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Germany is a central case for research on comparative political economy, which has inspired theorizing on national differences and historical trajectories. This book assesses Germany’s political economy after the end of the "social democratic" 20th century to rethink its dominant properties and create new opportunities for using the country as a powerful lens into the evolution of democratic capitalism. Documenting large-scale changes and new tensions in the welfare state, company strategies, interest intermediation, and macroeconomic governance, the volume makes the case for analysing contemporary Germany through the politics of imbalance rather than the long-standing paradigm of institutional stability. This conceptual reorientation around inequalities and disparities provides much-needed traction for clarifying the causal dynamics that govern ongoing processes of institutional recomposition. Delving into the politics of imbalance, the volume explicates the systemic properties of capitalism, multivalent policy feedback, and the organizational foundations of creative adjustment as key vantage points for understanding new forms of distributional conflict within and beyond Germany. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of German Politics.

"Democracy theories and comparative political science have been challenged within the last decade by an unexpected democratic deficit and the rise of populism in the new EU-member states. This volume written by German and Czech scholars gives some food for thought for solving these research problems by means of thorough analyses of the polity, the politics and selected policies of the Czech Republic since 1990."Dieter Segert, retired Professor of Political Science (Area Studies on Eastern Europe), University of Vienna, Austria "Czech Democracy in Crisis is a long-overdue comprehensive study of the Czech political system. Using institutional approaches to change, it explores crucial policy outcomes. A perfect book for academics and practitioners who want to understand the challenges of democratic consolidation in a new democracy."Lenka Bustikova, Associate Professor of Political Science, Arizona State University, USA, and author of Extreme Reactions: Radical Right Mobilization in Eastern Europe The image of the Czechs as a poster child of democratization has changed into a crisis narrative in recent years. This edited volume traces this change and examines the suitability of different theories to explain developments in Czech democracy. The contributors, all renowned experts in their fields, offer well-founded and compact insights into the post-1989 Czech political system. They cover political institutions and parties; civil society; the media; and selected policy areas such as foreign, economic, migration and regional policy. The book takes into account processes of democratization and Europeanization, explaining the political picture at various stages of development. Finding that many of today’s problems—fragmented political parties, government instability, inefficient state administration and low quality of governance—have not been new developments but have constantly existed, the authors present a plea for theoretical adjustments that should be read by all academics, students, practitioners and readers with an interest in Czech politics and society.

No political parties of present-day Germany are separated by a wider gulf than the two parties of labor, one democratic and reformist, the other totalitarian and socialist-revolutionary. Social Democrats and Communists today face each other as bitter political enemies across the front lines of the Cold War; yet they share a common origin in the Social Democratic Party of Imperial Germany. How did they come to go separate ways? By what process did the old party break apart? How did the prewar party prepare the ground for the dissolution of the labor movement in World War I, and for the subsequent extension of Leninism into Germany? To answer these questions is the purpose of Carl Schorske's study.

In light of the public and scholarly debates on the challenges and problems of established democracies, such as a lack of participation, declining confidence in political elites, and the deteriorating capabilities of democratic institutions, this volume discusses the question whether democracy as such is in crisis. On the basis of the shared concept of embedded democracy, it develops a range of conceptual approaches to empirically analyzing the challenges of democracy and their potential transformation into crisis phenomena. The book is divided into three parts, the first of which highlights various aspects of political participation, such as political inequality in voting. In turn, Part II focuses on problems of political representation, while Part III assesses whether processes such as globalization, deregulation, and the withdrawal of the state from important policy areas have limited the political control and legitimacy of democratically elected governments.

The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy offers a powerful criticism of the inconsistencies of representative democracy. Described both as "the Hobbes of our age" and as "the philosophical godfather of Nazism," Carl Schmitt was a brilliant and controversial political theorist whose doctrine of political leadership and critique of liberal democratic ideals distinguish him as one of the most original contributors to modern political theory. The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy offers a powerful criticism of the inconsistencies of representative democracy. First published in 1923, it has often been viewed as an attempt to destroy parliamentarism; in fact, it was Schmitt's attempt to defend the Weimar constitution. The introduction to this new translation places the book in proper historical context and provides a useful guide to several aspects of Weimar political culture. The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy is included in the series Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought, edited by Thomas McCarthy.

The first work to reflect in detail on the Left's experiences in government in the 1990s and early twenty-first century.