Comparative Capitalisms, Ideational Political Economy and French Post- Dirigiste

This article advances the case for the more systematic incorporation of ideational factors into comparative capitalisms analysis as a corrective to the rational choice proclivities of the Varieties of Capitalism approach. It demonstrates the pay-off of such an ideationally attuned approach through analysis of French capitalist restructuring over the last 25 years, placing it in comparative context. A modus operandi for such ideational explanation is elaborated through delineating different national conceptions of the market, and setting out their impacts on practices of market-making. The claim made in this article is that understanding the evolution of French capitalism requires recognition of the ongoing market-making role of the French State, in combination with the French conception of the market and its embedding within a social context characterised by the inter-penetration of public and private elitist networks of France's ‘financial network economy’ which remains substantially intact. The ideational dimension is crucial because French understandings of the market and competition, the ideational building blocks of market-making, inform French state interventions and leave footprints on French institutions and market structures, and the evolutionary trajectory of French capitalism. In charting this trajectory, this article deploys the concept of post-dirigisme. We map out the parameters and causes of the post-dirigiste condition in France through examination of French bond market development, privatisation, the shift from a government- to a market- dominated financial system, and French capitalism's internationalisation. It then uses post-dirigisme to explain French state responses to the financial crisis and the banking bailout, noting how state actors, in concert with the banking elites, actively facilitated dominant market positions of French international champions

Americanization in Lithuania as a driving force for globalization

Purpose: The purpose of the article is to analyze Americanization patterns in Lithuania by exploring socio-economic and cultural factors and to determine the impact of Americanization on the level of globalization of the country and its economy.Design/methodology: The research employs both qualitative and quantitative methods by using primary and secondary data. Further descriptive statistics, correlation regression, and factor analysis is applied. Carrying out the survey has collected primary data. Secondary data was drawn from the Statistics Lithuania, Premiercapital, and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich.Findings/outcomes: The obtained and analyzed information on the spread of foreign capital, culture and their impact on social and cultural life in the host country which results in emigration and brain drain problems. On the other hand, the research allows us to examining the behavior of Lithuanians and their abilities to accept new culture and social life on the basis of own wealth. The results show that Americanization has much significant impact on economic growth rather than on globalization in Lithuania.Originality/value: It is an interdisciplinary research, which covers three scientific areas: sociology, economics and mathematics. It is unique as it extends to the theory of globalization and synthesizes both understandings of Americanization: cultural assimilation and Americanization as the form of internationalization

Introduction:How European Players Captured the Computer and Created Scenes

Playfulness was at the heart of how European players appropriated microcomputers in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Although gaming has been important for computer development, that is not the subject of Hacking Europe. Our book’s main focus is the playfulness of hacker culture. The essays argue that no matter how detailed or unfinished the design projecting the use of computers, users playfully assigned their own meanings to the machines in unexpected ways. Chopping games in Warsaw, hacking software in Athens, creating chaos in Hamburg, producing demos in Turku, or partying with computing in Zagreb and Amsterdam—wherever computers came with specific meanings that designers had attached to them—local communities throughout Europe found them technically fascinating, culturally inspiring, and politically motivating machines. They began tinkering with the new technology with boundless enthusiasm and helped revolutionize the use and meaning of computers by incorporating them into people’s daily lives. As tinkerers, hackers appropriated the machine and created a new culture around it. Perhaps best known and most visible were the hacker cultures that toyed with the meaning of ownership in the domain of information technology. In several parts of Europe, hackers created a counterculture akin to the squatter movement that challenged individual ownership, demanded equal access, and celebrated shared use of the new technological potential. The German Chaos Computer Club best embodied the European version of the political fusion of the counterculture movement and the love of technology. Linguistically, in Dutch, the slang word kraken, the term used for both hacking and squatting, pointedly expressed such creative fusion that is the subject of this book