Great Transformations: Economic Ideas and Institutional Change in the Twentieth Century

by Mark Blyth

This book picks up where Karl Polanyi's study of economic and political change left off. Building upon Polanyi's conception of the double movement, Blyth analyzes the two periods of deep seated institutional change that characterized the twentieth century: the 1930s and the 1970s. Blyth views both sets of changes as part of the same dynamic. In the 1930s labor reacted against the exigencies of the market and demanded state action to mitigate the market's effects by 'embedding liberalism.' In the 1970s, those who benefited least from such 'embedding' institutions, namely business, reacted against these constraints and sought to overturn that institutional order. Blyth demonstrates the critical role economic ideas played in making institutional change possible. Great Transformations rethinks the relationship between uncertainty, ideas, and interests, achieving profound new insights on how, and under what conditions, institutional change takes place.

Genres: Economics, Politics, History, Political Science, Nonfiction, Sociology, Society

300 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Mark McGann Blyth is a Scottish-American political scientist. He is currently the William R. Rhodes Professor of International Economics and Professor of International and Public Affairs at Brown University. At Brown, Blyth additionally directs the William R. Rhodes Center for International Economics and Finance at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs.

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

How much do ideas matter in the creation of economic institutions? How can political scientists show that ideas are tied to, yet distinct from, the material interests of elite actors? And how do elite actors use ideas to make sense of their material interests during a period of economic crisis? These complicated questions form the research puzzle that Mark Blyth attempts to solve in his book Great Transformations. In his attempt to explain his dependent variable, institutional change, Blyth focuses upon three elite actors: government, organized business, and organized labor. Emphasizing the complexity of causal relations in the social world, Blyth argues that crises are “the act of intervention where sources of uncertainty are diagnosed and constructed.” Contrary to prevailing ideology, they are not the agents that spark institutional transformation. Institutional transformation, rather, occurs in a sequential process, one in which ideas are central to every stage. Ideas aid elite actors in reducing uncertainty, facilitating collective action and building coalitions, contesting the legitimacy of existing institutions, creating the blueprints for construction of new institutions, and coordinating agents’ expectations thereby reproducing institutional stability. Using the United States and Sweden as case studies, Blyth provides empirical evidence to support his claims. This book has more than a few issues with research methods and design... Blyth’s case selection strategies present issues insofar as he aims to both build and test a theory. With such an ambitious goal in mind, Blyth would need to alter his research design. Empirics from which theories are derived cannot be the only data used to test those same theories, especially if the goal is generalization. Additionally, Blyth’s book would have benefited from more transparent discussions of how of strong CPOs (causal process observations) support or disconfirm his hypotheses. Blyth builds his theoretical argument and empirical evidence around three main concepts: ideas, interests, and institutions. Throughout the text, however, there is a tension between these three categories, in large part because their respective operationalizations are not made clear. He never provides a comprehensive definition of institutions. Furthermore, although Blyth’s goal is to intervene in historical and rational institutionalist literature by switching the focus from interests to ideas, readers can sense Blyth’s own ambivalence about the disentanglement of these two concepts throughout the text; oftentimes, he conflates them. As a graduate student in a comparative politics program, I found this to be a very dense and confusing read.

[Mark Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent history lesson on how New Deal values began to be eroded, a process that accelerated in the 1970s. Documents how public acquiescence to supply side economics was no accident, but instead was the result of deliberate well funded efforts to shift public opinion toward monetary interest groups. This established the (false) presuppositions that undergird much of the public discussion about socioeconomic topics today.

[Jayden Davidson · Rating 3 out of 5]

For a book about ideational change and the role of ideas and theory in influencing policy, this book is remarkably, heavily reliant on secondary sources (to the extent that Blyth will often cite quotes found in secondary sources over the original).

However, this does not prevent it from being an informative look at the political and economic ideas that were prevalent between the 1930s and 1980s.

[Jayasankar Thayyil · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was a very confusing read. Even though the research idea was of great interest to me, the author doesn't make any effort to structure the arguments coherently. It's frustrating to see a great research topic handled so lazily.

[Steve H · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book should be on every ones mandatory reading list. It's not just about the great lakes.

[Ipek Bayraktar · Rating 5 out of 5]

one of my all-time favorites.