Wolfgang Streeck - Re-Forming Capitalism: Institutional Change in the German Political Economy

Re-Forming Capitalism

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In writing this book I benefited from the support of two truly outstanding institutions. When I started, in February 2007, I had just begun a half-year term as a Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation in New York. When I finished a year later, I had been back at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne, also known as the MPIfG, for several months. Nobody in the world of social science knows better than Eric Wanner at Russell Sage how important it is for scholars to be given time, not just to do research, but also to reflect in quiet and solitude on their findings. And nowhere else in the world could I have found a more congenial and exciting environment than at the MPIfG, where new ideas come up all the time in projects, seminars, conferences, and discussions and may be explored in a scholarly community that includes everyone, from famous leaders in their fields to graduate students, until they can finally be written up, sometimes at a place like the Russell Sage Foundation on the East Side of Manhattan.

The present book had a long period of gestation, going back to the mid-1990s. It was then that I became more convinced than ever that what was going on in Germanys political economy might offer important general insights. A research group then began to emerge at the MPIfG that came to include scholars, mostly at an early stage of their career, like Anke Hassel, Jrgen Beyer, and Bernhard Ebbinghaus; Martin Hpner and Britta Rehder; and Christine Trampusch and Armin Schfer. Over time, the group also included several graduate students, among them were Gregory Jackson and, of course, Martin and Britta, who later joined the institute as full-time researchers. In addition there were my colleagues as directors, Renate Mayntz and Fritz Scharpf, both now retired but still very involved in research, and later Jens Beckert, who joined the institute in early 2005. Renate and Fritz are a source of continuing inspiration, the former because of her unflinching conviction that social science can be methodologically sound without having to become scientistic or irrelevant to the real world, and the latter because of his profound insights into German politics and the politics and economics of the modern welfare state. As to Jens Beckert, he has been reminding all of us about the significant contribution theoretical sociology can make to the study of political economyan insight that has become fundamental for the further development of our research.

One of the inestimable benefits of an institution like the MPIfG is that it makes it possible to build and maintain extensive working relations with scholars in other countries. So many colleagues outside the institute have contributed directly and indirectly to the ideas developed in this bookwithout, of course, being in any way responsible for what is still unfinished or, worse, unfoundedthat I cannot mention them all. To name just a few, the MPIfG is lucky to have Kathleen Thelen and Colin Crouch as External Members, just as we enjoy the support of our Scientific Advisory Board, chaired by Peter Hall, who knows that without vigorous debate there can be no progress in scholarship. I was also inspired by several sessions of the Complementarity Project, run jointly in Paris and Cologne by Bruno Amable, Robert Boyer, and me, which included David Marsden and Peter Hall among the participants. And there is also SASE, the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics, and its journal, the Socio-Economic Review, both of which are great meeting places for ideas and the people that produce and work with them.

As to this book in particular, while it draws extensively on a decade of research at the MPIfG and beyond, trying to pull together the results of a great number of projects, I am especially indebted to Kathleen Thelen, Marius Busemeyer, Martin Hpner, Britta Rehder, Armin Schfer, and Christine Trampusch, who read the manuscript as it was being written and provided excellent comments and criticism. Above all, Kathy Thelen, cherished colleague and friend for decades now, not only made extremely helpful suggestions but also offered essential encouragement at an early stage, when I sent her the first sketch of what I then expected to become my argument. I am also grateful to faculty and students at the NYU Sociology Department and the Columbia Political Science Department, where I had the opportunity to present my work when it was still in what I hope was progress. Heartfelt thanks must go to my fellow members of the Russell Sage Class of 2007 who patiently listened to my European story during a session of the RSF internal seminar in May 2007, and to my students at Cologne who read the full manuscript and commented on it. Others who did so include Martin Hellwig and David Stark. Here as everywhere, the usual disclaimer applies, according to which nobody but the author can be taken to account for the many imperfections that remain in spite of all the help received.

A book that has come such a long way should not go without a proper dedication. I dedicate this book to my wife, Sylvia, in memory of our time in New York, when she listened patiently to my ideasat the park and the Public Library, in the subway, and during regular visits to the Metropolitan and, of course, the Brioand for making me aware that every book must come to an end, because there is only one thing in life that is worth working on forever, and this is not a book.

Wolfgang Streeck

Economizing and the Evolution of Political-Economic Institutions