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The narrative of postwar Germany’s moral and political dilemma, as a nation unwilling to assume a leadership role in the international community, despite its size and economic might, for fear of becoming dominant, is well rehearsed. Germany’s postwar power has been bounded by the rules and requirements of international institutions and its own constitution. Economic prosperity quickly became a proxy for the conventional exercise of power. Yet, recent crises have made the country’s ambivalence to power difficult to sustain. Scholz’s declaration of a Zeitenwende (end of an era) launched questions about Germany’s international role, not least in supporting Ukraine against a Russian aggressor.
In this timely interrogation of the German state, Mark Vail traces Germany’s reluctant embrace of power from nineteenth-century industrialization and state formation to its current self-re-examination and reconsideration of national identity and international responsibility.
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.
1. Introduction: rethinking state traditions and political responsibility in contemporary Germany
2. German state traditions in historical perspective: the rise and eclipse of the developmental state and the roots of the postwar Rechtsstaat
3. In fear of shadows: the contradictions of contemporary German fiscal and labor-market policy
4. The costs of power: the frustrated developmental imperative in German energy and environmental policy
5. The price of peace: the legacies of the Rechtsstaat in German defense and security policy
Conclusion: Reinventing the state: the developmental imperative in contemporary Germany