Politics in the Age of Austerity

"Poses (very well) the questions that will shape our world for many 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 fields 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

Armin Schfer is a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for 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.

Contributors vii 1 Introduction: Politics in the Age of Austerity 1 Armin Schfer 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 Democracys Discontent 169 Armin Schfer 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