Over the past four decades, the accumulation of policy legacies and public debt has led to a decline in fiscal flexibility in Germany and the United States. By applying an index of fiscal democracy to Germany, the paper illustrates the associated shrinkage of democratic control over budget...

The object world of the social sciences is complex, historical and self-reflexive. It generates nonlinear effects, it is unique, and it is able to understand the theories developed about it and respond to them intentionally. Recognizing the emergent, historically contingent and self-organizing...

The paper presents some of the ideas underlying the current research program of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies (MPIfG). It begins with a discussion of how the institute's programmatic orientation has evolved since it was founded in 1984. Programmatic change over the years...

Seit Anfang der 1970er-Jahre lässt sich eine graduelle Verschärfung der fiskalischen Situation moderner Staaten beobachten. Chronisch gewordene Defizite und eine dramatisch gestiegene Staatsverschuldung sind zu einer beherrschenden Rahmenbedingung wohlfahrtsstaatlicher Politik geworden. Das...

This paper outlines an institutionalist political economy approach to capitalism as a specific type of social order. Social science institutionalism considers social systems to be structured by sanctioned rules of obligatory behavior. Its perspective is one of collective ordering, or governance,...

Weitgehend unbeachtet haben in den letzten Jahren wichtige Veränderungen im deutschen System der Arbeitsbeziehungen stattgefunden. Von besonderer Bedeutung sind dabei die Aufnahme sozialpolitischer Themen in den Gegenstandsbereich der Tarifverhandlungen, insbesondere der Alterssicherung und der...

Very large firms, the rising significance of small and medium-sized enterprises notwithstanding, still account for most of the employment and wealth creation in Europe and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. They also to a large extent determine the political institutions that...