CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2011
| Author | Madariaga, Aldo |
|---|---|
| Title | Patterns of Institutional Change and External Competitiveness in Neoliberal and Dependent Political Economies. The Cases of Chile and Estonia |
| Summary | This research studies the ways neoliberal and dependent political economies change their institutions to enhance competitiveness in the face of growing external vulnerability and processes of deindustrialization. The study draws on the identification of two research gaps: 1) the lack of systematic study of policy and institutional change in emerging political economies; 2) the neglect in the mainstream approaches to capitalist diversity of institutional change in political economies that show predominantly liberal institutions. In order to fill these gaps this research proposes an analytical framework based in the notion of institutional hierarchy, and its exploratory application to study the patterns of institutional change in policies affecting external competitiveness. Two case studies are conducted, Chile and Estonia. These countries have been selected on the basis that they present important similarities in the adoption of a radical neoliberal path, as well as analogous vulnerabilities with respect to external downturns in economic activity and loss of competitiveness. The research concentrates on exchange rate regimes and industrial policies, studying on how these policies are set in a track and how they change in certain tuning points highlighting the sources, agents and modes of change. The research shows that in order to maintain the stability of a neoliberal track in a dependency context, political agents engage in constant processes of change or adjustment. On the other hand, while exchange rates tend to change towards the liberal end, industrial policies show a tendency to change towards an increasing embeddedness, reflecting the higher hierarchy attributed to the former. In the context of an increasing loss of competitiveness and growth of non-tradable sectors such as finance and real estate, the capacity of agents seeking higher degrees of embeddeness is tied to the extent this hierarchy can be sustained over time. |
| Supervisor | Bohle, Dorothee |
| Department | Political Science MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2011/madariaga_aldo.pdf |
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