Creative Reconstructions: Multilateralism and European Varieties of Capitalism After 1950(Cornell Studies in Political Economy)

Twentieth-century Europe was an intense laboratory of capitalist experimentation. Confronted with economic booms and crises, technological revolutions, and economic globalization, Western Europe's governments constantly explored alternative ways of managing domestic economic systems and international commerce. Bridging comparative and international political economy, Creative Reconstructions compellingly expands our understanding of the historic relationship between varieties of capitalism and international cooperation. Orfeo Fioretos' pathbreaking analysis places multilateral institutions at the center of the study of capitalism. He highlights the role played by governments' multilateral strategies in shaping the national trajectories of capitalism in Great Britain, France, and Germany. Fioretos shows that membership in international organizations such as the European Union and its precursors was an integral innovation in the domestic management of capitalism that came to play a central, if varied, role in shaping the evolution of modern market economies.

Table of Contents:
1. Capitalist Diversity in Open Economies 2. Governments, Business, and the Design Problem 3. Three Models of Open Governance 4. Britain: From Replacing to Reinforcing a Liberal Market Economy 5. France: The Centralized Market Economy and Its Alternatives 6. Germany: Stability and Redesign in a Coordinated Market Economy 7. Lessons from Capitalist Diversity and Open Governance Appendix Notes References Index

About the Author :
Orfeo Fioretos is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Temple University.

Review :
"Comparing developments in industrial relations, and innovation, financial, and corporate governance systems in the UK, Germany, and France across six decades, Fioretos demonstrates how multilateral cooperation was initially designed to buttress existing economic practices, while changes in multilateral governance in the l970s and l980s were accomplished by reserving some exemptions for key national economic actors. Most recently, there has been a convergence in financial systems and corporate governance that was embraced by domestic firms most implicated by such reforms. With a clear, complex argument grounded in formal analysis, this nuanced examination will best serve those with some theoretical facility in political economy ... Summing up: Highly recommended."-Choice (February 2012) "Creative Reconstructions is a masterful work of disciplined theoretical imagination and historical rigor. In the second half of the twentieth century, Western Europe experimented boldly with new institutional models to integrate domestic, global, and supranational forces of change. Orfeo Fioretos captures the deep politics that drove these experiments and helped shape their outcomes in Britain, France, and Germany. Creative Reconstructions sheds critical light on some of the most important political-economy choices that advanced and emerging economies will face in the coming decade."- Steven Weber, University of California, Berkeley "Creative Reconstructions is a groundbreaking work at the intersection of global and domestic political economy. Through carefully constructed arguments and detailed empirical analysis, Orfeo Fioretos shows how national and international institutions mediate the domestic distributional consequences of globalization and regional integration in Europe's largest economies. This book is a must-read for scholars interested in capitalism, globalization, and the European Union."-James A. Caporaso, University of Washington "Orfeo Fioretos's book is path-breaking and highly ambitious. It is the first serious, coherent analysis of how governments in Europe's largest economies build coalitions within the business community to reconfigure effective models of growth and competitiveness in the context of greater multilateral cooperation. Spanning six decades, this is the most impressive book I have read that integrates the heavily nationally biased comparative political economy literature and the international political economy literature devoted to economic multilateralism."-David Soskice, Duke University and University of Oxford