The Hobbled StateFractured Politics in Contemporary Germany

Mark Vail offers a compelling critique of Germany’s malaise by attributing it to the dominance of administrative traditions, which have hobbled the country in dealing with its fiscal policy, energy strategy and defence posture. The book is a clarion call for a return to a more active developmental state to recapture the transformative dynamism needed for overcoming the current stagnation.

Mark Vail’s timely book is noteworthy for many reasons but its focus on historically rooted competing state traditions stands out. His conceptual approach to explain contemporary political challenges in Germany is novel, thoughtful and thought-provoking, and invites the reader to make connections across time and policy areas. The study is a must-read for scholars of comparative European politics in general and German politics in particular.

How do German elites think about the economy? An important question, for everybody affected by the decisions of Europe's most powerful economy - and one that has until now been hard to answer. Fusing political economy and intellectual history, Vail explains why German elites have adopted, with moral and intellectual conviction, policies can that make little sense to outsiders. This book is the crucial missing piece to understand Europe's decisions in crises from the Great Recession to the Russian invasion of Ukraine to the second election of Trump, and the potential for a new approach in Germany and Europe