1st Edition
Germany, France and Postwar Democratic Capitalism Expert Rule
Introduction: mythical postwar settlement, actual state-led reform
1. The sustained postwar ‘miracle’
2. Germany reinvents itself: the 1948-49 social market big bang
3. Germany’s new social market governance and its test
4. Framing a new exoskeleton for German civil society
5. France’s unsustainable Fourth Republic
6. The 1958 French reset of institutions and economy
7. The productivist Fifth Republic
8. Britain and Italy, maladjusted to expert-led productivism
9. The European regulatory state between democracy and expertise
Biography
François Godard was awarded a political science PhD at the University of Geneva for a thesis on postwar institutional and policy reforms in Europe. He published articles on ideational models, and on social democracy as seen by Marcel Gauchet and Fredrich Hayek.
"In a striking work of revisionist political economy, François Godard draws our attention to the important roles that states played in the process of post-war modernization, especially in France and Germany. By showing how experts working for these states led social actors to new understandings of their interests, he challenges many conventional understandings of the postwar class compromise. Anyone interested in understanding how political economies are constructed will find food for thought in this important work."
Peter A. Hall, Harvard University, USA
"Based on careful historical research, this book argues persuasively that state leadership played a key role in the postwar economic modernization of Germany as well as France. Emphasizing the ideational dimension of state leadership, Godard recasts the meaning of “state capacity” and invites us to rethink the way that state actors relate to interest groups. His argumentation has important implications for understanding the politics of economic management not only in the immediate postwar period, but in the contemporary era as well."
Jonas Pontusson, Université de Genève, Switzerland
