This article looks critically at the widely held view that Germany has not done enough to help overcome the Eurozone crisis. According to this line of argument, Germany has refused to comprehensively bail out crisis countries, offer mutual support in order to counter speculative attacks or endorse demand-side growth policies. This is allegedly because of a more narrowly defined national self-interest, increased EU-skepticism, and hegemonic ambitions. This article takes the perspective that such criticisms are primarily rooted in a Keynesian reading of the Eurozone troubles, whereas German policies are informed by another rationale: the ideas of so-called ordoliberalism. Generally, this traditional German school emphasizes the importance of principles, rule-based behavior, and long-term goals—and it believes in the (microeconomic) functioning of markets. Consequently, ordoliberals perceive the crisis as resulting from unsustainable debt levels and a lack of competitiveness in southern Europe, concomitant with a failure of Eurozone institutions. Based on this diagnosis, policy proposals are primarily targeted at debt reduction, as well as structural and EU institutional reforms. While Germany's crisis policy thus appears rational from an ordoliberal perspective, it is considered to be at variance with, and inadequate from the viewpoint of a Keynesian approach.
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Rainer Hillebrand
In German Politics and Society
- Published (Print):
- 01 Jun 2015
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 6–24 (18 total)
Reordering German Liberalism
Re-examining the Social Market Economy in the 2021 Bundestag Election
Mark I. Vail
The debates leading up to the 2021 Bundestag elections, and the governing coalition and policy commitments that emerged from them, marked significant departures from established paradigms of German economic policy. Since the constitution of the
In German Politics and Society
- Published (Print):
- 01 Dec 2022
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 19–36 (18 total)
Luke B. Wood
that Germany has been able to apply pressure to Southern and Eastern Europe states to adopt German economic management principles, effectively creating a “German Europe.” 36 The adoption of German economic policy in Europe after the debt crisis might
In German Politics and Society
- Published (Print):
- 01 Dec 2019
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 95–108 (14 total)
Thomas Klikauer, Norman Simms, Marcus Colla, Nicolas Wittstock, Matthew Specter, Kate R. Stanton, John Bendix, and Bernd Schaefer
Greens, and even the right-wing Alternative for Germany to provide more radical policy options, also alluded to by the editors. Brigitte Young analyzes the ideational foundations of current German economic policy, arguing that although German
In German Politics and Society
- Published (Print):
- 01 Mar 2022
- Article Type:
- Book Review
- Pages:
- 104–131 (28 total)
Hilary Silver, Jeffrey Luppes, Joyce Mushaben, Ambika Natarajan, Helge F. Jani, Darren O'Byrne, Christopher Thomas Goodwin, and Stephen J. Silvia
-show circuit. Interest in a book in which the president of the Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung Berlin, one of Germany's leading economic research institutes, criticizes German economic policy and practice understandably extended beyond Germany
In German Politics and Society
- Published (Print):
- 01 Mar 2019
- Article Type:
- Book Reviews
- Pages:
- 66–101 (36 total)
Luke B. Wood
German economic policy including financial and tax policy. The organization is headed by the Federal Minister of Finance who works with three permanent state secretaries who oversee the central Directorate-General. The finance minister is also supported
In German Politics and Society
- Published (Print):
- 01 Mar 2016
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 26–53 (28 total)