210054 SE BAK10/G3/G2: SE Spezialisierungsseminar: Varieties of capitalism, varieties of neoliberalism (engl.) (2011W)

The course introduces students to current theories and concepts of capitalism. At the core stands the Varieties of Capitalism School which argues that capitalism should be understood as a set of specific institutions providing nation states with certain economic advantages. The institutionalist approach of the VoC School is contested by both, neoclassical and Marxist scholars. The latter has invented the term Varieties of Neoliberalism to underline the common character of the changes which occurred in various countries since the 1970s.

The course will be structured in four major parts:

The first part will deal with theoretical foundations and include a session on capital, state and markets, a discussion of neoclassical, institutionalist and Marxist approaches, as well as a discussion of the long standing debate on the relationship between structure and agency.

The second section then goes further in the debate and gives an overview of the comparative literature on different aspects of capitalism. It starts with a discussion of the VoC School, then moves on to comparative welfare state literature, before engaging with comparative debates on industrial relations and models of employment.

The third section takes another look on contemporary capitalism and discusses major changes such as privatization, financialisation and globalization. The students will discuss what these developments mean for the theoretical approaches discussed earlier and if the related concepts are useful to understand the changes.

The fourth section will attempt to draw some conclusions around the tension between varieties of capitalism and varieties of neoliberalism