Overview

This book concentrates on the political economies of Germany and France in the period spanning between the end of World War II 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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9781032103266

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Reviews

"""In a striking work of revisionist political economy, François Godard draws our attention to the important roles that states played in the process of post-war modernization, especially in France and Germany. By showing how experts working for these states led social actors to new understandings of their interests, he challenges many conventional understandings of the postwar class compromise. Anyone interested in understanding how political economies are constructed will find food for thought in this important work."" Peter A. Hall, Harvard University, USA ""Based on careful historical research, this book argues persuasively that state leadership played a key role in the postwar economic modernization of Germany as well as France. Emphasizing the ideational dimension of state leadership, Godard recasts the meaning of “state capacity” and invites us to rethink the way that state actors relate to interest groups. His argumentation has important implications for understanding the politics of economic management not only in the immediate postwar period, but in the contemporary era as well."" Jonas Pontusson, Université de Genève, Switzerland"

Author Information

François Godard was awarded a political science PhD at the Geneva University for a thesis on postwar institutional and policy reforms in Europe. He published articles on ideational models, and on social democracy as seen by Marcel Gauchet and Fredrich Hayek.

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