Bio: (1940-) German sociologist. Claus Offe received his Ph.D. from the University of Frankfurt and has taught at several universities in Germany, the USA, and Australia. Offe is considered a member of the second generation of the Frankfurt School. He deals with the topics of the state, capitalist economy, civil society, social democracy, and the welfare state. In Contradictions of the Welfare State (1984), Offe studied what he calls the "crisis of crisis management" in social security systems in capitalist countries. He believes that the modern state is no longer able to fully solve the socio-economic problems and conflicts of late capitalism. In his book Disorganized Capitalism (1985), Offe views modern Western democracies as disorganized systems full of problems: divisions in the labor force, declining role and strength of trade unions, and weakening liberal-democratic and neo-corporative governance mechanisms.

Offe also studied the political and economic transition that took place in Eastern Europe after the fall of socialist regimes in the book The Varieties of Transition (1996). He identifies the threefold transition that took place in Eastern European countries after the collapse of socialism: a change in the political system; a change in the type of economy; new state borders and the emergence of new identities caused by these new borders. He singles out national and international crime, porous borders, unstable governments, and declining potential for collective action as key problems for transition countries.

His book Europe Entrapped (2015) examines many of the problems plaguing the European Union after the 2008 global economic crisis. He believes that the EU lacks the ability to make effective decisions in fiscal, economic, and social areas. However, he is not a Euro-skeptic, but advocates even greater EU integration, which would be based on social democratic principles. In that sense, he advocates the redistribution of wealth between the poor and rich members of the Union, limiting the power of the market and rejecting austerity measures.

Main works

Contradictions of the Welfare State (1984);

Disorganized Capitalism (1985); 

The Varieties of Transition: The East European and East German Experience (1996);

Modernity and The State: East and West (1996);

Institutional Design in Post-Communist  Societies: Rebuilding the Ship at Sea (1998);

“Political Liberalism, Groups Rights, and the Politics of Fear and Trust”. International Social Science Review (2002);

Reflections on America: Tocqueville, Weber and Adorno in the United States (2005);

Inequality and the Labour Market (2010);

Europe Entrapped (2015); 

European Populism in the Shadow of the Great Recession (2016).