Leon N. Lindberg

American political scientist, and Emeritus Professor

Leon Nord Lindberg (born 1932) is an American political scientist, and Emeritus Professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, known for his work on regional integration, political integration, and neofunctionalism.

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  • In advanced capitalist society the state helps shape the institutional organization of the economy. We show, how the state shapes the economy through the manipulation of property rights. The state's actions create pressures for change that lead actors to look for new forms of economic organization. The state also assists, leads, or constrains the process of selecting new forms of economic organization that emerge in response to these pressures, and it may or may not ratify these new forms. In contrast to the conventional literature on state economy relations that characterizes the U.S. state as having a weak capacity for successful economic intervention, we argue that property rights actions afford the U.S. state a previously unrecognized source of strength. Data come primarily from historical case studies of organizational transformation in the steel, automobile, commercial nuclear energy, telecommunications, dairy, meat-packing, and railroad sectors.
    • John L. Campbell and Leon N. Lindberg. "Property rights and the organization of economic activity by the state." American sociological review (1990): 634-647. p. 634, abstract
  • Property rights define the institutional basis of power relations in production, exchange and accumulation, rather than just the relationship of actors to property. The ability to manipulate property rights affords the state important leverage over the balance of power among actors in the economy.
    • John L. Campbell and Leon N. Lindberg. "Property rights and the organization of economic activity by the state." American sociological review (1990): 634-647. p. 642

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