Comparative Political Economy

During the first decade of its existence, the Eurozone performed relatively better than other large OECD economies. However, the debt crisis challenged the currency union and tested its resilience. This paper analyses the European debt crisis from the comparative political economy perspective and suggests policy options to address the fundamental roots of the crisis.

This paper analyzes the political incentives of Kulturkampf and the implementation of secularization in imperial Prussia and republican Turkey. A game-theoretic model defining Kulturkampf as a static game between priests and the executive is proposed. The willingness of priests to accept the government’s offer and be transformed into bureaucratic experts varies. Individualist priests are easier to recruit as they care more about their personal welfare than social distribution by the church, whereas the reverse holds for collectivist priests. Nevertheless, the long-run success of the Kulturkampf depends on the effective recruitment of collectivist priests and their entry into formal politics in favor of the executive.

This is a book about how 21st Century capitalism really works. Modern economics strips away social, historical, and political context from analysis of ‘the economic’, but the economy is far too important to leave exclusively to the economists. Comparative Political Economy (CPE) is a much broader, richer intellectual undertaking which ‘re-embeds’ the analysis of the economic within the social and political realm. This is at the heart of how to think like a political economist.

Clift maps the terrain, substantive focus and evolution of CPE. This provides the analytical tools to explore the many variants of capitalism, unearthing their roots in competing visions of the desirable distribution of the fruits of growth within firms and across societies, and varied practices of market-making across the advanced economies. Drawing on the insights of classical political economy, the book explains how these visions generate ongoing political struggles over how to regulate and manage capitalism.

This book connects Comparative Political Economy systematically to the subfield of International Political Economy (IPE), calling for cross-fertilisation between the two. Exploring key concepts and theoretical debates in the long-established field of Political Economy, this book analyses the production, reproduction and distribution of power and wealth within contemporary world order.

Connects Comparative political economy (CPE) systematically to the subfield of International Political economy – ideal for courses on each.
• Sets out the scope of political economy to provide the groundwork both for thinking like a political economist, and for in-depth exploration of CPE.
• Delineates the central focus of comparative political economy, charting its genealogy via consideration of some of the towering scholarship in the field
• Maps the major substantive themes, empirical developments and theoretical debates within the field of CPE over the last 50 years
• Provides the analytical toolkit – honed and crafted by the great political economy scholars of the past – for an in-depth analysis of contemporary dynamics in state/market relations
• Situates contemporary CPE within the evolution of the Classical political economy of Smith, Marx, List and  others, as well as seminal interventions by Hayek, Keynes and Polanyi

The early 21 st century will be remembered for its shift in global economic power dynamics. Within three decades, China has fostered the growth of globally prominent firms and its capital market advanced as the world's second most meaningful market. Chinese firms-many of which are subject to an illiberal, political governance-are increasingly integrated with the world economy, attracting domestic and global public investors. Neither state ownership and control, political influence, or weakly functioning legal institutions stand in the way of these firms' access to capital. This reality challenges law and development theories and notions of corporate governance best practices. This Article discusses the puzzling allure of Chinese public firms to external suppliers of capital, while illuminating the functions of illiberal governance in Chinese firms through both the state's and Communist Party capacities. The Article shows how alongside its many obstructions, China's illiberal governance system plays an important role in promoting market regularity, providing investors with the assurances necessary to secure the flow of external finance. Implications for global investors and policymakers outside China are assessed against the backdrop of recent developments in U.S.-China relations.

This paper discusses the situation on income inequality in Austria after the 2008 crisis: looking at the LISS data between 2007 and 2013 we see that income inequality decreases, despite the spreading of the crisis. In order to to explain why income inequality decrease, it follows an analysis of the data; a description of the economic and social situation before the crisis and of the structure of social partnership of the Austrian labour market model; an analysis of the labour market and wages measures adopted at the beginning of the crisis.

Σκοπός της εργασίας είναι να εξετάσει λεπτομερώς τις οικονομικές σχέσεις της Πολωνίας με την Ρωσία, ως προς όλο το πλέγμα των διμερών οικονομικών σχέσεων. 

Aναλύονται σε εισαγωγικό πλαίσιο οι δύο οικονομίες και ακολουθεί μια συνοπτική ιστορική αναδρομή των σχέσεων τους. Εν συνεχεία εξετάζεται η διάρθρωση των  διμερών εμπορικών σχέσεων, με ειδικό υποκεφάλαιο ως προς το ρωσικό εμπάργκο του 2014 στα αγροτικά προϊόντα της Πολωνίας. Επιπροσθέτως, θα αναπτυχθεί σχετικό κεφάλαιο για τις επενδύσεις, με ειδικό κεφάλαιο σχετικά με την παρουσία ευρωπαϊκών ΑΞΕ, ως αντιδιαστολή στην περιορισμένη δράση ρωσικών επενδύσεων. Η περίπτωση του τομέα ενέργειας εντάσσεται σε ειδικό υποκεφάλαιο, περιλαμβάνοντας τόσο την περίπτωση της Gazprom όσο και τις πρωτοβουλίες αποφυγής υπέρμετρης εξάρτησης από ρωσικούς υδρογονάνθρακες.

Öz Bu makale Meksika, Brezilya, Türkiye ve Hindistan'da ithal ikameci sanayileşme modelinde yaşanan krizin farklılaşan dışavurumlarını ve bu krizi aşmaya yönelik reform girişimlerini karşı-laştırmalı bir çerçeve dahilinde ele alıyor. Spesifik olarak, söz konusu ülkelerdeki karar vericilerin 1970'lerin başında ithal ikameci modelin tıkanıklıklarını fark etmelerine karşın neden uzun süre boyunca birikim rejiminde bir reforma gitmediklerini ya da gidemediklerini ve sonuç olarak ülkelerinin kabaca bir on yıl sonra derin bir borç krizi ya da uzun süreli durgunluğa sürüklenme-sini engelleyemediklerini açıklamaya çalışıyor. Bu soruyu ele alan yazında neoklasik yaklaşım ve kurumsalcı yaklaşım olmak üzere iki hakim yaklaşım öne çıkıyor. İlk yaklaşım başarısızlığın kayna-ğı olarak piyasa güçlerinin dinamizmini boğan bürokratik atalet ve aşırı devlet müdahalesini öne sürerken, ikinci yaklaşım uzun vadeli kalkınmayı destekleyecek kurumsal altyapı ve meritokratik bürokrasinin yokluğundan kaynaklanan düşük devlet kapasitesini temel problem olarak gösterdi. Bu makale, bu yaklaşımlardan belirli düzeylerde farklılaşarak bu ülkelerde ithal ikameciliğin krizi ve reform girişimleri bağlamında kalkınma performansı ve devlet kapasitesi farklılaşmasının sınıf-sal bir analizle açıklanabileceğini öne sürüyor. Bu kapsamda, ithal ikameci birikim rejiminin devlet aktörlerinin kalkınmacı müdahalelerine karşı yerli kapitalistlerin elini güçlendiren ve böylelikle olası reform girişimlerine direnebilmelerine olanak sağlayan yapısal bir sınıf oluşum örüntüsü barındırdığını tespit ediyor. Reform girişimlerinin hiçbir ülkede başarılı olamaması bu yapısal örüntünün sonucu olmakla beraber, tekil örneklerde ortaya çıkan "reform inisiyatifi"nin kapsamı ve etkisi, sınıfsal güç dengelerine göre farklılaşıyor. Meksika en güçlü, Brezilya en zayıf reform inisiyatifine tanık olurken Hindistan ve Türkiye ara örnekleri oluşturuyor. Abstract In this paper, I develop a comparative framework to understand the variegated manifestations of the Import Substitution Industrialization (ISI) crisis and the reform attempts aiming to overcome this crisis in Mexico, Brazil, Turkey and India. Specifically, I seek to understand why decision makers in these countries, despite the obvious signals of bottleneck and bankruptcy by early 1970's, did not or could not successfully reform the existing development regime and insisted on the existing set of policies and ended up with dramatic debt crises or stagnation a decade later. The existing literature on this question has been dominated by two rival camps, i.e. the neoclassical approach and the institutionalist approach. The former has regarded bureaucratic inertia and excessive state intervention that undermined the dynamism of market forces as the main reason behind the failure, whereas the latter has emphasized low state capacity due 1 Dr., Ankara Üniversitesi DTCF Sosyoloji Bölümü,

This book sheds new light on if and why, between 2009 and 2015, European governments succeeded or failed in initiating and actually realizing some of the farthest-reaching austerity plans in modern history. The author analyzes the economic and political context and the underlying causes of austerity and economic adjustment packages during the Euro crisis. In doing so, he shows that austerity has its roots in an institutional mismatch between capitalist diversity in the Eurozone on the one hand, and an ill-conceived common economic regime on the other. In this context, austerity trumped politics, and even democracy itself. The book will appeal to scholars of political science and comparative political economy, as well as governmental policymakers and practitioners in the finance sector.

The paper develops the concept of a rising invisible majority and explores the inter- connections between the political economy context and the changing composition of European society. The concept illustrates how the transition from the Fordist to the neoliberal phase of capitalism is leading to a similar – if differently paced – transformation of the social composition across Europe. The material basis of the ‘invisibility’ manifests itself in a structural increase of unemployment, labour market precarization, and poverty. ‘Invisibility’ makes growing segments of the population less likely to participate in the institutions that regulate social life, while mainstream parties and trade unions no longer represent them adequately in the public arena. We suggest this trend will continue, and eventually concern a majority of the popu- lation, unless the neoliberal mechanisms of regulation are slowed or reversed. Enriching Polanyi’s double movement logic, we hypothesise the existence of feed- back effects from this transformation of the social composition to the political econ- omy context that could lead to countermovements. Our reasoning is systematised in an analytical framework, complemented with a historical analysis of the Italian case, and a quantitative measurement of the magnitude of this transformation across 14 European countries.

Public social benefits can, depending on their design, either reduce or strengthen work incentives. Benefits that provide an alternative to earned income weaken work incentives, benefits that require recipients to seek and accept work strengthen them. On the basis of six historical case studies, this paper analyses how the peak federations of German employers perceived the impact of public social programs on work incentives and how these perceptions changed over time. The paper shows how employers' assessments of the importance of work incentives changed over time: They perceived the negative work incentives created by social programs either as positive or as negative, depending on labor market conditions and experiences with social programs made in earlier periods. During the debates leading to the adoption of new social insurance programs, employers feared that the new benefits would undermine work incentives when those programs would benefit persons fit to work, but not when programs would benefit the sick or injured. Consequently, unemployment insurance was the program employers opposed most strongly. Later, during the 1970s and 1980s, when firms faced over-staffing, employers did however come to welcome a weakening of work incentives.

This article examines post-2011 transformations of economic governance in the MENA region. It argues that Arab regimes have responded to the threats posed by the 2011 uprisings not by embracing appeals for inclusive social contracts, but through the imposition of repressive-exclusionary social pacts in which previously universal economic and social rights of citizens are being redefined as selective benefits. These pacts are shown to represent a significant shift in economic governance and in state-society relations in the MENA region, evident in the growing institutionalization of “contingent citizenship” as a framework for the organization of state-society relations and the management of social policy. In stressing discontinuities in economic governance, this argument challenges claims that the reassertion of authoritarianism in Arab states after 2011 represents a “back-to-the-future” process exhibiting little change from the formally inclusive social pacts associated with pre-2011 models of authoritarian governance.

What are the implications of hard economic times for regional economic cooperation? Existing research is sharply divided on the answer to this question. Some studies suggest that economic crises encourage governments to strengthen their regional institutions, but others indicate that they lead to decreasing investment in such initiatives. Both sides overlook the possibility that the passage of time conditions these relationships, however. We aim to bridge these opposing perspectives by distinguishing between short-term and long-term effects of economic hard times on institutionalized regional cooperation. We argue that in the short-term economic crises impede regional institutionalization due to protectionist pressures, nationalistic public sentiments, and political instability. This effect is reversed in the longer-term, as interest groups and the public adopt more favorable attitudes towards regional economic organizations (REOs) and governments employ these institutions to demonstrate their competence and to improve economic conditions. We evaluate this argument in relations to regional institutionalization, which refers to the functional scope and structure of REOs. Using a data set that contains information on this dimension for thirty REOs over four decades, we find strong support for the theoretical framework: regional institutionalization remains stagnant in the immediate aftermath of economic crises, but increases in subsequent years.