Tag Archives: institutional change

Thatcherism’s greatest achievement

Posted on March 19, 2018 by Oleg Komlik

In 2002, twelve years after Margaret Thatcher left office, she was asked at a dinner what was her greatest achievement. Thatcher replied: “Tony Blair and New Labour. We forced our opponents to change their minds.” (Conor Burns, April 11, 2008) These … Continue reading →

Posted in Oleg Komlik | Tagged institutional change, neoliberalism, politics | 4 Comments

Marketcraft as the New Statecraft

Posted on March 11, 2018 by Oleg Komlik

by Steven K. Vogel* What if we thought of marketcraft (market governance) as a core government function comparable to statecraft? And what if we sought to optimize market governance rather than to minimize government intervention? I submit that this simple … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Community members posts | Tagged deregulation, embeddedness, institutional change, institutions, liberalization, markets, Political economy, Regulatory State, state | 1 Comment

Joseph Schumpeter: Social structures are coins that do not readily melt

Posted on January 11, 2018 by Oleg Komlik

Economic sociologists an political economists will surely discern the grace and insight in the following Joseph Schumpeter’s quote (from his magnum opus Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy), which beautifully describes the essence of institutions, their socio-historical embeddedness, as well as their persistence in front of … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Oleg Komlik | Tagged Economic Sociology, embeddedness, institutional change, institutions | 2 Comments

The Washington Consensus: Sociology of Economics and History of Ideas

Posted on September 19, 2017 by Oleg Komlik

In 1989, John Williamson, a fellow at the Institute for International Economics in Washington, DC which previously advised the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, presented a background paper to a conference aimed to explore how extensive were the policy reforms that were then … Continue reading →

Posted in Oleg Komlik, Papers | Tagged ideas, IMF, institutional change, neoliberalism, policy, Sociology of economics, World Bank | 2 Comments

What is Political Economy? It is Essentially a Historical Science

Posted on August 27, 2016 by Oleg Komlik

In December 1867 a German positivist philosopher and economist Eugen Dührings published a critical review of Karl Marx’s Capital. Dühring, inter alia, disapproved the Marxist labour theory of value and asserted, based on his own concept of “ethics of sympathy”, that a dichotomy between … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Oleg Komlik | Tagged Economic Sociology, embeddedness, institutional change, Marxism, Political economy, varieties of capitalism | 5 Comments

Back to the Future: Authoritarian Neoliberal Regime versus Democratic Social State

Posted on July 27, 2016 by Oleg Komlik

The destiny of the 20th century, especially after the WWII, has been determined and shaped by the multifaceted confrontation between capitalism and ‘communism’, the ‘West’ vis-a-vis the ‘East’. But history did not end in 1991, as some have tried to convince … Continue reading →

Posted in Books | Tagged capitalism, democracy, institutional change, Marxism, neoliberalism, politics, social movements, state | 3 Comments

Why is there no labor party in the United States? Look at Canada to find out

Posted on June 2, 2016 by Oleg Komlik

In 1906, a German distinguished (somewhat neglected) economist and sociologist Werner Sombart published Why is there no Socialism in the United States? – a book which will become a famous work on American exceptionalism to this day (along with a pioneering and penetrative Democracy in America, by Alexis de … Continue reading →

Posted in Papers | Tagged agriculture, Canada, class, comparative political economy, institutional change, labor, policy, politics, Representation (politics), social movements, socialism, Unions, United States | 1 Comment

The politics of fiscal policies: the lessons of history

Posted on July 23, 2015 by Oleg Komlik

Throughout the recent years of the crisis, the EU bodies and the German leaders have constantly oppressed Greece. They have pushed Greek people towards the abyss of austerity in the name of “fiscal responsibility” and “self-evident economic truths”. But essentially, it is … Continue reading →

Posted in Books | Tagged economic history, fiscal sociology, institutional change, institutions, policy, politics, taxation, varieties of capitalism | Leave a comment

Economic culture in the public sphere: practice, knowledge and discourse

Posted on May 30, 2015 by Oleg Komlik

“Economic Culture in the Public Sphere” is the topic of the European Journal of Sociology special issue, edited by Nina Bandelj, Lyn Spillman & Frederick F. Wherry. This very interesting collection of articles deals with the important question of how public understandings … Continue reading →

Posted in Papers | Tagged Culture, diffusion, Economic Sociology, economics, ideas, institutional change, institutions, knowledge, policy | Leave a comment

Democracy matters: the extension of the franchise and its impact on financial systems

Posted on May 22, 2015 by Oleg Komlik

For centuries, voting rights were limited to wealthy elites, aristocrats, and landlords. For instance, the electorate in England and Wales in 1780 consisted of less than 3% of the total population. Suffrage reforms, enacted during the late 19th and the 20th … Continue reading →

Posted in Papers | Tagged banking system, capital, democracy, elites, financial system, institutional change, institutions, Political economy, varieties of capitalism | Leave a comment

Community Capitalism in China: the State, the Market, and Collectivism

Posted on April 8, 2015 by Oleg Komlik

“Planning and market forces are not the essential difference between socialism and capitalism. A planned economy is not the definition of socialism, because there is planning under capitalism; the market economy happens under socialism, too. Planning and market forces are … Continue reading →

Posted in Books | Tagged capitalism, China, Economic Sociology, embeddedness, fieldwork, institutional change, institutions, social networks, socialism, state, varieties of capitalism | Leave a comment

From Socialism to Neoliberalism: the case of Central Eastern European countries

Posted on February 17, 2015 by Oleg Komlik

The transition from communism or socialism to capitalism has proved to be a rockier road than many in the West (think of Fukuyama as an example) anticipated. The degree and character of challenges that countries faced during the transition depended … Continue reading →

Posted in Papers | Tagged debt, democracy, Europe, financial crisis, inequality, institutional change, institutions, labor, neoliberalism, Political economy, Post-communist countries, privatization, socialism, varieties of capitalism | 5 Comments

What is Historical Sociology? Understanding the origins of the current social world and the consequences of its transformations

Posted on January 21, 2015 by Oleg Komlik

Sociology was created to explain historical change, although social sciences’ “founding fathers” disagreed over the nature of that change. Dealing mainly with topics which now can be easily associated with economic sociology and political economy (capitalism and labor), Karl Marx, Karl Polanyi, … Continue reading →

Posted in Books | Tagged capitalism, Culture, gender, historical sociology, inequality, institutional change, institutions, social movements, state | Leave a comment

Latin American capitalism: multinational corporations, business groups, low skills and segmented labor markets

Posted on January 8, 2015 by Oleg Komlik

In the course of the last three decades, tectonic changes have occurred in much of Latin America: Many authoritarian governments have been replaced by democracies, and ‘free-market’ principles have supplanted many of the policies of the past. But the redevelopment … Continue reading →

Posted in Books | Tagged business groups, comparative political economy, Economic Sociology, institutional change, institutions, labor, Latin America, multinational corporations, Political economy, varieties of capitalism | 1 Comment

In economic policymaking ideas matter. But how and whose? Campbell and Pedersen have insightful answers

Posted on December 10, 2014 by Oleg Komlik

John Maynard Keynes has famously said: “The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong are more powerful than is commonly understood.” In politics, policymaking and in the economy, ideas matter indeed. … Continue reading →