The Politics Of Economic Reform In Germany

Author : Gabriel Goodliffe
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (137 download)

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Download or read book Back to the Future? Economic Reform and Political Radicalism in France and Germany in the New Century written by Gabriel Goodliffe and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As analogies between the current economic crisis and that of the 1930's abound, the specter of radical politics once again stalks Europe. This trend is presently evident in Europe's two largest social democracies. In France, a sizeable Far Right party rose to prominence during the 1980's and 1990's, while, in Germany, a new party of the Far Left party has recently emerged to national prominence. At the level of political supply, these parties are united in their repudiation of liberal capitalism. From the standpoint of political demand, these formations have attracted the support of economically and socially vulnerable groups - industrial workers and increasingly, certain service strata - who have broken with their traditional partisan and corporative attachments and sought out alternative bases of political identification. Contrary to standard analyses which attribute unemployment and declining living standards in France and Germany to their failure to effectively reform their economies, I argue that the deteriorating situation of these strata is attributable precisely to the courses of economic liberalization that was undergone by these countries and the ensuing dissolution of the Fordist social contract which had ensured their inclusion in the postwar capitalist order. Although their respective courses of liberalization differed in their particulars, each followed a similar two-tiered pattern of progression. In a first phase, both countries discarded the institutional framework underpinning their postwar economies - étatisme in France, regulated 'social' capitalism in Germany - through macro- and microeconomic reforms which advanced privatization, financial deregulation, and labor market flexibility. Correlatively, in order to attenuate the social pain caused by these reforms, the welfare state was dramatically expanded in both countries through increases in unemployment, welfare and retirement benefits. In turn, as the costs of the latter grew economically prohibitive, France and Germany embarked on a second phase of liberalization to retrench their welfare states. This significantly reduced the safety nets available to the groups worst affected by liberal restructuring of the economy, thus fueling their political radicalization. Finally, these successive phases of reform were legitimized and enforced by EU directives, explaining the deepening Euroskepticism of a growing fraction of French and German voters. This paper analyzes the modalities of this process of economic liberalization as it unfolded in France and Germany and explore its sociopolitical impacts. On the backdrop of the current crisis, it attempts to show how economic liberalization has fueled a resurgence of political radicalism which bodes ill for Europe.