European varieties of capitalism and the international
| DOI | 10.1177/1354066109344379 |
| Published date | 01 December 2010 |
| Date | 01 December 2010 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Corresponding author:
Ian Bruff, School of Social Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK.
E-mail: ianbruff@gmail.com.
European varieties of capitalism
and the international
Ian Bruff
University of Manchester, UK
Abstract
This article develops a framework for analysing the distinctive national trajectories of
European varieties of capitalism under the conditioning of ‘the international’. It does so
through a critical engagement with two prominent historical materialist literatures —
transnational historical materialism and uneven and combined development. I argue that,
in contrast to these contributions, a nationally-oriented perspective utilizing Antonio
Gramsci’s writings on ‘common sense’ has greater potential for narrowing the optic
from broader concerns to fine-grained analysis. In particular, I focus on how articulations
between the national and the international are constitutive of how humans make sense
of the material basis for their existence. The Dutch variety of capitalism is then examined
in order to demonstrate the advantages of utilizing this ‘common sense’ framework for
political economy analysis.
Keywords
common sense, European varieties of capitalism, Gramsci, the Netherlands, transnational
historical materialism, uneven and combined development
Introduction
Recent critical political economy scholarship on the trajectories of European varieties
of capitalism has focused largely on the erosion of national differences owing to proc-
esses linked to the transnationalization of production and to accelerated European inte-
gration (Cafruny and Ryner, 2003; Gill, 1998; van Apeldoorn, 2002). While the weighting
accorded to production and European integration varies, the double bind of these two
developments constitutes ‘the transnational transformation of European capitalism’
(van Apeldoorn and Horn, 2007: 212). This often results in national capitalisms
becoming, in effect, functional to the interests of transnational capital as expressed
through the EU’s institutional architecture, whether this was the intention of the authors
European Journal of
International Relations
16(4) 615–638
© The Author(s) 2010
Reprints and permission: sagepub.
co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1354066109344379
ejt.sagepub.com
616 European Journal of International Relations 16(4)
or not (for an example, see Cafruny and Ryner, 2007: 142–143, 153–154). Indeed, this
is the inevitable consequence of the view that ‘transnational processes … take place
simultaneously in subnational, national and international arenas’ (Overbeek, 2003: 4;
original emphases), subsuming the national (and everything else) within the determin-
ing logic of the transnational (Overbeek, 2003: 4).
In contrast, this article emphasizes the continued relevance of the notions of ‘the
national’ and ‘the international’ through a focus on the distinctive national trajectories of
European varieties of capitalism under the ‘conditioning of “the international”’ (Morton,
2007a: 170). This is not to separate out the national and the international into separate
realms, but to stress their simultaneous relatedness and methodological distinctiveness.
Particular histories have always existed within, without being reducible to, world history
(cf. Gramsci, 1985: 181), a constitutive foundation of human existence that cannot easily
be supplanted by the changes so lucidly investigated by the transnational historical mate-
rialism literature. Thus it is of crucial significance to acknowledge the articulations
between the national and the international in order to connect the universal (the world
capitalist totality) and the particular (national forms of capitalism).
As van Apeldoorn (2004: 169) states, transnational historical materialism ‘is first and
foremost a theory of transnational capitalist integration within the core of the global
political economy, that is, Western Europe and North America’. Moreover, as will be
detailed in the next section, this literature has been at its most effective when discussing
the impact of ‘the transnational transformation of European capitalism’ on core political
economies within Europe (van Apeldoorn, 2004: 169). Accordingly, in order to maintain
close proximity to the above point of entry into the debate, the article focuses on the
trajectories of the rich Western European political economies that are often viewed as
emblematic of more socially just versions of capitalism. This will be done both theoreti-
cally and empirically, as demonstrated by my discussion of the Dutch variety of capitalism
later in the article. Nevertheless, it is hoped that the framework I outline can be utilized
for analysing other national capitalisms as well, European or otherwise.
Subsequent to the theoretical engagement with transnational historical materialism in
the next section, I consider two distinctive historical materialist approaches — the uneven
and combined development and the nationally-oriented neo-Gramscian literatures. The
former has emerged in recent years as an innovative approach and focuses on the inter-
societal dimension of human development (Lacher, 2006; Rosenberg, 2006; Shilliam,
2006; Teschke, 2005). In contrast, the latter, while often rooted in similar sources of
inspiration as the transnational historical materialism literature — such as Antonio
Gramsci’s and Robert W. Cox’s writings — has nevertheless continued to stress the dis-
tinctiveness of national capitalisms under the conditioning of the international (Bieler,
2006: 68–99; Macartney, 2009; Morton, 2007a: 140–150; Shields, 2008).
The framework that I develop is in many ways similar to the nationally-oriented neo-
Gramscian literature. However, I go beyond these contributions through my focus on
Gramsci’s writings on ‘common sense’. The literature tends to view ‘common sense’ as
something that is fought over by, and consequently produced and propagated by, different
social groups seeking to promote their version of common sense (for example, see
Macartney, 2008: 433; Rupert, 2003: 185–186). As a result, while the thought–action dichot-
omy is overcome in some respects, it remains necessary to acknowledge that common
To continue reading
Request your trial