Governing the Economy: The Politics of State Intervention in Britain and France (Europe and the International Order) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195205235 ISBN 13: 9780195205237

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1986

Synopsis

For over one hundred years, the British economy has been in decline relative to other industrialized countries. This book explores the origins of Britain's economic problems and develops a striking new argument about the sources of decline. It goes on to analyze the evolution of economic policy in postwar Britain from the development of Keynesianism to the rise of monetarism under Margaret Thatcher. France, by contrast, experienced an economic miracle in the postwar period. Hall argues that the French state transformed itself and then its society through an extensive system of state intervention. In the recent period, however, the French system has encountered many difficulties, and the book locates their sources in the complex interaction between state and society in France culminating in the socialist experiment of Francois Mitterrand. Through his insightful, comparative examination of policy-making in Britain and France, Hall develops a new approach to state-society relations that emphasizes the crucial role of institutional structures.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

One of Britain's more aristocratic Prime Ministers once said: 'There are two problems in my life. The political ones are insolubleand the economic ones are incomprehensible.' Many of his successors might agree; but the two sorts of problems are not always as separable as we imagine. This is a book about the political dimensions of economic management. It attempts to explain the direction that economic policy took in Britain and France over the post-war period; and one of its central contentions is that economic policy-making must be understood as an essentially political process.

About the Author:

Peter A. Hall is at Harvard University.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1986
• ISBN 10: 0195205235
• ISBN 13: 9780195205237
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 340
• Editor: Hall Peter A.