Introduction: The politics of growth, stagnation, and upgrading in peripheral advanced economies

2025/07/01 by Fabio Bulfone, Aldo Madariaga, Arianna Tassinari · 2 voices · 15 citations
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Social Sciences · #Asian Industrial and Economic Development #Economic Theory and Policy #Economic stagnation #Economic system #Economics #Market economy #Political science #Politics

paper · doi:10.1177/10245294251350029

published in Competition & Change 29(3-4), 295-314 (SAGE Publishing)

openalex publication_date 2025/07/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

Comparative Political Economy (CPE) has traditionally paid limited attention to growth trajectories outside the core economies of Northern Europe and the United States—a pattern that persists in the current Growth Models (GMs) debate. This special issue seeks to broaden the geographical, theoretical, and empirical scope of CPE by integrating the concept of peripherality into discussions of GMs. Drawing on insights from Latin American structuralism, dependency theory, and GMs theory, the contributions in this issue address two interrelated dimensions of capitalist development in advanced peripheral economies, which we develop in this introduction: peripheral structure and peripheral agency. By examining the complex interactions between core and peripheral economies, this issue uncovers diverse patterns of peripheral capitalist development and calls for a deeper engagement with peripherality within CPE.

Citations

• Firm-Centered Approaches to Overcoming Semi-Peripheral Constraints
• Operationalizing growth models
• Strategic State Capacity: How States Counter Opposition to Climate Policy
• The Comparative Political Economy of Growth Models: Explaining the Continuity of FDI-Led Growth in Ireland and Hungary
• Beyond the Stereotype: Restating the Relevance of the Dependency Research Programme
• Rethinking Comparative Political Economy
• Enlarging the Varieties of Capitalism: The Emergence of Dependent Market Economies in East Central Europe
• Transnationalization, Social Integration, and Capitalist Diversity in the East and the South

Cited by

• The states–markets–decarbonization nexus: reviewing an emerging political economy agenda
• Shifting paths? The evolution of Southern European growth trajectories in the post-Eurozone crisis decade (2010–9)
• Capital-intensity segmentation and urban enclave formation in an advanced peripheral economy: Evidence from Timișoara, Romania
• Dependence versus Interdependence: The Great Debate that Never Was
• The political economy of advanced semi-peripherality: East-Central Europe’s (neo-)dependency in global comparative perspective

Discussions

• We are delighted that our Special Issue on "The Politics of Growth, Stagnation and Upgrading in Peripheral Economies" coedited w/ @fbulfone.bsky.social & Aldo Madariaga is now out in Competition & Cha [bsky, 37 points, 14 comments]
• And if you’re interested in dependent development, you’ll love the recent special issue published by @compchange.bsky.social (and guest edited by @aritassinari.bsky.social, @fbulfone.bsky.social, and [bsky, 3 points, 1 comments]

Related

• There is more to national economies than the national economy: extending the Growth Model research programme in comparative political economy
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• Primitive Accumulations, Financial Expansions, and Varieties of Refiguration of the Capitalist World-Economy.
• Firm-Centered Approaches to Overcoming Semi-Peripheral Constraints
• National Growth Models and Global Capitalism: a Critique of Comparative Political Economy