Price of German Unity

Reunification and the Crisis of the Welfare State
Erscheinungsjahr 2011
ISBN: 978-0-19-955682-3
Verlag: OUP Oxford

Buch, Englisch, 500 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 910 g

The unification of Germany as a prelude to the end of the division of Europe and the termination of the Cold War came as a surprise to the whole world. It was the beginning of a new era in German and European history.

The Price of German Unity is the first full-scale analysis of this process, both domestically and in its wider international context, with a particular focus on the social-policy consequences. Gerhard A. Ritter uses a wide range of hitherto inaccessible sources to describe and analyse the dynamics of reunification, including archives from the Chancellor's Office, and the relevant ministries and major parties of both the Federal Republic and the GDR, as well as private papers of leading actors on both sides and a wealth of interview material.

As the book convincingly demonstrates, the wholesale transfer of the social system of the Federal Republic of Germany to the territory of the former GDR and the huge drain of economic resources from West to East that this involved, profoundly affected the economic and political framework of the new Germany and greatly intensified the latent crisis of the German welfare state.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Ritter, Gerhard A.

Weitere Mitwirkende

Deveson, Richard

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Arbeit/Sozialpädagogik Soziale Dienste, Soziale Organisationen

Inhaltsverzeichnis

- Preface

- Introduction

- Part I: German unity: the framework

- 1: The political framework

- 2: German unity and social policy: the legal framework

- 3: The German economy and the process of unification

- 4: The social structure and expectations from social policy

- Part II: The creation of the social union

- 5: The central features of the social union; the legislation and institutions governing social policy in the Federal Republic and the GDR compared

- 6: The social policy of the Modrow government

- 7: The State Treaty on monetary, economic and social union

- 8: The social legislation of the de Maizière government

- 9: The Unification Treaty

- 10: The social policy actors and the unification process

- Part III: Changes to the German welfare state after German unification, 1990-1994

- 11: The build-up of welfare-state institutions and providers in the new Bundesländer

- 12: The debates on Germany's economic position and on the problems in financial and social policy resulting from German unity

- 13: Social policy and its actors, 1991-1994

- Concluding reflections

- Appendix

- Notes

- Sources and bibliography

- Glossary of terms and abbreviations

- The principal actors in the process of German unification

- Index

Über Autor(innen)

Gerhard A. Ritter is professor emeritus at the University of Munich and has been visiting professor at Washington University, St Louis, the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Oxford, and the University of Tel Aviv. A former chairman of the Association of German Historians, he is the author of numerous books on social and political history and the history of the welfare state.