Description
Book SynopsisLinda 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.
Trade ReviewThis dense, powerful volume offers profound insights into the U.S. innovation system and its driving forces....It deserves close attention from anyone with an interest in innovation or America's place at the technological frontier.
-- Mark Zachary Taylor * Political Science Quarterly *
While America Inc.? is not a book for those desiring a normative critique of US policy, it is, instead, an invaluable analytical explanation as to how the US has been preeminent in its inexorable innovative drive to achieve and maintain its defense primacy. As such, Weiss lays out a forceful challenge to the traditional conceptualization of the US as a paradigmatic liberal capitalist state.
-- Dr. Maryanne Kelton * Australian Institute of International Affairs *
Table of Contents1. 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
