Product standards affect our lives in many ways, large and trivial,
overt or subtle. Nonstandard threads on light bulbs would be an
incredible nuisance. Travelers learn that different electric plugs
can be hazardous as well as inconvenient. And compatible computers
are more and more necessary in a rapidly changing technological
environment.
But nations use product standards, and manipulate them, for
reasons other than rational use. The Soviet Bloc once cultivated
standards to isolate themselves. In America, codes and standards
are often used to favor home industries over external competition,
and to favor some internal producers over others -- otherwise known
as "protectionism" and "monopolization". And the European Community
must develop continental product standards in order to achieve
their goals of economic integration and to build community.
The emphasis that Europe 1992 placed on such standards has
dramatically called attention to the role they play in everyday
life and the near invisibility of the process of their formation.
Samuel Krislov thoroughly explores the origins, evolutions, and
influence of product standards -- their systematic choice at the
national and international level, and their uses for national
definitions and boundaries.
Krislov compares and contrasts the United States, the EC, the
former Soviet Eastern Bloc, and Japan, to link standard choice with
political styles and to trace growing internationalization based on
product efficiency criteria. While standards are of mounting
concern to politicians, industries, and consumers, especially since
the NAFTA and EC agreements, there has been little or no rigorous
study of them. Thorough and engaging, this bookexplains a crucial
and poorly understood facet of modern life.
"Krislov provides a fascinating overview of an extremely
important but too often neglected subject, namely business
standards and the critical role they have played and continue to
play in both the national and global economy. What makes his study
especially valuable as its rich and detailed comparative and
historical scope". David Vogel, University of California,
Berkeley
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