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That capitalisms vary and that these capitalisms neatly resolve themselves into distinct and discrete 'varieties of capitalism' is an almost foundational claim of contemporary comparative political economy. Yet it is far from evident that it is true. In this article, I return to the varieties conjecture, assessing the degree to which the claim might be warranted. In the process, I argue for the importance of differentiating clearly between ideal types and real types and for the value of heeding Weber's advice about the dangers of confusing one for the other. I suggest that although capitalisms do not really come in varieties it is sometimes useful to proceed on the basis that they do, particularly if we think of such varieties as potentially dystopic. I suggest that such an acknowledgement is crucial in sensitizing us to the potential biases of varietal thinking, drawing out the implications for the positing of capitalist varieties in the period after the global financial crisis.

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.

This is a short note on the limits of Varieties of Capitalism and the potential of the Keynes-Kalecki approach proposed by Baccaro and Pontusson for overcoming them. It identifies the main problem as a failure to define capitalism itself. This effectively reduces the approach to a comparison of the U.S. and German economies at the end of the 20th century. It is in particular unable to recognize let alone explain the very different U.S. economic system in the immediate postwar decades or how the more recent emphasis on the market emerged to take its place. The promise of the Keynes-Kalecki approach is that it will overcome these limits, but the promise has not yet been realized.

Faced with a declining workforce, why does the Swedish Social Democratic Party (SAP) oppose employer proposals for increased labor migration from non-EU countries? This article explores whether perspectives on policymaking in the varieties of capitalism (VoC) literature can account for this puzzle. VoC scholars maintain that policymakers prefer reforms conforming to the national political economy, improving firm capacity and ensuring better economic performance. Employers are also thought to support policies incentivecompatible with the prevailing model of capitalism. My analysis shows that while the SAP backed labor migration policies compatible with the Swedish coordinated market economy, it did not do so for reasons of efficiency or economic performance. The SAP fears that liberal reform, preferred by employers, will damage the Swedish model, undermine active labor market policies and weaken unions. The case of Swedish labor migration policy underscores how economic reform reflects political conflict and not the desire to preserve equilibrium.