Universität zu Köln

Stratenwerth, Mischa (2025). Interest Groups and Macroeconomic Policy in the Export-led German Growth Model. Business associations, trade unions, and the reproduction of the undervaluation regime. PhD thesis, Universität zu Köln.

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Abstract

This dissertation explores how the political stability of the macroeconomic policy regime underpinning the export-led German growth model has been maintained, despite the model’s uneven distributive outcomes. It combines document analysis and interviews to map the positions of trade unions and business organizations across fiscal, monetary, and eurozone policy debates – covering both relative winners and losers of the growth model. Expanding on emerging Gramsci-inspired conceptualizations of growth model politics, the study focuses on investigating coalitional patterns among producer groups and on the actor-specific mechanisms that secure their support, consent, or compliance. In doing so, it enriches the literature on growth model politics by offering an empirically grounded and conceptually nuanced perspective that complements and challenges broad-brush structuralist, functionalist, and culturalist explanations of the reproduction of growth frameworks. Overall, the in-depth research largely confirms expectations of a dominant growth coalition forming around key business interest groups, but paints a complex picture with regard to the positioning of non-core groups within these dynamic coalitional configurations. Findings indicate that the persistent reproduction of the export-oriented policy framework cannot be fully explained by interest alignment or ideational convergence, but additionally relies on a broader set of cohesion-sustaining mechanisms – ranging from compensation and depoliticalization to coercive enforcement, ignorance, and exclusion – that contribute to obscure distributive conflicts, encourage passive acquiescence, and contain dissent.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD thesis)
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID ORCID Put Code Stratenwerth, Mischa m.stratenwerth@posteo.de UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED
URN:	urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-782537
DOI:	10.17617/2.3615838
Date:	2025
ISBN:	9783946416326
Language:	English
Faculty:	Faculty of Management, Economy and Social Sciences
Divisions:	Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Political Science > Cologne Center for Comparative Politics
Subjects:	Social sciences
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Keywords Language growth models UNSPECIFIED trade unions UNSPECIFIED business associations UNSPECIFIED economic policy preferences UNSPECIFIED German export model UNSPECIFIED hegemony UNSPECIFIED
Date of oral exam:	11 June 2011
Referee:	Name Academic Title Baccaro, Lucio Prof. (hon.) Dr. Höpner, Martin Prof. Dr. Trampusch, Christine Prof. Dr.
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/78253