Policies and Institutions: Germany, Europe, and Transatlantic Relations
Since unification German society and institutions have been challenged by various transformations and the need to adjust to changing conditions. While much has been accomplished, many political, legal, and institutional problems remain. This volume deals with selected aspects of domestic and European policy, political parties, the challenge of direct democracy, and federalism in unified Germany – all issues that have been the subject of much discussion, political posturing, legislation, and, to some extent, constitutional amendments and court decision for many years, if not decades. In conclusion, a British scholar looks at German federalism and a number of public policy issues from a comparative perspective and arrives at some surprising and encouraging results.
Germany's institutional anatomy, its norms, and the spirits that animate it can only be properly understood if one takes into account such factors as its economic power and central position within Europe. This volume traces the difficult passage of German society to modernity, offering new perspectives on the "German question," largely characterized by the absence of key ideological underpinnings of democracy in the early modern period and a constitutional exceptionalism on the eve of the 20th century. The essays describe the organizational infrastructure and behavioral norms that account for the success of Germany's postwar economy and polity, but also register the tensions between the increasingly individualist outlook of post-1968 Germans and the country's highly organized and ritualistic decision-making structures, which often severely test the democratic foundations of the republic.
However, Germany is not unique in its efforts to find a balance between traditional and modern forces that have shaped its history. This volume demonstrates that Germany's experience, past and present, teaches broader lessons that speak to the central concerns of our time: what are the historical precursors of and vital attitudes towards democracy? How much structural variation will be feasible in political economies embedded in Europe after the introduction of the Euro and in the context of economic and other globalization? The considerable insights into these questions provided by this volume celebrate the inspiration given to colleagues and students who have worked with Andrei S. Markovits, to whom it is dedicated.
In recent years the German economy has grown sluggishly and created few new jobs. These developments have led observers to question the future viability of a model that in the past seemed able to combine economic growth, competitiveness in export markets, and low social inequality. This volume brings together empirical and comparative research from across the social sciences to examine whether or not Germany's system of skill provision is still capable of meeting the economic and social challenges now facing all the advanced capitalist economies. At issue is the question of whether or not the celebrated German training system, an essential element of the high-skill, high-wage equilibrium, can continue to provide the skills necessary for German companies to hold their economic niche in a world characterized by increasing trade and financial interdependence. Combining an examination of the competitiveness of the German training system with an analysis of the robustness of the political institutions that support it, this volume seeks to understand the extent to which the German system for imparting craft skills can adjust to changes in the organization of production in the advanced industrial states.
Using German political parties as a prism with which to view institutional change, this collection transcends a single country focus and places the German experience in a comparative and historical framework. Evaluation the performance of the German parties and party system in dealing with problems of integration and legitimation common to all industrialized democracies, it presents a sharp analysis of the effects and incompleteness of German unification.
