Shocks to the System: the German Political Economy Under Stress

1997 ◽  
Vol 159 ◽  
pp. 57-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wendy Carlin ◽  
David Soskice
Keyword(s):  
Export Performance ◽  
German Economy ◽  
Innovation System ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Incremental Innovation ◽  
The West ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Labour Costs ◽  
German Model ◽  
Innovation Strategies

The German economy is recovering hesitantly from the sharp post-unification boom and recession. Two features of recent West German performance are novel: there has been an unprecedented loss of jobs in industry, and manufacturing profitability has been pushed to its lowest level ever and is now low relative to other OECD economies. Serious problems with labour costs and innovation would be expected to show up in a weakening in the trend of export performance. That this has not yet happened is the consequence of the existence of an apparently robust innovation system which enables companies to pursue high quality incremental innovation strategies. However, the experiment of transferring the West German model to the East has proved extremely costly and has not so far established the basis for self-sustaining growth. Problems in profitability, investment and employment in West Germany reflect the failure of the bargaining system—unions, employers, Bundesbank and public sector—to negotiate the sharing of the burden of unification.

Necessary Illusions: the Transformation of Governance Structures in the New Germany

1992 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 179-199
Author(s):  
Wolfgang Seibel
Keyword(s):  
Structural Change ◽  
Political System ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Governance Structures ◽  
Extended Version ◽  
The West ◽  
Preliminary Account ◽  
German Model

Unified Germany is not simply an extended version of West Germany before 9 November 1989. but a new Germany. The forces dial have made this entity different from the West German model are revealing themselves in the structure of governance that is emerging. In this paper I attempt a preliminary account of this evolving structure of governance. address three questions: First, how the process of unification is being managed politically. Second, what crucial problems and dilemmas arc likely to emerge and how will the German political system deal with these issues. Third, how will the process of unification affect general structural change in Gentian polity.

scholarly journals Regionalne strategie innowacji jako czynnik aktywizacji polskiej przestrzeni przemysłowej

2006 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 20-27
Author(s):  
Andrzej Wieloński ◽  
Katarzyna Szmigiel
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
Innovation System ◽  
Regional Innovation System ◽  
Regional Innovation Systems ◽  
European Regions ◽  
Regional Innovation ◽  
The West ◽  
The Third ◽  
New Instrument ◽  
Innovation Strategies

The main goal of the article is to present the regional innovation strategies in the context of the industrial changes in Poland. The analysis has three parts. The first part introduces the general aims of RIS and their history in Europe, the second concerns the RIS in Poland and one of the Polish RIS in particular – RIS Silesia, and the third part describes the effects of Regional Innovations Strategies.RIS are the instruments of regional governments to build the regional innovation systems. A regional innovation system is the environment improving the entrepreneurship and innovation. RIS have been known in Europe since the 1980s but in Poland they are a new instrument implemented by the relatively new structures of regional government.The process of creation and implementation of these documents should be observed by the academics from the beginning, as it may turn out to be one of the most important instruments of the economic policy of the Polish regions. This is because of the financial capacity of the Polish regions and their willingness to follow the West European regions’ example.

Backdating German neoliberalism: Ordoliberalism, the German model and economic experiments in eastern Germany after 1989

2018 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Gook
Keyword(s):  
Economic History ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
German Economy ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Economic Experiments ◽  
Eastern Germany ◽  
German Model ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
The Eu

Since the 2007–8 financial crisis and subsequent difficulties in the eurozone, Germany’s recent economic history has been much studied. However, less attention has been paid to neoliberalisation in eastern Germany in the early 1990s, when the region became a laboratory for political economic experiments. The results were later spread across the (western) German economy, then into the European Union’s (EU’s) ideological core. As such, a focus on the western ‘German model’ and the EU can miss the way neoliberalism crept into German social and economic life through German re-unification in the 1990s. Re-unification provided conditions in the former East for a ‘natural experiment’ with different modes of economic and social governance – a space of exception from the West German model, whose corporatist features were already fraying in the 1980s. In short, re-unification was a turning point in a drift towards neoliberalism, intensifying moves already quietly under way in West Germany in the 1980s. The contentious nature of this shift has largely been forgotten and sidelined.

Cultural Transmission Versus Perceptions of the Economy

1996 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROBERT ROHRSCHNEIDER
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
German Economy ◽  
West Germany ◽  
West German Economy ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
The West ◽  
Economic Values ◽  
East And West Germany ◽  
Economic Culture ◽  
Social Market

The formal division of Germany in 1949 and the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 demarcate a monumental quasi-experiment. Whereas the political culture aspects of this experiment have been studied extensively, the implications of these events for the economic culture in West and East Germany have received less attention. This article attempts to fill this gap in scholarship by examining the basic economic values of parliamentarians in East and West Germany. To this end, I interviewed 168 parliamentarians from the united Parliament in Berlin (79 from the East, 89 from the West). The study finds that the socialist order successfully imbued East MPs with socialist economic values—especially among the postwar cohort—independent of MPs' evaluation of contemporary economic conditions. In contrast, West MPs' economic values reflect the social market system of the West German economy. These results suggest that basic institutional arrangements, once put into place, have a substantial influence on individuals' ideological predispositions.

From Economic Miracle to Standort Deutschland: Exchanging Economic Metaphors in the Federal Republic of Germany

2000 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 30-65
Author(s):  
Ben Lieberman
Keyword(s):  
Federal Republic ◽  
German Economy ◽  
Economic Recovery ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
Economic Miracle ◽  
Economic Achievement ◽  
The World ◽  
German Model ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1950S

The history of the Federal Republic of Germany is closely connected with economic achievement. Enjoying a striking economic recovery in the 1950s, the FRG became the home of the “economic miracle.” Maturing into one of the most powerful economies in the world, it became known as the “German model” by the 1970s. Now, however, the chief metaphor for the German economy is “Standort Deutschland,” and therein lies the tale of the new German problem.

Principled Pragmatism: The Eastern Committee of German Economy and West German–Chinese relations during the early Cold War, 1949–1958

2016 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
GIOVANNI BERNARDINI
Keyword(s):  
Federal Republic ◽  
German Economy ◽  
The United States ◽  
People’S Republic Of China ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
People's Republic Of China ◽  
The West ◽  
German Government ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Trade Relations

AbstractThis article focuses on the interplay between the political authorities and economic actors in the Federal Republic of Germany in the process of establishing relations with the People's Republic of China after 1949. Within this framework, the article will assess the role played by the Ost-Ausschuss der Deutschen Wirtschaft (Eastern Committee of German Economy), a semi-official organization recognized by the West German government. Both the ability of German economic actors and China's urgent need for economic contact with the West caused German-Chinese trade relations to circumvent the strict non-recognition policy followed by the West German government. The article also argues that, while economic relations heralded official recognition of the People's Republic of China by other Western European countries, in the case of the Federal Republic of Germany a division between the two spheres was finally accepted by the major actors involved, and ended only after the change of attitude imparted by the Nixon presidency in the United States during the early 1970s.

Understanding the Islamic State—A Review Essay

2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 127-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Byman
Keyword(s):  
Review Essay ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
The West ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Terrorist Threat ◽  
Security Forces ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Raison D’État ◽  
Foreign Fighters

This article reviews several recent books on the Islamic State in order to understand its goals, motivations, strategy, and vulnerabilities. It argues that the Islamic State's ideology is powerful but also highly instrumental, offering the group legitimacy and recruiting appeal. Raison d'etat often dominates its decisionmaking. The Islamic State's strength is largely a consequence of the policies and weaknesses of its state adversaries. In addition, the group has many weaknesses of its own, notably its brutality, reliance on foreign fighters, and investment in a state as well as its tendency to seek out new enemies. The threat the Islamic State poses is most severe at the local and regional levels. The danger of terrorism to the West is real but mitigated by the Islamic State's continued prioritization of the Muslim world and the heightened focus of Western security forces on the terrorist threat. A high-quality military force could easily defeat Islamic State fighters, but there is no desire to deploy large numbers of Western ground troops, and local forces have repeatedly shown many weaknesses. In the end, containing the Islamic State and making modest rollback efforts may be the best local outcomes.

scholarly journals The Role of the Knowledge- Producing Sector in the Innovation Economy

2012 ◽  
pp. 184-189
Author(s):  
T. A. Drobyshevskya
Keyword(s):  
Innovation System ◽  
State Model ◽  
Quality Of Education ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Social State ◽  
Diffusion Of Knowledge ◽  
The Social ◽  
Innovation Economy

The article is dedicated to the role of the knowledge-producing sector for the development of innovation economy in Finland. History and structure of the Finnish innovation system, as well as main characters of knowledge-producing sector as a part of the system are in the center of investigation. The author comes to the conclusion that it was the social state model in Finland that made it possible to create the knowledge-producing sector able either to keep a high quality of education of all levels or to maintain a culture of networking diffusion of knowledge and innovation.

scholarly journals Abstieg West durch Aufbau Ost?

2004 ◽  
Vol 34 (135) ◽  
pp. 321-329
Author(s):  
Ulrich Busch
Keyword(s):  
Federal Government ◽  
East Germany ◽  
Living Conditions ◽  
West Germany ◽  
German Unification ◽  
The West ◽  
Economic Stagnation ◽  
The Eu

14 years after the German unification East Germany is one of the largest European problem areas. Loss of population, economic stagnation and the dependence on transfers from the West determine the situation. With the expansion of the EU, East Germany can become the German mezzogiorno. In this situation a group of experts demands radical measures form the federal government. But these measures will worsen the living conditions in East Germany, which are already very different to those in West Germany.

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