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Tamed Power: Germany in Europe

Edited by Peter J. Katzenstein
Reviewed by By Stanley Hoffmann
May/June 1998
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Edited by Peter J. Katzenstein
Cornell University Press
1997
314 pp.
$49.95

This study of the relations between Germany and a unifying Europe is important both for its contribution to the endless theoretical debate about European integration -- whether it is driven by governmental bargains or by a logic of "spillover" that constrains and reduces the sovereignty of the member states -- and its analysis of Germany's relations with (mainly) the smaller states of Western and Eastern Europe. Katzenstein's introductory chapter emphasizes the ways in which institutions shape not just the interests but the identities of the participants. Because Germany has chosen to exert not hard but soft power -- influence and persuasion -- through the institutions of the EU, "German domination over contemporary Europe is a mirage." German material power is not a threat, but there is a "'creeping German colouring' of European institutions." The other chapters analyze the way in which Germany has used its "soft power" in a variety of policy realms and the changes since Germany's unification.

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