Contention in Times of Crisis: British and German Social Actors Trying to Reframe Capitalism

This contribution analyzes press releases addressing the 2008-2014 crisis by German and British trade unions and business organizations as strategical interventions. Crises as decision situations are framed and (re-)constructed by actors. They do so intentionally, this is my assumption, to change the national and European sets of institutions - the respective conditions of their national and European conflictual arrangements. The contribution thus draws from knowledge-sociological, neo-institutional and conflict theoretical approaches.