Where Are National Capitalisms Now?

Reviewed in Millenium (2006), p. 1027 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