Seminar: Varieties of European Capitalism: the Legacy of the Euro

Dr. Werner Abelshauser

Date: Thursday 4 October 2012
Time: 4:30 - 6pm
Place: LE2, Library Extension

Can the Euro-Zone be stabilized by a common political strategy disciplining its members on the field of collective mentalities, i.e. the mode of operation of state and society? That is exactly what is happening in Europe today. The Euro-Zone stands at the painful beginning of its second approach to enabling its member states to keep the restrictive rules necessary to commonly operate a hard currency. This crucial discussion does not at all take into account the economic core of the problem. However, economic culture matters within clearly defined fields of the social system of production, such as the financial system, corporate governance, interest policy, the inter-company-system, the fields of vocational training and education and – last but not least – industrial relations. Labor costs are no longer a decisive factor for competitive advantage in technologically advanced markets. The key to immaterial (post-industrial) production are comparative institutional advantages. This leads to new, broadly accepted mindsets (shared mental models), market behavior and rules of the game. This lecture, therefore, analyses the role of different economic cultures within the Euro-Zone.

About the speaker:
Dr. Werner Abelshauser is Professor of Economic and Social History and serves on the boards of the Institute for World Society Studies and Institute of Science and Technology Studies at Bielefeld University. He also serves on the editorial boards of the “Journal for Comparative Government and European Policy” (ZSE) and “Geschichte und Gesellschaft” (GG). His “Deutsche Wirtschaftsgeschichte seit 1945” is considered as standard work and has been published in numerous editions since 1983. His latest publication is a special issue of “Geschichte und Gesellschaft” regarding economic cultures that he edited together with A. Leutzsch and D. Gilgen. His English publications include The Dynamics of German Industry with Berghahn Books in 2005 and German Industry and Global Enterprise with Cambridge University Press in 2007. He is also considered an authority by German and European media and political parties on issues relating to the recent economic crises.

The lecture is part of German month and will be moderated by DAAD Visiting Assistant Professor Dr. Andreas Leutzsch.