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1101. Modell Deutschland as an Interdenominational Compromise

Author:
Philip Manow
Publication Date:
05-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Usually, Germany's social market economy is understood to embody a compromise between a liberal market order and a corporatist welfare state. While this reading of the German case is certainly not entirely wrong, this paper argues that only if we account for the close intellectual correspondence between lutheran Protestantism and economic liberalism on the one hand and between Catholicism and welfare corporatism on the other, can we fully comprehend the nature of the German post-war compromise. In particular, this perspective allows to better explain the anti-liberal undercurrents of Germany's soziale Marktwirtschaft. It was especially the role which Protestant Ordoliberals ascribed to the state in upholding economic order and market discipline which accounts for the major difference between 'classic' and 'German-style' economic liberalism. Yet, the postwar economic order did not represent a deliberately struck compromise between the two major Christian denominations. Rather, Germany's social market economy was the result of the failure of German Protestant Ordoliberals to prevent the reconstruction of the catholic Bismarckian welfare state after the authoritarian solution, which Ordoliberals had endorsed so strongly up until 1936 and from which they had hoped there-inauguration of Protestant hegemony, had so utterly failed. Since the ordoliberal doctrine up to the present day lacks a clear understanding of the role of the corporatist welfare state within the German political economy, its insights into the functioning logic of German capitalism have remained limit. The paper also claims that accounting for the denominational roots of the postwar compromise allows us to better understand the relationship between consociationalism and corporatism in 'Modell Deutschland'.
Topic:
Economics, Emerging Markets, and Government
Political Geography:
Europe and Germany

1102. Modell Deutschland as an Interdenominational Compromise

Author:
Philip Manow
Publication Date:
05-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Usually, Germany's social market economy is understood to embody a compromise between a liberal market order and a corporatist welfare state. While this reading of the German case is certainly not entirely wrong, this paper argues that only if we account for the close intellectual correspondence between lutheran Protestantism and economic liberalism on the one hand and between Catholicism and welfare corporatism on the other, can we fully comprehend the nature of the German post-war compromise. In particular, this perspective allows to better explain the anti-liberal undercurrents of Germany's soziale Marktwirtschaft. It was especially the role which Protestant Ordoliberals ascribed to the state in upholding economic order and market discipline which accounts for the major difference between 'classic' and 'German-style' economic liberalism. Yet, the postwar economic order did not represent a deliberately struck compromise between the two major Christian denominations. Rather, Germany's social market economy was the result of the failure of German Protestant Ordoliberals to prevent the reconstruction of the catholic Bismarckian welfare state after the authoritarian solution, which Ordoliberals had endorsed so strongly up until 1936 and from which they had hoped the re-inauguration of Protestant hegemony, had so utterly failed. Since the ordoliberal doctrine up to the present day lacks a clear understanding of the role of the corporatist welfare state within the German political economy, its insights into the functioning logic of German capitalism have remained limit. The paper also claims that accounting for the denominational roots of the postwar compromise allows us to better understand the relationship between consociationalism and corporatism in 'Modell Deutschland'.
Topic:
Economics, Government, Political Economy, and Religion
Political Geography:
Europe and Germany

1103. The Nonproliferation Regime under Siege

Author:
George Bunn
Publication Date:
09-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Security and Cooperation
Abstract:
The nuclear nonproliferation regime was challenged in 1998 by nuclear-weapon tests in India and Pakistan, by medium-range missile tests in those countries and in Iran and North Korea, by Iraq's defiance of UN Security Council resolutions requiring it to complete its disclosure of efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction, and by the combination of “loose nukes” and economic collapse in Russia. Additional threats to the regime's vitality came in 1999 from the erosion of American relations with both China and Russia that resulted from NATO's 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia—with additional harm to relations with China resulting from U.S. accusations of Chinese nuclear espionage and Taiwan's announcement that it was a state separate from China despite its earlier acceptance of a U.S.-Chinese “one China” agreement. Major threats to the regime also came from the continued stalemate on arms-control treaties in the Russian Duma and the U.S. Senate, from a change in U.S. policy to favor building a national defense against missile attack, and from a Russian decision to develop a new generation of small tactical nuclear weapons for defense against conventional attack.
Topic:
International Relations, Arms Control and Proliferation, Economics, Government, and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Russia, United States, China, Europe, Iran, South Asia, Middle East, Israel, East Asia, Asia, and Korea

1104. Russian Federal Budget and the Regions

Author:
Alexei Makushkin
Publication Date:
11-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
EastWest Institute
Abstract:
In the period of the Soviet rule public finances formed the basis of the national economy and, consequently, were the key factor determining the relationship between the Central power and the regions. Beginning with the proclamation of the sovereignty of the Russian Federation in 1 99 1 the role of the Center and the regions changed. The State has reduced its influence on the national economy, largely due to the reduction of the share of the GDP reallocated through the Central budgetary system. In 1 999 the volume of the budgetary reallocated product made only 14- 1 5% of the total. The relationship between the federal budget and the system of the regional finances became very complicated and oblique. The state economic sector has decreased, power has become decentralized in Russia.
Topic:
Security, Economics, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Asia, and Soviet Union

1105. Russia's Shrinking Role in the South

Publication Date:
03-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
EastWest Institute
Abstract:
The perception that the disintegration of the Soviet Union constituted a major challenge to Russia's security is of a political and psychological, rather than an economic nature. The countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia—Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan—are neither an irreplaceable resource base for the Russian economy nor the only available market for its non-competitive products. Any efforts to see it otherwise will induce the region to strengthen its economic and military security with the help of outside powers as a buffer against Russia's ambitions for greater control.
Topic:
Security and Economics
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Kazakhstan, Asia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Soviet Union, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Angola

1106. Natural Resources and Economic Growth: A Nordic Perspective on the Dutch Disease

Author:
Thorvaldur Gylfason
Publication Date:
10-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
The paper begins by offering a quick glance of the Nordic economies and of some aspects of their economic growth performance and natural resource dependence since 1970. Thereafter, it reviews some of the main symptoms of the Dutch disease, and then considers whether these symptoms are observable in some of the Nordic countries in view of their abundant natural resources. The experience of Iceland and its fish seems an obvious point of departure. The paper then discusses the less obvious case of Norway and its oil (and fish!) and, at last, also reviews some possible linkages between forest resources and economic growth in Finland.
Topic:
Economics, Environment, and Government
Political Geography:
Europe, Finland, Norway, and Dutch

1107. Development Discontinuities: Leaders and Intermediaries in Producers' Associations

Author:
Tito Bianchi
Publication Date:
10-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
The development literature considers associations an important economic development tool that allows producers to pursue their economic welfare collectively and through participatory means. This paper comparatively analyses the experience of three associations of agricultural producers in the underdeveloped regions of Brazil and Italy that were successful in this economic development task. Their experience, however, challenges a commonly held view about the participatory nature of associations.
Topic:
Development and Economics
Political Geography:
Europe, Brazil, South America, and Latin America

1108. The Asian Currency Crisis: Origins, Lessons and Future Outlook

Author:
Abdur Chowdhury
Publication Date:
02-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
What started in the summer of 1997 as a regional economic and financial crisis in East and Southeast Asia had developed into a global financial crisis within the span of a year. This crisis followed the crisis in the European Monetary System in 1992–3 and the Mexican peso crisis in 1994–5. However, unlike the previous two crises, the scale and depth of the Asian crisis surprised everyone. One obvious reason for this is East and Southeast Asia's track record of economic success. Since the 1960s, no other group of countries in the world has produced more rapid economic growth or such a dramatic reduction in poverty. Given so many years of sustained economic performance the obvious question is: how could events in Asia unfold as they did?
Topic:
Economics and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
Europe, Asia, and Southeast Asia

1109. U.S. Assistance for Market Reforms: Foreign Aid Failures in Russia and the Former Soviet Bloc

Author:
Janine R. Wedel
Publication Date:
03-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the subsequent breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, the governments of the United States and other Western countries have provided massive aid to promote a transition to the free market in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. But aid for market reforms in the region has been largely ineffective. Whether provided in the form of technical assistance, grants to political groups or nongovernmental organizations, loans and guarantees to the private sector, or direct financial aid to post-communist governments, that aid has been plagued by a number of problems. The failed $22.6 billion bailout of Russia by the International Monetary Fund in July 1998 only confirmed the flawed nature of the aid-for-reform approach.
Topic:
Economics and Emerging Markets
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia, and Soviet Union

1110. The Case for a Russian Currency Board System

Author:
Steve H. Hanke
Publication Date:
10-1998
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
The devaluation of the Russian ruble this year was predictable, especially considering Russia's poor monetary history. State-manipulated money has been a Russian hallmark since the time of Peter the Great and shows that the country's money problems are endemic and do not depend on who controls the central bank. Czarist, Soviet, and post-Soviet governments have used the central bank printing press to finance deficit spending, resulting in high inflation, confiscation of savings, capital controls, or a combination of the three.
Topic:
Economics and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Asia, and Soviet Union