Bringing the State Back Into the Varieties of Capitalism And Discourse Back Into the Explanation of Change. CES Working Paper, no. 152, 2007 (original) (raw)

State capitalism(s) redux? Theories, tensions, controversies

Competition and Change, 2019

This article interrogates the notion of state capitalism, exploring the contributions and limits of the concept as a means of theorizing the more visible role of the state across the world capitalist economy. We critically synthesize the key arguments, outlining commonly cited properties and practices of state capitalism, in three bodies of literature: strategic management, comparative capitalism and global political economy. We find that the term not only lacks a unified definition, but actually refers to an extremely wide array of policy instruments, strategic objectives, institutional forms and networks, that involve the state to different degrees. For this proliferation of competing usages to be productive and not lead to analytical impasses, we argue that there is a need for a heightened level of reflexive scrutiny of state capitalism as a category of analysis. In that spirit, we identify three issues that the literature must further grapple with for the term to be analytically meaningful, that is, capable of rendering (state)capitalist diversity amenable to analysis and critique: (1) the 'missing link' of a theory of the capitalist state, (2) the time horizons of state capitalism, or the question of 'periodization', (3) territorial considerations or the question of 'locating' state capitalism.

Special issue introduction: what is the new state capitalism?

Contemporary Politics, 2022

This article introduces and lays the groundwork for this Contemporary Politics special issue on the 'new' state capitalism. We start by noting that the rubric state capitalism tends to elicit paradoxical responses, from uncritically embracing the term and overstretching its realms of application, to rejecting its validity altogether. We argue that the source of such ambivalence resides in issues of conceptual definition, which have led to a number of analytical impasses. We propose instead to construe state capitalism as a set of critical interrogations concerning the changing role of the state, thereby introducing a degree of plasticity in the use of the category. We call this the problématique of state capitalism. We subsequently identify three major themes that are explored in this dedicated issue, and that warrant further research in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, namely (1) its class underpinnings, (2) its global nature, and (3) its relational character.

The Agenda of Difference: State, Varieties of Capitalism, and Economic Governance

Initially the paper stresses the existing diversity of capitalist trajectories and context, having as main guideline the theory of the "varieties of capitalism" as contrasted with the thesis of convergence brought up by the Washington Consensus. The approach we adopt stresses the importance of national states for the enforcement of the regulation of the interaction of firms with the institutional environment, the organization of productive processes, and the management of economic policy. The text emphasizes the importance of the State as an actor and mediator in economic and social life, considering the theories discussed. It points out to the need of “bringing the state and their international integration back in” to the “varieties of capitalism” approach. At last, we present a short description of the cases of Brazil and Korea as an effort of applying this broader perspective.

Institutional change in varieties of capitalism

Socio-Economic Review, 2008

Contemporary approaches to varieties to capitalism are often criticized for neglecting issues of institutional change. This paper develops an approach to institutional change more extended than the one provided in Hall and Soskice (in Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001) but congruent with its varieties-ofcapitalism perspective. It begins by outlining an approach to institutional stability, which suggests that the persistence of institutions depends not only on their aggregate welfare effects but also on the distributive benefits that they provide to the underlying social or political coalitions; and not only on the Paretooptimal quality of such equilibria but also on continuous processes of mobilization through which the actors test the limits of the existing institutions. It then develops an analysis of institutional change that emphasizes the ways in which defection, reinterpretation and reform emerge out of such contestation and assesses the accuracy of this account against recent developments in the political economies of Europe. The paper concludes by outlining the implications of this perspective for contemporary analyses of liberalization in the political economy.

Uneven and combined state capitalism

Environment and Planning A, 2021

This article contributes to the development of state capitalism as a reflexively critical project focusing on the morphology of present-day capitalism, and particularly on the changing role of the state. We bring analytical clarity to state capitalism studies by offering a rigorous definition of its object of investigation, and by demonstrating how the category state capitalism can be productively construed as a means of problematising the current aggregate expansion of the state's role as promoter, supervisor and owner of capital across the world economy. Noting some of the geographical shortcomings of the field, we outline an alternative research agenda 'uneven and combined state capitalist development' which aims at spatialising the study of state capitalism and revitalising systemic explanations of the phenomenon. Rather than the negation of an abstract model of free-market capitalism, or the rise of a nationally scaled variant of capitalism, we posit contemporary state capitalism as a global process of restructuring of the capitalist state (including in its liberal form) underpinned by secular transformations in the materiality of surplus-value production, such as the consolidation of new international divisions of labour driven by automation and labour-saving technologies. The political mediation of these transformations results in the combined expansion of state-capital hybrids and of muscular forms of statism, which develop in inter-referential and cumulative forms across territory, producing further state capitalist modalities. This is a particularly potent dynamic in contemporary state capitalism, and its tendency to develop in a spiral that both shapes and is shaped by world capitalist development.

State Capitalism Revisited: A Review of Emergent Forms and Developments

Journal of Economic Issues, 2019

Even when the neoliberal ideology of the free market was more dominant than it now is, the state was involved in economic activities that could be undertaken by private firms. State capitalism takes increasingly diverse forms, including beyond direct, partial or even indirect ownership. This paper briefly reviews some of these forms without claiming to be exhaustive as the shape state capitalism takes differs widely across the institutionalized contexts of countries. We assess state capitalism using Polanyi's double movement framework and argue that this framework needs adaptation to novel forms of state capitalism that include, e.g., state-owned multinationals and sovereign wealth funds.

Ten theses on the new state capitalism and its futures

EPA: Economy and Space, 2023

Global capitalism is currently experiencing a turbulent and polymorphous (geo)political reordering, encompassing multiple transformations in the landscapes of state intervention, and a drastic reconfiguration of the state's role as promoter, supervisor and owner of capital across the world economy. Can the concept of state capitalism aid us in grasping these transformations conceptually? My answer is yes, with the proviso that state capitalism is neither conceptualised as a national (or regional) variety of capitalism, nor as a new regime of accumulation, but as a flexible means of problematising this historic arc in the trajectories of state intervention. Based on this approach, I offer in this essay ten theses on the new state capitalism, its roots in the dynamics of capital accumulation, its relations to broader material conflicts and its potential futures.

Towards a More Dynamic Theory of Capitalist Variety

Socio-Economic Review, 2007

In this paper we analyse the comparative capitalisms literature, which encompasses several analytical frameworks, but shares common concerns in understanding the institutional foundations of diverse national 'varieties' of capitalism. One widespread weakness within this literature has been its static analysis and bias toward predicting institutional stability rather than change. Our contention is that introducing more dynamism into this literature must proceed on three distinct levels: the micro, meso and macro. On the micro level, it needs to develop a less deterministic view of institutions that incorporates a stronger understanding of how actors reshape institutions, not only as constraints on particular courses of action, but also as resources for new courses of action that (incrementally) transform those institutions. On the meso-level, it needs to specify more carefully the linkages among institutions and institutional domains and theorize how change in one affects change in the other. At the macro level, it needs to incorporate a compelling view of national and international politics that draws upon a theory of coalitional dynamics and the impact of particular rule-making processes that governs institutional reform in each nation.

The 'Crisis of Capitalism' and the State -- More Powerful, Less Responsible, Invariably Legitimate

in Semantics of Statebuilding: Language, Meanings and Sovereignty, ed. by Nicolas Lemay-Hébert, Nicholas Onuf, Vojin Rakić, Petar Bojanić, 2013

This chapter traces the reconfiguration of the legitimacy relationship between states and citizens, and the related alteration of the semantics of the social contract since the advent of liberal democracies in Europe. This reconfiguration has fostered the recent emergence of a fourth modality of capitalism (as an institutionalized social order) after (1) the entrepreneurial nineteenth-century capitalism, (2) the ‘organized’ capitalism of the post-WWII welfare state, and (3) the neoliberal, ‘disorganized’ capitalism of the late twentieth century. A key feature of the new modality, in terms of the nature of power relations, is a simultaneous increase in the state’s administrative power and a decrease in its authority. However, due to a recasting of the legitimacy relationship between public authority and citizens, the deficient authority of states has not triggered a legitimacy crisis of the socio-economic system. A readjustment of the pathological relationship (from the point of view of democratic legitimacy) between public authority and citizens would require a stronger responsibilization of public authority in matters of social and economic policy.