Markets over welfare :the consequences of liberalisation and the financial crisis

Abstract

This thesis considers the 2007/2008 financial crisis as the cause and the catalyst for the establishment of the Eurozone response and the establishment of the European Financial Stability Facility, the European Stability Mechanism, and the expansion of the stability framework in which these operate. The thesis further considers the actions of Germany and France as the main contributors to the establishment of the rescue plan for the Euro. What are the implications of global change for European welfare states in the context of global and Euro Zone crisis? The German and French actions will be considered within a national framework shaping the EU’s institutional processes. Germany and France have the ability to shape the state’s understanding of its role within political economy and its responsibility to care for the welfare of its population. These issues are investigated using a most similar case study approach. This approach will be complemented by Susan Strange’s theory of structural power applied to Germany and France. This thesis will focus on Germany and France because of their status as Europe’s two largest economies and motors of the European integration process. The analysis includes quantitative and qualitative data, which are used to investigate the change in the national conception of the role of the state within the economy and its requirement to provide welfare to its people. This thesis will demonstrate that the German and French states’ reconfiguring of state-society relations, leads to the end of the traditional concept of the state. The thesis will also demonstrate that unilateral movement on the side of either Germany or France will likely result in long term adverse political economic consequences for Europe, which can be averted if Germany and France manage to develop and most of all maintain a balanced effort to resolve the Euro crisis.