This book advances a new theory of why nationalism emerged in the modern world. In particular it explains why nationalism and economic development are closely linked, and why warfare plays a crucial role in the spread of the nation-state system. It is based on qualitative and quantitative evidence over the period 1600 to 2000 for seven countries – Great Britain, France, Germany, Yugoslavia, the United States, Japan and China
"This book advances a new theory of why nationalism emerged in the modern world. In particular it explains why nationalism and economic development are closely linked, and why warfare plays a crucial role in the spread of the nation-state system. It is based on qualitative and quantitative evidence over the period 1600 to 2000 for seven countries--Great Britain, France, Germany, Yugoslavia, the United States, Japan and China "--
Is economic nationalism an outdated phenomenon in light of globalization? Economic Nationalism in a Globalizing World demonstrates the enduring, and even heightened, economic significance of national identities and nationalism in the current age. The volume's contributors, pioneers in the reinterpretation of economic nationalism, explore diverse ways in which national identities and nationalism continue to shape contemporary economic policies and processes. The authors examine the question in a range of geographical contexts and issues: European Union food politics, competitiveness strategies in New Zealand, East Asian development strategies, Japanese liberalization, monetary politics in Quebec and Germany, and post-Soviet economic reforms. Together, the cases explore the policy breadth of nationalism. It is not just a "protectionist" ideology but is in fact associated with a wide variety of economic policies, including support for economic liberalization and globalization.
Eurasian economies have to become efficient more productive, job-creating, and stable. But efficiency is not the same as diversification. Governments need to worry less about the composition of exports and production and more about asset portfolios natural resources, built capital, and economic institutions.
Since many countries in the world at present were European colonies in the not so distant past, the relationship between colonial institutions and development outcomes is a key topic of study across many disciplines. This edited volume, from a leading international group of scholars, discusses the comparative legacy of colonial rule in the Netherlands Indies and Belgian Congo during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Whereas the Indonesian economy progressed rapidly during the last three decades of the twentieth century and became a self-reliant and assertive world power, the Congo regressed into a state of political chaos and endemic violence. To which extent do the different legacies of Dutch and Belgian rule explain these different development outcomes, if they do at all? By discussing the comparative features and development of Dutch and Belgian rule, the book aims to 1) to contribute to a deeper understanding of the role of colonial institutional legacies in long run patterns of economic divergence in the modern era; 2) to fill in a huge gap in the comparative colonial historical literature, which focuses largely on the comparative evolution of the British, French, Spanish and Portuguese Empires; 3) to add a focused and well-motivated comparative case-study to the increasing strand of literature analyzing the marked differences in economic and political development in Asia and Africa during the postcolonial era. Covering such issues as agriculture, manufacturing and foreign investment, human capital, fiscal policy, labour coercion and mineral resource management, this book offers a highly original and scholarly contribution to the literature on colonial history and development economics.
The relationship between natural capital and economic growth is an open debate in the field of economic development. Is an abundance of natural resources a blessing or a curse for economic performance? The field of Economic History offers an excellent vantage to explore the relevance of institutions, technical progress and supply-demand drivers. Natural Resources and Economic Growth contains theoretical and empirical articles by leading scholars who have studied this subject in different historical periods from the 19th century to the present day and in different parts of the world. Part I presents the theoretical issues and discusses the meaning of the "curse" and the relevance of the historical perspective. Part II captures the diversity of experiences, presenting thirteen independent case studies based on historical results from North and South America, Africa, Asia, Oceania and Europe. This book emphasizes that an abundance of natural resources is not a fixed situation. It is a process that reacts to changes in the structure of commodity prices and factor endowments, and progress requires capital, labour, technical change and appropriate institutional arrangements. This abundance is not a given, but is part of the evolution of the economic system. History shows that institutional quality is the key factor to deal with abundant natural resources and, especially, with the rents derived from their use and exploitation. This wide ranging volume will be of great relevance to all those with an interest in economic history, development, economic growth, natural resources, world history and institutional economics.
The most significant debate in global economic history over the past twenty years has dealt with the Great Divergence, the economic gap between different parts of the world. Thus far, this debate has focused on China, India and north-western Europe, particularly Great Britain. This book shifts the focus to ask how Japan became the only non-western county that managed, at least partially, to modernize its economy and start to industrialize in the 19th century. Using a range of empirical data, Peer Vries analyses the role of the state in Japan's economic growth from the Meiji Restoration to World War II, and asks whether Japan's economic success can be attributed to the rise of state power. Asserting that the state's involvement was fundamental in Japan's economic 'catching up', he demonstrates how this was built on legacies from the previous Tokugawa period. In this book, Vries deepens our understanding of the Great Divergence in global history by re-examining how Japan developed and modernized against the odds.
Nationalists think about the economy, Marvin Suesse argues, and this thinking matters once nationalists hold political power. Many nationalists seek to limit global exchange, but others prioritise economic development. The potential conflict between these two goals shapes nationalist policy making. Drawing on historical case studies from thirty countries – from the American Revolution to the rise of China – this book paints a broad panorama of economic nationalism over the past 250 years. It explains why such thinking has become influential, despite the internal contradictions and chequered record of many nationalist policy makers. At the root of economic nationalism's appeal is its ability to capitalise upon economic inequality, both domestic and international. These inequalities are reinforced by political factors such as empire building, ethnic conflicts, and financial crises. This has given rise to powerful nationalist movements that have decisively shaped the global exchange of goods, people, and capital.
Purity condemns filth; piety disparages corruption. Amassing riches offered to a transcendental world, the priests of ancient faiths found themselves trapped in contradiction. By loaning out their resources to merchants, they made themselves pariahs to true prophets. Before Islam squared the circle, bringing capital mobility and credit creation into coexistence with devotion, religion stymied merchant capitalism. Spread through trade, Islam's innovations in commerce soothed the path to coexistence of credit and faith globally. Had a second form of capitalism - technological capitalism - not emerged, binding science to innovation, harmony between faith and capitalism would have prevailed. However, scientific advances deepen on empirical evidence that is buttressed by critical debate, which is anathema to powerful elites in countries saturated with religious nationalism. Consequently, easy cooperation between capitalism and religion is blocked in these lands, and so their potential for economic progress withers. Thus, many of these states, trapped in the invidious stranglehold of religion, are condemned to sustained poverty.
The forgotten history of the liberal radicals, socialist internationalists, feminists, and Christians who envisioned free trade as the necessary prerequisite for anti-imperialism and peace Today, free trade is often associated with right-wing free marketeers. In Pax Economica, historian Marc-William Palen shows that free trade and globalisation in fact have roots in nineteenth-century left-wing politics. In this counterhistory of an idea, Palen explores how, beginning in the 1840s, left-wing globalists became the leaders of the peace and anti-imperialist movements of their age. By the early twentieth century, an unlikely alliance of liberal radicals, socialist internationalists, feminists, and Christians envisioned free trade as essential for a prosperous and peaceful world order. Of course, this vision was at odds with the era’s strong predilections for nationalism, protectionism, geopolitical conflict, and colonial expansion. Palen reveals how, for some of its most radical left-wing adherents, free trade represented a hard-nosed critique of imperialism, militarism, and war. Palen shows that the anti-imperial component of free trade was a phenomenon that came to encompass the political left wing within the British, American, Spanish, German, Dutch, Belgian, Italian, Russian, French, and Japanese empires. The left-wing vision of a “pax economica” evolved to include supranational regulation to maintain a peaceful free-trading system—which paved the way for a more liberal economic order after World War II and such institutions as the United Nations, the European Union, and the World Trade Organization. Palen’s findings upend how we think about globalisation, free trade, anti-imperialism, and peace. Rediscovering the left-wing history of globalism offers timely lessons for our own era of economic nationalism and geopolitical conflict.
