The missing link: Bringing institutions back into the debate on economic globalisation

In der Auseinandersetzung mit der Globalisierung von Wirtschaftsprozessen kann sich die sozialwissenschaftliche Institutionentheorie nicht mehr auf die Untersuchung nationaler Konfigurationen beschränken, sondern sollte der transnationalen Rekombination institutioneller Arrangements mehr Aufmerksamkeit schenken. Für die Untersuchung solcher Prozesse sind veränderte analytische Werkzeuge erforderlich. Die Autorinnen dieses Beitrags schlagen eine Synthese von National Business Systems- und Varieties of Capitalism- Ansätzen mit kulturalistischen und phänomenologischen Varianten der Institutionentheorie vor. Es werden drei Aspekte der institutionellen Analyse vertieft, die zu einem besseren Verständnis des Verhältnisses von Globalisierung und Institutionen beitragen: Institutionalisierung als Prozeß, Rekombination als Mechanismus der Institutionengenese und des Institutionenwandels und eine Mehrebenenanalyse des Zusammenspiels von institutionellen Veränderungen auf nationaler und transnationaler Ebene. Die vorgeschlagene Synthese verschiedener institutionalistischer Ansätze bietet einerseits Ansatzpunkte für die Untersuchung der Rolle nationaler Akteure in der Genese und Entwicklung transnationaler Institutionen. Andererseits trägt sie zu einem besseren Verständnis der Rekombination von Elementen verschiedener institutioneller Arrangements sowie der Herausbildung neuer Institutionen auf transnationaler Ebene bei. Diese Entwicklungen im transnationalen Raum wirken wiederum auf Institutionen in nationalen Sozial- und Wirtschaftsräumen ein. Die Autorinnen des vorliegenden Beitrages argumentieren, daß die Abfolge und Kombination einer Reihe gradueller und zunächst geringfügiger Veränderungen über einen längeren Zeitraum hinweg zu einem signifikanten Wandel von gesellschaftlichen Institutionen führen können. -- Faced with ongoing debates on globalisation, societal institutionalism in its traditional form is showing its limits. In this paper, we suggest that a serious sociologically grounded and institutional contribution to the ongoing debate on global governance calls for a shift in focus away from the preoccupation with national configurations and towards an attempt at understanding transnational recombinations. The investigation of transnational recombination calls for new analytical tools. Here we argue that the solution may come from an hybridisation of NBS and VOC approaches with other variants of the institutionalist argument in particular those we label cultural or phenomenological. We elaborate on three aspects of institutional analysis that we identify as key to getting a better understanding of the relationship between globalisation and institutions. Firstly, we propose an interpretation of institutionalisation as a process and not a state of things. Secondly, we reinterpret institutional genesis and institutional change as revealing recombination. Thirdly, we argue for a more systematic analysis of the interplay of such processes of recombination across different levels of analysis, particularly the national and the transnational. With a conceptual framework so reformulated, it is possible to take in the transnational reality in its full complexity. We show, on the one hand, how the NBS and VOC perspectives are an interesting starting base to look at the structuration and stabilisation of the transnational reality. On the other hand, we gain new insights in the ways in which institution building and recombination at the transnational level become reflected often progressively and somewhat incrementally at the national business system level. Our proposition is that the succession and combination, over a long period of time, of a series of incremental and sometimes minor transformations could lead in the end to consequential and significant change.

Marketization: From Intellectual Agenda to Global Policy Making

A distinctive feature of the contemporary period of globalization is a powerful trend towards marketization in many regions of the world. The term “marketization” refers both to market ideologies and market-oriented reforms. A market ideology reflects the belief that markets are of superior efficiency for the allocation of goods and resources. In its most extreme form, this belief is associated with the commodification of nearly all spheres of human life. Market-oriented reforms are those policies fostering the emergence and development of markets and weakening, in parallel, alternative institutional arrangements. During the last decades of the twentieth century, the dominant market-oriented reform mix has included macroeconomic stabilization, privatization, deregulation, liberalization of foreign trade and liberalization of international capital flows (Simmons et al. 2003). Since the early 1980s, market ideology and market-oriented policies have spread fast and wide around the globe. Markets, the argument goes, are better at allocating resources and producing wealth than bureaucracies, cartels or governments. Furthermore, the global diffusion of marketization has had an impact well beyond the traditional boundaries of the economy. Marketization implies a redefinition of economic rules of the game but also a transformed perspective on states, regulation and their role. Marketization is questioning all forms of protective boundaries and barriers and having an impact, as a consequence, on social and also cultural and legal policies (Collectif Dalloz 2004; Thornton 2004). [First lines

From Local Legislation to Global Structuring Frame: the Story of Antitrust

If we take a long-range view of competition regimes, we can document in the 20th century a case of major transformation. There has been a double evolution - away from cooperation and cartelization and towards competition on the one hand, from nationally bounded regimes to a globally interconnected regulatory sphere on the other. The antitrust tradition that emerged in the USA at the turn of the 20th century has gained significant and widespread influence after 1945, imposing itself in many parts of the world. The objective of this article is to retrace the process by which antitrust has gone from being a local legal rule to a nearly global structuring frame. We trace the fate of a local set of ideas turning into international politics and globally accepted principles. We also show that those global principles are subject to and interact with local politics - through the process of diffusion but also in their implementation

La liberté d'entreprendre, un défi institutionnel ?

Daniel Plainview tient entre ses mains une pierre noircie ; celle qui pourrait bien sceller son destin et annoncer le succès et la fortune. Un geste maladroit et il se retrouve prisonnier, la jambe cassée, tout seul au fond du trou d'exploration qu'il a lui-même creusé. La rage, la volonté, la puissance du désir pour un futur à construire le galvanisent. Il réussit à s'extraire du puits et rampe jusqu'à la ville la plus proche pour faire expertiser l'échantillon qui décidera de son avenir. On devine qu'il ira voir ensuite un médecin. De cette aventure, il gardera jusqu'à la fin de sa vie une claudication forte, comme un prix à payer par avance pour sa fortune future. [Premier paragraphe

How Capitalism Lost its Soul:From Protestant Ethics to Robber Barons

A serious discussion of capitalism and its development cannot avoid the confrontation, at one moment or another, with ethical issues. Historically, there have been quite a number of different positions in the debate – giving us a sense that the confrontation is, indeed, a complex one. When it comes to the connection between ethics and capitalism, we can differentiate between at least four different ideal typical perspectives. [First paragraph

From Local Legislation to Global Structuring Frame:The Story of Antitrust

If we take a long-range view of competition regimes, we can document in the 20th century a case of major transformation. There has been a double evolution – away from cooperation and cartelization and towards competition on the one hand, from nationally bounded regimes to a globally interconnected regulatory sphere on the other. The antitrust tradition that emerged in the USA at the turn of the 20th century has gained significant and widespread influence after 1945, imposing itself in many parts of the world. The objective of this article is to retrace the process by which antitrust has gone from being a local legal rule to a nearly global structuring frame. We trace the fate of a local set of ideas turning into international politics and globally accepted principles. We also show that those global principles are subject to and interact with local politics – through the process of diffusion but also in their implementation.Si on prend une vue à long terme des régimes de compétition, on peut documenter au cours du 20ème siècle un cas de transformation exceptionnelle. L’évolution a été double - de la coopération et la cartelisation vers la compétition, d’une part, de régimes définis nationalement vers un cadre de régulation global d’autre part. La tradition de l’antitrust qui émerge aux Etats-Unis au tournant du 20ème siècle s’est répandue depuis 1945 et s’est progressivement imposée dans de nombreuses régions du monde. Le but de cet article est de reconstituer le processus par lequel l’antitrust s’est transformé d’une règle locale en un cadre de structuration presque global. Nous suivons le destin d’un ensemble d’idées à l’origine locales qui se transforment en politiques internationales et en principes globalement acceptés. Nous montrons aussi que ces principes globaux interagissent étroitement avec les politiques locales, à travers le processus de diffusion comme au moment de leur implémentation.Si adoptamos una perspectiva amplia de los regimenes de competencia, podemos documentar un caso de gran transformación durante el siglo XX. Hemos visto una doble evolución – pasando de la cooperación y la cartelización hacia la competencia, por un lado, de los regimenes constreñidos a escala nacional, a una esfera reguladora interrelacionada a escala mundial por otro lado. La tradición antitrust que salió de los Estados Unidos al principio del siglo XX obtuvo gran influencia después de 1945, y fue adoptada en muchas regiones del mundo. Este art’culo trata de volver sobre el proceso por lo cual la legislación antitrust se ha transformado de una ley local en un marco de estructuración global. Examinamos el destino de una colección local de ideas que se transforman en la pol’tica internacional y en principios que son aceptados a escala mundial. Mostramos también que esos principios globales están sujetos a la pol’tica local, y que se relacionan con ella – por el proceso de diffusión y también por su implementación

L'arrivée du management en France : un retour historique sur les liens entre managérialisme et Etat

La managérialisation de la sphère publique est aujourd'hui dans l'air du temps. La réforme de l'Etat semble passer par l'importation et l'appropriation des pratiques et de l'esprit du management - avec promesse à la clef d'une plus grande rationalité et d'une meilleure efficience. En faisant un retour en arrière sur le contexte et les conditions de l'arrivée du management en France après la deuxième guerre mondiale, cet article offre une autre perspective sur les développements contemporains. Le management, au sens moderne que l'on donne à ce terme, est à l'origine américain. Il est importé/exporté en France dans les années qui suivent la deuxième guerre mondiale, dans un contexte local de remise en cause profonde des institutions économiques et sociales d'avant guerre. L'Etat et les institutions publiques et semi-publiques sont alors les éléments moteurs du processus de transfert. A l'époque, la sphère publique modernise le secteur privé - en particulier en lui imposant une révolution managériale. Les développements contemporains sont, de fait, les conséquences directes et indirectes du processus déclenché alors - un effet boomerang pour l'Etat français de son initiative lointaine de "modernisation" de l'économie et de l'industrie

From the Rule of Law to the Law of Rules:The Dynamics of Transnational Governance and Their Local Impact

Globalization can be read as consequential reordering, where national rules of law increasingly have to confront the progress of a transnational law of rules. We use conceptual building blocks from political science and sociological institutionalism to approach two sets of issues. First, we explore the nature of this consequential reordering and some of its structuring dynamics. We underscore some of the key features of the emergent transnational law of rules system and contrast it with more traditional, nationally bound, rule of law systems. Second, we consider the potential local, or national, impact of such profound reordering. In the conclusion, we identify key channels and mechanisms of impact as well as potential sources of resistance or of local adaptation. An exploration of those early propositions would be useful to both scholars and practitioners as it would make it possible to read, understand, and even anticipate the variability of cases and situations

Exporting the American Model:Historical Roots of Globalization

The late 1990s was a period of Panglossian optimism. The world, we were told, was getting smaller, increasingly seamless and it all had to do with ‘globalization’ (Ohmae 1994, Held et al. 1999, Giddens 1999, Friedman1999). From this perspective, the movement seemed to lead inexorably to the worldwide convergence of economic, technological and institutional conditions, fostering in the process a homogenization of organizational recipes and national systems of economic organization. This process was seen to be significantly accelerated, if not driven, by the internet revolution