Variegated capitalism

The article critically engages with the `varieties of capitalism' school, which since its origins in the early 1990s has been consolidated into one of the most influential strands in comparative and heterodox political economy. While the `varieties' approach can be credited with the development of several of the most evocative stylized facts in heterodox political economy, having served as a potent foil against the orthodox globalization thesis, its alternative vision of a bipolar global economy comprising two competing capitalisms is found to be wanting. The approach is limited by its methodological nationalism, a tendency towards static analysis and latent institutional functionalism, and by an inability to…