Growth Coalitions and Macroeconomic Policy Regimes

Mischa Stratenwerth

Growth models are underpinned by specific macroeconomic policy regimes. How political support for these regimes can be consistently reproduced, despite inherent distributional tensions, is at the core of this project. Building on a PhD project before it, the study initially focuses on producer groups as key actors and on Germany as a key case of a substantially unbalanced, yet remarkably conflict-free and coherent, growth regime. In-depth investigations of actors’ preferences should provide insights into positional patterns and (implicit) political alliances to ultimately enable empirically rooted interpretations of the nature of active and passive consent among the relative losers and winners of prevailing growth frameworks. In addition to enriching the study of macroeconomic policy preferences more broadly, the project aims to advance conceptualizations of growth model politics by unpacking Gramsci-inspired notions of dominant growth coalitions and by scrutinizing the role of intentionality and planning in macroeconomic growth strategies.