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US Share in world high-tech manufacturing production. Source: Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Economic Policy Paper 16-09 (2016, p. 2). Ã Note that high-technology manufacturing includes aerospace, communications and semiconductors, computers and office machinery, pharmaceuticals, and scientific instruments and measuring equipment (2016, p. 5).
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The concept of infrastructural power is arguably one of the most useful in the social sciences. It has helped both to illuminate the extraordinary capacity, reach, and impact of the modern state vis-à-vis its pre-industrial predecessor, and to cast light on why some modern states appear more able than others to execute their decisions and pursue th...
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Context 1
... is because official statistics do not take into account imported inputs in the way they calculate productivity and value added (Houseman, Kurz, Lengermann, & Mandel, 2011). The reality is that while the United States still accounts for the largest share of world high-tech manufacturing, that share has been declining markedly -from almost 40% in the late 1990s to less than 30% in 2014, as other countries -especially China -increased their stake (Figure 8; also Berger, 2013). Over the 2000s, net man- ufacturing output declined in 16 of 19 manufacturing sectors, two key excep- tions being computing and energy (ITIF, 2015). ...
Context 2
... is because official statistics do not take into account imported inputs in the way they calculate productivity and value added (Houseman, Kurz, Lengermann, & Mandel, 2011). The reality is that while the United States still accounts for the largest share of world high-tech manufacturing, that share has been declining markedly -from almost 40% in the late 1990s to less than 30% in 2014, as other countries -especially China -increased their stake (Figure 8; also Berger, 2013). Over the 2000s, net man- ufacturing output declined in 16 of 19 manufacturing sectors, two key excep- tions being computing and energy (ITIF, 2015). ...
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Citations
... Moreover, information structural power may support productive structural power, however, the reverse is also true. Research has demonstrated how the erosion of the U.S.'s manufacturing base is weakening its technological leadership, for example, ( Weiss and Thurbon 2018 ;Weiss 2021 ). However, our contribution to cross-network weaponization demonstrates that centralization in some networks-in our case semiconductor designcan be more useful for WI than centralization in other networks. ...
How do states’ positions across multiple and interconnected economic networks affect their power? The Weaponized Interdependence (WI) scholarship emphasizes that states centrally located in global economic networks have access to new sources of coercion. In this paper, we look at how their positions across multiple networks interact with each other to create new opportunities and vulnerabilities. We use network analysis to map the semiconductor supply chain and show that it can be viewed as four interrelated networks: (1) design, (2) raw material, (3) manufacturing equipment, and (4) assembled chips. We then highlight how states’ centrality varies across these networks and how it shapes their respective opportunities for coercion. Looking specifically at the United States, we emphasize how its centrality in the design network enables it to weaponize chokepoints in the trade network of assembled chips. In so doing the paper makes three contributions. First, it highlights how interactions among multiple economic networks provide new opportunities for states to weaponize interdependence. Second, it contributes to recent attempts using network analysis to analyze structural power on the global stage. Last, it demonstrates how network methodology can help detect potential (ab)uses of WI and how the potential for weaponization evolves over time.
... In light of this, Michael Mann's sociohistorical notion of infrastructural power, vis-à-vis the coercive form of despotic power owned by the nation-state, appears resoundingly relevant to the governmentality to "penetrate and centrally coordinate the activities of civil society through its own infrastructure" (Mann, 1984: 114). The Mannian notion of infrastructural power is widely applied in studies of international political economy, with the conjecture that both materialized beings and routinized institutions serve as means for the state to exercise control and regulation over social relations and everyday life within and beyond borders (Kim, 2019;Mann, 1984Mann, , 2008Soifer, 2008;Weiss and Thurbon, 2018). Infrastructural power naturally, albeit less explicitly, embodies the relationship between the central state and subnational actors with which studies on political economies of scale in geography have long engaged (Amin, 2002;Bok, 2019;Jessop, 2002;MacKinnon, 2011;Peck, 2009;Swyngedouw, 1997). ...
To offer a fresh angle on the state capacity to advance decarbonization, this article brings into dialog political economies of scale and the Mannian notion of state infrastructural power, animating this conceptual cross-fertilization with an analysis of China's evolving policy framework for decarbonization. This article begins with building the conceptual construct of scalar practice as a source of state infrastructural power and categorizing three key scalar practices, namely, interscalar rearranging, interregional reshuffling, and urban-rural scalar mixing. Building upon this, the article critically evaluates China's policy framework and state actions against the notion of infrastructural power: the Chinese state applies noncoercive means to elicit support, extract resources, and coordinate actions while transitioning to decarbonization-driven accumulation regimes, and these noncoercive means are mobilized together with coercive means through the art of scalar structuration that (re)defines central-local, urban-rural, and interregional relations. Overall, this study elucidates how state-orchestrated processes of (re)territorialization for the decarbonization agenda give rise to the expansion of the state's autonomous power in relation to civil society, albeit in a manner that manifests contested power struggle and conflicting internal logics.
... We know that high profit US firms that are heavily centered on Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) invest less than other firms, and their spending produces lower multiplier effects and heightens income inequality. Such US IPR firms are also a fiscal drain on the US state and undermine innovation (Weiss & Thurbon, 2018). These observations are not limited to 'new' or explicitly technology-intensive sectors. ...
... Moreover, it might lead to a loss of US deterrence towards Russia and China, if SWIFT disconnection does not have the effects desired by the US government (Smith 2022). In a more general perspective, the erosion of institutions such as SWIFT may also hurt the US financial system, as "the extension of US infrastructural power aboard diminishes state capacity at home" (Weiss and Thurbon 2018). The core issue here is the importance of a global financial system based on the dollar for the financing of the huge US current account deficit (Schwartz 2019). ...
... However, the framework rests on assumptions of alignment between the state and private companies that need stronger grounding in empirical cases to be generalizable more widely. The ability of states to mobilize their domestic companies is eroding in significant areas (Seabrooke & Wigan, 2017;Weiss & Thurbon, 2018), and accounting for this development is paramount for WI to accurately capture the fluidity of private networks as a source of power. With global corporations strengthening their positions vis-a-vis statestransforming authority in the international political economy (Petry et al., 2021) the ability of states to reach into and mobilize the resources of said companies is diminished, challenging the proposition that states are the primary agents in the international system. ...
... As the economic drivers and market power of the key companies have changed, the ability of states to enact their authority over private companies has been eroded. This highlights the crucial links between structural power in the global economy and authority domestically (Mann, 1984;Weiss & Thurbon, 2018). Secondly, changes in the market have not only altered the distribution of power between states and companies but also severed informal ties, resulting in diverging values and interests. ...
... WI is a function both of a state's structural position in the global network and its relationship vis-a-vis the companies of importance in that network. A state in a structurally strong position globally cannot exploit its structural position if it has to contend with a reluctant private sector from a disadvantaged position (Gholz & Hughes, 2021;Weiss & Thurbon, 2018). Contra conceptions of this relationship as given, with the state entrenched as a dominant and autonomous actor, global corporations can resist and potentially challenge the ability of states to be the primary agents in the international system (Mann, 1984;Schwartz, 2019;Seabrooke & Wigan, 2017). ...
The ability of states to exploit private resources at an international level is an increasingly salient political issue. In explaining the mechanisms of this shift, the framework of Weaponized Interdependence has quickly risen to prominence, arguing that those states that are centrally placed in global networks can exploit their centrality given the appropriate domestic institutions. Building on this framework, I suggest that the relationship between states and the private corporations holding the resources states seek to exploit is more dynamic and contested than assumed. Drawing on developments in the industry for constructing and operating submarine cables, I find that a paradigm shift in the market has significantly limited the authority of states vis-à-vis key market players. The contribution of this finding is to expand Weaponized Interdependence as a framework, paying closer attention to the relationship between private companies and states. This expansion allows for the utilization of Weaponized Interdependence as a framework for a broader set of cases, explaining not only when a network is prone to weaponization but also the limitations states face when they seek to do so.
... Moreover, it might lead to a loss of US deterrence towards Russia and China, if SWIFT disconnection does not have the effects desired by the US government (Smith 2022). In a more general perspective, the erosion of institutions such as SWIFT may also hurt the US financial system, as "the extension of US infrastructural power aboard diminishes state capacity at home" (Weiss and Thurbon 2018). The core issue here is the importance of a global financial system based on the dollar for the financing of the huge US current account deficit (Schwartz 2019). ...
Disconnecting Russia from SWIFT is one of the most widely discussed potential sanctions in the econtext of the Ukraine crisis. Many contributions to the debate are not sufficiently familiar with the functions of SWIFT. In order to put the discussion on a more firm ground, I'm making this chapter already available although it will only be published much later. The chapter puts SWIFT into the context of discussions about financialization and state capitalism, clarifies the role of SWIFT in the global payment infrastructure, takes stock of the various political affairs about SWIFT and discusses Chinese and Russian alternatives to SWIFT as well as to the existing cross-border payments infrastructure more generally.
... A third approach focuses on initiatives that bring together businesses, governments, and other non-business organizations (e.g. Herrigel, 1993;Weiss, 1988;Weiss & Thurbon, 2018). These United States university-based, convened-partner non-governmental organization (NGO). ...
This article explores factors contributing to a non-dominant collaboration paradigm in a partnership between a government-based international development agency and a university-based non-governmental organization. Anchored in Wood's and Gray's collaborative framework, this article describes how a steeply hierarchical partnership navigated the elements of collaboration-organizational autonomy; shared problem domain; interactive processes; shared rules, norms, and structures; and decision making-to produce non-dominant values and practices deriving from negotiated processes, rules, norms, and structures that produced positive collaboration outcomes. In particular, a history of prior mutually beneficial interactions emerges as a critical precondition for achieving the non-dominant collaboration in this case study's steeply hierarchical organizational relationship, one in which egalitarianism and equal decision-making regarding the agenda and the goals of the collaboration could have been highly constrained.
... Within IPE, there is now increasing recognition of the politics of infrastructures. In their recent special issue on the theme, Bernard and Campbell-Verduyn set out a research agenda for analyzing financial infrastructures and technologies (also Green & Gruin, 2020;Weiss & Thurbon, 2018). They argue that an agenda focused on infrastructures has the capacity to build analytical bridges in the study of the material and the ideational; the micro and the macro; and the technical and political. ...
This article starts from the premise that International Political Economy (IPE) literature – with some notable exceptions – has a blind spot for the colonial and contested histories of financial infrastructures. Often considered to be the mere ‘plumbing’ of international finance, financial infrastructures instead are profoundly political and rooted in long-term colonial histories. To start addressing these blind spots, the article draws on literatures in critical infrastructure studies, that offer understandings of infrastructure as lively, contested and profoundly political. The argument is that attending to infrastructure inevitably brings into view the postcolonial nature of contemporary capitalism and finance. The article draws a parallel between the ways in which inequities and dis/connectivities became hard-wired into early modern financial infrastructures, and the ways in which new inequities and disconnections are hard-wired into present-day financial infrastructures through security sanctions. It uses the case of the contemporary payment infrastructure wars, whereby the SWIFT infrastructure is used to enforce sanctions policies, as example to develop the arguments.
... These globalizing opportunities have allowed firms in most advanced countries to relocate or outsource labour-intensive production to lower-cost jurisdictions. Where capital-or knowledge-intensive industry is involved however, different degrees of industrial decline suggest more complex factors at work that might include automation 14 and financialization, 15 as well as intellectual property rights (Weiss and Thurbon 2018). ...
... To these widely acknowledged constraints we should add the growing phenomenon of profit shifting, aided and abetted by intellectual property-intensive production, accounting schemes of multinational corporations and the proliferation of tax havens. Indeed, so massive are the profits being shifted to low-or no-tax jurisdictions (in 2017 estimated at $2.5 trillion in the US alone) that national tax revenues are diminishing across the globe, most notably in the advanced world (Seabrooke and Wigan 2017; Weiss and Thurbon 2018). ...
... Historical examples include the Italian and Latin American latifundia landowning systems that empowered a large landowning class at the cost of agrarian reforms necessary for industrial development. Contemporary examples show how intellectual property rights can stymy innovation and industrial development in advanced settings (for references, see Weiss and Thurbon 2018). For a recent study of how high rates of productive investment in a developing context can occur under conditions of legal uncertainty and uneven protection of property rights, see Hamilton-Hart and Palmer (2017). ...
