Publications - MPIfG

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MPIfG Report 1999–2002
The third habilitation project by Susanne Schmidt focuses on national responses
to “negative integration” in two industries – road haulage and insurance. The
study starts from the observation of remarkable differences in the degree to which
Germany and France have actually deregulated these previously protected sectors,
and it notes that the much more radical German response was neither required by
European law nor compelled by a significant increase of foreign competition in
the national markets. The search for convincing explanations is thus bound to
shed new light on the existing literature on the interaction between changes in the
international political economy and domestic policy choices. Even though
Susanne Schmidt has given birth to two baby boys during the course of the project,
completion is expected during 2003.
Lastly, there are three projects examining substantive and institutional changes
in the multi-level regulation of marketable products. Jürgen Feick’s study of pharmaceutical
regulation reconstructed the historical evolution of national licensing
systems in response to particular catastrophes as well as subsequent efforts at
international coordination and European harmonization that were driven by the
interests of large, export-oriented pharmaceutical firms. In explaining the difficulties
encountered here, he focuses on the interplay between specific coordination
techniques, substantive policy interests, and the institutional self-interest of
national licensing organizations. This project was completed in 2002. A related
project, jointly designed by Susanne Lütz and William D. Coleman (McMaster
University), is studying European and national regulations of genetically modified
foodstuffs. The specific focus is on problems of democratic legitimacy and
accountability that are bound to arise when issues that are politically salient in
several member states must be dealt with in the comitology procedures that are
characteristic of multi-level European regulation. This project was still ongoing at
the time when Susanne Lütz left the institute to take up a temporary position at
the FernUniversität Hagen. Helmut Voelzkow also completed the project, undertaken
jointly with Volker Eichener (Ruhr-Universität Bochum), on the integration of
environmental standards into the European harmonization of product regulations.
In 2002, Voelzkow left the institute to become a professor at the University
of Osnabrück.
Regime Competition and Integration in Political Economy
Projects in this cluster, which was directed by Wolfgang Streeck, were concerned
with the historical evolution of national social and economic institutions under
the impact of internationalization, both of markets and of regimes of governance.
A set of projects on Germany and Japan was completed before the end of 2002.
Two major books, one on the historical origins of nationally embedded non-liberal
capitalism in Germany and Japan and another on the future prospects of the