All Varieties Are Equal… Contributions from Dependency Approaches to Critical Comparative Capitalisms Research

Abstract

In-depth analyses of the realities of capitalism in different parts of the world presuppose interrogating the multiplicity of factors that affect the economic, social and political development trajectories, which unfold in different, relatively distinct space economies. In this regard, the Comparative Capitalisms (CC) literatures currently constitute one of the most dynamic scholarly fields with respect to both theoretical debate and the systematization of empirical knowledge. Over recent years, Latin America, among other non-core world regions, has increasingly come to the attention of comparativists; conversely, many scholars established in the region have begun to draw on theoretical approaches from the CC field. This chapter inscribes itself into this development, but where others have been primarily concerned with importing and/or adapting theoretical perspectives originated in other contexts, we make a case for reconsidering the virtues of a fundamentally Latin American line of politico-economic thought: the radical dependency tradition founded in the 1960s. Re-interpreting CC’s trademark enterprise of analysing locally distinctive configurations of capitalism through dependency lenses can, we maintain, provide an essential corrective to a number of shortcomings identified for the neoinstitutionalist approaches which currently predominate in the field.