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68341 - COMPARATIVE POLITICAL ECONOMY

Anno Accademico 2023/2024

                
                        Docente:
                        Rosa Mulè
                    
                        Crediti formativi:
                        10
                    
                        SSD:
                        SPS/04
                    
                        Lingua di insegnamento:
                        Italiano
                    
                        Modalità didattica:
                        Convenzionale - Lezioni in presenza
                        
                            Campus:
                            Bologna
                        
                            Corso:
                            Laurea in
                            Scienze politiche, sociali e internazionali (cod. 8853)

                                Valido anche per
                                
                                    Laurea in
                                    
                                        Economia, mercati e istituzioni (cod. 8038)
                                    
                            Lezioni online
                        
                            Risorse didattiche su Virtuale
                        
                                    Orario delle lezioni
                                
dal 20/09/2023 al 13/12/2023

Conoscenze e abilità da conseguire

L'insegnamento mira a fornire gli strumenti teorici ed empirici di base per l’analisi comparativa dei principali modelli di political economy dei paesi capitalisti. Alla fine del corso lo studente sarà in grado di: • analizzare le somiglianze e le differenze che intercorrono tra diversi modelli di paesi capitalisti • porre ‘Research Questions' concernenti gli strumenti volti a comprendere i meccanismi di political economy

Contenuti

Course design and objectives

The course is designed to explore the frontiers of interaction between politics and economics by engaging comparative research on varieties of political economies. It focuses on approaches that conceptualise different models of capitalism and investigates the role of political actors, institutions and interest groups in shaping and transforming these models.

The course is structured around two key questions: To what extent do differences in institutional settings shape fundamentally different models of democratic capitalism? What is the role of political parties, institutions, firms and labour unions in determining the different arrangements we find in capitalist countries?

This course participates to the Teaching Experimentation Project of Bologna University. The maximum number of students attending the course is 50.

The course tackles the following United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGS): 1, 4, 5,8,9,10.
Learning outcomes

At the end of the course students will be able to:

Analyse and compare national political economies
Critically evaluate political economic inputs and outcomes
Understand the institutional foundations of comparative advantage
Design a project using the Luxembourg Income Study(LIS) datasets available on the LIS website
Write a short paper on a topic agreed with the professor discussing the LIS results (attending students only).
Course procedure

The course is organized in lectures and inverted classes, as detailed in the following program. Lectures (24 hours) aim to introduce students to the core tenets of the discipline. Inverted classes aim to provide occasions for in-depth discussions of class materials and exercises, as well as group presentations For the inverted classes, students will be divided into groups according to their preferences: one/two group(s) will do the inverted class in classroom (18 hours) and one/two group(s) will do the inverted class remotely on MS TEAMS (18 hours). Therefore, a total of 42 classroom hours are scheduled for each student. Students are required to carefully read the assigned material before the session and - in the case of inverted class - active participation through group presentations of existing scholarship, project preparation and case studies will also be expected.

Please note:

In consideration of the teaching methods adopted in the IT laboratory, attendance of this course requires the prior participation of all students [https://elearning-sicurezza.unibo.it/] in e-learning mode.

Course evaluation

Students are encouraged to actively participate during the class. They are required to prepare short group presentations and to hand in one question per week to stimulate discussions.

Evaluation for attending students

Participation in class will count for 10% of the grade.

Presentation will count for 25% of the grade.

The final assessment is a written paper using the Luxembourg Income Study datasets, the LIS graphic software DART, and will count for 65% of the grade (3000 words in total including abstract, bibliography, tables and graphs. Each table counts 250 words; each graph counts 250 words. The deadline for the paper: 15 January 2024).

Evaluation for non-attending students

Oral exam on all required readings and Menz, G. 2017. Comparative Political Economy, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Introduction

Questions: What is comparative political economy?

Required reading

Bernard, P.R, Jr. 2021 Comparative Political Economy, Routledge, chapter 1

Menz, G. 2017. Comparative Political Economy, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Chapter 1 and 2 (available on UNIBO Oxford online).

Further reading

Gourevitch, P. 2008. The role of politics in economic development, Annual Review of Political Science, 11:137–59.

Iversen,T. and D. Soskice. 2019. Democracy and Prosperity. Reinventing Capitalism through a Turbulent Century, Princeton University Press.

Menz, G. 2017. Comparative Political Economy, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Chapter 2, section 2.5 ‘CPE and the Globalization Debate’ (available on UNIBO Oxford online).

Further reading

Rommel, T. and S. Walter. 2018. The Electoral Consequences of Offshoring: How the Globalization of Production Shapes Party Preferences, Comparative Political Studies, 51, 5 : 621-658.

Markus Kornprobst, T V Paul, 2021. Globalization, deglobalization and the liberal international order, International Affairs, 97, 5 :1305–1316.

Walter, S., 2021. The Backlash Against Globalization, Annual Review of Political Science, 24 :421-442.

Varieties of Capitalism

Is there one or more than one model of capitalism?

Required reading

Mann, M. 1997. Has globalization ended the rise and rise of the nation-state? Review of International Political Economy, 4.

Hall, P. and D. Soskice 2001. An Introduction to Varieties of Capitalism, in P. Hall and D. Soskice, eds. Varieties of Capitalism. Oxford University Press : 1-68 (available on UNIBO Oxford online).

Further reading

Menz, G. 2017. Comparative Political Economy, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Chapter 5 (available on UNIBO Oxford online).

Comparative labour markets

Question: Do models of capitalism influence labour market adjustments in times of crisis?

Required reading

Baccini, L., Guidi, M., Poletti, A., & Yildirim, A. 2022. Trade Liberalization and Labor Market Institutions. International Organization, 76,1 : 70-104. (Note:only the non-technical section).

Lallement, M. 2011. Europe and the economic crisis: forms of labour market adjustment and varieties of capitalism. Work, employment and society, 25 :627-641.

Further reading

Menz, G. 2017. Comparative Political Economy, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Chapter 6 (available on UNIBO Oxford online).

Filippetti, A. and F. Guy. 2020.Labor market regulation, the diversity of knowledge and skill, and national innovation performance, Research Policy, 49: 1-14. Sections 1 and 2.

Bearce, D. and A. Hart. 2017. International Labor Mobility and the Variety of Democratic Political Institutions. International Organization, 71: 65-95.

Zartaloudis, S. and A. Kornelakis. 2017. Flexicurity between Europeanization and Varieties of Capitalism? A Comparative Analysis of Employment Protection Reforms in Portugal and Greece. Journal of Common Market Studies, 55 :1144-1161.

Addressing change in advanced capitalist countries

Growth Models and Regimes

Question: How does the growth model approach differ from the varieties of capitalism perspective?

Required reading

Lucio Baccaro and Jonas Pontusson. 2016. Rethinking Comparative Political Economy: The Growth Model Perspective Politics and Society, 44 (2), 175-207

-See Commentaries on Baccaro and Pontusson’s article In Politics and Society, 2016 , 44 (2), 209-247

(David Hope and David Soskice, Cathie Jo Martin, Michael Piore and Wolfgang Streeck).

Amable, B., Regan, A., Avdagic, S., Baccaro, L., Pontusson, J., and N. Van der Zwan. 2019. New approaches to political economy, Socio-Economic Review, Vol. 17: 433–459.

Further reading

Anke Hassel and Bruno Palier. 2021. “Tracking the Transformation of Growth Regimes in Advanced Capitalist Economies.” In Hassel and Palier, ed. Growth and Welfare in Advanced Capitalist Economies: How Have Growth Regimes Evolved? (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 3-56.

Lukas Haffert and Daniel Mertens. 2021. “Between distribution and allocation: growth models, sectoral coalitions and the politics of taxation revisited,” Socio-Economic Review, 19 (2), 487-510

Political Coalitional Approaches to Comparative Political Economy

Question:What Distinctive Value, if Any, Does this Approach Have?

Gregory Luebbert. 1991. Liberalism, Fascism, or Social Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press), Introduction and chapter 8

Pablo Beramendi, Silja Hausermann, Herbert Kitschelt and Hanspeter Kriesi. 2015. “Introduction: The Politics of Advanced Capitalism.” In Beramendi, et al., ed. The Politics of Advanced Capitalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 1-64

Reviews of The Politics of Advanced Capitalism by [a] Peter Hall, [b] Christoffer Green-Pedersen and Jonas Kraft, and [c] Paul Pierson. 2016. In Socio-Economic Review, 14 (2), 383-394

Torben Iversen and David Soskice. 2015. “Democratic limits to redistribution: Inclusionary versus Exclusionary Coalitions in the Knowledge Economy.” World Politics, 67 (2), 185-225

Topics and suggested readings for inverted class

(students are invited to suggest other readings)

Beyond Varieties of Capitalism

Question: What are the strengths and weaknesses of the Varieties of Capitalism approach?

Hancké, B., Rhodes, M. and M. Thatcher . 2009. Beyond Varieties of Capitalism: Conflict, Contradictions, and Complementarities in the European Economy, Oxford University Press, Introduction (available on UNIBO Oxford online).

Hay, C. 2020. Does capitalism (still) come in varieties?, Review of International Political Economy, 27, 2: 302-319.

Feldman, M. The Origins of Varieties of Capitalism: Lessons from Post-Socialist Transition in Estonia and Slovenia, in Hancké, B., Rhodes, M. and M. Thatcher . 2009. Beyond Varieties of Capitalism: Conflict, Contradictions, and Complementarities in the European Economy, Oxford University Press (available on UNIBO Oxford online).

Question: How does politics matter in varieties of economic liberalizations?

Thelen, K. 2012. Varieties of Capitalism: Trajectories of Liberalization and the New Politics of Social Solidarity [https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-polisci-070110-122959], Annual Review of Political Science 15, 1: 137-159.

Political economy responses to international economic crises: 1929-1973

Question: How did national political economy coalitions affect responses to the Great Depression?

Gourevitch, P. 1986. Politics in Hard Times. Ithaca, Cornell University Press, chapter 1 and chapters on 1929 international economics crisis.

Question: How did national political economy coalitions affect responses to the two oil crises of the 1970s?

Gourevitch, P. 1986. Politics in Hard Times. Ithaca, Cornell University Press, chapter 1 and chapter on 1973 international economic crisis.

Political economy responses to international economic crises: 2007-2008

Question: Were political responses to the global financial crisis different from previous crises responses? Why?

Hassel, A., & Palier, B. (Eds.). (2021). Growth and Welfare in Advanced Capitalist Economies: How Have Growth Regimes Evolved?. Oxford University Press. Chapter 3

Pontusson J. and D. Raess. 2012. How (and Why) Is This Time Different? The Politics of Economic Crisis in Western Europe and the United States, Annual Review of Political Science.

Walter, S. 2016. Crisis Politics in Europe. Why Austerity is Easier to Implement in Some Countries than in Others. Comparative Political Studies 49, 7: 841–873.

van Hooren, F. Alexandra Kaasch, A. and Starke P. 2014 The shock routine: economic crisis and the nature of social policy responses, Journal of European Public Policy, 21,4:605-623.

Political economy responses to the pandemic induced economic crisis: 2020-2022

Question: Did institutional complementarities affect policy responses to the pandemic?

Hancké, B., Van Overbeke, T., & Voss, D. 2022. Crisis and Complementarities: A Comparative Political Economy of Economic Policies after COVID-19. Perspectives on Politics, 20 (2), 474-489. doi:10.1017/S1537592721001055

Testi/Bibliografia

Course design and objectives

This course participates to the Teaching Experimentation Project of Bologna University. The maximum number of students attending the course is 50.

The course tackles the following United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGS): 1, 4, 5,8,9,10.
Learning outcomes

At the end of the course students will be able to:

Analyse and compare national political economies
Critically evaluate political economic inputs and outcomes
Understand the institutional foundations of comparative advantage
Design a project using the Luxembourg Income Study(LIS) datasets available on the LIS website
Write a short paper on a topic agreed with the professor discussing the LIS results (attending students only).
Course procedure

The course is organized in lectures and inverted classes, as detailed in the following program. Lectures (24 hours) aim to introduce students to the core tenets of the discipline. Inverted classes aim to provide occasions for in-depth discussions of class materials and exercises, as well as group presentations For the inverted classes, students will be divided into groups according to their preferences: one/two group(s) will do the inverted class in classroom (18 hours) and one/two group(s) will do the inverted class remotely on MS TEAMS (18 hours). Therefore, a total of 42 classroom hours are scheduled for each student. Students are required to carefully read the assigned material before the session and - in the case of inverted class - active participation through group presentations of existing scholarship, project preparation and case studies will also be expected.

Please note:

In consideration of the teaching methods adopted in the IT laboratory, attendance of this course requires the prior participation of all students [https://elearning-sicurezza.unibo.it/] in e-learning mode.