Post-Fordist Capitalism in the Czech Republic: The Investment of Flextronics in Brno
Post-Fordist Capitalism in the Czech Republic: The Investment of Flextronics in Brno

Summary/Abstract: Drawing on the author’s case study of one ‘unsuccessful’ attempt of the Czech Republic and Brno to lure foreign capital to the city of Brno, this article attempts to provide incentives for rethinking the theories of post-Fordism in order to theorise about the particular, local articulation of capitalism(s) in East Central Europe. The author presents selected findings from the case study with the intention of introducing and demonstrating the utility of the form-analytic, strategic-relational approach and some of the post-Fordist theories in analysing capitalism and socio-economic governance in the Czech Republic. He draws on the case of the subsidised investment in the Brno region by the transnational corporation Flextronics in 2000–2003. The company left the locality after approximately two years, an unprecedented occurrence in the Czech Republic, which resulted in some political upheaval. The author focuses on the interaction between the investor and the state and other bodies of socio-economic governance and argues that the story of Flextronics is indicative of some of the post-Fordist transformations in capitalism and capitalist governance. Further, the author also draws some conclusions with regard to the relations between company, state, and municipality in the post-Fordist environment in the Czech Republic.

• Details
• Contents