Governance in Contemporary Germany: The Semisovereign State Revisited

Extract

Governance in Contemporary Germany: The Semisovereign State Revisited, Simon Green and William E. Paterson, eds., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 338.

Nearly twenty years after Katzenstein's diagnosis of the German polity as “semisovereign state,” this volume re-evaluates unified Germany in the light of the original study. It starts with a concise introduction by the editors to the original argument and to the challenges of unification to semisovereign governance. Then, eleven contributions cover Katzenstein's “policy nodes” (political parties, federalism, and parapublic institutions), developments in previously covered policy areas (economic and social policy, industrial relations, immigration, administrative reform) and two additional ones: the environment and EU integration. The volume is concluded by Katzenstein himself, arguing that despite many political and socio-economic changes, semisovereignty still reigns in Germany.