Politics in the Age of Austerity
1. Edition March 2013
240 Pages, Hardcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd
In a world of increasing austerity measures, democratic politics comes under pressure. With the need to consolidate budgets and to accommodate financial markets, the responsiveness of governments to voters declines. However, democracy depends on choice. Citizens must be able to influence the course of government through elections and if a change in government cannot translate into different policies, democracy is incapacitated.
Many mature democracies are approaching this situation as they confront fiscal crisis. For almost three decades, OECD countries have - in fits and starts - run deficits and accumulated debt. As a result, an ever smaller part of government revenue is available today for discretionary spending and social investment and whichever party comes into office will find its hands tied by past decisions. The current financial and fiscal crisis has exacerbated the long-term shrinking government discretion; projects for political change have lost credibility. Many citizens are aware of this situation: they turn away from party politics and stay at home on Election Day.
With contributions from leading scholars in the forefront of sociology, politics and economics, this timely book will be of great interest to students and scholars throughout the social sciences as well as general readers.
1 Introduction: Politics in the Age of Austerity 1
Armin Schäfer and Wolfgang Streeck
2 Public Finance and the Decline of State Capacity in Democratic
Capitalism 26
Wolfgang Streeck and Daniel Mertens
3 Tax Competition and Fiscal Democracy 59
Philipp Genschel and Peter Schwarz
4 Governing as an Engineering Problem: The Political Economy of
Swedish Success 84
Sven Steinmo
5 Monetary Union, Fiscal Crisis and the Disabling of Democratic
Accountability 108
Fritz W. Scharpf
6 Smaghi versus the Parties: Representative Government and
Institutional Constraints 143
Peter Mair
7 Liberalization, Inequality and Democracy's Discontent
169
Armin Schäfer
8 Participatory Inequality in the Austerity State: A Supply-Side
Approach 196
Claus Offe
9 From Markets versus States to Corporations versus Civil
Society? 219
Colin Crouch
10 The Normalization of the Right in Post-Security Europe
239
Mabel Berezin
11 The Crisis in Context: Democratic Capitalism and its
Contradictions 262
Wolfgang Streeck
Notes 287
Index 303
years to come."
European Voice
"Nothing less than a novel, comprehensive and syncretic analysis of
what has changed in the relationship between capitalism and
democracy over the past thirty years - and into the future."
Philippe C. Schmitter, European University Institute
"Insightful and engaging, the essays in this volume cover a
remarkably wide range of topics related to the fundamental question
of our time: what happens to democracy when governments have so
little fiscal room to manoeuvre? A great read that will inspire new
thinking and research."
Jonus Pontusson, University of Geneva
"Politics in the Age of Austerity is a hugely important
contribution to the contemporary literature on the political
economy of the advanced capitalist countries. Featuring a series of
penetrating essays by some of the field's foremost theorists,
the book offers a powerful - and sobering - picture of
the dilemmas and constraints that governments face as they seek to
reconcile the increasingly conflicting demands of two
constituencies - voters and 'the markets'. As such, it sheds
new light on the enduring question of the evolving relationship
between democracy and capitalism."
Kathleen Thelen, MIT
the Study of Societies in Cologne, Germany.
Wolfgang Streeck is Managing Director at the Max Planck Institute
for the Study of Societies in Cologne, Germany.
