Explaining the Fate of Outsider Experts: Germany’s Progressive Think Tanks in Economic and Social Policy

Progressive think tanks in Germany have been quite successful in the field of environmental and energy policy. Radical ecological movements and think tanks pushed quite successfully against nuclear energy and chlorine chemistry, for example. The road to ecological taxation and energy conversion in favor of a considerable share of renewable energy was paved by moderate think tanks with support from both environmental and business groups. In the social policy field Germany has experienced welfare state retrenchment instead. Social security and pension reforms have been driven by neoliberal ideas. Except for the successful campaign for minimum wages driven by trade union related think tanks, progressive think tanks have not been able to define problems in relevant ways let alone set the agenda. What explains the outsider status of progressive experts when it comes to German economic and social policy making? In contrast to explanations that suggest inferior expertise and the political character of the opposition to the German and European austerity regime this paper examines logics of constituencies and influence relevant to the asymmetries in the economic and social policy field. Germany’s progressive forces have become weaker during the past generation. The consolidation of neoliberal hegemony has led to an increasing adaptation and integration of progressive forces. Unlike the experience in Anglo-Saxon countries and in the environmental policy field in Germany, there is also a lack of professional energy needed to exploit opportunities offered in the political cycle and in times of crisis that supply windows of opportunity for change if actors are sufficiently prepared to jump on such occasions.