Openness and Coordination : National Economies of the U.s., Japan and Germany in a Globalized World

This book documents various patterns of re-constructing national economies in corporate globalization. As international competition toughens, major national corporations have been forced to reorganize themselves beyond their national boundaries in order to survive. The problem is that a serious tension arises between these national corporations’ self-interests and the overall interests of their national economies. Contrary to neoliberal optimism and nationalist pessimism, globalization does not lead to natural upgrade or denationalization. This book examines how three nations, including the free-market liberal U.S., the statist model of Japan, and the social coordination model of Germany, have reconstituted their national economies.

Hyeong-ki Kwon is a professor of Political Science at Seoul National University. Since graduating from the University of Chicago in 2002, he has studied the changes in advanced democracies under globalization, including the U.S., Germany, Japan, Ireland, and Korea. His publications include Changes by Competition: The Evolution of the South Korean Developmental State (Oxford University Press, 2021), and articles in journals including Politics & Society, Comparative Political Studies, and Comparative European Politics.