Globalization and the New Politics of Embedded Liberalism

by Jude C. Hays

As the world economy slides into the worst recession since the 1930s, there is fear that hard times will ignite a backlash against free trade policies and globalization more generally. This book explores the political and economic institutional foundations of the bargain of embedded liberalism and the ways domestic institutions shape how governments redistribute the risks and benefits of economic globalization. The author identifies the Anglo-American democracies, because of their majoritarian polities combined with decentralized, competitive economies, as uniquely vulnerable to the contemporary challenges of globalization and the most susceptible to a backlash against it.

208 pages, Paperback

First published July 30, 2009

Reviews

[Andrew Morin]

Pretty enjoyable. Certainly very technical and well-grounded empirically, it might have been nice to have a bit more ideological justification, but good overall. Defines an important problem through a number of channels and offers some useful solutions.

[Nate]

Bias alert: this book was written by my faculty mentor at school. Nevertheless, this is, in my opinion, a prime example of methodologically-sound political science research. The argument is built gradually throughout the book and constantly reinforced by further research as the chapters progress. All of this is presented in a well-organized way that makes it easy to follow. The final chapter, in particular, does a great job of tying things together. Hays is an effective communicator, despite his tendency to be quite technical in his explanations. One of the most notable aspects of the research within this book is the uncommon use of spatiotemporal econometric methods applied to political observations and results. I think this aspect really sets it apart from similar literature, especially considering the 2009 publication date.

Although this book experienced success within the discipline, having over 250 cites, I think its relatively poor performance in a wider setting were due to two things: the price set by the publisher ($60!) and the quantitative focus. The majority of the book is very dense. The chapters are very data-heavy, even though each section is not only laid out explicitly in the introductory paragraph and wrapped up in simple terms in the final paragraph. Because of this, I think that the empirical nature of the research presented in the book are both its biggest strength (to academia) and its biggest weakness (to a wider audience).

I'd recommend this to those with a strong interest in political science research methods or understanding different perspectives on globalization. It's not a long read!