
globalization?
What is the "focal" territorial community? That is what territorial
community (world, continental, regional, national or local) is coming to
be regarded as the group whose collective interests and identity should be
maximized?
Is there a new distribution or re-distribution of functions across
the (territorial and functional) governance units; new or re-emergent
conflicts across the units?
Does globalization indeed foster the proliferation of governance
units (e.g., decentralization). If so, does proliferation present
coordination problems or are these more easily resolved as a result of
enhanced information flows?
Are non-territorial political communities a serious threat to
territorial ones?
What have become the purposive goals of communities and what values
(jobs, welfare, income distribution, etc.) are to be maximized?
What are the dimensions of small state security concerns? Has the
possibility of conflict become greater with a larger number of state
actors or can we expect a "peace of weakness" as a result of the lower
political and military power of small sta tes?
II. Civic and Institutional Contexts:
Has globalization altered civil society? If so how? Have small
state societies been more or less resilient in the face of change and why?
Has social stability been altered by increased exposure and
openness? If so how and are small states still the bastion of social
stability? Why or why not?
How have traditional postwar civic and economic governance
institutions (e.g, social partnerships, etc.) been changed by
globalization? How have these in turn changed or adapted to globalization?
What are the contending non-territorial loyalties in small states?
Are these greater or stronger in smaller state units than larger? Are new
loyalties offsetting traditional identities (e.g., class, cultural group)
in small states?
III. Policies, Policy Conflict and Economic Performance Correlates:
The literature of the seventies and eighties stressed the
importance of class based institutional cooperation for economic success
in small European states. How, and if so in what way, have the correlates
of performance changed?
Is there an "inoculation from openness" available to small states?
Have there been and are there any instances of successful protectionism
among the small states?
Formerly, 'leading sectors' were the vanguards of small state
economic success. Which sectors lead today? Is it possible anymore for
small states to rely on leading sectors?
Some argue that institutional cohesiveness, like that exhibited by
Austria's Economic and Social Partnership, accounts for the ability of a
small state to attract capital investment at reasonable rates, while
others must pay higher rates for capit al (risk premia). Is this so? And
how is globalization affecting the institutional pre-conditions for
capital attraction?
Are small states better economic managers and more flexible and
adaptive than the large in making policy that attracts business and
maintains a better business climate? What are some of the cornerstones of
typical small state economic policy chang e in the face of globalization?
Are small states better environments for "platforming" out to new
and emergent investment and production markets?
Supply-side corporatism is suggested as the new wave in
competitiveness policy for small states. Has globalization caused
'institution building' paradigms of economic performance in small states
to be overshadowed by human resource and organizatio nal development? What
is the comparative state and practice of HRD/OD in small states? Does this
new focus support or erode traditional governance institutions?
Globalization presents contradictions in traditional small state
economic governance: 1) capital may be easier to attract to very stable
neo-corporatist states, but the preconditions for such arrangements are
eroding, 2) globalization means that n ational governments are less
capable of guaranteeing social pacts,but class organizations weakened by
globalization are even less able to put together autonomous ones, 3) The
EU means the erosion of monetary sovereignty as a tool in competitiveness
policy , but so too are the non-monetary tools of competitiveness
management, 4) competition among localities calls for greater national
coordination at the same time that the center is loosing power. Given
these contradictions in small state economic governance , what will the
new or post-cold war settlement look like?
________________________________________________
End of Posting. Contact information at heading
________________________________________________
Prof. Chris Chase-Dunn
Department of Sociology
Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, MD. 21218 USA
tel 410 516 7633 fax 410 516 7590 email chriscd@jhu.edu