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The Politics of Economic Reform in Germany

Global, Rhineland or Hybrid Capitalism

Edited by Kenneth Dyson, Stephen Padgett

Published October 13th 2009 by Routledge – 168 pages

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Description

This new volume situates current debates about economic reform in Germany in illuminating historical and structural contexts.

Showing how economic reform has become the central issue on the German political agenda, raising contentious issues of policy management and posing deeper questions about political beliefs and identities. It also examines the politics of the reform process, outlining competing views about the root causes of Germany’s economic problems, the appropriate policy responses, and the distribution of costs. It situates the reform process in the wider context of the decline of the German economic model (Modell Deutschland) and Germany’s transition from European ‘pace-setter’ to economic ‘laggard’.

Particular attention is paid to the following key questions:

  • What continuities and discontinuities can be seen in Germany's political economy?

  • Are globalization and Europeanization associated with a progressive neo-liberal ascendancy in economic reform?

  • How does economic reform in Germany compare with that in other states, notably Britain and France?

  • Are there distinctive patterns in the way domestic policymakers negotiate economic reform?

  • How do the characteristics of the German labour market and welfare state condition economic reform?

  • How much variation exists at the Laender levels?

This book was previously published as a special issue of German Politics.

Contents

Introduction: Global, Rhineland or Hybrid Capitalism? Kenneth Dyson and Stephen Padgett. 1. Globalisation and National Varieties of Capitalism: The Contested Viability of the ‘German Model’ Andreas Busch.2. The Finance Sector in Transition: A Motorfor Economic Reform? Susanne Lu¨ tz. 3. Reform in the Shadow of Community Law: Highly Regulated Economic Sectors Susanne K. Schmidt. 4. Economic Reform and the Political Economy of the German Welfare State Wolfgang Streeck and Christine Trampusch. 5. Old Bottles – New Wine: The New Dynamics of Industrial Relations Georg Menz. 6. Economic Reform at the La¨nder Level: New Life for Regional Interventionism Roland Sturm. 7. Binding Hands as a Strategy for Economic Reform: Government by Commission Kenneth Dyson. 8. The Party Politics of Economic Reform: Public Opinion, Party Positions and Partisan Cleavages Stephen Padgett.

Author Bio

Kenneth Dyson is professor in the School of European Studies, Cardiff University. He is a fellow of the British Academy and an Acadenician of the Learned Society of the Social Sciences. In 1996 and 2001 he chaired the Higher Education Funding Council research funding panel for European Studies. His most recent books include (with Kevin Featherstone) The Road to Maastricht; Negotiating Economic and Monetary Union, (Oxford University Press 1999), chosen as an academic book of the year by the American library journal Choice; The Politics of the Euro-Zone; Stability or Breakdown (Oxford University Press, 2000): European States and the Euro: Europeanization, Variation and Convergence (Oxford University Press, 2002; and (edited with Klaus Goetz) Germany, Europe and the Politics of Constraint, (British Academy / Oxford University Press, 2003).

Stephen Padgett is Professor of Politics at the University of Strathclyde.He has written widely on European politics and policy including the politics of electricity in Europe. His recent publications include Organizing Democracy: Interest Groups in Post-Communist Society (Cambridge University Press 2000) as well as the co-edited volume Developments in German Politics 3 (Palgrave 2003). Recent articles have appeared in Parliamentary Affairs, German Politics, the Journal of European Public Policy and (forthcoming) the British Journal of Political Science. He is a co-editor of German Politics.