How does globalization change national economies and politics? Are rising levels of trade, capital flows, new communication technologies, and deregulation forcing all societies to converge toward the same structures of production and distribution? Suzanne Berger and Ronald Dore have brought together a distinguished group of experts to consider how the international economy shapes and transforms domestic structures.Drawing from experience in the United States, Europe, and Asia, the contributors ask whether competition, imitation, diffusion of best practice, trade, and financial flows are reducing national diversities. The authors seek to understand whether the sources of national political autonomy are undermined by changes in the international system. Can distinctive varieties of capitalism that incorporate unique and valued institutions for achieving social welfare survive in a global economy?The contributions to the volume present a challenge to conventional views on the extent and scope of globalization as well as to predictions of the imminent disappearance of the nation-state's leverage over the economy.

This book compiles the presentations and discussions from the international symposium “Beyond Global Capitalism” that was held with the contributions of Emmanuel Todd, Ha-Joon Chang, and other scholars in Kyoto, Japan, in 2013. The book is intended make the reader aware that global capitalism, or globalism, has increased its power in recent years, bringing about a variety of harmful effects to the peoples of the world. Drawing upon a variety of academic disciplines including economics, political economic science, economic thought, anthropology, history, and political science, the contributors to this book identify theories and strategies for overcoming the worldwide problems that have been caused by global capitalism. The discussions presented here foster the development of theoretical and practical frameworks for a global economy that moves beyond global capitalism. They also argue for the development of a stable, rich, and resilient economy and society that enhances the well-being of people all over the world in the twenty-first century.

Neoliberalism and deregulation have come to dominate national and international political economy. This major book addresses this convergence and analyzes the implications for the future of capitalist diversity. It considers important questions such as: Is the preference for free markets a well-founded response to intensified global competition? Does this mean that all advanced societies must all converge on an imitation of the United States? What are the implications for the institutional diversity of the advanced economies? Political Economy of Modern Capitalism provides a practical and informed analysis of the public policy choices facing governments and business around the world.

With the collapse of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance in 1991, the Eastern European nations of the former socialist bloc had to figure out their newly capitalist future. Capitalism, they found, was not a single set of political-economic relations. Rather, they each had to decide what sort of capitalist nation to become. In Capitalist Diversity on Europe's Periphery, Dorothee Bohle and Béla Geskovits trace the form that capitalism took in each country, the assets and liabilities left behind by socialism, the transformational strategies embraced by political and technocratic elites, and the influence of transnational actors and institutions. They also evaluate the impact of three regional shocks: the recession of the early 1990s, the rolling global financial crisis that started in July 1997, and the political shocks that attended EU enlargement in 2004.Bohle and Greskovits show that the postsocialist states have established three basic variants of capitalist political economy: neoliberal, embedded neoliberal, and neocorporatist. The Baltic states followed a neoliberal prescription: low controls on capital, open markets, reduced provisions for social welfare. The larger states of central and eastern Europe (Poland, Hungary, and the Czech and Slovak republics) have used foreign investment to stimulate export industries but retained social welfare regimes and substantial government power to enforce industrial policy. Slovenia has proved to be an outlier, successfully mixing competitive industries and neocorporatist social inclusion. Bohle and Greskovits also describe the political contention over such arrangements in Romania, Bulgaria, and Croatia. A highly original and theoretically sophisticated typology of capitalism in postsocialist Europe, this book is unique in the breadth and depth of its conceptually coherent and empirically rich comparative analysis.

This book redefines, develops and extends the emerging literature on internal diversity within varieties of capitalism, and the extent to which such internal systemic diversity goes beyond mere diffuseness to represent the coexistence of different logics of action within both liberal market and more cooperative varieties of capitalism.

While it's easy to blame globalization for shrinking job opportunities, dangerous declines in labor standards, and a host of related discontents, the "flattening" of the world has also created unprecedented opportunities for worker organization. By expanding employment in developing countries, especially for women, globalization has formed a basis for stronger workers' rights, even in remote sites of production. Using India's labor movement as a model, Rohini Hensman charts the successes and failures, strengths and weaknesses, of the struggle for workers' rights and organization in a rich and varied nation. As Indian products gain wider acceptance in global markets, the disparities in employment conditions and union rights between such regions as the European Union and India's vast informal sector are exposed, raising the issue of globalization's implications for labor. Hensman's study examines the unique pattern of "employees' unionism," which emerged in Bombay in the 1950s, before considering union responses to recent developments, especially the drive to form a national federation of independent unions. A key issue is how far unions can resist protectionist impulses and press for stronger global standards, along with the mechanisms to enforce them. After thoroughly unpacking this example, Hensman zooms out to trace the parameters of a global labor agenda, calling for a revival of trade unionism, the elimination of informal labor, and reductions in military spending to favor funding for comprehensive welfare and social security systems.

Applying the new economics of organisation and relational theories of the firm to the problem of understanding cross-national variation in the political economy, this volume elaborates a new understanding of the institutional differences that characterise the 'varieties of capitalism' worldwide.