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This chapter juxtaposes governance of the furniture industry in Ostwestfalen–Lippe and southern Sweden to the characteristics of the German and Swedish ‘models’, respectively, in order to determine whether these regional sectors have been typical of their national cases; and, if not, whether any deviance from a model can be seen to have embodied a productive incoherence. It shows that the Swedish furniture industry is rather different from its counterpart in Germany, where incoherences appeared to be a disadvantage, while success included an ability to make use of the national institutional infrastructure. It might well be then, that the key to success for the German cluster, consists in shielding itself from erosion of aspects of the German model, which are taking place at the national level.

This chapter interrogates the logic of path dependence in ways relevant to both economic geography and corporate governance in the context of the market for incorporation. Recognizing that corporate governance is normally treated as an issue of nation-state rules and regulations, it reinforces the previous argument that in the German case, at least, there is not one model, but a set of related models located at the Länder or provincial levels. It also shows that German industry at the regional level is changing in response to the opportunities and incentives available in national and global financial markets. Path dependence may unravel in some circumstances while being reinforced in others. At the regional level, recent German experience would seem to suggest that both are happening at the same time. The national model is itself undergoing significant transformation as new industries and regions take their place in the financial world. In this respect, it is argued that path dependence may be undercut by the changing fortunes and shifting interests of different industries and regions within the umbrella of the German model.

This chapter focuses on the relationship between corporate governance and global finance. It shows that the German model of concentrated ownership through direct and indirect cross-holding between institutions was discounted by financial markets over the period 1997–2001. Empirically, there was a significant and negative relationship between the level of ownership concentration (one indicator of corporate governance) and the daily stock price of DAX traded corporations. It also shows that this relationship had a distinctive geographical footprint, reflecting rather different regional systems of corporate governance and their ‘openness’ to the interests of portfolio investment managers.

In Germany wages are typically negotiated by industry on a regional level instead of on a national level. Regional wage variation, however, is likely to be low because of the high centralization of national unions, at least this was the case until unification occurred. Since sectoral unions tended to follow an agreement negotiated by a wage leader, which is usually the metalworkers' union, there also occurs an intersectoral coordination of wage bargaining. Collectively bargaining of industrial agreements that covered workers and workplaces used to be high and almost universal. The observance of such agreements extended into the small-firm sector of the economy and these were enforced by work councils or a quasi-statutory system of workplace representatives who were elected. Generally, the ‘German model’ points out how centralization can generate low wage dispersion for a large country.

The chapter introduces the aims and scope of the book. It presents Germany and the UK conventionally portrayed as contrasting models of modern welfare states. However, similar challenges, such as demographic ageing, social and labour market changes, as well as intensified economic internationalization have posed questions about the sustainability of both, and particularly of the German ‘model’ of welfare capitalism. The chapter provides a brief overview of the two parts of the chapters of the book, three of which investigate attitudes and perceptions towards welfare provision and solidarity, followed by discussions of changes in the fields of family, pension, and employment policy, reflecting on both statutory and occupational welfare.

The mechanical engineering industry in China has been witnessing fast and sustained growth. Chinese firms in this industry are successfully serving the demand for low-cost machinery in domestic and export markets. Though the majority of firms are non-innovative and technologically lagging, the particular characteristics of innovation processes in mechanical engineering hold potential opportunities for indigenous innovation. Innovation in mechanical engineering relies on firms’ internal resources, close interaction with customers, and internal learning and experimenting. Examining the German model of innovation in mechanical engineering can help us understand which factors positively affect innovation in this sector. The examples of two selected cases of innovative Chinese mechanical engineering firms, Yizumi and Propower, illustrate that Chinese mechanical engineering firms can produce new and innovative products under certain conditions. Indigenous innovation can be truly disruptive and can take at least two forms, low-cost/high-tech innovation and radical innovation.

This chapter compares both the British and German financial systems. It examines the differences and divergences of methods, philosophies, and goals between these two systems, in particular exploring the role of capital markets in both countries. The discussion, for the most part, centres on the German system. Relations between banks and companies are explored in this chapter, as are bank participations in industrial companies, the mandates of the banks' supervisory boards, the so-called proxy voting rights, company financing, the German Stock Exchanges, pension funds, the tax system, the bond market, and deregulation. The chapter also considers the implications of the German corporate finance model vis-à-vis the British system, specifically in regard to the short-term and long-term advantages of each model, as well as their methods of corporate governance.

This chapter examines the Labour Party’s approach to the economy with a special focus on its response to the 2008 global financial crisis and to the subsequent deficit crisis. It will argue that under Ed Miliband the Labour Party has sought to develop an alternative to the neoliberal orthodoxies of New Labour and to the austerity policies of the coalition. This alternative was based on a new understanding of the market, on an active role for the state in the development of industrial capacity and in ensuring that the proceeds of growth would be equitably shared. However, the Labour Party faced ideational, institutional and political constraints that had the effect of making the break with neoliberalism and austerity policies less clear-cut than it was perhaps intended.

This chapter describes how inequality and real incomes have evolved in Germany through the period from the 1980s, through reunification, up to the economic Crisis and its aftermath. It brings out how reunification was associated with a prolonged stagnation in real wages. It emphasizes how the distinctive German structures for wage bargaining were eroded over time, and the labour market and tax/transfer reforms of the late 1990s-early/mid-2000s led to increasing dualization in the labour market. The consequence was a marked increase in household income inequality, which went together with wage stagnation for much of the 1990s and subsequently. Coordination between government, employers, and unions still sufficed to avoid the impact the economic Crisis had on unemployment elsewhere, but the German social model has been altered fundamentally over the period

This chapter zooms in on the context of Schleiermacher’s brief tenure at the University of Halle and the eventual founding of the University of Berlin in the wake of Halle’s closure and as part of the Prussian reform era. It highlights Schleiermacher’s early theological lectures and the uneven development of his thought on theology as a university discipline. It examines an important and formative series of disputes over the future of the theological curriculum, revolving around Halle but holding profound ramifications for the direction of nineteenth-century German university theology as a whole. Finally, it considers the extraordinary political initiative to establish a new Prussian university: the University of Berlin (1810). Theology’s right to a seat in the new institution was fiercely contested. Landmark proposals for the new university, the so-called ‘positive sciences’, and the structure and content of theology in the modern world are explored in detail.

Will the CCP be able to control the aggrieved nationalism it has fostered to relegitimize its rule, or will those nationalist passions, once loosed, push the CCP toward more assertive policies having great popular appeal but carrying China into conflict with other countries? Appeal to aggrieved nationalism has been remarkably successful in relegitimizing CCP autocracy since 6-4. Yet popular nationalism has achieved a degree of autonomy from the regime and sometimes serves to press the regime toward more forceful policies. Demonization of the United States also serves to tarnish Western ideals which might have great appeal for China’s youth, intellectuals, and educated middle classes in a world where modern technologies convey liberal ideas with great effect. German history provides cases in which regimes turned to aggrieved and assertive nationalism to bind together an otherwise fragmented nation—and carry the world into catastrophic wars.