Lowell Turner, ed., Negotiating the New Germany: Can Social Partnership Survive? Ithaca: ILR Press, 1997. ix + 271 pp. $45.00 cloth; $17.95 paper.

Abstract

This book surveys some recent developments in the political economy of postunification Germany. In particular, the essays investigate and analyze how the German industrial relations system has evolved over the past decade and ask whether the country's vaunted “social partnership” can survive the triple challenges of unification, European integration, and the new world economy. Although the editor of the volume, Lowell Turner, argues in his conclusion that “with varying degrees of optimism” all of the authors “agree that reform and adaptation is possible” (255), the essays diverge greatly in their assessments of the recent functioning and future prospects of corporatist institutions in Germany.