Ute Klammer, Simone Leiber and Sigrid Leitner (eds) (2020), Social Work and the Making of Social Policy, Bristol: Policy Press, £26.99, pp. 256, pbk.

Abstract

tensions, critically reflecting on the implications of the German export-led growth model for increasing transnational macroeconomic instability. The fact that the individual contributions, despite their common objective, are not subordinate to a uniform and integrated theoretical approach makes it possible to capture a broad range of changes in different domains of Germany’s political economy (from skill formation systems to corporate governance and industrial relations) and on the most diverse levels (institutions, power relations, and ideas). However, the central finding of a generally growing imbalance remains somewhat vague against this background, since it is difficult to theoretically link the consequences of the various developments back to the architecture of the German economy as a whole. This would require a more dedicated theoretical examination of an ideal-typical concept of balance, against the background of which the individual shifts and changes could have been systematically classified and evaluated. A starting point for further development could be a critical examination of the manifold meanings of the concept of complementarity (see Crouch ; Deeg ; Höpner ), which implicitly and at least partially represents the antagonist to the concept of imbalance. This could provide a more nuanced diagnosis of changes, their mutual interrelation and implications in order to evaluate in how far transformations have resulted in social, political or economic disadvantage. Nevertheless, a reorientation towards imbalance as a central analysis dimension would clearly be profitable for future comparative analyses of political economies beyond the German case study.