Course datasheet
Comparative Political Economy
Comparative Political Economy
Course code: KOZNXV4OG01
Course name : Comparative Political Economy
Course name (Hungarian): Comparative Political Economy
Number of hours per semester: 160
Credits: 6
Fall/Spring: Fall
Language: FEC
Prerequisites: None
Course type: master+doctoral
Department: Összehasonlító és Intézményi Gazdaságtan Tanszék
Course leader: Dr. Gedeon Péter
Course description:
Course requirements during the semester:
Examination requirements:
Assessment, grading: Written (75 minutes) test.
Course work will also be taken into account.
Aims, objectives and description of the course: The aim of the course is to understand the logic
and the different forms of industrial societies in a theoretical framework built on the
conceptualization of the inter-relationship of economic and political structures. The readings shed
light on the evolutionary logic and the historical forms of modern economies and polities. The course
starts with the analysis of the concepts of democracy, property rights and market coordination. Then
it deals with the different forms of capitalist industrialization, with the ties between the forms of
industrialization and the forms of the modern state. We examine the emergence of the mixed
economy and the welfare state that maintains the links between mass democracy and market
economy. Modern capitalism assumes different forms, we analyze the alternative models of the
capitalist system. Then we turn to the description of the socialist economy and polity. The socialist
system is explained as an alternative form of industrialization under the circumstances of economic
backwardness. This analysis rests on the concepts of Kornai’s shortage theory of socialism. The
postsocialist transition in East-Central Europe was initiated by political changes. The course looks at
the theoretical framework built up for the analysis of the democratization process and at the
application of the concepts to the Hungarian case. The postsocialist transition has had to face the
dilemma of simultaneity: the parallel processes of democratization, marketization and the
remodelling of the welfare state. We deal with some of these problems: look at the political dynamics
of economic reforms, the politics of privatization, the contradictions of the postsocialist welfare state,
the role of interest groups in the transition. We ask the question whether the postsocialist states are
going to assume the characteristics of any existing models of capitalism, that is we address the
problems of comparison between capitalist and postsocialist economies and polities.
Course schedule:
Learning outcomes:
Course assessment during the semester:
Assignments:
1/3
Course datasheet
Comparative Political Economy
Program’s name:
Readings:
Compulsory readings:
A. CONCEPTS
I. PROPERTY
- Demsetz, H.: Toward a Theory of Property Rights, American Economic Review, Vol. LVII. No.
2. 1967 347-359.
- Furutborn, E. G. - Pejovich, S.: Property Rights and Economic Theory: A Survey of Recent
Literature, Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. X. No. 4, 1972, 1137-1162.
II. COORDINATION MECHANISMS
- Hayek, F. A.: The Price System as a Mechanism for Using Knowledge. In: Comparative
Economic Systems, ed. by Bornstein, M., Richard D. Irwin, Inc., Homewood, Illinois, 1979,
49-60.
- Kornai, J.: The Socialist System: The Political Economy of Communism. Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1992. 91-109., 447-450., 497-500.
III. DEMOCRACY
- Lindblom, Ch. E. Politics and Markets, Basic Books, New York, 1977 161-169.
- Dahl, R.: Why All Democratic Countries Have Mixed Economies
B. THEORIES AND CASES
I. CAPITALISM
1. Early and late industrialization
- Gerschenkron, A.: Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective, The Belknapp Press of
Harvard University Press, 1962, 5-30.
- Moore Jr., B.: Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, Penguin Books, London 1991,
413-483.
2. The Great Depression
- Gourevitch, P.: Politics in Hard Times, Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 1986,
124-180.
3. Welfare State and Mixed Economy
- Offe, C.: Contradictions of the Welfare State, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts,
1990, 65-87.
- Esping-Andersen, G.: Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, Princeton University Press,
Princeton, NJ. 1991, 9-34.
4. Three types of modern capitalism
- Katzenstein, P. J.: Domestic Structures and Strategies of Foreign Economic Policy, in:
Between Power and Plenty, edited by Katzenstein, P. J., The University of Wisconsin Press,
1978, 295-336.
- Katzenstein, P. J. Small States in World Markets, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1985,
80-135.
- Zysman, J.: Governments, Markets, and Growth, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1983,
55-95.
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Course datasheet
Comparative Political Economy
II. STATE SOCIALISM
- Kornai, J.: The Socialist System: The Political Economy of Communism, 18-62., 360-382.,
409-432., 474-512.
- Csanádi, M.: Structure, Cohesion and Disintegration of the Hungarian Party-State System,
in: Szoboszlai, Gy. (ed.): Democracy and Political Transformation. Hungarian Political Science
Association, 1991, 325-350.
III. POSTSOCIALIST TRANSITION
1. Theory
- Comisso, E.: Political Coalitions, Economic Choices, in: Szoboszlai, Gy. (ed.): Democracy and
Political Transformation. Hungarian Political Science Association, 1991, 122-137.
- Gray, J.: From Post-Communism to Civil Society: The Reemergence of History and the
Decline of the Western Model. In: Paul, E. F., Miller, Jr., F. D., and Paul, J. (eds.), Liberalism
and the Economic Order. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1993 26-50.
- Offe, C.: Capitalism by Democratic Design? Social Research , Vol. 58, No. 4 (Winter 1991)
865-893.
- Przeworski, A.: Democracy and the Market, 51-99., 136-187.
2. Cases
- Greskovits, B., The Political Economy of Protest and Patience. East European and Latin
American Transformations Compared. Budapest: Central European University Press, 1998,
pp. 93-136
- Poznanski, K., Z.: Recounting Transition. East European Politics and Societies, Vol. 13, No. 2,
Spring 1999, pp. 328-344
- Mihályi, P.: FDI in Hungary - the post-communist privatization story re-considered
- Avdagic, Sabina, Accounting for Variations in Trade Union Effectiveness: State–Labor
Relations in East Central Europe. MPIfG Discussion Paper 03/6
- Stark, D. and Bruszt, L.: Postsocialist Pathways: Path Dependence and Privatization
Strategies. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
- Müller, Katharina: The Political Economy of Pension Reform in Central-Eastern Europe.
Cheltenham, Northampton: Edward Elgar, 1999, pp. 149-178
- Janos, Andrew C., From Eastern Empire to Western Hegemony: East Central Europe Under
Two International Regimes. East European Politics and Societies, Vol. 15, No. 2, 2001, pp.
221-249
- Moravcsik, Andrew and Vachudova, Milada Anna, National Interests, State Power and EU
Enlargement. East European Politics and Societies, Vol. 17, No. 1, 2003, pp. 42-57
Recommended readings:
Course professor(s)/lecturer(s):
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