Comparative Capitalism (ComCap)

Research Questions | Goals: The research group deals with the comparative institutional analysis of capitalist market economies. In the context of current processes of globalization and regional integration, not only national, but also regional, inter- and transnational forms of governance of markets, industrial sectors, corporations and policy fields are at play.  Besides changes in advanced capitalistic countries in the Atlantic region, the group focuses above all on development processes in the emerging BRIC countries as well as in Eastern Asia. A special emphasis is placed on policy areas such as economic and fiscal policy, education and labour market policy, immigration policy, environmental and energy policy as well as industrial, technology and entrepreneurship policy. Against this background, the research group at the Faculty of Social Sciences links the teaching and research profiles of international comparative political economy and economic sociology. With regard to these areas of focus, the research group also analyzes issues concerning the didactic and methodological implementation of political and economic education.

Theoretical Framework | Methods: The group pursues a pluralistic theoretical and methodological approach, which features many similarities to institutionalist approaches. Our research draws on numerous schools of comparative capitalism research as well as international and comparative political economy, in particular historical institutionalism. In contrast to the firm-centered variation of comparative capitalism research, the research group aims to contribute to research on political steering from an international and historical comparative perspective. The methodological approach pursued by the group is primarily based on qualitative comparative studies with a small to medium number of cases. The group also draws on expertise in the area of Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA).

Participating Professors and Associated Professors
Jens Borchert, Michael Dobbins, Alexander Ebner, Sandra Eckert, Tim Engartner, Andreas Nölke, Tobias ten Brink (external member), Matthias Thiemann (external member), Claudius Wagemann.


 Projects (Selection)  
Das fehlende Bindeglied - Organisierte Interessen in postkommunistischen Politikgestaltungsprozessen
Principal Investigator: Prof. Dr. Michael Dobbins
Funding: DFG