REVIEWS
| Published date | 01 December 1992 |
| Date | 01 December 1992 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1992.tb00959.x |
REVIEWS
THE MARKET
AND
THE STATE: STUDIES
IN
INTERDEPENDENCE
Michael Moran and Maurice
Wright
(eds.)
Macmillan,
1991.
259pp.
$45.00
(cloth)
The relationship between the market and the state has become the central analytical
problematic of political science since the decline of behaviouralism. The conjunction in
the
1970s
of the revival in social science of neo-Marxist and neo-Weberian state theory,
on the one hand, and the rise in both Economics and Anglo-American party politics of
neo-liberal and neo-classical market theory, on the other, set the scene for intense debates
which have found a new relevance and immediacy across the academicheal world divide.
This absorbing book is both illustrative of the breadth and depth of these debates, and
a positive contribution to an understanding of many of the issues involved.
The book itself is really a kind of
Festschrift,
not for a particular scholar, but for the
40th anniversary of the founding
of
the Department of Government at the University of
Manchester, and its authors all are (or were until recently) members of that department.
The chapters fall into
three
main categories. Chapters
1-4
cover a range of topics in political
philosophy: the role of the state in classical economics; the critique of markets in German
Romanticism; moral issues in environmental regulation; and the roots of private property
rights in Locke. Chapters
5-7
examine themes in traditional political science: participation
in liberal democratic systems; the 'collapse of the power monopoly' in Eastern Europe;
and electoral competition and democratic stability. And chapters
8-12
look at some issues
in political economy (the sub-field in which the state-market debate is probably most
developed): the state and economic development in Latin America; privatization in Africa;
state support for and promotion of industrial research and development in advanced
industrial states; attempts to move away from public monopoly broadcasting in Britain
and Germany; and industrial and trade policy with regard to the steel industry.
Each of these chapters is excellent in and
of
itself. There is some unevenness, of course,
as is inevitable in such a wide-ranging collection. Some topics are much narrower than
others; some are pitched at a more introductory level, while others are more analytically
sophisticated and/or more descriptively dense. But each is a useful and insightful contri-
bution to its
own
particular field of specialization. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine a political
science department which would not have several of its members who would want not
only to dip into this book but also to use particular chapters for teaching. It is a must
for library purchase (although its price will put it well out of the reach of individuals until
it comes out in paper).
The problem is, of course, that the authors are rarely talking to each other
-
despite
the fact that the papers all came from the same seminar series. With a few marginal
exceptions, each is speaking to other specialists in his or her field. What is more, there
is often little or no consistency across papers in the way that such essentially contested
concepts as 'state' and 'market' are applied (or, indeed, on definitions). Although some
references are made to debates on analytical frameworks in, for example, public choice
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