America Inc.?: Innovation and Enterprise in the National Security Sta - Cornell Studies in Political Economy

For more than half a century, the United States has led the world in developing major technologies that drive the modern economy and underpin its prosperity. In America, Inc., Linda Weiss attributes the U.S. capacity for transformative innovation to the strength of its national security state, a complex of agencies, programs, and hybrid arrangements that has developed around the institution of permanent defense preparedness and the pursuit of technological supremacy. She examines how that complex emerged and how it has evolved in response to changing geopolitical threats and domestic political constraints, from the Cold War period to the post-9/11 era.Weiss focuses on state-funded venture capital funds, new forms of technology procurement by defense and security-related agencies, and innovation in robotics, nanotechnology, and renewable energy since the 1980s. Weiss argues that the national security state has been the crucible for breakthrough innovations, a catalyst for entrepreneurship and the formation of new firms, and a collaborative network coordinator for private-sector initiatives. Her book appraises persistent myths about the military-commercial relationship at the core of the National Security State. Weiss also discusses the implications for understanding U.S. capitalism, the American state, and the future of American primacy as financialized corporations curtail investment in manufacturing and innovation.

List of contents

1. The National Security State and Technology Leadership

The U.S. Puzzle

The Argument

Re-viewing the NSS-Private Sector Relationship

Existing Accounts: Discounting, Sidelining, Civilianizing the State

The Approach of This Book

New Thinking on the American State

2. Rise of the National Security State as Technology Enterprise

Emergence (1945-1957)

Growth: The Sputnik Effect (1958-1968)

Crisis: Legitimation and Innovation Deficits (1969-1979)

Reform and Reorientation: Beginnings (1980-1989)

Reform and Reorientation: Consolidation (1990-1999)

Re-visioning (2000-2012)

3. Investing in New Ventures

Geopolitical Roots of the U.S. Venture Capital Industry

Post-Cold War Trends: New Funds for a New Security Environment4. Beyond Serendipity: Procuring Transformative Technology

Technology Procurement versus R&D: The Activist Element of Government Purchasing

Spin-Off and Spin-Around-Serendipitous and Purposeful

Breaching the Wall: Edging Toward Military-Commercial (Re-)Integration

5. Reorienting the Public-Private Partnership

Structural Changes in the Domestic Arena

Reorientation: The Quest for Commercial Viability

Beyond a Military-Industrial Divide: Innovating for Both Security and Commerce

6. No More Breakthroughs?

Post-9/11 Decline of the NSS Technology Enterprise?

Nanotechnology: A Coordinated Effort

Robotics: The Drive for Drones

Clean Energy: From Laggard to Leader?

Caveat: A Faltering NSS Innovation Engine?

7. Hybridization and American Antistatism

The Significance of Hybridization

An American Tendency?

Nature of the Beast: Neither "Privatization" nor "Outsourcing"

Innovation Hybrids

8. Penetrating the Myths of the Military-Commercial Relationship

Four Myths Laid Bare

Serendipitous Spin-Off

Hidden Industrial Policy

Wall of Separation and Military-Industrial Complex

R&D Spending Creates Innovation Leadership

The Defense Spending Question: In Search of the Holy Grail?

9. Hybrid State, Hybrid Capitalism, Great Power Turning Point

Comparative Institutions and Varieties of Capitalism

The American State

Great Power Turning Point

About the author

Linda Weiss is Professor Emeritus of Comparative Politics at the University of Sydney. She is the author of The Myth of the Powerless State, also from Cornell, and coeditor most recently of Developmental Politics in Transition: The Neoliberal Era and Beyond.

Product details

• Authors: Linda Weiss
• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 29.03.2014
• EAN: 9780801479304
• ISBN: 978-0-8014-7930-4
• No. of pages: 280
• Dimensions: 160 mm x 235 mm x 17 mm
• Series: Cornell Studies in Political Economy
• Subject: Non-fiction book