Saturday, March 15, 2014
Calvert (Omni Shoreham)
Recent contributions to the comparative political economy of East European capitalisms
have found that a distinctive variety of capitalism emerged in some new EU member
states. The new variety has been dubbed “dependent market economy” (DME). This
paper makes several contributions to this literature. First, it marshals evidence to show
that this institutional variety now includes the political economy of Romania, a case
previously excluded from it. More importantly, this analysis also finds that earlier
scholarship on dependent capitalism has failed to capture crucial mechanisms of
dependence created by transnationalized finance. Third, the paper suggests that some of
the arguments made in the existing scholarship on the interests of foreign capital with
regard to domestic innovation and labor training need to be qualified. Finally, by showing
reflexivity towards select critiques of the dependent market economy framework, the
analysis proposes by this paper is a self-limited attempt to bridge the differences between
the varieties of capitalism and Polanyian analyses of capitalist diversity in semiperipheral
middle-income states.
have found that a distinctive variety of capitalism emerged in some new EU member
states. The new variety has been dubbed “dependent market economy” (DME). This
paper makes several contributions to this literature. First, it marshals evidence to show
that this institutional variety now includes the political economy of Romania, a case
previously excluded from it. More importantly, this analysis also finds that earlier
scholarship on dependent capitalism has failed to capture crucial mechanisms of
dependence created by transnationalized finance. Third, the paper suggests that some of
the arguments made in the existing scholarship on the interests of foreign capital with
regard to domestic innovation and labor training need to be qualified. Finally, by showing
reflexivity towards select critiques of the dependent market economy framework, the
analysis proposes by this paper is a self-limited attempt to bridge the differences between
the varieties of capitalism and Polanyian analyses of capitalist diversity in semiperipheral
middle-income states.
