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Recurrent “methodological disputes” have haunted the social sciences, again and again polarizing the case-oriented quest for specification against the natural science inspired quest for general, high-level theory. As a consequence, too much social science research is captured in either one of two vicious circles: ever more highly specified monographic case studies or preoccupation with periodically shifting general theories. The interaction of these two circles increases the risk of widespread amnesia: as social scientists are either bogged down in a stream of cases or flying high with the most recent grand (meta-)theories, social science forgets the actual empirical knowledge that is being meticulously created, maintained and revised in the daily handicraft carried out by a growing mass of researchers.

Critiques of international business (IB) have long pointed to the weaknesses in the understanding of context. This has ignited debate on the understanding of institutions and how they “matter” for IB. Yet how institutions matter ultimately depends on how IB applies institutional theory. It is argued that institutional-based research is dominated by a narrow set of approaches, largely overlooking institutional perspectives that account for institutional diversity. This paper aims to forward the argument that IB research should lend greater attention to comparing the topography of institutional configurations by bringing political economy “back in” to the IB domain.

Using principal components analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis, the authors provide IB with a taxonomy of capitalist institutional diversity which defines the landscape of political economies.

The authors show institutional diversity is characterised by a range of capitalist clusters and configuration arrangements, identifying four clusters with distinct modes of capitalism as well as specifying intra-cluster differences to propose nine varieties of capitalism. This paper allows IB scholars to lend closer attention to the institutional context within which firms operate. If the configurations of institutions “matter” for IB scholarship, then clearly, a quantitative blueprint to assess institutional diversity remains central to the momentum of such “institutional turn.”

This paper provides a comprehensive survey of institutional theory, serving as a valuable resource for the application of context within international business. Further, our taxonomy allows international business scholars to utilise a robust framework to examine the diverse institutional context within which firms operate, whilst extending to support the analysis of broader socioeconomic outcomes. This taxonomy therefore allows international business scholars to utilise a robust framework to examine the institutional context within which firms operate.

This study employs Stein Rokkan's methodological approach to analyse state formation in the Greater Middle East. It develops a conceptual framework distinguishing colonial, populist and democratic pacts, suitable for analysis of state formation and nation-building through to the present period. The framework relies on historical institutionalism. The methodology, however, is Rokkan's. The initial conceptual analysis also specifies differences between European and the Middle Eastern state formation processes. It is followed by a brief and selective discussion of historical preconditions. Next, the method of plotting singular cases into conceptual-typological maps is applied to 20 cases in the Greater Middle East (including Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey). For reasons of space, the empirical analysis is limited to the colonial period (1870s to the end of World War 1). Three typologies are combined into one conceptual-typological map of this period. The vertical left-hand axis provides a composite typology that clarifies cultural-territorial preconditions. The horizontal axis specifies transformations of the region's agrarian class structures since the mid-19th century reforms. The right-hand vertical axis provides a four-layered typology of processes of external intervention. A final section presents selected comparative case reconstructions. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first time such a Rokkan-style conceptual-typological map has been constructed for a non-European region.

This chapter explores the writings of Pakistani sociologist Hamza Alavi, especially on the post-colonial state, ethnicity, peasantry and kinship relations. In contradistinction to most (partial) uptakes of Alavi, I evaluate his work as a whole in order to shed light on its continuities and discontinuities. I demonstrate both the strengths and pitfalls of Alavi's theorisation of the post-colonial state, mode of production and ethnicity by placing him in context of wider Marxist debates at the time. I then suggest that Alavi's other work (e.g. on the peasantry and kinship relations) may serve to complement the weaknesses of the former. Thus, by reading Alavi contra Alavi, I advocate for an ‘integral’ perspective on the relations between civil and political society, arguing for a conjunctural awareness of mediations between the same, and their imbrications with differentiated relations of class, ethnicity and kinship.

The purpose of this second part of this special issue is to contribute to a better understanding of the nature of Soviet society. It is not possible to analyse such a society in all its complexities within the space of one study. There are, however, some economic relations which determine society's major features. We believe that commodity‐production relations in the Soviet Union are of this type.

The postindustrial economy did not take the place of previous types of economy. More than that, by definition, it hasn't become “post”-industrial in point of fact: relations with regard to the production of tangible goods define the imperative of industrialism, yet with a modern science and technology stage of development. The present-day production becomes increasingly automated, leading to the absence of demand for psychophysiological properties of man and labor in general. At the same time, highly qualified personnel who are able to control complex information management systems come to the fore. New types of energy and manmade materials appear; socioeconomic human living environment becomes more complicated. These processes are an objective phenomenon. However, the technological revolution is manifested differently in the “central” and “peripheral” countries. In the Russian Federation, formation of the innovational takes place in the conditions of integration of the resource model and opposition of the institutes that fund it. The crisis stimulates the conceptual search and does not deny the scientifically based classics.

State policies have played a significant role in shaping the structure of agrarian economy in both advanced and under‐developed capitalist societies.(1) The influence of the state over the rural sector is not simply confined to its agricultural policies but covers a large array of policies and actions that may have direct as well as indirect effects on the rural population. This paper deals with the factors that influence agricultural policies of the state in the specific case of state policies towards Oriental tobacco production in Turkey.

In Volume One of Capital, Marx laid out what he called “The Secret of Capitalist Primitive Accumulation.” Capitalist accumulation must be preceded by some previous accumulation, “an accumulation which is not the result of the capitalist mode of production but its point of departure” (1990, p. 873). Marx, concentrating on European history, identified the “double-freedom” requirement necessary for capitalist production: workers must be “free” to sell their labor-power and they must be “free” from the means of production. But in this analysis, Marx not only was focusing his remarks on Europe, he actually states that the “classic” case is limited to England, while the “history of this expropriation assumes different aspects in different countries, and runs through its various phases in different successions, and at different historical epochs” (p. 876). In the European colonies, land expropriation and forced labor were used, but another important means of forcing indigenous populations to work as wage-laborers or produce cash crops was taxation and the requirement that taxes be paid in colonial currency. This paper provides an overview of this method, and documents its historical importance, concentrating on Africa. Taxation also played an important role in the monetization and commoditization of African economies, and in the rise of a peripheral capitalism. As the paper demonstrates, Marx was not unaware of money taxes functioning in this manner, and the phenomenon was in no way limited to Africa.

Was the October Revolution inevitable? If yes, what was its real character? If not, could it have been avoided or taken a different course? What was the role played in it by Lenin? Using the dialectical method of analysis, an attempt is made to provide answers to these questions. The following points are stressed: (1) Given the general and particular conditions of Russian life created by the First World War and the February Revolution, the break with the old democratic mixed capitalist form and the establishment of the new totalitarian state capitalist form of the social development were inevitable. (2) The fact that this process was headed by Lenin was accidental and, hence, avoidable. (3) But Lenin individualised the general and particular features of the October Revolution in terms of the names of the events associated with the revolution, of the time of its occurrence, of its participants and of their positions during and after the revolution.