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The Hybrid Variety: Lessons in Nonmarket Coordination from the Business System in the Netherlands, 1950–2010

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2015

Jeroen Touwen*
Affiliation:
Institute for History, Leiden University, PO Box 9515, 2300 RA Leiden, Netherlands. E-mail: l.j.touwen@hum.leidenuniv.nl.

Abstract

This article develops a historical perspective on the coordinated market economy of the Netherlands and explains why it opted for compartmentalized liberalization. Two related questions are addressed, studying the Netherlands as a case study of a Coordinated Market Economy (CME): to what extent can economic change be accommodated within one “type of capitalism”? And why do specific institutions change while others remain in place? Applying the criteria of “Varieties of Capitalism” I focus on the way the Dutch business system applied nonmarket coordination during the twentieth century. Drawing information from various subfields (business history, labor relations and welfare state studies), I review processes of change and postulate that coordination resulted in the adoption of market-oriented reform in clearly delineated areas. “Varieties of Capitalism” theory addresses the historical roots of institutional arrangements, but historical developments have been underexposed in the comparative capitalism-literature.

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Manuscript
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© The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Business History Conference. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com

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