Laszlo Bruszt
I teach sociology and political economy at the European University Institute. In my research projects I deal with issues linked to the politics and the political economy of making transnational markets. Part of my projects deals with the comparative study of market integration regimes, with a focus on the integrations involving economies at different levels of development. Our edited volume with Gerry McDermott on transnational regulatory integration and development was published by Oxford University Press. It brings together studies from Latin America and Eastern Europe. (See the intro among the papers below). My new project focuses on the EU strategies of integrating its Eastern and Southern peripheries.
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Papers by Laszlo Bruszt
enlargement is the only successful case for the deep market integration of economies at lower levels of development. EU insiders had no formal obligation to care about the
developmental effects of integration and, according to the standard literature, enlargement was solely about rule transfer without any need to consider the interests of rule takers. We challenge this view and show that due to increased economic
interdependence, the Eastern enlargement was a case for large-scale experimentation with mechanisms to manage developmental consequences of rule transfer. Using contract theory, we identify three mechanisms that could force stronger actors to care about the developmental effects of integration on weaker actors. We also show that the key governance challenge of deeper market integration is to manage uncertainty
and develop mechanisms to match uniform market rules with diverse local developmental needs. In the case of Eastern enlargement EU insiders could define alone the scope of developmental interventions that were limited to preventing large-scale dislocations, without greater politicization or publicity, hence ‘by stealth’. Our insights do not only open up new avenues for research on how to manage the integration of economies at different levels of development but also have direct implications for the way the EU manages existing economic disparities in its internal market.
interacting dimensions of capitalist diversity in post-socialist Eastern Europe and Latin America. On these grounds, it is argued that Cardoso and Faletto’s dependent
development paradigm maintains validity. When adapted to the new conditions, their approach is able to capture the overlapping and divergent aspects of capitalist
development in both regions. Recent patterns of development demonstrate that although dependency, stemming from the unequal distribution of resources, roles,
and opportunities, continues to be an important aspect of the international division of labor, it ceases to contradict even complex forms of industrialization. Similarly, notwithstanding the asymmetrical power relationships characterizing them, the new transnational integration regimes allow and sometimes help formation of new nation states with improved regulatory capacities. Finally, dependency does not necessarily
undermine domestic social inclusion. Rather, it is up to the democratic competition to strike a balance between the requirements of promising international and socially
acceptable domestic integration.
enlargement is the only successful case for the deep market integration of economies at lower levels of development. EU insiders had no formal obligation to care about the
developmental effects of integration and, according to the standard literature, enlargement was solely about rule transfer without any need to consider the interests of rule takers. We challenge this view and show that due to increased economic
interdependence, the Eastern enlargement was a case for large-scale experimentation with mechanisms to manage developmental consequences of rule transfer. Using contract theory, we identify three mechanisms that could force stronger actors to care about the developmental effects of integration on weaker actors. We also show that the key governance challenge of deeper market integration is to manage uncertainty
and develop mechanisms to match uniform market rules with diverse local developmental needs. In the case of Eastern enlargement EU insiders could define alone the scope of developmental interventions that were limited to preventing large-scale dislocations, without greater politicization or publicity, hence ‘by stealth’. Our insights do not only open up new avenues for research on how to manage the integration of economies at different levels of development but also have direct implications for the way the EU manages existing economic disparities in its internal market.
interacting dimensions of capitalist diversity in post-socialist Eastern Europe and Latin America. On these grounds, it is argued that Cardoso and Faletto’s dependent
development paradigm maintains validity. When adapted to the new conditions, their approach is able to capture the overlapping and divergent aspects of capitalist
development in both regions. Recent patterns of development demonstrate that although dependency, stemming from the unequal distribution of resources, roles,
and opportunities, continues to be an important aspect of the international division of labor, it ceases to contradict even complex forms of industrialization. Similarly, notwithstanding the asymmetrical power relationships characterizing them, the new transnational integration regimes allow and sometimes help formation of new nation states with improved regulatory capacities. Finally, dependency does not necessarily
undermine domestic social inclusion. Rather, it is up to the democratic competition to strike a balance between the requirements of promising international and socially
acceptable domestic integration.
cover issues ranging from the conditions of the coming about-of markets, the coevolution of polities and markets, the social regulation of economic action, to different conceptualizations of markets as sites of ongoing contestation of rules and
evaluative principles. The seminars will be based on the critical discussion and contrasting of different approaches from the field of economic sociology with the
sometimes conflicting sometimes complementary approaches from political sociology, law and economics and political economy to challenge the disciplinary division of labor in which economists study the economy and sociologists and
political scientists study the social and political relations in which they are embedded.
shaping joint policies and/or achieving better developmental outcomes than others? What are the underlying factors, which processes do they trigger and what are their consequences? Beyond focusing on regional integration the seminar will also include the analysis of the emergence, functioning and
impact of other forms of transnational governance meant to solve collective action problems across national boundaries.
economy, history and economic sociology – from the late nineteenth century to the present.
The aim of this course is to provide a broad overview of the diverse analytical tools used by scholars coming from different disciplines. Starting with a reflection on the nature of economic and financial crises in capitalism, we will then discuss the extent to which financial crises have followed a discernable pattern; the factors that have accounted for the outbreak of financial crises; how crises and panics have been managed; and the aftermath of financial crises, especially in terms of regulation and institutional change.
and public regulatory regimes, what are the basic paradigms of regulation? What are the basic features of the politics of transnational regulation, in what ways do
transnational regulatory regimes challenge or reproduce existing power relations? What are the various forms of transnational private regulation and how do they
interact with attempts to create transnational public authority in various regulatory areas? What are the distributive consequences of transnational regulatory regimes and
how do transnational regulatory regimes effect opportunities of development in evolving market economies?
" How did you get involved with dependency theory as a European scholar? Bruszt explains that he first got involved with dependency theory after 1989 when he started studying post-socialist economic development. With David Stark and some other colleagues from economic sociology, he was studying the possible choices these countries had and what potential future pathways could be. At the time, the literature dealing with these post-socialist societies were of two types. On the one side, you had mainstream economic literature, which advocated open, capitalist markets, and on the other side were the orthodox Marxists that argued that there were no possibilities for development for these countries within a capitalist system. Bruszt became interested in exploring what kinds of choices these countries had, as he did not agree with either of the two extremes. It, therefore, became useful to consider the literature of Cardoso and Faletto to understand the possibilities of development for the periphery countries. 37 Bruszt considers his use of the dependency framework to be more of an overall approach to development, inequality, vulnerabilities, and unequal distribution of opportunities. He was largely influenced by Albert Hirschman and Peter Evans, in addition to Cardoso and Faletto. Evans was important to Bruszt because of his seminal thinking about developmental states and how different coalitions are formed and develop, and what the 37 Cardoso, F. and Faletto, E., Dependency and Development in Latin America (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1979).