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 ...

This new book presents a clear conceptual framework for understanding the transfer of policy ideas between EU states, together with an empirical study of regulatory change within European utilities.Policy transfer is a new instrument for understanding EU policy-making. This volume shows how the nature of institutions, interdependence between trans-national and national jurisdictions and social systems, relate policy actors across geographical boundaries, identifying four basic type...

One of the “Best Books of the Year”: Guardian • Financial Times • Times Higher EducationA major collection of essays that questions whether contemporary capitalism will end with a bang or a whimper—from a leading political economist and the author of Buying Time.After years of ill health, capitalism is now in a critical condition. Growth has given way to stagnation; inequality is leading to instability; and confidence in t...

By the early 1980s the average American had a lower standard of living than the average Norwegian or Dane. Standards of living in the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Switzerland, and Austria also rivaled those in the United States. How have seven small democracies achieved economic success and what can they teach America?In Small States in World Markets, Peter Katzenstein examines the successes of these economically vulnerable nations of Western Europe, showing that they hav...

In a world of increasing austerity measures, democratic politics comes under pressure. With the need to consolidate budgets and to accommodate financial markets, the responsiveness of governments to voters declines. However, democracy depends on choice. Citizens must be able to influence the course of government through elections and if a change in government cannot translate into different policies, democracy is incapacitated.Many mature democracies are approaching this situation ...

Why have some countries have been more successful in welfare state reform than others? This book examines the experiences of various countries in reforming their welfare states through renegotiations between the state and peak associations of employers and employees. This corporatist concertation has been blamed for bringing about all the ills of the welfare state, but lately corporate institutions have learned from their bad performances, modified their structures and style of operation, ...

In modern society, economic growth is considered to be the primary goal pursued through policymaking. But when and how did this perception become widely adopted among social scientists, politicians and the general public? Focusing on the OECD, one of the least understood international organisations, Schmelzer offers the first transnational study to chart the history of growth discourses. He reveals how the pursuit of GDP growth emerged as a societal goal and the ways in which the methods e...

The aftershocks of the economic crisis that began in 2008 still rock the world, and have been followed by a crisis in democratic governance. The gravity of the situation is matched by a general paucity of understanding as to precisely what is happening and how it started.In this new edition of a highly acclaimed book, Wolfgang Streeck revisits his recent arguments in the light of Brexit and the continued crisis of the EU. These developments are only the latest events in the long ne...

Why did the European Union experience a stark variation in the levels of conflict between the late 1970s, when budgetary disputes dominated European politics, and the 1990s, when political actors were able to settle upon budgetary agreements without major conflicts?This book responds to this key question with a two-step argument: Its first part shows that decision-making rules can be regarded as a key determinant of the level of conflict in EU budgetary politics. It details far-rea...

This book examines contemporary changes in labor market institutions in the United States, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands, focusing on developments in industrial relations, vocational education and training, and labor market policy. It finds that there are in fact distinct varieties of liberalization associated with very different distributive outcomes. Most scholarship equates liberal capitalism with inequality and coordinated capitalism with higher levels of social solidar...

This new and comprehensive volume covering the subfield of comparative political economy provides a detailed overview over its intellectual roots, clarifies its contents, and introduces the readers to key debates while identifying new and exciting avenues for future research. Ideas, interests, and institutions have traditionally been the main focus points of this field, but the volume argues that culture provides an additional and often neglected area, providing the 'glue' that keeps natio...

The Social Democratic party family is a central part of political life in the West. This book focuses on this party family as well as a unique political force in the industrialised world. It provides a critical comparative survey of when, where, how and why Social Democracy developed within established capitalist democracies.The book explains the electoral fortunes of Social Democratic parties, the influence of the party system dynamics and co-operation between parties in governmen...