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Abstract

From the 1960s to the 1980s, observers attributed to Germany the character of a political-economic "model" that was able to weather a multiplicity of economic challenges. The term "model Germany" indicated a political and economic compact permitting centripetal political competition in the electoral and legislative arenas, while co-ordinating public policy among political parties, large interest associations and private business firms such that changes would take place only in an incremental and positive sum fashion. Since the early 1990s and even more so in the new millennium, the "German model" has faced serious troubles. Authors in this book describe the physiognomy of the incremental disintegration the model has undergone over the past decade and probe into the causes of such developments. Articles in this volume examine Germany's national and Europe-wide integration as triggers of the model's unravelling. Such processes are paralleled by novel tendencies in public opinion, social life styles, and modes of political mobilization in parties, interest groups, and social movements. The strains of "model Germany" show up in particularly sharply contoured fashion in the transformation of industrial relations, corporate governance structures, social and immigration policies in Germany.