Straight Talk on Trade: Ideas for a Sane World Economy by Dani Rodrik Princeton University Press, 2018

[...]the author dedicates chapters 2–4 to substantiate why our unit of analysis should privilege the nation-state in ‘a world that is politically divided and economically less than fully globalized’ (26). [...]the model prescribes that nondemocracies cannot enjoy the same rights and privileges as democracies, as the above principles emanate from democratic debates within states. [...]Rodrik shows some Streeckian6 moments when he talks about the ills of global capital today: post-2008 stagnation, disproportionate market power of oligarchs, alienation of globalisation's losers, brutal politics of austerity, and so on. [...]while externalizing norms or policy preferences to third countries through free trade agreements (FTAs) can subvert a nation's democratic processes and regulatory prerogatives (233), the fear that large actors will readily exert this influence in actual bilateral deals seems exaggerated, even for a market behemoth like the EU.