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oapen-20.500.12657-902082024-05-15T02:22:40Z Germany, France and Postwar Democratic Capitalism Godard, François Marshall Plan;Fifth Republic;Postwar Democracy;Cold War;Willi Brandt;Charles de Gaulle;End of Colonialism thema EDItEUR::Q Philosophy and Religion::QD Philosophy::QDT Topics in philosophy::QDTS Social and political philosophy thema EDItEUR::N History and Archaeology::NH History::NHD European history thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JP Politics and government::JPH Political structure and processes::JPHV Political structures: democracy thema EDItEUR::K Economics, Finance, Business and Management::KC Economics::KCZ Economic history thema EDItEUR::N History and Archaeology This book concentrates on the political economies of Germany and France in the period spanning between the end of the Second World War and the 1970s, with a subsequent consideration of Italy and Britain as ‘shadow cases’. European postwar accounts have never reconciled the thwarting of widespread aspirations to socialism, and the twin feat of equalitarian growth and institutional stability. This success is precisely due to achieving the reconciliation of democracy and economic management, the yearning for collective control over social and material outcomes that was tragically aborted in the interwar period, and fed 1945 expectations. Germany, in 1948–49, and France, in 1958, carried radical institutional and policy reforms with much more in common than previously realised. Under the recast republics, social groups were steered towards support for modernisation – by the state, not through a mythical settlement. Consensus was built for trade and low inflation as vectors for higher productivity. State capacity was lifted by leadership in ideas, executive branch accountability to voters, and technocratic agencies. British and Italian underperformances reveal the countries’ uneasiness with the compact. Once understood, the convergence of productivism and democracy in the European regulatory state provides a new narrative – especially relevant today – of experts taming populists. 2024-05-14T13:07:31Z 2024-05-14T13:07:31Z 2024 book 9781040090305 9781032103266 9781003214809 https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/90208 eng Routledge Studies in Modern European History application/pdf Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International 9781040090299.pdf Taylor & Francis Routledge 10.4324/9781003214809 10.4324/9781003214809 7b3c7b10-5b1e-40b3-860e-c6dd5197f0bb 9781040090305 9781032103266 9781003214809 Routledge 287 open access
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This book concentrates on the political economies of Germany and France in the period spanning between the end of the Second World War and the 1970s, with a subsequent consideration of Italy and Britain as ‘shadow cases’.
European postwar accounts have never reconciled the thwarting of widespread aspirations to socialism, and the twin feat of equalitarian growth and institutional stability. This success is precisely due to achieving the reconciliation of democracy and economic management, the yearning for collective control over social and material outcomes that was tragically aborted in the interwar period, and fed 1945 expectations. Germany, in 1948–49, and France, in 1958, carried radical institutional and policy reforms with much more in common than previously realised. Under the recast republics, social groups were steered towards support for modernisation – by the state, not through a mythical settlement. Consensus was built for trade and low inflation as vectors for higher productivity. State capacity was lifted by leadership in ideas, executive branch accountability to voters, and technocratic agencies. British and Italian underperformances reveal the countries’ uneasiness with the compact.
Once understood, the convergence of productivism and democracy in the European regulatory state provides a new narrative – especially relevant today – of experts taming populists.
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