Since the mid-1980s, Fritz W. Scharpf's work has been concerned with the evolution of the multilevel European polity and its impact on the effectiveness and legitimacy of democratic government in Europe. This volume begins with the oft-cited essay arguing that Europe's problem solving capacity...

At the end of the postwar period, the politically shaped configurations of normatively integrated European political economies differed greatly among "social-market" and "liberal market economies." Such differences persist even though the characteristic achievements of social market economies...

The end of the Bretton Woods regime and the fall of the Iron Curtain deepened the export orientation of the German model of the economy. Only after entry into the Monetary Union, however, did rising exports turn into a persistent export–import gap that became a problem for other eurozone...

The performance of EMU member economies is shaped by different and structurally entrenched "growth models" whose success depends on specific macro-regimes – restrictive for export-led growth, accommodating for demand-led growth. These two types of models cannot be equally viable under a...

Eight years after the onset of the "Great Recession," the eurozone is deeply split between "Northern" EMU economies that seem to be doing reasonably well and "Southern" countries that continue to struggle with socioeconomic catastrophe. This paper argues that the continuing malaise is a...

Solange die strukturelle Nord-Süd-Divergenz ihrer Mitglieder andauert, bleibt die Währungsunion instabil. Das asymmetrische Euro-Regime soll Konvergenz durch eine strukturelle Transformation der politischen Ökonomien des Südens erzwingen. Wegen der Größe und der nicht einholbaren...