Before going over to the argument as such, this section offers an overview of the way that the thesis develops. This is done in order to offer a comfortable way for the reader to navigate through the multiple pages but also to point at the internal consistency of the argument. Even though many sub-arguments are made throughout the thesis, it is important to show how they all connect to contribute in the ways developed above.
After this first introduction, I review the „Varieties of Capitalism‟ literature and more generally the engagements with comparative capitalisms in relation to the way in which they bring out the political elements of differences in socio-economic models of organisation. After a short exposition of the main arguments of this field of study, I argue that its partial omission of political features relates to its inability of include the individual into its realm of investigation. I also show why and how more recent
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attempts at bringing the state back into investigations of models of capitalism tend to replicate the same methodological approaches than VoC does. This is problematic, as a simple inclusion of the state per se does not lead to a more political reading of the ways that capitalist societies are constituted. At the same time, these contributions also have difficulties making sense of issues of private consumption.
Chapter three is the first of two theoretical parts that set out the framework that firstly is able to address the issues set out in the literature review and that secondly is used as the basis upon which the empirical case studies are explored at a later stage. Starting from a constructivist reading of the human being, I explore how the ontologically indeterminate character of human nature represents itself a political feature. As the human mind is posited to be open to a variety of interpretative schemes and so-called „naïve theories‟, the nature of politics is located at the individual level. The process of socialisation and normalisation is pointed at that leads to a closure of the original state where a multitude of options of how to organise the economic sphere of life is possible. The closure of this state is exactly what is essentially political in the transcendence of the individual into a community. It is as such that the human being is inevitably political.
In chapter four the individual is linked to the state as a central institution in the making of economic realities. Indeed, in the process of the narrowing down of potential types of institutionalisations of socio-economic regimes, state actors occupy a particular position that allows them to facilitate certain understandings of economic aspects of economic life. But the state only comes in due to the specific features of
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human constitution. This is where my account crucially differs from the literature as I engage in a framework that goes beyond the state per se as a universal concept. I then explore how differences in the setup of state institutions translate into variations in the concrete individual-state relationships. I claim that the form and content of policies in relation to the individual are influenced by this relationship that also plays into the ways an economic regime is legitimised in parliamentary debates. At the same time, it allows the inclusion of issues of consumption as a well as a deeper reading of the politics of economic governance.
Chapters five to eight cover the empirical part. As described, the first case study is the British housing market, more specifically concerned with the state interventions into the home ownership market between 1997 and 2007. Falling back onto parliamentary debates, I investigate the facilitated naïve theories of the economic agent when it comes to the economic mechanisms surrounding the acquisition of an owned home. What is central here is the definition of the individual in relation to a topic of private consumption, but also of the economic processes more generally. Indeed, state conceptions of markets are also explored to then investigate the individual-state relationship in relation to the latter. The political elements of such interventions are relayed, at the level of the individual per se but also at the level of the policy outcomes. As such, the way in which economic policies have been legitimated also plays a role here. The main findings here are that the British policy-makers were facilitating a version of economic agency that is closely connected to the market as a self-equilibrating mechanism once state policies were able to make sure consumers were fully informed. The individual was then seen with his/her financial capacity to accumulate wealth in the housing market after having engaged in mortgage practices.
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Indeed, as housing markets now involve large amount of financial resources, households are looking for external funding, mostly in the national mortgage market. Thus, in order to make sense of the practices that are related with the housing issues, it is necessary to investigate yet another consumption market. Chapter six then applies the method set out in the theoretical framework and already applied beforehand to the conceptualisations in relation to mortgage processes in the UK (1997-2007). Just as for the housing case, the central question is how the integration of the individual allows for a complementary political reading of economic processes, here as far as mortgages are concerned. The exact definitions of the mortgagee as well as of his/her embeddedness into the mortgage market are analysed (Jackson and Deeg 2008a, 683), also in relation to the findings of the previous chapter. As stated, I expect the sets of naïve theories to be consistent over these two areas of study. In general terms, the depicted ideal-typical British mortgagee is confident with the rightfulness of markets and hence engages in extensive mortgage activity, preferring flexible interest products as they allow him/her to play with the volatility of markets.
The two subsequent chapters conduct the same method for the German case. Whereas chapter seven looks into the facilitated meanings of the home buyer, chapter eight explores depictions of the financial processes surrounding the act of acquiring an owned home by falling back on external resources, hence mortgages. Apart from these chapters being empirical studies in their own right, their comparative dimension allows for other political features to be highlighted. Indeed, not only are political tensions pointed at, but so are also the differences between the German and British cases. As the novel dimension of the political lies in the closure of options of socio-
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economic types of organisations, these chapters show how the same economic processes can be framed and understood in diverse ways. They display how the definitions of the economic agent and of the market, but also that of the state itself as an economic actor, vary between the cases. This variety is then interpreted in political terms. Indeed, the German home owner is characterised not merely in financial terms but also in social ones, more specifically in his/her quality as a parent. It is essential that savings were being accumulated first and that the particular home that was acquired was being used for a long time, hence hindering spatial mobility and financial upgrading in the housing sector. At the same time, the quality of the home owners was linked to macro-economic issues, not to the home ownership market per se.
The conclusion comes back to the theoretical argument and sums up the main empirical findings. It also engages in some reflections about future research themes following from the thesis.
In the annexes I replicate the dual empirical focus on housing and mortgage markets for the Luxembourgish case. The reasons for this additional work are practical and academic. First, as I am funded by the „Fond National de la Recherche Luxembourg‟, the thesis requires the inclusion of an analysis of concerns directly relevant for Luxembourgish context. Again, I would like to express my gratitude for the financial support and the opportunity to be proceeding with my studies in a way that gave me the time to engage with themes that I am highly interested in. Second, as Luxembourg is yet another case of capitalist economy, these chapters are again demonstrations of
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the framework set forth and empirical contributions on their own right. The chapter in Annex I thus deals with the facilitation of naïve theories in the Luxemburgish home ownership market, whereas the chapter in annex II does so for the mortgage market.
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