The Conflicted Superpower : America ’ s Collaboration with China and India in Global Innovation

Copyright © The Author(s). 2018 This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Book explores a rather interesting aspect of technological leadership and International Economic relations from the standpoint of the dominant State. It seeks to trace the rise of the High Technological community and its impact on policy as relates United States overall approach towards the rising powers, namely India and China. The critical setting discussed is that of the Information Technology sector and how the issues generate “shared interests” between the HTC and the political system. The key areas discussed are high skilled migration, fostering international educational exchange through students and the globalisation of research and development networks to build a narrative surrounding globalisation of research and development. Further, it demonstrates how the level of openness in United States Policy is at best, a conflicted proposition. The review follows the framework provided, i.e., Power Resources theory within International Relations.

The Book explores a rather interesting aspect of technological leadership and International Economic relations from the standpoint of the dominant State.It seeks to trace the rise of the High Technological community and its impact on policy as relates United States overall approach towards the rising powers, namely India and China.The critical setting discussed is that of the Information Technology sector and how the issues generate "shared interests" between the HTC and the political system.The key areas discussed are high skilled migration, fostering international educational exchange through students and the globalisation of research and development networks to build a narrative surrounding globalisation of research and development.Further, it demonstrates how the level of openness in United States Policy is at best, a conflicted proposition.The review follows the framework provided, i.e., Power Resources theory within International Relations.
The author brings out the context of the growing cooperation between these rising powers and the United States, in terms of the key political and policy changes, including the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights, technological advancements and systemic factors in the two countries like rising development and education levels on the back of supportive policies.It is ironical that the same policies have not done as much to create attractive propositions in large measure in India.It seems to provide them a "window of opportunity", against the rise of the newly industrialised countries, The Conflicted Superpower: America's Collaboration with China and India in Global Innovation.
which have managed to leverage their cooperation towards capability enhancements.The author traces how the fears of brain drain have now been converted into definite benefits from brain circulation and to what is now largely reversing the trend of outward migration.While this serves to make the United States of America the centrepoint of all innovation activity, it trivialises the entire discourse on the drivers behind the phenomenon-skilled professionals.It also downplays the issues of equivalency of qualifications which poses a greater division within policy on international mobility of skilled professionals, post-GATS (General Agreement on Trade in Services).
The author explores the conflicted nature of U.S. policy by contrasting policy for outsourcing and enrolment of foreign students.In comparison, its relative degree of openness to foreign skilled migration has varied widely over time.The author then demonstrates the political forces that underly its conflicted nature.There is some emphasis on the strategic nature of this participation, in relation to the Information and Communications Industry from the perspective of the United States initially.The Literature points to the reasons for the selective nature of this engagement within the Information and Communications Technology, in primarily human capital shortage. [1]Moreover, the theoretical framework employed by the author is often economical with the truth.His scenarios already categorise resistance as a single actor formulation, which already assumes away the possibility of cooperation between domestic actors (p. 6).The dynamic does not fully capture the relative strength of actors opposing the High Technology community.He does so without engaging with the possibility of their collective mobilisation.The period under consideration is primarily the pre-recession period till around 2014, which has seen a wide shift, both in terms of R&D intensity and other indicators.A more comparable account could result from choosing a similar time frame in all cases.The benefit of a comparison with its British counterpart would have served to demonstrate the contrast that exists on the same policy elsewhere.
Pertinently, the author recognises how a controlled comparison is implemented by his Study, offering the argument of the nature of difficulty in regulating certain areas as a basis of comparison (p. 7).I am sceptical however, that reality superimposes the controlled comparison of the description provided.Also, taking single, transient events in points of time is not very effective, while examining individual legislations to reveal the impact of policy on foreign students to make any effective argument.More comprehensive categories of comparison are needed, as well as the symmetry of the comparison.The comparison between policy on migration and offshoring as phenomena requires more justification.All said and done, to position the politics of global innovation with a domestic focus reveals as to how globalisation continues to be deeply entrenched in American interests alone.This demonstrates that despite the human capital shortages and capability development within the United States, the aim to maintain technological leadership has been achieved, by political hegemony and not innovation acumen per se.Lastly, the narrative of developing "leading sectors" of the economy appears as a reminder of where India got its planning paradigm, as also the focus on resultant piecemeal development from.The structural factors of the heavy US influence on our domestic policy are what makes the United States of America what it is.That apart, one would have wanted a more grassroots perspective on the sources and recipient of the benefactions of American Immigration largesse.But his framework on international relations severely limits that worldview to the corporate High Table .It does not appear very well grounded in evidence to say that companies eclipse the role of National Innovation systems.Further, it does not even provide the terms of a relational conversation between the external partners.Alternatively, he could have well considered the recent developments in the framework of regulatory capitalism, where administrative rulemaking has gone out of the domain of Courts and Legislatures. [2]The author begins by tracing the rise of global innovation (p.15) attributing it to movements of capital and Industrial organisation, especially the rise of multinational companies without examining that critically.His definition of innovation is narrow, considering their level of development and ignores what the deal for countries like India and China has traditionally been, in terms of the Innovation Value Chain.Having a broader conceptualisation of transnational processes supporting innovation than transnational R&D is redeeming in part.The conceptualisation of highly educated labour in terms of professionals is a bit minimalist qualitatively.This should serve to nuance the variation observed in an outsourcing and an "on-site" scenario considerably.The historical and human capital account following this serves to perpetuate the continued attractiveness of the dominant State, which is far from the truth.(pages 18-19).He then proceeds to conceptualise globalisation of R&D, in terms of the dominant state Institutions, which is differentiated for being influenced by a limited understanding of developmental paradigms, extant in both categories of players and serves to create mechanistic categories.He rules out the hollowing impact on home country innovation systems as less than dramatic (p.23).One would argue that the enduring image of spillovers that this narrative seeks to paint for India and China is less than dramatic.Less has been said on the undesirable outcomes of this process on employment in countries like India, which is currently being seen.The components on home-base exploiting and homebase augmenting R&D, as well as the figures on overseas corporate spending shows that the United States is extremely selective in its engagement to areas, where it lacks the requisite advantage (p.23, 24).He partly implements Archibugi and Mitchie's [3] definition of the globalisation of Innovation, but the international export trade flows and international diffusion of technology as developed, find no mention.The author should recognise that R&D Alliance through joint venture activity has often been non-strategic at times and project-oriented largely, in terms of technological innovation and that it has varied over time in most sectors.More reflection on this would have nuanced his analysis well, especially in terms of the segments that Venture capital serves.This would, however, undermine the relative importance, he attaches to the intimacy of economic interests and the interests of the high technology community, in terms of the overall perspective.It is a paradox that the US education system as an actor has relatively weak bargaining power, one that is explained only by power relations and the definition of performance in purely commercial terms.The author then elaborates the migrationglobal R&D nexus cursorily towards a revivalist theme of Immigration policy.He outlines the comparison in the Chinese and Indian approach towards global innovation.The role of cultural factors is well-outlined about the Chinese response to flows of brainpower and how it has maximised the benefit it has achieved in successfully leveraging this in the domestic scenario.(p.29-35).The Chinese example demonstrates the amount of reflexivity in policy formulation that has led to the effective capitulation of gains from diaspora networks.It also tells us that the level of changes requires political will and not power alone and that investing in the development of the skilled workforce and capabilities is of the key essence.The Indian example shows how despite more well-placed laws to embrace the effects of outward migration, the lack of enforcement of our interests have often been problematic.It also demonstrates how our informal institutions, do not even attempt to fill the voids created in this context.The Indian engagement with the diaspora, in contrast, is more idiosyncratic and fragmented, reflecting our myopic and instrumentalist pre-occupations (pp.43-44).It is even more surprising that despite growing voices on the restrictive nature of H1B Visa employment contracts and the "continuum of exploitation" they support, the prospects of return migration as a response are bleak. [4]The nature of India's engagement with global R&D is too optimistic, considering the relative lack of investment in hardware and chip manufacture, where China appears to be capturing a great measure of the value generated from products made by leading companies.That they are visibly more integrated into global production networks and value chains need no mention. [5]The outward globalisation of R&D that Indian firms do does not find any mention in this account, which could have shown the state of our innovation system and the relative tendency of firms to go offshore.It would also serve to demonstrate how pursuing asset augment-ing R&D has been a difficult case for Indian Companies, due to the selective engagement of the United States.
The author further gives a hypothesis, which attributes the hegemonic status of the dominant State as being sourced from essentially a sub-State actor, the high technology community.The attribution results in according to the high technology community, a self-evident role of importance, which is untrue.The author tries to buttress his argument on the Innovation and hegemony linkage by deconstructing the technological competitiveness as a circular logic (p.51).More so, the creation of positive spill overs in the national and world economies is a bit of a nuanced proposition than the Author suggests.It is not clear how that relates to ex-post support to hegemonic power.The causality and directionality of hegemonic power, as influenced by Innovation, appears somewhat unidirectional.The impact of in-country patenting by foreign inventors has been found to be positive in Literature, as compared to native patenting, which is a proxy for the knowledge stock of a country. [5]The generation and sustenance of primacy by clustering overlooks the patterns of earnings and employment assimilation of labour within the United States and the issues of power dynamics confronted under these overall dynamics of migration and Innovation. [6]Another hard fact is the continued perpetuation of the labour supply gap, which is also undesirable for the internal constituency of people, as well as H1B visa beneficiaries. [7]The dialectic of diminishing returns of capital and labour serves to reinforce the importance of technology-led growth over the matter of achieving them.Further, his argument on the strategic dual use of technologies, as a source of hegemony resulting from innovation, reminiscent of the Military-Industrial-Scientific Complex pushes the narrative on technology a bit like geopolitics, in relation to energy.
To say that economies of dominant states are unusual is a bit far-fetched without outlining how this focus on leading sectors, varies in terms of outcomes.The emergence of the High-Tech Community has been traced in a sketchy manner, with respect to universities, as important sources of human capital.(p.55).The account undermines the importance of long-term evolutionary processes like capability development on the rise of the Information Technology Industry within any country (p.55).The discussion on Industrial research coming into its own serves to underscore how public investment in research is indispensable to conduct of Innovationled economic activity (p.56).The hasty reliance on private sector spending has often come in exchange for heavy intrusion with a government's policy priorities.To say that the dominance of high-tech community has come on the back of an increased role of university-led funding of basic research in larger measure appears convincing (p.57).The shift in the role of government as a key procurer to the commercial mar-ketplace resulted in shifts between the involvement of private and public sectors.Despite that, the government's role in being the biggest investor has not diminished significantly, the terms of the partnership between industry, academia and government have varied, resulting in influential actors like the high-tech community.The author keenly demonstrates the presence of the city within the political circles through welldocumented data and traces the network of Industry-specific associations and interest groups across academia, Industry and Government.The account of shared interests and alternative explanations is a bit diffuse, given how the term "community" is conceptualised for collective action purposes.
Further, the theoretical framework has parallels to what is known in political and institutions literature, as the Power Resources theory, where the capitalist organisation is considered by default for perpetuating inequality, even in richer democracies by favouring elites and businesses. [9]To use that to make a case for the contested openness of policy, in relation to the globalisation of Innovation is somewhat counterintuitive (p.69).The possibility of shared interests in relation to one actor, i.e., business is undermined and the others not made explicit in symmetrical terms in the beginning.To use the conceptualisation to argue the lack of collective actors binding and non-mobilisation of less advantaged groups around shared interests is a bit like the null hypothesis.Generating further conditions like an absence of organised resistance and scenarios, in which individual actors mount opposition alone, weakens the potential explanatory power further (p.68-69).Even to assume these ideal type conditions to exist, the outcomes are obvious in as much as mobilisation of less advantaged groups, i.e., those mounting the opposition is rendered conceptually impossible.To then introduce, the fall-back positions by way of strategic hegemon, public opinion, coalition strength and status quo hypothesis to my mind, diminishes the prospect of the alternative explanations as well (p.72-73).The preoccupation with domestic politics is understandable, but to say that issues on which business interests are unified tend to be ideological, partisan and highly salient among the public and argue for the difficulty (unless substantial support exists), appears contradictory.This may not help test with empirical validity, as becomes evident.Firstly, the rise of organisations as collective actors should have been understood in terms of the social constructivist schools of organisational theory. [10]To relegate the collective binding ability of actors to the coalition strength hypothesis (restricted to business), given his prior description of lack of shared interests among businesses appears wholly contradictory (p.73).The relative strength of actors is based on a faulty conceptualisation.The choice of policy arenas dictated by priorities of large ICT firms that invest heavily in R&D does not contextualise them, in relation to the other participants.It does well to identify the labour-intensive nature of ICT firms R&D, particularly human capital intensive, which seems to make a case for migration stronger in theory.To make a case for the relative importance of the opposition to the high tech community, as determinative of the outcome doesn't quite square well.At this stage, the costs of non-engagement appear likely as determinative, as opposed to "shared interests".The author traces the Skilled worker migration, in terms of weaknesses in the employment-based visa system, yet it is not so reflexive on the persistence of the H1B visa issue.The H1B visa has emerged as a "continuum of exploitation", as outlined earlier and the ostensible intentions have nowhere been fulfilled in terms of closing the labour supply gap. [7]The regulatory changes demonstrate further watering down of rules and in terms of the tardy enforcement of employee interests, but also the systemic inefficiencies that have perpetuated.The account delivers the dark side of institutional innovation employed to overcome the annual cap problem (p.80).That the high-tech community wasn't instrumental in the negotiations on the limits before 1990 could have been examined more critically.
To articulate opposition of labour to H1B visa expansion in the terms discussed, however, appears somewhat realistic.It is known that due to an administrative change, the use of private surveys on labour condition application and wage conditions led to not only loopholes in the application system, but also in the exploitation of skilled migrant and domestic workers.It appears more as a case of lack of evidence-based policy.The author could have examined the collectivity of mobilisation of anti-immigration groups and labour.(p.84).To count the opposition mounted at each regulatory change, in terms of concerns expressed, which yielded no corresponding modification, in the end, cannot be used to make a "swinging door" characterisation.The contradictory changes in other aspects like asylum policy cannot factor in this analysis (p. 88).In cases where concerns were accommodated like for research universities (p.88) should however count.Comparing institutions on other points like new programs to improve US workers training in science and technology can be placed here (p.88).This crafted "political juggernaut" narrative on ICT firms thus appears a bit forced.The rise of anti-immigration groups and grassroots movements should have been elaborated a bit to help understand why a combination of mobilisation of actors is not a realistic prospect.(p.90) The ambitious efforts to liberalise immigration aiming at undocumented immigrants bring in the battle ground of ideology on immigration yet appears more like a countervailing force to comprehensive reform outlined earlier.Also, what is the comprehensive nature of reform involved is reductionist.The account shows greater coalition strength among some actors from industry, but epistemic divisions between labour on guest worker programs remained.Exactly how the balance on undocumented migrants impacts skilled migrants and the motivations to resorting to this step is not very clear.While the support for comprehensive liberalisation is shown to crystallise, the benefits obtained from divisions within organised Labour appears understated (p.92, 97).The opposition from the anti-immigration movement is given more form and structure, but still weak on the terms of the opposition they mounted (p.95).The account of the proceedings within the Senate and the House is centred on individuals and personalities and their motivations and positions, which helps contextualise the debate somewhat.This does not answer to the changing position of political parties, namely Republicans and Democrats in an engaging and critical manner.Particularly, the author should have considered why the issues posed by Labour engage Legislative processes, more intimately than anti-immigration groups.The path dependence of actors within the High Tech community becomes apparent here (p.99-100).The division between the pro-liberalisation groups on skilled migration, caught in the cross-hairs of the comprehensive immigration legislation, reveals how mobilisation takes place.(p.100).Then the issue of Employment-Based visas backlog was sought to be resolved using the same approach of removing per country-limits and resurrecting limits on family visas.This particular situation resulted in no net increase in immigration, hence did not face much trouble being passed.The issue of H1B visa fraud and abuse were sought to be addressed when the passage in the Senate was stalled.This reform was not followed through despite being more palatable to anti-immigration groups, mainly because of opposition from Latinos.(p.101).The Instrumentalist motivations of the Government in trying to appease the Hispanic community led to the abandonment of the pursuit of such high-end, high-tech immigration legislation.The new push for comprehensive reform is fleshed out well in underscoring the limited ability of executive orders to implement changes outside the Legislature.The author concludes the major role of citizen groups in mobilising the resistance to skilled migration explains the case as one of contested openness, is somewhat convincing.
The author then chronicles the rise in the number of foreign students and growth in international student mobility.The number of enrolments from China and India within the graduate population, particularly in S and E fields dominates.The case is unique as it tries to concede a leadership role to higher education groups, in sustaining openness, particularly in the absence of organised opposition.The analysis is positioned in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks when security concerns led to a proposal of a temporary ban on foreign students.The author's argument that despite becoming a difficult process to navigate, the case for foreign students is characterised to be an "open door" appears like a pejorative.He discusses the three visa programs and their relative preponderance and the distribution of Chinese and Indian students respectively.Then he discusses the specific indicators for graduate level enrolment and doctoral award in Science and Engineering degrees.He contextualises the no. of Chinese and Indian graduate S and E students, in terms of overall percentages and the disciplines in which they are concentrated.The popularity of computer science overall and among Chinese and Indian students seems to be overstated (p.117).The contribution of foreign graduate students to academic innovation in the 2008 study is compared to a subsequent study (2012), without citing statistics to demonstrate whether it is an increase or decrease over the previous one or even on the same terms like patenting trends.This is not very helpful in ascertaining whether it is evidencebased policy making, in terms of a harmful effect on the university innovation, at least the university patent grants would have to go down from the figures reported in 2008.The intention to juxtapose this statistic with an "intent to stay" in the United States following graduation based on a 2013 report, outside the reference period, i.e., 2008 and 2012 on academic contribution undermines the argument of harmful impact on innovation, as it lacks comparability on both parameters and values mentioned.(p.117).The value of the qualitative inferences that can be drawn as a result is limited.
The author erroneously points out that the sustained openness to foreign students is a form of proactive governance.Further, he undermines his initial assertion of the leadership role for the higher education groups, by attributing an active role to the academic wing of the High Tech Community.He also turns the coalition strength hypothesis outlined in Chapter 2, in terms of the corporate wing of High tech community aligning with other business interests, on its head (p.73).Further, he talks of the revenue stream generated in the context of a post-recession scenario, to the extent of not making it the subject of domestic opposition, when funding cuts were done.The author should consider comparing why similar funding cuts in Britain led to huge student protests in 2011, even when the fee from international students was increased as well.The relatively minuscule revenue stream (36 billion dollars) of a student population (that made for 4.2 % of total student enrolment in US higher education) could hardly qualify as a business interest.The real narrative is that of their contribution to the workforce, which is something that is not acknowledged as a result directly (p.118).If the motivation to free-ride is prevalent in technology companies, then how is it to be expected that they provide leadership in the first place.The history of non-mobilisation of the lead actor of higher education in response to funding cuts and bans and other measures show divisions within the higher education coalition.It also demonstrates how the High tech community mobilises in a self-interested manner to pursue its interests, whereas does not engage with other actors like education providers on issues like costs of maintaining a student reporting system.It is surprising how the opposition from the In his Chapter on Global R&D, the author makes a relatively weaker case for openness by equating it with foreign investment alone (p.133).Here again, he opines that global R&D is regulated through this mechanism, reflects a view that the United States alone offers is the prospect of capital mobility.Also, given his admission of studying the impact of offshoring, it can be recognised that it is very limited in the scope of activities.He discusses the three elements of US policy, namely tax policy, trade policy and export controls.The choice of these type of policies reveals their priorities, as opposed to systemic issues of knowledge transfer that we face.While the former just emerges as a criterion for forum shopping for low tax rates, the latter two reflect how it has multi lateralised ICT through the Information Technology Agreement.Here, the balance of power was stacked against the emerging countries, due to the excessive liberalisation of tariff undertaken; heavy import dependence on electronic hardware has resulted.It also underscores the domestic political focus of labour unions on the former two areas.The issue of export controls discussed earlier in the context of universities brings to light the problems and challenges of the strategic dual use of technologies that were attributed as the reasons for the engagement with the globalisation of innovation in the first place.This nuance the entire prospect of globalisation, despite some movements in liberalising controls in high-performance computers and semiconductors.The reports on the movement of jobs in an offshoring, offshore outsourcing context have been grossly overstated by using differences in the ownership structure of ICT firms (p.136).The account creates a narrative of widening concerns among public and political figures about the impact of such offshoring.
The creation of a discourse centred on the benefits of offshoring demonstrates an amazing lack of clarity on the effects and impact (p.137).Given this prevailing confusion, legislative attempts to control offshoring have been piecemeal and opportunistic.The lopsided nature of the contest is compared with the H1B visa issue, which clearly has no parallels in the systemic issues faced.The response of organised labour to offshoring by increasing-government procurement shows how the importance of the means, rather than the ease of regulation, becomes relevant to regulating offshoring.It discusses the real prospect of competition faced by the high tech community, regarding legislative processes.The policy continuity concerning a review of tax incentives, offered to these companies demonstrates the reflexive turn in policy.With such an uncertain epistemic knowledge, the pursuit of regulation seeks justification in the terms of measures attempted and not its goals.Thus, the realisation dawns that offshoring was a reality that wouldn't go away, despite increasing the costs of engagement.In such a scenario, to argue that mobilisation is crucial is wrong, when Its effects don't manifest and the epistemic divisions on measures coupled with financial com-anti-immigration camp is trivialised, considering the antiterrorism agenda and national security was widely entrenched in government policy.(p.121).The impact of more executive delays and denial rates of students visas point to the fact that the problems and issues that find importance centre around structural reform.The sources and prospects of policy Learning are outlined, in as much as how the disruption caused by any reporting system results, due to the lack of prior planning (p.124-125).The case of export controls in relation to controlled technology was structured in a manner that burdened universities, particularly on how to use was defined.It goes to demonstrate how citing impact on academic functioning issues is considered only when wider public reactions reflect the academic discourse.The retraction from rules that often is cited plays to populist mandates and that most often it is really about the implementation that causes these issues in the first place.The licensing requirements also remained in cases, where reporting of research results was not subject to control.This went against the position of the higher education providers, which saw the conduct and reporting of research as inseparable.The account of achieving stability represents the effects that proposed moratoriums create, as they distort the regulatory discourse.The credit is given to the High-Tech community reduces to a case of maintaining the status quo and the absence of organised opposition, because the articulation on the opposition mounted by the mobilisation of citizen groups and higher education actors is weak.The high tech community did not even have to engage in the mobilisation as it was effected indirectly.The assertion that engagement of the high-tech community with the executive branch is outside the scope of the theory seems unconvincing, in terms of the resort to it, given allegations of regulatory capture by actors.But it comes to indicate that the nature of the concept of lobbying, does not reflect social concerns, but business interests.This account is used to reject the strategic hegemon hypothesis.By that articulation, there can be no strategic considerations, which is a bit far-fetched.The options available to the United States that would be far less costly than a ban or a cap on foreign students are not outlined clearly.Sometimes the explicit costs involved are not influential alone and that measures have more latent social costs.Strategic approaches are not about creating more spillovers for foreign students, but to internalise the benefit from such efforts.He rules out all alternative explanations, including the preferred party hypothesis.The public opinion hypothesis suffers the problem of generalisation of specific areas in a monolithic manner.It does not specify whether the issue of foreign students causes sufficient competition to domestic students and the consolidation of such opinion.Also, if no proactive attribution or mobilisation of actors can be made, then how can the explanatory power be considered relevant is unclear.
ance of this hypothesis in the case of immigration of foreign students shows how the prospects of organised opposition cannot overcome the need for policy learning, as a means for influencing policy outcomes.The separate instances of failure of federal anti-offshoring bills at the Senate show how the two houses are entrenched in a different set of values.The omission of the state level scenario offers enough valuable lessons to the high tech community to ignore.The authors' assertions on the coalition strength hypothesis (p.154) go to show how business interests have driven this sensitive issue, despite serious perceptions about its impact on skilling of workers and work opportunity.The impact on openness in outsourcing should have been used to nuance the skilled worker visa case.
The conclusion on the High tech community drove the nature of United States openness to global innovation, as regards shared interests is tenuous.The symmetry of interests is not the same as the congruence of neither the approach nor the relative bargaining power, as is evident from the skilled migration case.The absence of clear commercial business interests in the university system is, however, a nuanced proposition.I agree that the extent and nature of collaboration between the corporate and academic wings of the high-tech community have varied.The other observations on the universities in sustaining flows of international students are not particularly well-grounded (p.156).The third finding that the level of openness in U.S policy is a function of the organised resistance faced by the high-tech community is not followed through.The case for the organised opposition has been relegated to alternative explanations that too in a manner, which is dismissive.The strategic hegemon hypothesis which is widely believed to be influential in governing strategic action seems to have limited explanatory power.To argue for the strategic nature of technology to promote its continued globalisation thus appears far-fetched today.The conclusions on the preferred party hypothesis do not match the case study level analysis (p. 157).The coalition strength hypothesis fails due to the issues with ideal type conceptualisation and lack of demonstration of collective mobilisation of actors.In some cases, alignment with business interests is not demonstrated and in others, either wing of the high tech community assumed leadership roles.
The implications for international relations concerning the phenomenon of globalisation of innovation for the distribution of wealth, the balance of power and economic interdependence should be nuanced more carefully from this Account.The work serves to outline the ironies of the policymaking process, concerning its reflexivity to public opinion.The ability of skilled workers in resisting skilled migration, at the national level (as distinct from the sub-national one), despite their perception of economic threat from the skilled migrants is one such case.His statement that skilled migra-pulsion demonstrates the bounded rationality of institutional actors.The options to handle the costs of non-engagement are more diverse and potent and the attempts at increasing transaction costs are a more structured discussion.The public opinion seems to get the necessary salience to the issue.The approach of the Senate on most of the issues is pro-elitist, despite the pressures of political and electoral exigencies.The funding of the teacher layoffs and support to Medicaid payments was also sought to be made a bargaining chip for reinstatement of the R&D tax credit, which reflects on how much the cross-subsidisation of the high tech community is expensive for the government, regarding both financial and social costs.The relative bargaining power of the High-tech community has often been misused to maintain the status quo of reducing transaction costs.In the popular public discourse, the issue became intertwined with skill development, which demonstrates a valid need for long-term structural reform.It shows how the different parties within the political system have attempted bolder reforms in tax structures and failed to push through comprehensive and targeted reforms, as a result of this obstructionism of the high-tech community.The labour's attempts at public opposition through the generation of informed debates and grassroots mobilisation and bringing this issue into mainstream political discourse have been measured.The comparison with the fight against outsourcing at the State level, reveals a patchwork of regulation on the issue with differing approaches emerging.Despite more aggressive techniques by organised labour, the inability or lack of sophistication in managing outcomes is evident.On the other hand, the ability of companies to learn from mobilisation efforts and the innovative practices employed can be credited with managing public opinion.The manner of unusual circumstances like stricter Laws which met little success and resort to executive orders to pursue genuine issues shows how the removal of political compulsions of office alone can alter the status quo, in favour of the social concerns.The receding of interest once an effort at legislation bears fruit reflects how continuous institutional evolution is a contested proposition.It is worth saying that formal institutions succeed in the presence of pre-existing informal ones and the consequent evolution needs consistent effort.The success of targeted interventions aimed at an operational organisation of outsourcing met with some measure of success.The shifting of sights from the state level to the federal level by organised Labour was correctly identified to be the result of declining interest at the State level.The author does well to recognise that infeasibility to regulate foreign investment and the distribution of costs is the deciding factor.The lack of explanatory power to the preferred party hypothesis shows how the political discourse is ambivalent about taking too strong a position against high tech community.In the absence of a clear case of the opposition, the status quo hypothesis comes across as a strong explanation.The preponder-tion is an alternative to outsourcing is not really the case.His observations on the need to approach policies on global innovation as opposed to skilled migration are well taken.So, is the need to examine the role of differing ideologies and historical and other contingencies to explain them?The avenues for research concerning the policies of middle-income and developing countries towards global innovation is equally well thought though misplaced.The overall point on institutional sclerosis arising from the accumulation of special interests diverting policymaking away from the national interest is a missed opportunity.The impact of U.S firms R&D in China and India, concerning the local innovation capabilities is rightly the more important project that should ground the fruitfulness of this exploration.The future of U.S Policymaking and the reasons he offers for the unlikelihood of a significant change are not easily assumed.All in all, the Book misplaces ethnocentrism in extremes and obscures the possibility of organised opposition using power resources, as a means of preventing the perpetuation of inequality by the capitalist organisation and the elites, in a fairly predictable way.