European varieties of capitalism and the international

This article develops a framework for analysing the distinctive national trajectories of European varieties of capitalism under the conditioning of 'the international'. It does so through a critical engagement with two prominent historical materialist literatures - transnational historical materialism and uneven and combined development. I argue that, in contrast to these contributions, a nationally-oriented perspective utilizing Antonio Gramsci's writings on 'common sense' has greater potential for narrowing the optic from broader concerns to fine-grained analysis. In particular, I focus on how articulations between the national and the international are constitutive of how humans make sense of the material basis for their existence.The Dutch variety of capitalism is then examined in order to demonstrate the advantages of utilizing this 'common sense' framework for political economy analysis. © The Author(s) 2010.