Ben Clift
Professor Ben Clift is a Leverhulme Major Research Fellow in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick. He studied at the University of Sheffield for a BA in French and Politics, and an MA in Political Economy. He received his PhD from the University of Sheffield in 2000. He joined the department in 2003 after holding posts at the University of Sheffield and Brunel University. He has held visiting positions at Sciences-Po, Paris in 2007 and 2013, and in 2009 he was a visiting research fellow in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford. His latest book, The IMF and the Politics of Austerity in the Wake of the Global Financial Crisis has recently been published with Oxford University Press.
Address: Professor of Political Economy,
Department of Politics and International Studies,
University of Warwick,
Coventry, CV4 7AL
Address: Professor of Political Economy,
Department of Politics and International Studies,
University of Warwick,
Coventry, CV4 7AL
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Books by Ben Clift
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
"That economic ideas are the currency of power in the corridors of the IMF is well known. But how these ideas are developed, shared, and spread is largely assumed. Ben Clift's excellent book changes that. By leveraging constructivist insights on how actors frame problems to a framework that stresses processes of ideational reconciliation and recognition within the fund, Clift shows the IMF to be more ideationally pluralist, and yet more political, than most analysts have shown to date." - Mark Blyth, Eastman Professor of Political Economy, The Watson Institute for International Affairs, Brown University.
"Ben Clift paints a rich picture of the IMF as it evolved during the global financial crisis. He claims, controversially, that when it came to advanced non-borrowing members the IMF pivoted back to its Keynesian roots following a long embrace of neoliberalism. The book challenges standard totalizing IMF narratives at a time when that institution is adjusting unevenly to the new environment in which it is operating." - Professor Ilene Grabel, Professor of International Economics, Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver
"This theoretically and empirically rich book challenges those who see the IMF always as an ideologically rigid enforcer of fiscal austerity. In analyzing the Fund's less orthodox positions in post-2008 debates about fiscal policy in the European context, Clift develops a fascinating analysis that should be read by all those interested in the politics of economic ideas, the ideational significance of international organizations, and global financial governance after the 2008 financial crash." - Eric Helleiner, Professor of Political Science, University of Waterloo.
This volume links this phenomenon to a specific set of tensions between economic and political boundaries – the paradox of neo-liberal democracy – and argues that political interventionism in open markets is ubiquitous. The mandate of politicians is to defend the economic interests of their constituents under conditions where large parts of economic governance are no longer exclusively within their control. Economic patriotism is one possible reaction to this tension. As old-style industrial policy and interventionism gained a bad reputation, governments had to become creative to assure traditional economic policy objectives with new means.
However, economic patriotism is more than just a fashionable word or a fig leaf for protectionism. This volume employs the term to signal two distinctions: the diversity of policy content and the multiplicity of territorial units it can refer to. Comparing economic interventionism across countries and sectors, it becomes clear that economic liberalism will always be accompanied by counter-movements that appeal to territorial images."
“French Socialism in a Global Era is ambitious both theoretically and empirically. Clift demonstrates a very sure theoretical and empirical touch and an impressive capacity to synthesise various literatures and apply them to different facets of Socialist Party experience. The book is rigorously researched, and also very wide-ranging. Clift demonstrates convincingly how internal party dynamics (organisational, intellectual, and institutional) can mediate the effect of exogenous and endogenous changes, and very convincingly challenges some of the central presuppositions of the end of social democracy and end of history schools.”
Professor Alistair Cole, University of Cardiff
INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY
Jonathan Perraton & Ben Clift (eds.), Where are National Capitalisms
Now? (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2004, 296 pp., £55.00 hbk.).
The academic debate on whether national models of capitalism are c o n v e rging towards the Anglo-Saxon model, or whether, in fact,diversity in the institutional composition of national variants will continue to persist, often sees proponents of the ‘convergence school’ relentlessly pitted against scholars emphasizing the institutional complementarity and path-dependent nature of national varieties of capitalism.
This volume, based on papers presented at a conference convened by the Political Economy Research Centre at the University of Sheffield, is a welcome contribution to this burgeoning literature since it does not quite buy into either of these polarized positions. Rather, Perraton and Clift have brought together a collection of studies that stress the
continuity and change of the institutional set-up of these concrete models of capitalism. Their set of research questions is captured well in the title of the volume Where are national capitalisms now?, only that one might want to add ‘…and how did they get there?’ Clearly moving beyond ‘new economy’ and historical institutionalist approaches, the contributors to the volume examine the role of institutional arrangements for national models of capitalism. Here, the focus is predominantly on the relations between states, markets and business; industrial relations, and finance and corporate governance regimes. Each chapter seeks to outline and analyze particular aspects of these institutional configurations. Grahame Thompson looks at the unprecedented growth of the US economy in the 1990s as a reversal of the New Deal under the Reagan
Administration and argues convincingly that these changes, rather than being induced by exogenous factors such as globalisation and new advanced technologies, were caused by political decisions over the past 20 years and, as such, are far from being long-run embedded features as is often assumed in generic models of Anglo-Saxon capitalism. Andrew Gamble examines changes in the British model since the 1980s. He
emphasises the impact of EU membership on the British economy and contends that the distinctiveness of British capitalism is likely to disappear. Rory O’Donell’s analysis of the role of collective agreements among social groups in the process of Ireland’s transformation into the ‘Celtic Tiger’ is a particularly interesting account of a national model of capitalism that is often neglected in the literature. Germany’s consensus
culture is the focus of the chapter by Claire Annesley, Geoff Pugh, and David Tyrall. Subsequently, Ben Clift focuses on the enduringly statist character of the French model and argues that despite far-reaching privatisation and financial deregulation, the state still plays a pivotal role in the French economy. Juhana Vartianen then examines how far collectivist interventions in Scandinavian economies are still feasible in an increasingly market-driven, globalised economic enviro n m e n t .
Kazuyoshi Matsuura et al show how the institutional foundations of postwar Japan (the ‘main’ bank system, lifetime employment and seniority wages, inter-corporate relations, and industrial policy) have been undermined since the 1980s, and discuss the impact of these changes on the Japanese model of capitalism. The two subsequent chapters on Korea both emphasise the economic contradictions of its economic reform programme after the 1997 crisis. Linda Weiss , including Taiwan in her analysis, argues that despite increased economic liberalisation, the developmental state remains in place in these countries. Barry and Dong-Sook Gills’ chapter focuses on the role of labour and shows the tension between the ongoing democratization and
neoliberal economic reforms. In the penultimate chapter, Hugo Radice puts forward several criticisms of the comparative national capitalisms literature, most notably of its tendency to overemphasise dissimilarities and downplay common trends within capitalism. He also argues against the inherently
functionalist notion that institutional features of a national model of capitalism are mutually reinforcing. Yet, while these are very important points that should definitely be considered by any scholar working in the field, Radice’s chapter does not help to make the volume more coherent because he actually criticises some of the theoretical tools used in the previous chapters.
Perraton and Clift’s concluding chapter does not offer a definite
answer to the title question but rather presents a wide range of data from OECD countries to place the findings of the previous chapters in broader context. By way of conclusion, the editors position themselves in the ‘change over continuity’ camp (p. 258). Though the eclectic range of institutional aspects within different national models of capitalism in this volume renders it difficult to obey the framework described in the introduction, the individual contributions offer very interesting accounts of institutional continuity and change. This volume will thus be of special interest to scholars familiar with any of the specific cases. Also, it represents an important effort to advance an understanding of the development of national models of capitalism that moves beyond the polarisation of the
convergence/persistence debate.
LAURA HORN
Laura Horn is a PhD candidate in Political Science at the
Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam.
––––––––––––––––––––––––
Millennium
Papers by Ben Clift
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
"That economic ideas are the currency of power in the corridors of the IMF is well known. But how these ideas are developed, shared, and spread is largely assumed. Ben Clift's excellent book changes that. By leveraging constructivist insights on how actors frame problems to a framework that stresses processes of ideational reconciliation and recognition within the fund, Clift shows the IMF to be more ideationally pluralist, and yet more political, than most analysts have shown to date." - Mark Blyth, Eastman Professor of Political Economy, The Watson Institute for International Affairs, Brown University.
"Ben Clift paints a rich picture of the IMF as it evolved during the global financial crisis. He claims, controversially, that when it came to advanced non-borrowing members the IMF pivoted back to its Keynesian roots following a long embrace of neoliberalism. The book challenges standard totalizing IMF narratives at a time when that institution is adjusting unevenly to the new environment in which it is operating." - Professor Ilene Grabel, Professor of International Economics, Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver
"This theoretically and empirically rich book challenges those who see the IMF always as an ideologically rigid enforcer of fiscal austerity. In analyzing the Fund's less orthodox positions in post-2008 debates about fiscal policy in the European context, Clift develops a fascinating analysis that should be read by all those interested in the politics of economic ideas, the ideational significance of international organizations, and global financial governance after the 2008 financial crash." - Eric Helleiner, Professor of Political Science, University of Waterloo.
This volume links this phenomenon to a specific set of tensions between economic and political boundaries – the paradox of neo-liberal democracy – and argues that political interventionism in open markets is ubiquitous. The mandate of politicians is to defend the economic interests of their constituents under conditions where large parts of economic governance are no longer exclusively within their control. Economic patriotism is one possible reaction to this tension. As old-style industrial policy and interventionism gained a bad reputation, governments had to become creative to assure traditional economic policy objectives with new means.
However, economic patriotism is more than just a fashionable word or a fig leaf for protectionism. This volume employs the term to signal two distinctions: the diversity of policy content and the multiplicity of territorial units it can refer to. Comparing economic interventionism across countries and sectors, it becomes clear that economic liberalism will always be accompanied by counter-movements that appeal to territorial images."
“French Socialism in a Global Era is ambitious both theoretically and empirically. Clift demonstrates a very sure theoretical and empirical touch and an impressive capacity to synthesise various literatures and apply them to different facets of Socialist Party experience. The book is rigorously researched, and also very wide-ranging. Clift demonstrates convincingly how internal party dynamics (organisational, intellectual, and institutional) can mediate the effect of exogenous and endogenous changes, and very convincingly challenges some of the central presuppositions of the end of social democracy and end of history schools.”
Professor Alistair Cole, University of Cardiff
INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY
Jonathan Perraton & Ben Clift (eds.), Where are National Capitalisms
Now? (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2004, 296 pp., £55.00 hbk.).
The academic debate on whether national models of capitalism are c o n v e rging towards the Anglo-Saxon model, or whether, in fact,diversity in the institutional composition of national variants will continue to persist, often sees proponents of the ‘convergence school’ relentlessly pitted against scholars emphasizing the institutional complementarity and path-dependent nature of national varieties of capitalism.
This volume, based on papers presented at a conference convened by the Political Economy Research Centre at the University of Sheffield, is a welcome contribution to this burgeoning literature since it does not quite buy into either of these polarized positions. Rather, Perraton and Clift have brought together a collection of studies that stress the
continuity and change of the institutional set-up of these concrete models of capitalism. Their set of research questions is captured well in the title of the volume Where are national capitalisms now?, only that one might want to add ‘…and how did they get there?’ Clearly moving beyond ‘new economy’ and historical institutionalist approaches, the contributors to the volume examine the role of institutional arrangements for national models of capitalism. Here, the focus is predominantly on the relations between states, markets and business; industrial relations, and finance and corporate governance regimes. Each chapter seeks to outline and analyze particular aspects of these institutional configurations. Grahame Thompson looks at the unprecedented growth of the US economy in the 1990s as a reversal of the New Deal under the Reagan
Administration and argues convincingly that these changes, rather than being induced by exogenous factors such as globalisation and new advanced technologies, were caused by political decisions over the past 20 years and, as such, are far from being long-run embedded features as is often assumed in generic models of Anglo-Saxon capitalism. Andrew Gamble examines changes in the British model since the 1980s. He
emphasises the impact of EU membership on the British economy and contends that the distinctiveness of British capitalism is likely to disappear. Rory O’Donell’s analysis of the role of collective agreements among social groups in the process of Ireland’s transformation into the ‘Celtic Tiger’ is a particularly interesting account of a national model of capitalism that is often neglected in the literature. Germany’s consensus
culture is the focus of the chapter by Claire Annesley, Geoff Pugh, and David Tyrall. Subsequently, Ben Clift focuses on the enduringly statist character of the French model and argues that despite far-reaching privatisation and financial deregulation, the state still plays a pivotal role in the French economy. Juhana Vartianen then examines how far collectivist interventions in Scandinavian economies are still feasible in an increasingly market-driven, globalised economic enviro n m e n t .
Kazuyoshi Matsuura et al show how the institutional foundations of postwar Japan (the ‘main’ bank system, lifetime employment and seniority wages, inter-corporate relations, and industrial policy) have been undermined since the 1980s, and discuss the impact of these changes on the Japanese model of capitalism. The two subsequent chapters on Korea both emphasise the economic contradictions of its economic reform programme after the 1997 crisis. Linda Weiss , including Taiwan in her analysis, argues that despite increased economic liberalisation, the developmental state remains in place in these countries. Barry and Dong-Sook Gills’ chapter focuses on the role of labour and shows the tension between the ongoing democratization and
neoliberal economic reforms. In the penultimate chapter, Hugo Radice puts forward several criticisms of the comparative national capitalisms literature, most notably of its tendency to overemphasise dissimilarities and downplay common trends within capitalism. He also argues against the inherently
functionalist notion that institutional features of a national model of capitalism are mutually reinforcing. Yet, while these are very important points that should definitely be considered by any scholar working in the field, Radice’s chapter does not help to make the volume more coherent because he actually criticises some of the theoretical tools used in the previous chapters.
Perraton and Clift’s concluding chapter does not offer a definite
answer to the title question but rather presents a wide range of data from OECD countries to place the findings of the previous chapters in broader context. By way of conclusion, the editors position themselves in the ‘change over continuity’ camp (p. 258). Though the eclectic range of institutional aspects within different national models of capitalism in this volume renders it difficult to obey the framework described in the introduction, the individual contributions offer very interesting accounts of institutional continuity and change. This volume will thus be of special interest to scholars familiar with any of the specific cases. Also, it represents an important effort to advance an understanding of the development of national models of capitalism that moves beyond the polarisation of the
convergence/persistence debate.
LAURA HORN
Laura Horn is a PhD candidate in Political Science at the
Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam.
––––––––––––––––––––––––
Millennium