Wolfgang Streeck is a leading figure in 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 from a leading thinker and researcher in comparative political
economy and key reading across the social sciences for academics, researchers, and
advanced students of Political Economy, Sociology, comparative business systems.
Table of contents
Introduction: Institutional Change, Capitalist Development
Part I: Gradual Change: Five Sectoral Trajectories
1: Five Sectors
2: Industry-wide Collective Bargaining: Shrinking Core, Expanding Fringes
3: Intermediary Organization: Declining Membership, Rising Tensions
4: Social Policy: The Rise and Fall of Welfare Corporatism
5: Public Finance: The Fiscal Crisis of the Postwar State
6: Corporate Governance: The Decline of Germany Inc.
Part II: Systemic Change: Patterns and Causes
7: Systemic Change: Five Parallel Trajectories
8: From System to Process
9: Endogenous Change: Time, Age, and the Self-Undermining of Institutions
10: Time's Up: Positive Externalities Turning Negative
Part III: Disorganization: Bringing Capitalism Back in
11: Disorganization as Liberalization
12: Convergence, Non-convergence, Divergence
13: 'Economizing' and the Evolution of Political-Economic Institutions
14: Internationalization
15: German Unification
16: History
17: Bringing Capitalism Back In
320 pages , Paperback
