Table of Contents

Abbreviations vi

Preface vii

Introduction 1

1 Democratic Capitalism and the European Union 6

2 The Nature of the Crisis 16

3 Growth, Debt, and Doom Loops 32

4 No Return to Square One 48

5 In Search of Political Agency 56

6 Finalitées: Bases of Identification with

European Integration as a Political Project 61

7 The Configuration of Political Forces and Preferences 81

8 Germany’s Leadership Role for Europe: A Non-Starter 90

9 “Thin” Citizenship: The Ugly Face of the EU System of Rule 109

10 Redistribution Across State Borders and Social Divides 120

References 131

About the Author

Claus Offe is Professor of Political Sociology at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin. He is author of numerous books, including Contradictions of the Welfare State, Disorganized Capitalism, Modernity and the State, and Reflections on America: Tocqueville, Weber and Adorno in the United States.

Reviews

This is a strangely heart-warming book. While Claus Offeanalyses the weaknesses and failures of European integration withruthless precision, he also reminds us powerfully of the values ofthe European ideal, and shows how we could come closer to realisingthem - if only political leaders had the will and tenacity to doso. In the current climate of Europhobia, this is the nearest thingto realistic optimism that we are likely to get. Colin Crouch, University of Warwick Claus Offe has written a passionate, probing, and deeplyperturbing book that both excoriates the European Union andprovides a glimpse of hope in the struggle for a social Europe.[CHANGES NEED TO BE CHECKED WITH THE AUTHOR] Gary Marks, UNC-Chapel Hill and RVU Amsterdam After so many years without a resolution, it is hard to feelhopeful about the euro crisis. If there are grounds for hope theylie in this volume. In it Claus Offe describes how the citizens ofEurope, and of Germany in particular, frame the crisis. He explainshow that framing defines the range of feasible policy options. Offeshows how it is in the capacity of those citizens and their leaders-- of European society, in other words -- to modify that framing inways that open the door to a more constructive policy response.Offe's careful analysis deserves a wide audience. If it receivesone, Europe will be a better place. Barry Eichengreen, University of California, Berkeley At the core of this book is the proposition that, though theEuro was a mistake, its undoing would be a greater mistake. Around this insight, Offe describes the logic of the economic,institutional, political and cultural traps that have been sprungon European polities. The great merit of this book is that itposes the fundamental question implicit in any attempt to escapesuch traps: who is to be the agent of change? No one readingthis book will think that this question has an easy answer; theywill realise that an answer is desperately called for. Albert Weale, University College London