Economic Efficiency-democratic Empowerment: Contested Modernization in Britain and GermanyIngolfur Blühdorn, Uwe Jun Germany and Britain are two major European economies that have been trying to confront the challenges of globalisation in very different ways. Britain has favoured market liberal strategies; Germany has endeavoured to retain its tradition of consensualism and the strong welfare state. Focusing on the period since 1997/8, this book explores the controversies and struggles surrounding the agendas of social, economic, and political modernisation in the two countries. The New Labour governments in Britain and the Social Democratic coalition governments in Germany have been introducing a range of reform policies designed to reform the welfare state and increase the respective country's competitiveness in the global market. In both countries, however, these policies have triggered societal resistance. The governing parties had to confront electoral setbacks, an exodus of party members, strains on the relationship with traditional political allies, and an increasingly alienated public. Within this context, this book focuses on the tensions between two key parameters in contemporary modernisation discourses: economic efficiency and democratic renewal. Political elites in many European countries are presenting the achievement of efficiency gains as a primary objective of globalisation-induced societal reform. At the same time civic empowerment and the engagement of civil society are widely regarded as essential for increasing the quality, legitimacy, and effectiveness of public policy making. But can these two goals be achieved at the same time? What exactly does the highly contested term efficiency imply? What is its relationship towards the equally ambiguous goal of democratic renewal? Focusing on a variety of political actors, structures and strategies in Germany and Britain, the individual chapters in this book trace how the tensions between economic efficiency and democratic renewal surface, how definitional struggles surrounding these ideals are being managed, and how new syntheses between the two parameters are being forged. |
Contents
ReformGridlock and HyperInnovation Germany Britain and the Project of Societal Modernization | 1 |
Contexts and Concepts | 27 |
Radical ReformersDefiant Electorates? Reform Policy and International Competitiveness under Schröder and Blair | 29 |
Democracy Efficiency Futurity Contested Objectives of Societal Reform | 67 |
Structures and Strategies | 97 |
Democratic DeficitsDemocratic Renewal Political Detachment Constitutional Reform and the Politics of Reengagement in the UK | 99 |
Misguided Consensualism Prospects for Reform of the PartyDominated Federal System in Germany | 119 |
From Corporatist Consensualism to the Politics of Commissions German Welfare Reform and the Inefficiency of the Alliance for Jobs | 145 |
Efficiency in Political Communication and Public Management A Comparative Analysis of New Labour and the SPD | 189 |
Actors | 215 |
Efficiency versus Party Democracy? Political Parties and Societal Modernization in Germany | 217 |
245 | |
273 | |
295 | |
The Third Transformation of Democracy On the Efficient Management of LateModern Complexity | 297 |
331 | |
Efficiency versus Accountability? Modernizing Governance and Democratic Renewal in Britain 19972005 | 163 |
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Common terms and phrases
achieve Alliance for Jobs analysis autonomous Blair Blühdorn Britain British Bundesrat Bundestag central chapter citizens coalition communication strategy complexity concept consensus consensus democracy context corporatism debate decision-making decisions democracy and efficiency democratic renewal depoliticization Deutschland direct democracy economic efficiency elections electoral elites employment federal Gerhard Schröder German global goals ibid IG Metall implementation increase increasingly institutional interests issues Körösényi labor market Labour Party late-modern society leadership legitimacy London/New York majority ment modernization neoliberal Oxford/New York parliament parliamentary participation participatory revolution party competition party's pensions percent political actors political parties politicians post-democratic revolution Private Finance Initiative problems public sector radical reform agenda reform policies regarding representative democracy responsibility role Schröder simulation social democratic social movements structures tion tive Tony Blair trade unions trade-offs traditional transformation University Press ver.di Verlag vote voters wage welfare