Globalization, social democracy and the persistence of partisan politics: a commentary on Garrett

In Partisan Politics in the Global Economy (1998), Geoffrey Garrett provides arguably the most important intervention to date in the debate on the continued viability of social democratic corporatism in the context of globalization. His book is intended to offer some comfort to beleaguered social democrats while resuscitating arguments that partisan politics continues to matter in an era characterized by heightened capital mobility. In this article I take issue with Garrett's argument, suggesting that far from reviving social democratic optimism, Partisan Politics in fact only marginally modifies the narrow economistic logic of more orthodox 'globaloney'. Where the conventional mythology of globalization summons an inexorable neoliberalizing logic of inevitable convergence, Garrett supplants a bifurcated logic of institutionally mediated convergence. Whereas social democratic corporatism is 'selected for' in nations characterized by social democratic corporatist institutions and traditions, neoliberalism is 'selected for' in the absence of such cultural and institutional specificities. I challenge this revised logic of inevitability, arguing that if any residual social democratic optimism is to be revived, globalization's perceived logic of inevitability must first be exposed for the myth that it is.