Comparative Capitalism, Growth Models and Emerging Markets: The Development of the Field

ABSTRACT

Over the past decade, the study of emerging markets has become one of the most vibrant fields of Comparative Capitalism (CC) scholarship. CC studies have not only mapped a range of different emerging market capitalisms but have also identified both functional and dysfunctional types that further differ based on their integration into the global economy. The article reviews the evolution of these ideal-typological efforts, ranging from the notion of dependent market economies in Central Eastern Europe to hierarchical market economies prevalent mostly in Latin America, from patrimonial capitalism (such as in Russia) to state-permeated capitalism (based on the study of China and India). While the CC study of emerging markets has also addressed some of the criticisms posed against the earlier Varieties of Capitalism-framework, it still faces significant analytical and methodological challenges. Against this background, the article proposes to incorporate the Growth Model approach into the CC framework and probes its usefulness for the analysis of emerging market capitalisms.

KEYWORDS:

• Comparative capitalism
• varieties of capitalism
• growth models
• emerging economies
• BRICS
• development economics

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 This applies more to emerging markets – characterised by an expanding set of capitalist institutions allowing for relatively high levels of industrialization, fairly developed financial systems and substantial integration in global production networks – than to developing economies, in which the agricultural sector and subsistence dominate a large part of economic activity and – more importantly – where capitalist institutions show little profound variance. See Witt et al. 2018, p. 28.

2 Nölke et al. (2020, p. 145-74) also discuss the case of South Africa, but concur that it does not belong to the SME type, but rather constitutes a hybrid (p. 203).

3 However, one may question for whom and to what extent real choices exist under the partial conditions of colonial legacies and a hierarchical structure of the global economy; see below.

4 The critique of ‘methodological nationalism’ has accompanied CC research from its early inceptions on (see for example Strange 1997). The GMP keeps the analytical focus on the nation-state but accompanies a broader move in the CC field to take the inter- and transnational more seriously (see Nölke et al. 2020).

5 In a similar way, a more detailed study of the case of China also reveals the existence of several growth models in different regions (De Podestá Gomes 2018).

Additional information

Funding

This article was supported by the German Research Foundation under grant number NO 855/3-3.

Notes on contributors

Michael Schedelik

Michael Schedelik is Research Associate at Goethe University Frankfurt. His research focuses on Comparative and International Political Economy, especially the politics of innovation and growth in emerging economies. His work has been published in the Journal of Economic Policy Reform.

Andreas Nölke

Andreas Nölke is Professor of Political Science, in particular International Relations and International Political Economy, at Goethe University Frankfurt and heads a research group at the Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE. Before joining Goethe University, he has taught at the universities of Konstanz, Leipzig, Amsterdam and Utrecht. His research interests lie in the broader field of International and Comparative Political Economy, focusing on comparative capitalism, emerging economies, financialization and European economic governance. Recently, he has co-authored State-permeated Capitalism in Large Emerging Economies (Routledge 2020) and co-edited the Handbook of the International Political Economy of the Corporation (Edward Elgar 2018).

Daniel Mertens

Daniel Mertens is Professor of International Political Economy at the University of Osnabrück. Prior to that, he held positions at Goethe University Frankfurt and the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies. He is one of the editors of the International Handbook of Financialization (Routledge, 2020) and has co-edited the volume The Reinvention of Development Banking in the European Union (OUP 2021). His work on the politics of growth models, banking and taxation has appeared in journals such as the Journal of European Public Policy, New Political Economy, and Socio-Economic Review.

Christian May

Christian May is Research Associate at Goethe University Frankfurt. His research focuses on Comparative and International Political Economy, emerging economies and firms in the global economy. He co-published State-permeated Capitalism in Large Emerging Economies (Routledge 2020, with Tobias ten Brink, Christian May and Simone Claar), Handbook of the International Political Economy of the Corporation (with Andreas Nölke) and New Directions in Comparative Capitalism Research (with Ian Bruff and Matthias Ebenau) as well as articles in European Journal of International Relations, Journal of Economic Policy Reform Contemporary Politics and Revue de la Régulation.