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.
Spanning six decades from the postwar period to the global crisis of 2008, Creative Reconstructions details the opportunities and constraints that multilateral engagements entailed for reforms in national financial, corporate governance, industrial relations, and innovation systems. In vivid analytical narratives, Fioretos shows how multilateral institutions served to reinforce and at times to undermine ambitious domestic reform programs. Creative Reconstructions deepens our understanding of modern capitalism in Europe and offers valuable lessons for regions beyond its borders.
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 GovernanceAppendix
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.
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