The problems of inflation, unemployment and economic stagnation are shared by all industrialised countries, but government response to them varies from state to state. This book, originally published in 1984, examines the effect of the recession of the 1980s on policy-making and policy content in Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Sweden. The author identifies the particular problems that face each country and explains why certain policies were adopted and how recession influenced policy-making. Through comparative analysis, the book shows how each government’s policy-making processes responded to the economic and social pressures created by a crisis in the world economy

'Commentators often see wide differences between policy as they consider how it should be conducted and how it actually emerges. Those who are involved in making trade policy, for their part, commonly accuse commentators of 'not living in the real world'. There is often a dialogue of the deaf. Part of Mr. Hayes' object has been to try to build bridges between practitioners and commentators, with suggestions for ways of improving the policy-making process in the future.'Hugh Corbet, Consultant, Trade Policy Research Centre, London. The external trade policies of the European Community are of great importance, both for its own people and for trading partners in the remainder of the world. Yet the processes by which the European Community of twelve countries attempts to reach agreement have remained somewhat mysterious. What has been the relative influence of principles of policy and of various political, bureaucratic and private interests, at both the Community and the national levels? This volume is based on a number of case-studies, and also contains chapters on the formation of attitudes to trade policy in three of the largest countries of the Community, Germany, France and the United Kingdom.

This book gives up-to-date assessments of key trends and issues in the Federal Republic with sufficient background analysis to make the treatment of the various topics accessible to those without detailed prior knowledge of German politics.

Fully revised and updated, Politics and Policy in the European Union is the third edition of this established introduction to politics and policy-making in the European Union.Stephen George covers all the key subjects of study, with separate chapters looking at: the history of the EU, its institutions, the theory of European integration, three of the key players (Britain, France and Germany), and the international context. He also examines in depth the seven major policy areas: energy, agriculture, internal market policy, economic and monetary union, regional policy, social policy, and European political co-operation.Using a clear, accessible style, Stephen George provides the ideal inroduction to the EU, equally valuable to students of the European Union, and to anyone studying European issues as part of a course in economics or politics.

This volume presents a radical reinterpretation of the European Community or Union as a neo-liberal construction. It was neo-liberal rather than classically liberal because it was designed and used as an external instrument to weaken the interventionist welfare state that protected working people and strengthened the hand of labor. It was founded on the vision of a free market untrammelled by public intervention and worked to ensure competition, sound money and profitability against the inflationary force of workers and unions and the welfare state. Monetary union in particular restored profitability but produced slow growth, mass unemployment, and insecurity and came under challenge, most dramatically in France, by working people from below. This view is substantiated by an economically based study of member-state performance and complemented by a series of national studies on the monetarist turn by leading scholars.

This compelling volume re-examines the topic of economic growth in Europe after the Second World War. The contributors approach the subject armed not only with new theoretical ideas, but also with the experience of the 1980s on which to draw. The analysis is based on both applied economics and on economic history. Thus, while the volume is greatly informed by insights from growth theory, emphasis is given to the presentation of chronological and institutional detail. The case study approach and the adoption of a longer-run perspective than is normal for economists allow new insights to be obtained. As well as including chapters that consider the experience of individual European countries, the book explores general European institutional arrangements and historical circumstances. The result is a genuinely comparative picture of post-war growth, with insights that do not emerge from standard cross-section regressions based on the post-1960 period.