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Book Talk: The Hobbled State
Fractured Politics in Contemporary Germany
Speaker:
Mark I. Vail, Worrell Chair of Politics and International Affairs, Wake Forest University
Moderator:
Eric Langenbacher, Senior Fellow and Director of the Society, Culture & Politics Program, AGI
The Hobbled State: Fractured Politics in Contemporary Germany investigates Germany’s contemporary governance dilemmas and the failures of its post-war political-economic model to adjust to shifting economic, social, and geopolitical challenges in the contemporary era. It contends that Germany’s contemporary adjustment failures stem in important ways from unresolved tensions between two competing frameworks of governance—the Rechtsstaat, or “administrative state,” and the developmental state. It traces the effects of these tensions across four policy and institutional domains: fiscal policy, labor market policy, energy and environmental policy, and defense and security policy.
This webinar will discuss the arguments of The Hobbled State. In an era of heightened political and economic volatility and mounting threats to the post-war liberal democratic order in Germany, Europe, and beyond, a rethinking of the conceptual architecture surrounding the German state and a recalibration of its roles in the country’s political-economic governance is critical.
Dr. Mark I. Vail is Worrell Chair of Politics and International Affairs at Wake Forest University. His research focuses on the comparative political economy of advanced industrial countries, with a particular emphasis on social and economic policy, industrial relations, political institutions, and the role of political ideologies in Western Europe. He has published three books: Recasting Welfare Capitalism (Temple, 2010), Liberalism in Illiberal States (Oxford, 2018), and The Hobbled State (Agenda Publishing, 2025). He has also published chapters in numerous edited volumes and articles in prominent journals, including the Journal of Common Market Studies, Comparative Politics, Governance, and West European Politics. He has held positions as a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne, the Max Planck/Sciences Po Center on Coping with Instability in Market Societies in Paris, and the University of Duisburg-Essen. He is also editor of the series “Understanding Europe,” published by Agenda Publishing (UK).
This session will convene via Zoom. Please contact AGI Program Associate Mr. Jack Fornasiero at jfornasiero@aicgs.org with any questions.
This event is supported with funds from the Harry and Helen Gray Humanities Program.
