This text challenges the popular view that globalization threatens the nation-state in determining national policy. It examines the fundamental issue of competitiveness and market power in an increasingly borderless and co-dependent world. Despite this increased threat to the nation-state as an effective manager of the national economy, the authors argue that there are a number of options and alternatives open to governments to protect themselves from the global business cycle.

Examining the powerful idea of the return, reconstitution and redeployment of the public domain in a post-Seattle and post-Washington consensus world order, this innovative book is the most forward-looking and comprehensive examination of the need to rethink the tenants of global free trade.

In the past two decades, countries have focused on broadening and guaranteeing market access, and as the pendulum swings back for the market, the issue of investing in the public domain becomes a priority. The authors believe that devising new institutions of governance for a globalizing world...