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all.(Bowman, 1986; Eley, 1980; Feldenkirschen, 1984; Kemp, 1985; Kurth, 1979; Tilly,
1967) The second time around, the Wirtschaftswunder- Social Market Economy era, the
context of the unique conditions present after WWII were significant.(Erhard, 1958;
Eucken, 1951; Müller-Armack, 1971; Röpke, 1960) At that time it was about dealing
with an open economy in a highly protected pre-EU nation-specific environment in which
the new Federal Republic of Germany had no independent geopolitical aspirations and
thus focused more or less solely on economic recovery and growth. Some scholars see
postwar German success owing to the legacy of the Nazi era (Reich, 1990). However,
such a perspective misses a deeper path dependent trajectory (Lehmbruch, 2001) that
links the institutional similarities between Bismarck’s political economy and that of the
Wirtschaftswunder. These periods were not identical, since the latter era saw the
development of a durable democratic political system, while the former did not.
But today, the context has changed yet again: the economic environment has
become much more globalized, political accountability questions concerning a
“democratic deficit” are debated actively, (Decker, 2002; Moravcsik, 2002; M. G.
Schmidt, 2002a) and Germany and Europe have to deal with much more porous borders
than ever. Lastly, the still incomplete German unification, in retrospect, appears more
like the annexation of a society that might have fared better than it has with more careful
institution building and genuine political voice. Under these circumstances, the question
is can the same theoretical arguments that applied in the two earlier periods, namely
adaptive institutions infused with innovative ideas, even apply this time?
In testing whether comparative historical institutionalism, and the ideas and
institutions of which it is comprised, the article probes a question crucial not only for
Convention