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Abstract
The intent of the paper is to analyze two narratives about the remarkable turn-around of Germany in the 1990s as sick man of Europe to today’s most successful economy in the EU. Ordoliberalism is used by German policy makers and elites to account for the economic success story without taking into account the Euro currency regime which has overwhelmingly favoured Germany’s export-orientation. Ordoliberalism as an ideational concept has limited value as an explanatory force. As a result, German ordoliberal ideas have little current value to uphold it as a panacea for indebted peripheral countries to become more competitive. Nor are stories about the ordoliberalization of Europe justified. The recourse to ordoliberal positions is a highly superficial adaptation of ordoliberalism by German policy makers lacking greater theoretical potency. Thus neither in law nor in economics are authors to be found who represent a genuinely ordoliberal approach to explain the German success story or for that matter the Eurozone crisis management.
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Brigitte Young is Professor Emerita of International Political Economy, Department of Political Science at the University of Münster. She previously served as Expert Advisor to the Enquete-Commission of the German Parliament on ‘Globalization of the World Economy.’ She is currently a member of the Advisory Board of the EU Horizon 2020 project, Money Laundering and Tax Evasion (COFFERS), and ‘The Choice for Europe since Maastricht’ (EMU-Choices). Her latest co-authored books are Financial Cultures and Crisis Dynamics (Routledge 2015); Questioning Financial Governance from a Feminist Perspective (Routledge 211). Young has held several guest professorships in Germany and internationally. Young received the Käthe Leichter State prize of Austria in 2016 for her work in Finance Economics and Gender.