This book presents a state-of-the art collection of original contributions on democracy, addressing three related themes: the complexity of modern democracies and their structural diversity; coping strategies of democracies in times of crises; and current and potential trajectories and transformations of democracy. The first part of the book maps the democratic landscape by revealing the diversity of democratic political systems, through either comparative analysis or case studies on the s...

In How Will Capitalism End?, the acclaimed analyst of contempo�rary politics and economics Wolfgang Streeck argues that the world is on the cusp of enormous change. The marriage between democracy and capitalism, ill-suited partners brought together in the shadow of the Second World War, is unravelling. The regulatory institutions that once restrained the financial sector's excesses have collapsed, and there is no political agency capable of rolling back the liberalization of the m...

George Louis Beer Prize WinnerWallace K. Ferguson Prize FinalistA Marginal Revolution Book of the Year“A groundbreaking contribution…Intellectual history at its best.”—Stephen Wertheim, Foreign AffairsNeoliberals hate the state. Or do they? In the first intellectual history of neoliberal globalism, Quinn Slobodian follows a group of thinkers from the ashes of the Habsburg Empire to the creation of the ...

The age of party democracy has passed, argues Peter Mair in Ruling the Void. The major parties have become so disconnected from society that they no longer seem capable of sustaining democracy in its present form.First published in 2013, Ruling the Void presciently observed that the widening gap between citizens and their political leaders posed a crisis of legitimacy for the governing class, and was fuelling populist mobilizations against it. Europe's political e...

Few discussions in modern social science have occupied as much attention as the changing nature of welfare states in western societies. Gosta Esping-Andersen, one of the most distinguished contributors to current debates on this issue, here provides a new analysis of the character and role of welfare states in the functioning of contemporary advanced western societies.Esping-Andersen distinguishes several major types of welfare state, connecting these with variations in the histori...

The financial and economic crisis that began in 2008 still has the world on tenterhooks. The gravity of the situation is matched by a general paucity of understanding about what is happening and how it started.In this book, based on his 2012 Adorno Lectures given in Frankfurt, Wolfgang Streeck places the crisis in the context of the long neoliberal transformation of postwar capitalism that began in the 1970s. He analyses the subsequent tensions and conflicts involving states, gover...

The euro crisis is tearing Europe apart. But the heart of the matter is that, as the crisis unfolds, the basic rules of European democracy are being subverted or turned into their opposite, bypassing parliaments, governments and EU institutions. Multilateralism is turning into unilateralism, equality into hegemony, sovereignty into the dependency and recognition into disrespect for the dignity of other nations. Even France, which long dominated European integration, must submit to Berlin’s...

The fall of the Berlin Wall and the unification of East and West Germany in 1989/90 were events of world-historical significance. The twentieth anniversary of this juncture represents an excellent opportunity to reflect upon the evolution of the new Berlin Republic. Given the on-going significance of the country for theory and concept–building in many disciplines, an in-depth examination of the case is essential. In this volume, unique in its focus on all aspects of contemporary Germany - ...

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, ...

Will immigration undermine the welfare state? Trust beyond Borders draws on public opinion data and case studies of Germany, Sweden, and the United States to document the influence of immigration and diversity on trust, reciprocity, and public support for welfare programs. Markus M. L. Crepaz demonstrates that we are, at least in some cases, capable of trusting beyond borders: of expressing faith in our fellow humans and extending help without regard for political classifications.I...

Until recently, dominant theoretical paradigms in the comparative social sciences did not highlight states as organizational structures or as potentially autonomous actors. Indeed, the term 'state' was rarely used. Current work, however, increasingly views the state as an agent which, although influenced by the society that surrounds it, also shapes social and political processes. The contributors to this volume, which includes some of the best recent interdisciplinary scholarship on state...

In A Community of Europeans? a thoughtful observer of the ongoing project of European integration evaluates the state of the art about European identity and European public spheres. Thomas Risse argues that integration has had profound and long-term effects on the citizens of EU countries, most of whom now have at least a secondary "European identity" to complement their national identities. Risse also claims that we can see the gradual emergence of transnational European ...