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The paper combines a broad theoretical framework of comparable capitalism with the insights from new economic sociology and new institutional economics to understand and assess mechanisms of China's evolution. During the last three decades China's economic system has undergone a great transformation from communism to some form of state-led capitalism. The evolutionary approach that balanced the interests of economic and political actors led to the gradual introduction of a capitalist institutional framework, but also preserved the immense role of the Communist Party. In the course of the reforms, former direct control over the economy has been replaced by more discretionary measures like corporate governance (which conserved the extensive patronage system), and Party affiliation (which allowed for political penetration of the private sector). Supplying examples of mounting economic waste, I argue that China's present variety of capitalism is hardly an optimal solution, and the further development will strictly depend on state and Party withdrawal from economic contorl.

A striking paradox underlies corporate governance reform during the past fifteen years: center-left political parties have pushed for pro-shareholder corporate governance reforms, while the historically pro-business right has generally resisted them to protect established forms of organized capitalism, concentrated corporate stock ownership, and managerialism. Case studies of Germany, France, Italy, and the United States reveal that center-left parties used corporate governance reform to attack the legitimacy of existing political economic elites, present themselves as pro-growth and pro-modernization, strike political alliances with segments of the financial sector, and appeal to middle-class voters. Conservative parties' established alliances with managers constrained them from endorsing corporate governance reform. © 2006 Sage Publications.

Enthused by China's conversion to the free market system in 1978 and its adoption of Western-style market institutions, the world has spent the last few decades turning a blind eye to China's real "governance" problem: that a shadow Party-State system permeates all branches of the economy. Whatever Washington-consensus style institutions are put in place, whatever State Owned Enterprise ("SOE") reform is introduced, corporate and market governance occur under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party ("CCP"). And the CCP's guidebook is the Leninist command that the whole of society shall be run as "single country-wide State syndicate". This paper contends that China's syndicated economic organization is akin to a "supertrust", and that this creates conditions that are conducive to antitrust problems to which the Western world must awaken. In this context, this paper advances that the antitrust regulators of North America, Europe and elsewhere should take two simple, pragmatic steps under merger control and antitrust rules. In merger review, antitrust agencies should treat all SOEs and Privately Owned Enterprises (POEs) with a CCP cell as one unitary group and undertake a thorough competitive assessment of transactions on this basis. In addition, antitrust cases involving Chinese firms should be investigated on the default assumption that there is an underlying coordination scheme among them.

This paper situates the current political moment in Alberta, Canada, within a broader analysis of the global crisis of fossil capitalism. Alberta's political economy and ecology are deeply riven by the conflict between its heavy dependence for revenue and employment on the exportation of fossil fuels, on the one hand, and the multiple harms, risks, and forms of opposition to this development model, on the other hand. With the election in May 2015 of a social democratic party, a rare window for change has opened, and much is at stake in the choices and strategies that the new government will adopt. Two potential paths –which parallel what is emerging globally--are becoming clearer: rapid and deep decarbonisation underpinned by an equally deep democratization of citizenship and societal-decision making (ecological democracy), or a "climate capitalist" project to prolong the carbon extractive model.

This study tests three hypotheses on data from a survey on employment relations conducted in Sweden in 2006. The first hypothesis implies that the extent to which an employee perceives formal institutions as fair and duly enforced increases the probability that he/she will behave cooperatively. The second hypothesis states that an employee's trust in the opposite party should have equivalent effects. The last hypothesis holds that an employee's perception of formal institutions as fair and duly enforced increases his/her trust in the opposite party. All three hypotheses are supported by the data. The interpretation is that there is indeed an effect on cooperative behavior and willingness to enter into flexible contracts from perceptions of fair and enforced institutions, but it is indirect and mediated by attitudes of trust. ; Skorpan

In the field of political science researchers have shown empirically that the perception of relevant political institutions as fair may produce political (vertical), as well as interpersonal (horizontal) trust. By making use of these overlapping but separate theoretical frameworks, we formulated three hypotheses that we tested on data from a survey conducted in Sweden in 2006. First, we investigated whether the extent to which an employee perceives formal institutions as fair and duly enforced lower the probability that he/she will behave opportunistically. Second, we tested whether an employee's trust in the opposite party had equivalent effects. Third , we examined whether an employee's perception of formal institutions as fair and duly enforced increased his/her trust in the opposite party. All three hypotheses were supported by the data. Our interpretation is that that there is indeed an effect on cooperative behavior and willingness to enter into flexible contracts from perceptions of fair and enforced institutions, but it is indirect. Trust, however, has direct effects and, consequently, mediates the effects of institutions as well. ; Samarbete, konflikt och rättvisa på arbetsmarknaden (Skorpan)

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.

This paper discusses crony capitalism in Mozambique, by analysing the social networks that exist among political and economic players, using the SNA – Social Networks Analysis method. The variables are selected to identify cliques and the covariates that explain this network relationship are taken into account, namely military, ethnicity, family, politics, business, entrepreneurship, political party and gender. Policy implications are derived.

This paper will examine the concrete appropriation of Leninism in the Philippine communist movement. It will further trace the triadic convergence between Leninism, the Philippine Revolution, and Badiouian emancipatory politics. It will argue that three essential Leninist concepts are appropriated by the current Philippine Revolution: the vanguard party, the basic alliance of the peasants and the workers, and the united front work. It will also discuss Badiouian emancipatory politics, and particularly highlight Badiou's treatment on the question of organization or the party of the new type vis-à-vis the need to wage emancipatory struggles against neoliberal capitalism. The paper will conclude by positing three crucial points as necessary for an emancipatory politics: evental rupture with the state, reconstitution of the organization or party of a new type as a political necessity, and the recognition and forging of a broader revolutionary unity with other sites of oppression.

Shareholder voting is a key part of contemporary American corporate governance. As numerous contemporary battles between corporate management and shareholders illustrate, voting has never been more important. Yet, traditional theory about shareholder voting, rooted in concepts of residual ownership and a principal/agent relationship, does not reflect recent fundamental changes as to who shareholders are and their incentives to vote (or not vote). In the first section of the article, we address this deficiency directly by developing a new theory of corporate voting that offers three strong and complementary reasons for shareholder voting. In the middle section, we apply our theory to a world where most shares are held by institutional investment intermediaries (and mostly within retirement plans). We show that intermediaries' business plans give them little reason to vote those shares and even create conflicts of interest that may distort their votes. Yet several key developments have countered that reality and opened the way for voting's new prominence. First, government regulations now require many institutions to vote their stock in the best interests of their beneficiaries. Second, subsequent market innovations led to the birth of third party voting advisors, including Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), which help address the costs of voting and the collective action problems inherent in coordinated institutional shareholder action. Third, building on these developments, hedge funds have aggressively intervened in corporate governance at firms seen as undervalued, regularly using the ballot box to pressure targeted firms to create shareholder value, thereby giving institutional shareholders a good reason to care about voting. But there is more to the corporate franchise than hedge fund inspired voting. Say on Pay proposals, Rule 14a-8 corporate governance proposals, and majority vote requirements for the election of directors, are all important, recurrent topics involving shareholder votes. We must ...

How have neoliberal reform policies changed Turkey's political economy? The aim of this paper is to counter claims of convergence towards a liberal capitalist order. Given the historical dynamics of the political embeddedness of Turkey's economy, after 1980, transformations in the state and the economy institutionalized the erosion of Turkish state capitalism. Due to the consolidation of new elite cartels, political fragmentation, and continuing systemic corruption involving networks comprising political and economic elites, what emerged as a result of restructuring is an oligarchic form of capitalism. It is currently undergoing further institutional changes, the outcome of which will depend closely on the power resources and strategies of the incumbent moderate Islamist Justice and Development Party. ; Welche Folgen hatten die neoliberalen Reformen nach 1980 für die politische Ökonomie der Türkei? Der Autor argumentiert gegen weitverbreitete Annahmen einer weltweiten Konvergenz hin zu liberalen kapitalistischen Ordnungen. Zwar wurde das Ende des türkischen Modells des Staatskapitalismus von den neoliberalen Strukturanpassungsprogrammen herbeigeführt, jedoch verhinderten die spezifischen Dynamiken der politischen Einbettung der türkischen Wirtschaft einen Übergang zum liberalen Kapitalismus. Vielmehr hat sich eine oligarchische Variante herausgebildet, deren besondere Merkmale politische Fragmentierung, geringere infrastrukturelle Staatsmacht und systemische Korruptionsverflechtungen zwischen politischen und ökonomischen Eliten sind. Die Wirtschaftsreformen der regierenden moderat islamischen Partei für Gerechtigkeit und Entwicklung sind somit auch kritisch zu bewerten, denn sie wirken nicht losgelöst von Machtansprüchen und -interessen.

Parties and firms are the key actors of representative democracy and capitalism respectively and the dynamic of attachment between them is a central feature of any political economy. This is the first article to systematically analyse the exclusivity of party-firm relations. We consider exclusivity at a point in time and exclusivity over time. Does a firm have a relationship with only one party at a given point in time, or is it close to more than one party? Does a firm maintain a relationship with only one party over time, or does it switch between parties? Most important, how do patterns of exclusivity impact on a firm's ability to lobby successfully? We propose a general theory, which explains patterns of party-firm relations by reference to the division of institutions and the type of party competition in a political system. A preliminary test of our theory with Polish survey data confirms our predictions, establishing a promising hypothesis for future research.

Labor governments since the early 20th Century have consistently attempted to boost business profits. The way they have done so has changed but their policies have been consistently shaped by both the shifting requirements of Australian capitalism and the ALP's nature as a capitalist workers party. From the 1940s until the early 1970s, Labor advocated a program of Keynesian and protectionist economics. As the economics profession turned against protectionism, the Whitlam Government sought to integrate Australian capitalism more closely with the global economy. The Hawke and Keating Governments went much further in opening the economy, deregulating, privatizing and corporatizing than their conservative predecessor. In most areas, with the notable exception of industrial relations, they generally acted in line with the new, neo-liberal orthodoxy in economics. The logic of the Rudd and Gillard Governments' responses to the global economic crisis, invoking a mixture of neo-liberal and Keynesian precepts, like the economic policies of its Labor predecessors, can only be grasped in terms of the ALP's distinctive material constitution.

Labor governments since the early 20th Century have consistently attempted to boost business profits. The way they have done so has changed but their policies have been consistently shaped by both the shifting requirements of Australian capitalism and the ALP's nature as a capitalist workers party. From the 1940s until the early 1970s, Labor advocated a program of Keynesian and protectionist economics. As the economics profession turned against protectionism, the Whitlam Government sought to integrate Australian capitalism more closely with the global economy. The Hawke and Keating Governments went much further in opening the economy, deregulating, privatizing and corporatizing than their conservative predecessor. In most areas, with the notable exception of industrial relations, they generally acted in line with the new, neo-liberal orthodoxy in economics. The logic of the Rudd and Gillard Governments' responses to the global economic crisis, invoking a mixture of neo-liberal and Keynesian precepts, like the economic policies of its Labor predecessors, can only be grasped in terms of the ALP's distinctive material constitution.

In recent months the UK Labour Party has been reviewing its policy approach and putting some flesh on the bones of what a Labour government led by Jeremy Corbyn and current shadow chancellor John McDonnell might hope to achieve. Central to their approach has been a renewed interest on the perils of market failure and what can be done about it. An alternative vision has emerged that focuses on prospects for a more cooperative and democratic economy constructed around a limited programme of (re)nationalisation and a National Investment Bank. In the process, two major reports have been produced as discussion documents. The first, Alternative Models of Ownership (herein referred to as AMO) discusses market failures and proposes a new type of economy based on co-ops, and a high-tech networked society encapsulating what McDonnell has referred to as "socialism with an iPad".1 The second report, Financing Investment (FI), examines the nature of the UK economy, with an array of policy proposals designed to boost the economy through investment in order to encourage productivity growth.2 Both reports are contextualised by academic contributions to the debate and discourse in which concepts such as "post-neoliberalism" or "alternative economic models" have emerged as political projects coveted by sections of the left. These theoretical contributions construct an alternative vision of society based on cooperative sharing, benevolent capital and state-facilitated investment as a successor to the neoliberal phase of capitalism. The purpose of this article is to explore this brand of socialist ideal and to offer a critique in the classical Marxist, revolutionary tradition.