Theorizing Sino-capitalism: implications for the study of comparative capitalisms

ABSTRACT

Although not central in the literature on Comparative Capitalisms (CC), the case of China is highly salient. This is not just because of the country’s sheer size and international economic influence, but also because the Chinese political economy can provide fertile ground to theorize on aspects of CC that are widely recognized to pose challenges. I employ the analytical framework of Sino-capitalism to demonstrate the importance of an open and evolutionary approach. Specifically, Sino-capitalism centres on state-centric modes of governance interacting dialectically with bottom-up networked modes of entrepreneurship exposed to market forces and global capital. The dialectic evolutionary quality of Sino-capitalism contrasts with the more static comparative approaches in most of the CC literature. China’s emergent capitalism forces the observer to open up the black box of capitalist evolution and ‘bring back in’ classical approaches to studying political economy. Capitalist political economies are thus conceived of as encompassing different politico-economic spheres, each with its own logic. Leveraging the analytical framework of Sino-capitalism for the continued theoretical development of CC elucidates in this manner the architectonic role of the state, the chronic re-composition and rebalancing of the institutional spheres of state and capital, and the existence of contradictory cum symbiotic politico-economic logics that reproduce capitalism.

KEYWORDS:

• China
• comparative capitalisms (CC)
• economic development
• institutional change
• the state

Acknowledgements

I would like to express special thanks to all those who have provided comments and critiques on earlier versions of this article, in particular Gary Herrigel, Jamie Peck, Boy Luethje, Kellee S. Tsai, Andreas Noelke, Tobias ten Brink, Sebastian Lechevalier, Robert Boyer, Eric Thun, Tina Lee, Alexandra Vasileva-Dienes and Vivienne Schmidt, as well as two anonymous reviewers for Contemporary Politics. Their insights greatly improved the article’s quality.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Christopher A. McNally is a Professor of Political Economy at Chaminade University and Adjunct Senior Fellow at the East-West Center in Honolulu, USA. His research focuses on comparative capitalisms, especially the emergence of Sino-Capitalism. He has edited four volumes, including an examination of China’s political economy: China’s emergent political economy – capitalism in the Dragon’s lair (Routledge, 2008). He also has authored numerous book chapters and articles in journals such as Business and Politics, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, International Politics, Review of International Political Economy and World Politics.

Notes

1 I am thankful to one of the anonymous reviewers of Contemporary Politics for bringing this insight to my attention.

2 I do not consider markets as a distinct institutional sphere. Rather, they represent an allocation and organization mechanism – a certain logic of allocation – that is embedded in and shaped by the social hierarchies cum institutional-ideational spheres of state, capital and society.

3 This is a necessary but not sufficient condition, as the case of North Korea illustrates.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Chaminade University of Honolulu.