ABSTRACT
The postwar institutional and policy big bangs in Germany and France were supported by a narrative that treated the interwar crisis of liberal democracy as a product of institutional immaturity. It supplanted a rival account of unrestrained capitalism to produce a story of the maturing of capitalism, that is, its containment by the state. Born in extra-constitutional circumstances, the two new republics leaned towards presidentialism, providing the executive branch and new autonomous agencies with the capacity to reset social groups preferences by drawing on non-political intelligence. The emerging governance model relied on a balancing act between democracy and expertise. This mechanism is at the core of the 21st-century European Union’s regulatory state, its high productivity, and egalitarianism. But it has also opened a space for a perverse ‘EU-mandated austerity’ political rhetoric that laid the ground for the rise of populism in Italy and France. Conversely, Germany managed to carry on sensitive labour reforms under experts’ blessing, illustrating the long-term sustainability of 1940s governance innovations.
