Directions and Debates in the Globalization of Comparative Capitalisms Research

Abstract

This chapter reviews a number of recent attempts to geographically expand the Comparative Capitalisms (CC) agenda. Its point of departure is the observation that CC — traditionally focused on some so-called ‘advanced’ capitalist countries — has begun to broaden its horizon to include other world regions, in particular Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and Latin America. As in the wider CC literature, it is useful to divide the approaches associated with this intellectual process into three broad groups or — to stick with the metaphor in this book’s title — ‘directions’. The first group refers affirmatively to the emblematic Varieties of Capitalism (VoC) perspective and, consequently, seeks to broaden its scope of application; the second, more diverse set of alternative (‘post-VoC’) perspectives partly distance themselves from VoC but remain within the frame of the wider neoinstitutionalist paradigm; and, finally, the third, smaller group of approaches draws principally on the critical-materialist paradigm and thus begins to introduce imperialism and dependency approaches, among others, into the CC canon.