Many political scientists attribute this reticence to the unavoidable realities of international interdependence, which they believe has created too many beneficial linkages among states to risk disruption by muscle-flexing. Yet in fields such as finance and international commerce, Reinecke and others consistently ignore the degree to which U.S. policy is explicable not by any inherent new U.S. vulnerabilities or relative weakness, but by the simple capture of Washington by interests that profit enormously from arrangements that give financiers a practically free hand or that prevent the management of globalization for broader popular benefit. Reinecke does refer to the power of business lobbies, but his interpretation of this phenomenon is at best tendentious. Yet his clear concern about the public backlash in the United States and elsewhere against current globalization policies, which is apparent most clearly from Congress's defeat of fast-track trade legislation, implicitly acknowledges that the policy tide can be turned. More specifically, the U.S. government at the least can be forced to reassert its considerable power over worldwide economic activity.
Similar conclusions are plausible in connection with export controls.
Maybe largely because its business paymasters are determined to prevent government from harnessing America's enormous market power to promote national security through policies that might threaten some short-term profits. Finally, thinking realistically about politics casts doubt on Reinecke's contention that democratic values and practices can be preserved in a world of global decisionmaking bodies-however numerous and decentralized. In theory, if popular forces can recapture national governments from corporate lobbies, as recent U.S. developments suggest, they should be able to capture global public policy arrangements as well. In actuality, however, two big and related obstacles bar the way. First, organizing lobbying campaigns and overcoming corporate money on a national level has been difficult enough.