Beyond Varieties Of Capitalism: Conflict, Contradictions, An

Description:
Since the early 1990s, Europe's economies have been facing several new challenges: the 1992 single market programme, the collapse of the Berlin wall and eastward enlargement, and monetary unification. Building on the influential Varieties of Capitalism (VoC) perspective, first elaboarted in detail in the book Varieties of Capitalism OUP, 2001), this book critically analyzes these developments in the European political economy and their effects on the continental European economies. Leading political economists from Europe and the US debate how VoC can help understand the political-economic challenges that Europe is facing today and how understanding these new challenges can in turn enrich and enhance the VoC perspective. Thematically, the contributions to this volume are organised in four sections: * how the macro-economics of EMU influenced different European models of capitalism, * how the Single Market programme was received in the different institutional regimes in European capitalism, * how welfare and labour market reforms are debated and implemented, * how European capitalism travelled east after 1989.Preceding this is a spirited defence of the VoC approach by Peter Hall, and an introduction from the volume editors, considering the approach, and proposing extensions and amendments. This book demonstrates that the VoC approach remains, as the editors put it in their introduction, a rich seam to mine, capable of accommodating new developments, and theoretically flexible enough to branch out into new arguments.

Table of Contents:
PART 1: VARIETIES OF CAPITALISM: TAKING STOCK; 1. Introduction: Beyond Varieties of Capitalism; 2. The Evolution of Varieties of Capitalism in Europe; PART 2: MACRO-ADJUSTMENT AND VARIETIES OF CAPITALISM; 3. Macroeconomics and Varieties of Capitalism; 4. Wage bargaining and Comparative Advantage in EMU; PART 3: THE SINGLE MARKET, REGULATION, AND FIRMS; 5. Reforming National Regulatory Institutions: The EU and cross-national variety in European network industries; 6. Globalization, Institutional Variation and coordination patterns in CMEs: Swiss and German Corporate Governance in Comparison; 7. Capital Mobility, Varieties of Institutional Investors and the Transforming Stability of Corporate Governance in France and Germany; PART 4: LABOUR MARKET AND WELFARE STATE ADJUSTMENT; 8. The Political Economy of Adjustment in Mixed Market Economies: A Study of Spain and Italy; 9. What Does Business Want? Labour Market Reform in CMEs and its Problems; 10. Economic Shocks and Varieties of Government Responses; PART 5: CAPITALISM GOES EAST; 11. Central European Capitalism in Comparative Perspective; 12. The origins of Varieties of Capitalism: Lessons from post-Socialist transition in Estonia and Slovenia; 13. Strengths and Weaknesses of 'Weak' Co-ordination: Economic institutions, revealed comparative advantages and socio-economic performance of Mixed-Market Economies in Poland and Ukraine