Union of Parts examines one of the central puzzles in the economic and political successes of West Germany (FRG). In the decades between world war and reunification with the East, the FRG provided a model for combining high rates of unionization and substantial labor peace-indeed, for collaboration between organized labor and organized capital as both groups faced the dislocations involved in adjusting to a changing global marketplace.

Kathleen Thelen is Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University. She is the author of How Institutions Evolve and the coeditor of Structuring Politics and Beyond Continuity.