States making markets and markets making states

Ulrike Lepont, Desmond King and Patrick Le Galès

Chapter 7 in Handbook of Comparative Political Economy, 2025, pp 137-151 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: To the extent that the modern Western political and economic order has been built around the State, the latter has logically constituted an essential theoretical and empirical dimension of comparative political economy. This chapter distinguishes and periodizes the ways the role of the state was conceptualized in comparative political economy since the mid-20th century. First, as an energetic agent of planning and Keynesian interventionism between the 1950s and 1970s. Second, an institution exposed to the twin precepts of liberal/neoliberal policies to reduce the state and globalization which imposed constraints on domestic state policy while demanding expanded regulatory and competitive agencies to manage economic and social policy. And finally, the reconfiguration of the activist state through intensive central bank measures and imaginative forms of industrial and investor type policies. It also argues that, although the centrality of the state in understanding political economy may seem obvious, the dominant Comparative Political Economy literature has not always given it sufficient attention. The recent “comeback” of the state is changing this trend, but the CPE literature is marked by this lack of interest and theorization. The contemporary state is facing numerous pressing challenges – such as rising demands to address economic, racial and gender inequalities, persistent migration movements, global populism, and the climate crisis – that necessarily affect it. The authors end by advocating sociological investigations at the level of administration to understand these changes.

Keywords: State; Keynesianism; Neoliberalism; Globalization; Regulation; Austerity; Financialization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035327775
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