"A theoretically ambitious, empirically rich study of regional economic policy in Brazil and Spain. Using case studies based on extensive field research, Alfred Montero demonstrates how political factors such as elite competition can affect economic development. An important contribution to the emerging literature on subnational political economy." -W. Rand Smith, Lake Forest College

"This book contributes to the new literature on the economic responses of subnational governments to the pressures of global integration. . . . An inspired combination of informed theory and methodological sophistication make this book a model of how to do comparative politics."-Eliza Willis, Grinnell College

Shifting States in Global Markets contributes to the debates over the political economy of globalization by focusing attention on the increasingly important role of subnational governments in implementing economic policies. Challenging the view that the effects of decentralization are positive or negative uniformly and can be explained by reference to the influence of national political institutions, Alfred Montero uses his comparisons of industrial policy in Brazil and Spain, and between different regions in these countries, to argue that we need to pay attention to political conditions at the subnational level to account for the variation in economic success between regions.