The politics of comparing capitalisms

Ian Bruff

doi:10.1177/0308518x21997125

Abstract

Research engaged in the comparison and analysis of different forms of capitalism has been a significant growth area of political economy scholarship in the 21st century. Yet this scholarship, referred to in the article as the Comparative Capitalisms literatures, has struggled to respond to the challenges posed by post-2007 developments in and across the global political economy. This article engages with the critique offered by a number of critical-geographical interventions: the variegated impacts and experiences of conditions of crisis highlight the fact that questions of variety and unevenness necessitate a considerably more holistic methodological approach to comparison than a singular ‘national state as container’ focus would allow for. While important, these ‘variegated capitalism’ interventions have not said enough about comparison as an intrinsically political research practice. Building on the work of especially Juliet Hooker, Reecia Orzeck and Heloise Weber, the article makes the case for (i) being explicit about what is analytically and politically at stake in the act of comparing, and (ii) putting analytical and political concerns on an equal footing. It further argues that a broadly conceived critical political economy approach, discussed in the final section, is best-placed to make the most of the potential of such an understanding of comparison. This makes it possible to deploy research strategies that juxtapose different constellations of crises, conflicts and contradictions in order to articulate critiques of capitalism and/or focus on social and political struggles taking place in, against and potentially beyond the ‘cases’ being considered.

Highlights

Research engaged in the comparison and analysis of different forms of capitalism has been a significant growth area of political economy scholarship in the 21st century
There were four reasons: (i) the collapse of a ‘socialist’ alternative to capitalism led to a shift from contrasting different economic systems to examining withincapitalist diversities; (ii) the increasing global prominence of countries previously understood as ‘developing’ or ‘less developed’ meant that this was a potentially dynamic field in empirical terms; (iii) the emergence of the notion of ‘globalization’ created opportunities for scholars interested in the existence and persistence of capitalist diversity to invest in an alternative and contrary research agenda; and (iv) concurrent to all of this, there was the emergence of ‘new institutionalism’ research programmes across a range of social science disciplines. Out of these four factors there emerged the common denominator that ‘the basis for different “types”, “models” or “varieties” of capitalism are nationally specific institutions. They play a critical role in the evolution of national capitalisms, too, be it successful adjustment to new economic realities or failure to adapt through inertia’ (Bruff, 2011: 483)
Reecia Orzeck’s (2012: 1464) seemingly simple point contains a multitude of important consequences for thinking about the politics of comparison: academic research is, in its entirety, an unavoidably political endeavour – the extent to which what topics we investigate, what questions we ask, and what count as valid answers are all shaped by the concerns and biases of the time and place in which we work; by the prevailing conditions of knowledge production in that time and place; by the state of our disciplines; and by our subject positions

Summary

Introduction

Research engaged in the comparison and analysis of different forms of capitalism has been a significant growth area of political economy scholarship in the 21st century. This makes it possible to deploy research strategies that juxtapose different constellations of crises, conflicts and contradictions in order to articulate critiques of capitalism and/ or focus on social and political struggles taking place in, against and potentially beyond the ‘cases’ being considered.

Results

Conclusion