It's a busy day at the Drezner household -- I have to decide which of my children to ship to the Economist in gratitude for their review of my book All Politics Is Global (now available at Amazon.com and other fine online retailers!!!). It's subscription only, but here's the good parts version:

Daniel Drezner's “All Politics is Global” is too nuanced and academic for easy reading—but ultimately much more rewarding. Mr Drezner, an associate professor of international politics at Tufts University, focuses on the international institutions and accords that regulate trade. Such regulation, though seemingly arcane at first, in fact determines “how to treat workers, how much to pollute, what can go into our food, what can be accessed on the internet,” and “how much medicine will cost”.

...Mr Drezner believes that what really matter are the domestic preferences of powerful governments: “States make the rules.” This directly contradicts Thomas Friedman's flat-world notion that globalisation has emasculated the state. Mr Friedman's ideas—such as that capitalists worldwide now form an “electronic herd” that tramples down borders—are, according to Mr Drezner, “simple, pithy and wrong”. As evidence, Mr Drezner provides case studies ranging from internet protocols to anti-retroviral drugs. He shows that “great powers cajole and coerce those who disagree with them into accepting the same rulebook.”

....Mr Drezner does not call for the end of such international accords. Rather, he finds that the challenges of the future will be increasingly transnational. As globalisation intensifies, the rewards for co-ordination will increase as well. To achieve success, it is essential not to eliminate international institutions but rather to understand their utility. They are at heart a means for great nations to exert their will in concert. The key to their success lies in convincing the leading governments of the gains from acting in co-operation, rather than isolation, in a volatile but interconnected world—a message that surely applies well beyond the esoteric world of trade regulations.