International structural factors do not explain this convergence, since those factors could just as well entail a more liberal response than the one the two governments adopted. A number of domestic factors do explain it. Weak industrial capacity is one. French industrial firms were in dire financial shape in the early 1980s, and Spain's legacy of backwardness and protectionism made its industry even more fragile. A second factor is the capacity of both states to intervene decisively to manage adjustment. Both had a powerful executive and centralized administration. Many of the industries that needed restructuring were state-owned. Furthermore, both governments enjoyed strong electoral and parliamentary majorities. The Spanish socialists were able to deploy policies that their more conservative predecessors had tried to implement but failed. The French socialists were able to effect a complete reversal in policy approach without major loss of parliamentary support. Finally, both governments informed policy with the same ideological preference for reconciling market efficiency with the activist state.

Smith devotes much of his analysis not to convergence but to differences between the two experiences. The Spanish elaborated strategies of adjustment that were more coherent than the French but in the end less effective. The author explains the greater incoherence of French policy with reference to the greater need in France to build a governing coalition among the disparate forces of the political and labor Left. The French Left that assumed power in 1981 was an alliance of a rather Stalinist Communist Party, a splinter of the old anticlerical liberal party, the Radicaux de Gauche, and a Socialist Party that was itself a coalition of four more or less independent political forces, ranging from the far left Centre d'Etudes de Recherche et d'Education Socialistes of Jean-Pierre Chevènement to the modernizing right wing of Michel Rocard's Parti Socialiste Unifié. Incoherence in policy reflects efforts to keep this wide-ranging coalition together.

The Spanish socialists were able to govern with minimal concerns about alliance politics. Felipe Gonzalez had solidified the Socialist Party by eliminating internal factions and by centralizing control over the party apparatus. The Spanish Communist Party was in decline, and the socialists were not compelled to enter into electoral alliance with them.

Smith explains the greater effectiveness of French policy with reference to the greater interventionist capacity of the French state and the greater weakness of French labor unions. Divisions among the unions facilitated the implementation of policy in France, whereas labor unity occasionally threatened implementation of policy in Spain. This dynamic was most apparent in the steel industry. Organized labor in neither country was able to deter the government from adapting steel to a slow market, but Spanish unions mobilized more effectively and extracted more concessions. Despite many protests in French coal and steel regions there was little effective action, in part because of divergent analyses among the unions regarding the nature of the crisis and the appropriate response. The independent Confederation Francaise Democratique du Travail sympathized with the need to adapt the industry to the slow market, but the procommunist Confederation Generale du Travail sought to subsidize investment and retain labor.

Smith eschews monocausal explanations and provides a rich, textured political analysis that he lays out with great clarity. He returns again and again to the importance of coalition building and the politics that informs it. In so doing, he reinvests agency in the actors who make policy and demotes the importance of international structural constraints. This is a good, rewarding book.