ABSTRACT

The new era of slower growth Western Europe's success story since 1945 has no dramatic turning points, no disasters. From the later 1960s, however, a worrying transition occurred from the phase of rapid reconstruction and modernisation which followed the war to a period of higher inflation, lower growth rates, greater economic fluctuations, and more visible social problems. This phase has lasted into the 1990s. It was not a sharp break or reversal, for living standards continued to rise, western European integration progressed, and the continent's progress towards a fully urbanised society was virtually completed. Political extremism, allowing for a few surges, continued its postwar decline and Christian Democracy or its equivalents remained the dominant influence in 1995, just as they had been after 1945. Few questioned, though, that western Europe had entered a new era of relative difficulty which partially recalled the years between the World Wars.