Varieties Of Capitalism Research Articles

Buying in? The political economy of investor migration in Western Europe

Residence-by-investment schemes, which enable wealthy people to acquire a visa in return for a financial investment, have become increasingly common. In this article, an original immigration policy index and case studies are used to examine the political economy of residence-by-investment policies in three European countries: France, Spain, and the UK. Two contributions are made to the literature. First, the article compares investment with work visas and shows that across all three countries investor routes are significantly more open and generous than work routes, including for the highly skilled. Second, drawing on theories of comparative political economy, it is explored how investor visas are shaped by capitalist diversity. Based on these three cases, it is argued that investor visa policies are conditioned by national-level economic models and the political interests that underpin them. The article aims to advance understanding not only of how investor visas vary, but why they do so.

Harnessing venture capital in China

Abstract This article studies the development and distinct features of China’s venture capital (VC) market, now the world’s second largest. I show that the Chinese state has creatively adapted its involvement in VC to harness it for industrial policy—by working with private investors to target startups in key sectors, rendering state activism and vibrant entrepreneurship mutually supportive. This adaptation and China’s embrace of transnational VC have created two varieties of VC with distinct investment patterns. Whereas return-driven VC, much raised overseas, has been active in backing platform companies, policy-guided VC has bet heavily on startups in prioritized sectors. This article challenges the view that vibrant VC and entrepreneurship are products of liberal market economies and the top-down portrayal of China’s political economy. It also adds to the understanding of state–market relations in China by illuminating the process of adaptation and reinvention and by studying China through an explicitly comparative lens.

The dynamics shaping experiences and prospects of employer coordination in a Liberal Market Economy: The case of Scotland

Without structures of employer coordination, it is difficult to develop and deliver effective and legitimate labour market policy. This article theorises the conditions under which employer coordination occurs in a context usually described as a Liberal Market Economy. An explanatory framework of employer coordination is developed arguing that there are structural, institutional and ideational factors that facilitate and hinder coordination. The framework is applied to an empirical analysis of the Scottish context where devolution means that the Scottish Government has taken a different approach to issues of regulating work, emphasising the policy importance of ‘fair work’. Empirical material was collected through interviews with employers’ organisations (EOs) and other key stakeholders. The article extends existing theorisation by demonstrating that the pressures that facilitate and hinder employer coordination are dynamic and contested.

Globalization of Arms Production And Hierarchical Market Economies: Explaining the Transformation of the South Korean Defense Industry

The global arms industry has experienced a major transformation in the post-Cold War era, with production becoming increasingly transnational and larger in scale. While many scholars and policymakers predicted the widespread adoption of market-enhancing reforms aimed at increasing domestic competition and attracting FDI, globalization of arms production has not led to a convergence of national defense industries into a liberal- market model. Drawing on the varieties of capitalism (VoC) literature, recent scholarship has demonstrated how an interdependent web of economic institutions has shaped each country's response in varied ways. This paper builds on the VoC literature and argues that the hierarchical market economy (HME) as a distinct variety serves as a better model for understanding the trajectory of defense industries in many second-tier producers that do not fit the existing categories of VoC. We conduct an in-depth case study of South Korea's defense-industry reform initiated in 2008 and the subsequent threefold increase in its arms exports. We show that the trajectory of South Korea's defense-industry reform can be seen as the result of an HME's attempt to adapt to the globalization of arms production in ways that preserve its distinct comparative advantage. As the HME model has broad applicability for many countries in Asia and Latin America, our findings have important implications for future developments in the global arms industry.

“Vulnerable Workers” and Third Way Governance: Shifting Subjects of Regulation in Ontario’s Employment Standard Enforcement Regime

This article traces the definition and treatment of “vulnerable workers” within the province of Ontario’s regulation of employment standards over a fourteen-year period. An examination of the government’s discourse and its enforcement and legislative history reveals significant shifts and inconsistencies between the government’s claims and its enforcement practices. These shifts and inconsistencies are understood within a political economic analysis of “Third Way” employment policies, competing liberal ideologies, shifting political-economic conditions and institutional legacies. The analysis contributes to a cross-national literature exploring the inadequacies of employment standards enforcement in liberal market economies while at the same time identifying opportunities for change within the different “varieties of liberalism” exhibited within Third Way regimes.

Understanding ‘dependency’ through the comparative capitalisms framework: conceptualisation of Greece as a dependent market economy

ABSTRACT This article relates to debates about dependency of countries in the global political economy. It conceptualises dependency by drawing on the concept of ‘mechanisms of dependency’, and builds a synergy with the Comparative Capitalisms (CC) literature (i.e. institutional and third-generation perspectives). The article expands the Varieties of Capitalism (VoC) framework by applying the established category of Dependent Market Economy to Greece. Building on financialisation as a mechanism of dependency, the article argues this locked Greece into reliance on external debt, dependent position within the Eurozone, as well as vulnerable situation after reforms demanded by the creditors were implemented. However, due to internal historical-structural issues with its capitalist model, Greece was unable to minimise the negative impact of financialised dependence, and is internally weakly prepared to escape from its peripheral status in the future if external dependence will be removed. The article argues that conceptual synergy between dependency theory and the CC literature is desirable in order to provide a more holistic account of interaction between external and internal factors in the context of dependent capitalist varieties.

The collective voice of unions and workplace training in Italy: New insights from mixed methods

AbstractUsing a three‐phase approach that combines quantitative (pooled OLS, fixed effects and IV) with qualitative (semi‐structured interviews) analyses, we find that in Italy, workplace unions are more likely to enhance training when they sign a firm‐level agreement and when they can get access to external funds for financing. We also identify three channels: what we call a ‘maturation effect’, double‐track communication and watch‐dog function. We argue that these results are consistent with the idea that the impact of workplace unions on training depends on the empowerment of its collective voice within an institutional framework that does not fit either of the standard models provided by collective and liberal market economies.

Reflections on the particular and the universal: unity and diversity in social life and social theory

How do the general and the specific, or unity and diversity, relate to social life and political practice? The essay investigates four areas of social theory that may be fruitfully explored in terms of a constitutive tension between universal and local forces: endogenous institutional change, the role of intermediary organizations in the governance of industrial relations, nation-building, and the origin of capitalist diversity.

Signalling through accountability reporting for family firms: Does the institutional environment matter?

ABSTRACT This study investigates three possible explanations of the link between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) expenditures and future financial performance for family firms: (i) CSR is an investment leading to better future financial performance, (ii) it is a form of firms’ charity, or (iii) it is undertaken when anticipating stronger future financial performance. It also examines whether the institutional environments have effects on this association. We show that family firms in coordinated market economies are characterised by stronger stakeholder relationship and CSR expenditures are undertaken in the current period to legitimate the business operations, as CSR will be financially rewarded in the future. However, firms in liberal market economies are motived by shareholder view to protect investors’ interests and avoid uncertainty and risks, and CSR expenditures are undertaken by linking them to anticipated future corporate performance, hereby corporate accountability reporting can assist outsiders to infer insiders’ private information about future financial prospects.

Private Insurance, Public Welfare, and Financial Markets: Alpine and Maritime Countries in Comparative-Historical Perspective

Contemporary capitalist societies use different institutions to manage economic risks. While different public welfare state and financial institutions (banks, capital markets) have been studied across coordinated and liberal market economies, the different worlds of private insurance institutions have been understudied. Building on new insurance data sets (1880–2017), we find that countries with a Maritime (USA, GBR, CAN) in contrast to the more backward Alpine (AUT, DEU, CHE) insurance tradition developed bigger life and nonlife insurance earlier, with less state-associated and reinsurance enterprises, but riskier investments steered toward financial markets. We argue that the larger and more “Maritime” the insurance sector, the more it made welfare states liberal and securities markets large. Insurance is thus a hidden factor for countries’ varieties of capitalism and worlds of welfare. The recent convergence on the Maritime model, however, implies that the riskier and risk-individualizing type of private insurance has added to privatization and securitization trends everywhere.

Skill redefinition and classification, capitalism, and labour process theory of work: evidence from Thailand

Skill redefinition and classification, capitalism, and labour process theory of work: evidence from Thailand

The Rise of Populism and Its Impact on Labour Law, Social Law and Social Policy

This special edition of the International Journal of Comparative Labour Law and Industrial Relations contains five articles, including this introduction. Their shared purpose is to explore the interrelationship between populism, labour law, social law and social policy. In particular, the articles investigate whether the recent rise in populism has had a direct impact, positive or negative, on the situation of the working class. The nexus of populism, labour law, social law and social policy will be examined in three perspectives, focusing on (1) the period when populists seek power, (2) the period when populists are in power, and (3) the consequences of populist rule. The specific research questions underpinning the articles in this issue are as follows. First, when may a politician or a leader be considered a populist? Second, once in power, do populists actually strive to address issues affecting ‘the people’, i.e., those who have suffered harm at the hands of the elites, and does that include issues that affect the working class? Third, if so, how are these issues addressed? Fourth, what indicators can be used to demonstrate a link between the populist reforms (changes) and populist slogans? In other words, is there a ‘populist agenda’ as far as social issues are concerned? Fifth, are populists effective at implementing their slogans on social issues? Sixth, do populist agendas and actions create (and later implement) a new conceptual model of social and economic relations that could serve as an alternative to the current liberal market economy model? Populist Parties, Labour Law, Social Policy, Argentina, Brazil, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, United States

Employment stability and decent work: Trends, characteristics and determinants in a liberal market economy

It is often assumed that the ideological dominance of neoliberalism has profoundly altered job security and long-term employment relationships. Such claims of a more unstable and insecure jobs market in the twenty-first century are the focus of this paper. Using Labour Force Survey data employment stability in the private sector over more than 20 years in Ireland is examined. As a liberal market economy, Ireland represents a fitting context in which to examine this issue given that it is one of the world's most globalised economies and among the most severely affected by the global financial crisis. Assertions of a more unstable and insecure labour market are not in the main supported by our findings. Reasons suggested for the persistence of a stable employment regime are the continued strategic institutional role of trade unions in influencing regulation, and the interest of employers in retaining skilled employees. However, the emergence of the challenging economic conditions since the pandemic may challenge trade union capacity and employer support for such stability.

The various European capitalism models: Convergence and growth in the 2014–2019 inter-crisis period

AbstractThe Varieties of Capitalism (VoC) literature has recently manifested a dynamic development. Among others, the member states of the European Union (EU) have been studied extensively from this viewpoint, and main capitalism models have been identified. Yet, the global financial and economic crisis and its aftermath in Europe have impacted the member states' economies, typically in asymmetric ways and, in 2020, a highly diverse EU faced the COVID-19 induced economic crisis.Our study investigates the EU member states from a perspective different from the existing research on VoC in Europe: our starting point is the macroeconomic decomposition of GDP. Our findings draw up a categorisation somewhat different from the previous results: while the core of the EU is rather consistent and homogenous, clusters of the periphery do not fully coincide with geography and earlier typisations; there are also single outliers and ‘New tigers of Europe’ emerging. Nevertheless, the core-periphery divide still stands overall.

Institutional constellations and policy instruments for offshore wind power around the North sea

This paper analyses how institutional constellations and their associated mode of risk allocation are reflected in the choice of policy instruments for the promotion of offshore wind power. Using the Varieties of Capitalism framework we expect that governments in Liberal Market Economies (LME) tend to use policy instruments that privatise investments and risk-taking, while those in Coordinated Market Economies (CME) use policy instruments that facilitate investments and shared risk-taking in the earlier, more riskful phase of technological development. We test our expectations through a longitudinal comparative analysis of the use of policy instruments and the deployment of offshore wind power in Denmark, the United Kingdom, Germany and the Netherlands between 1990 and 2020.Our results confirm the market oriented nature of policy instruments employed by the LME case of the United Kingdom throughout, while we witness initially lower levels of market orientation among the CME cases of Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands. Though the market orientation of Germany's policy instruments declined half way to build up domestic momentum, we generally see an increased use of market oriented policy instruments over time by the CME. Putting the trajectories together we witness an overall convergence in the use of policy instruments which we attribute to the liberalisation of the energy sector in the EU as well as to policy-learning effects. The results have generic relevance and can also be used to inform future national strategies and policies for deploying new low-carbon technologies, such as electrolysis for green hydrogen, which face similar risks and challenges.

Period, Break, Form

Abstract This essay examines the relationship between novelistic form and a historical moment shaped by new technologies in Dave Eggers's The Circle (2013) and Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Moon (2018). In both, the novel form is itself positioned as a major counterforce against the malignant powers that are attempting to form the age. Also in both, new technologies are understood not as primary or independent shaping forces but as enabling components of a larger political and economic form, a variant of capitalism. However, the crucial difference between the two novels is in how they periodize this capitalism, an act that is inseparably bound up with their generic identity. The Circle implicitly sees the growing power of the tech giants as a historical break, a departure or step-change from previous modes of capitalism, a periodizing that anticipates Shoshana Zuboff's recent, influential definition of “surveillance capitalism.” In Red Moon the new technology is less central to the plot and is capable of working for both the good guys and the bad. This relegation of technology as period marker reflects the novel's positioning of the contemporary moment—as it blurs into the near future setting—as a continuation of a longer historical arc rather than a break from it. Periodization and genre emerge as central to how these novels relate to social forms: genres are provisional and heuristic constructions that provide a way of talking about how novels negotiate, and negotiate with, history.

외국인의 출신국 내 체제별 차이가 범죄에 미치는 영향

This paper examined the crimes committed by the foreigners, explored how the foreigners living in Korea commit crimes due to the different systems in their own countries, and tried to come up with corresponding measures. To achieve the purpose, this paper referred to the related preceding researches and statistical data. Among the crimes committed by foreigners, the violent crimes showed difference depending on the systems of the criminal’s home country. The foreigners from the countries including the United States, Japan, Taiwan, Canada, and Philippines that adopted the liberal market economy system showed relatively higher violent crime rate compared to the foreigners from the countries including China, Mongolia, Vietnam, and Russia that adopted socialist market economy system. In addition, the foreigners from Uzbekistan showed higher violent crime rate among the Islamic countries aside from the system.

Constitutional Reform by Legal Transplantation: The United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020.

This article develops the comparative law framework on legal transplantation to theorise the impact of the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 (UKIMA) on the UK constitution across three registers of analysis-the territorial, the material and the conceptual. It arrives at three conclusions. First, in relation to the territorial constitution, this article argues that the UKIMA introduces something transformative: the concept of an internal market as a shared regulatory space that cuts across the respective competences of the UK and devolved legislatures. Secondly, the legal transplant framework points to the introduction of a powerful commitment to the principles of a liberal market economy as the basis of the UK's material constitution. Finally, regarding the conceptual constitution, this article concludes that the UKIMA effects a qualitative change to established patterns of judicial review through its co-opting of courts as agents to secure the foundations of the newly recast material constitution.

Corporate social responsibility and comparative capitalism frameworks: Evidence from the United States, Poland, and Italy

AbstractUsing the varieties of capitalism perspective and institutional theory as frameworks, we analyze cross‐cultural differences between firms' corporate social responsibility (CSR) approaches. We investigate three countries with different institutional settings: the United States, representing a liberal market economy; Italy, representing a coordinated market economy; and Poland, an example of a dependent market economy. We examine the differences in their CSR stances, operationalized through Porter and Kramer's concept of the four CSR categories: good citizenship, mitigating harm from the value chain, transforming value chain activities, and strategic philanthropy, based on data from 269 questionnaires administered to managers attending executive seminars at the authors' universities. Focusing on stakeholder engagement activities (SEAs) across the three economies, we show that companies in all three countries engage in the four categories of CSR activities. However, using a series of tests and rankings on means and standard deviations, followed by the subsequent analysis of variance, we argue that SEAs are emphasized more in American than in Polish and Italian companies, with the latter two countries showing more subtle differences despite some institutional similarities. Our results shed light on how different capitalistic models are associated with different CSR approaches, allowing policy‐makers and practitioners to better tackle CSR objectives in different countries.

An Essay on Liberty, Freedom and (Decent) Work

The essay seeks to frame the issue of Decent Work for All by means of Hannah Arendt’s conception of freedom and liberty. In Arendt’s view, liberty was the proper rationale for early labour legislation, which purported to liberate the individual from the chattels of slavery and exploitation by preserving the voluntary nature of the agreement to provide labour. In the stage of full development of labour law, a primary need in both Liberal Market Economies (such as the US) and Social Market Economies (such as Germany) was to strike a difficult but necessary balance between the employer’s liberty to conduct the business and the workers’ collective freedom. With the promotion of Decent Work, as a broad guideline for policymakers and not a binding regulation of any kind, labour law is reconsidering its focus on the person, with the aim of granting individuals the possibility to achieve their (neo)liberation from basic economic needs, as well as from the domination of others. Once liberated from those two constraints, individuals are in a position to effectively aspire to the collective dimension of freedom, which, in Arendt’s terms, consists of the possibility of the individual to contribute on an equal footing to societal development. Liberty, Freedom, Decent Work, Neo-Liberation