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Paradoxes of the Competition State: The Dynamics of Political Globalization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Philip G. Cerny
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Extract

THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE NATION-STATE INTO A ‘COMPETITION state’ lies at the heart of political globalization. In seeking to adapt to a range of complex changes in cultural, institutional and market structures, both state and market actors are attempting to reinvent the state as a quasi-‘enterprise association’ in a wider world context, a process which involves three central paradoxes. The first paradox is that this process does not lead to a simple decline of the state but may be seen to necessitate the actual expansion of de facto state intervention and regulation in the name of competitiveness and marketization.

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Original Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , April 1997 , pp. 251 - 274
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1997

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