Contemporary capitalism, globalization, regionalization and the persistence of national variation

The literatures on globalization and regionalization on the one hand, and o n the institutional distinctiveness of national capitalisms on the other, s eem to pull in very different directions. Nonetheless, an increasing number of international and comparative political economists sensitive to the ins titutional and cultural variability of contemporary capitalism identify ten dencies towards convergence-often towards an Angle-US model of deregulated neoliberal capitalism. In this article I critically review the literature o n convergence, difference and divergence in the global political economy, d ifferentiating between neoclassical and institutionalist perspectives. Resi sting arguments which posit a natural selection process initiated by untram melled free market competition and free capital mobility, I identify the co ntingent, political and frequently coercive nature of the convergence proce ss. This is illustrated through a discussion of regional selection mechanis ms in the context of European Monetary Union and the East Asian financial c risis. In so far as evolutionary selection mechanisms can be identified in the European context, selecting for a more residual social model, these are more a product of the contingent process of European economic integration than they are a necessary consequence of globalization. Moreover, in so far as similarly convergent processes can be identified in contemporary East A sia, they are less a product of globalization than of the 'predatory neolib eralism' of a beleagured Washington Consensus.