Re-Forming Capitalism: Institutional Change in the German Political Economy

by Wolfgang Streeck

Overview

Wolfgang Streeck has written extensively on comparative political economy and institutional theory. In this book he addresses some of the key issues in this field: the role of history in institutional analysis, the dynamics of slow institutional change, the limitations of rational design and economic-functionalist explanations of institutional stability, and the recurrent difficulties of restraining the effects of capitalism on social order. In the classification of the 'Varieties of Capitalism' school, Germany has always been taken as the chief exemplar of a 'European', coordinated market economy. Streeck explores to what extent Germany actually conforms to this description. His argument is supported by original empirical research on wage-setting and wage structure, the organization of business and labor in business associations and trade unions, social policy, public finance, and corporate governance. From this evidence, Bringing Capitalism Back In traces the current liberalization of the postwar economy of democratic capitalism by means of an historically-grounded approach to institutional change. This is an important book in comparative political economy and key reading across the social sciences for academics, researchers, and advanced students of Political Economy, Sociology, comparative business systems.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780191614453
Publisher:	OUP Oxford
Publication date:	03/04/2010
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Wolfgang Streeck is Director at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne, Germany. From 1988 to 1995 he was Professor of Sociology and Industrial Relations at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 1998/99 he was President of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics. He has held visiting positions at the European University Institute in Florence, at the University of Warwick, the Instituto Juan March in Madrid, and the Sciences Po in Paris; he was a Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin and the Russell Sage Foundation in New York; and he is a member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and the Academia Europea.

Table of Contents

List of Figures xi

List of Tables xiii

Introduction: Institutional Change, Capitalist Development 1

Part I Gradual Change: Five Sectoral Trajectories

1 Five Sectors 33

2 Industry-wide Collective Bargaining: Shrinking Core, Expanding Fringes 38

3 Intermediary Organization: Declining Membership, Rising Tensions 46

4 Social Policy: The Rise and Fall of Welfare Corporatism 56

5 Public Finance: The Fiscal Crisis of the Postwar State 68

6 Corporate Governance: The Decline of Germany Inc. 77

Part II Systemic Change: Patterns and Causes

7 Systemic Change: Five Parallel Trajectories 93

8 From System to Process 106

9 Endogenous Change: Time, Age, and the Self-Undermining of Institutions 121

10 Time's Up: Positive Externalities Turning Negative 136

Part III Liberalization: Re-Forming Capitalism

11 Disorganization as Liberalization 149

12 Convergence, Nonconvergence, Divergence 161

13 "Economizing" and the Evolution of Political-Economic Institutions 172

14 Internationalization 187

15 German Unification 207

16 History 219

17 Bringing Capitalism Back In 230

Bibliography 273

Index 291

Editorial Reviews

"Re-Forming Capitalism is to my mind one of the best books on modern capitalism that has been written during the last few decades. In its theoretical part it takes on the hard task of trying to make sense of modern capitalism from a fundamentally novel perspective. The book is also very pleasurable to read. The chapters are short, and the author elegantly introduces the reader to his case study, and then theorizes it, drawing out its general implications for the analysis of modern capitalism." —Contemporary Sociology

From the Publisher