The futures of European capitalism

Book abstract:

Harbingers of doom for the European Union warn of the loss of our national customs and practice, forecasting all to be subsumed within a Brussels bureaucratic hegemony. They speak of threats to our financial markets from increasing Europeanisation. Undoubtedly there will be change as our economy responds to globalisation and European integration. This work looks at the impact on economic policies, practices and discourses in response to these pressures.

Part one explores the international relations literature to show the balancing effect of gains in shared supranational authority upon the losses in national autonomy and control attributed to Europeanisation and globalisation. Discussion then moves to the comparative public policy to seek out explanations for the differential impact of these pressures on the economies of Britain, France and Germany. Part two goes on to examine the tremendous changes in the economic practices of the three forms of capitalism - the market capitalism of Britain, the managed capitalism of Germany, and the state capitalism of France. The author maintains that all three remain individually identifiable but each of them changed in a market-oriented direction. He then goes on to examine more closely the dynamics of adjustment in economic practices in Britain, France and Germany and comments upon the deficiencies in current analysis of political economic change. This leads into part three which proposes a new framework for the analysis of discourse to get at the politics of economic adjustment.

Vivien Schmidt is Jean Monnet Professor of European Integration in the Department of International Relations, Boston University.