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On Whose Side Is the State? The German Labor Ministry and Industrial Relations, 1918–1933
Author(s) -
LIU TIENLUNG
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
journal of historical sociology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.186
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1467-6443
pISSN - 0952-1909
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-6443.1997.tb00193.x
Subject(s) - corporatism , statism , german , interwar period , sketch , pluralism (philosophy) , contingency , social democracy , democracy , state (computer science) , christian ministry , political economy , political science , economic system , economics , world war ii , sociology , politics , law , epistemology , history , archaeology , algorithm , philosophy , computer science
This paper uses the shifting industrial relations policies of the German Labor Ministry to evaluate the competing theories of the state. The analysis shows (1) that pluralism, social democracy, corporatism, and statism can only account for policy changes in specific segments of the interwar years and (2) that in comparison, structuralist neo‐Marxism explains the policy shifts from 1918 to 1933. However, I argue that because of their predilection for a fixed set of actors, these explanations are weak in predicting the ascendance of various forces during the interwar period and then sketch a contingency approach to the study of state agencies.