Publisher's Synopsis
Bachelor Thesis from the year 2004 in the subject Politics - Political Systems - Germany, grade: 1,3, Lund University, course: Political Decision Making, 36 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: The guiding question of this paper is: Was the public opinion a constraint for German retrenchment advocates in the 1990s? It will be shown that the Germans were in their majority against retrenchment measures, and that this contributed to the political situation, in which regardless of a growing fiscal and economic crisis the structure of the German welfare state remained unaltered. Through the examination of approaches to public support of the welfare state it will be shown that the characteristic of retrenchment measures make their promotion difficult, but not impossible. Instead, the experience of the 1990s can be used to learn how retrenchment ideas can gain more support in the public - and thus have better chances to get implemented.
