Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables and Figures
- List of Abbreviations
- Acknowledgements
- 1 The Strange Survival of Social Concertation in Times of Austerity
- 2 Social Concertation as a Political Strategy
- 3 European Integration, Domestic Politics and Social Concertation
- 4 Methods and Cases
- 5 The Context of Social Concertation in Switzerland and Austria
- 6 Social Concertation and Cross-Border Labour Mobility
- 7 Social Concertation and Unemployment Policy Reforms
- 8 Synthesis and Comparative Outlook
- List of Interviews
- Notes
- References
- Index
- Changing Welfare States
3 - European Integration, Domestic Politics and Social Concertation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 January 2021
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables and Figures
- List of Abbreviations
- Acknowledgements
- 1 The Strange Survival of Social Concertation in Times of Austerity
- 2 Social Concertation as a Political Strategy
- 3 European Integration, Domestic Politics and Social Concertation
- 4 Methods and Cases
- 5 The Context of Social Concertation in Switzerland and Austria
- 6 Social Concertation and Cross-Border Labour Mobility
- 7 Social Concertation and Unemployment Policy Reforms
- 8 Synthesis and Comparative Outlook
- List of Interviews
- Notes
- References
- Index
- Changing Welfare States
Summary
This chapter introduces an international dimension to the theoretical framework. I focus on European integration and its domestic politicisation as challenging factors for social concertation, and propose a set of heuristic hypotheses to explore the impact of European integration on social concertation. European integration has been seen as a major influence on concertation, yet the causal mechanisms whereby this influence takes place have stayed relatively unclear. Whereas existing scholarship has tended to posit a somewhat mechanistic relationship between them, either in the direction of a weakening or of a strengthening, this chapter explores the complex mechanisms whereby domestic politics mediates the effects of European integration on social concertation
First, European integration has become increasingly politicised at the domestic level, and the domestic adaptation to “Europe” no longer takes place in a “de-politicised” manner through technocratic or administrative procedures of macro-economic adjustment. As European integration becomes more politically salient domestically, I argue that social concertation as a political strategy can also play a role for governments to build a domestic consensus about European integration. Second, European integration and processes of internationalisation in general can also affect social concertation by reconfiguring the context of party competition (Kriesi et al. 2008). The most prominent evolution in this respect has been the emergence of right-wing populist parties capitalising on the opposition to internationalisation in all its forms (Bornschier 2010). Insofar as concertation was traditionally linked to stabilised patterns of party competition, this evolution can be believed to challenge the capacity of corporatist bargains to be translated into actual policy reforms.
Internationalisation and Social Concertation: A Prelude
Almost thirty years ago, the two seminal volumes written by Peter Katzenstein (1984, 1985) highlighted the corporatist strategies adopted by small European states to cope with international economic interdependence. The small countries he analysed – Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands , Sweden , Norway , Denmark and Belgium – displayed the typical corporatist characteristics outlined in the previous chapter: strong cooperation between the social partners and the state in the elaboration of social and economic policies on the one hand, and strongly organised labour markets on the other. These countries, Katzenstein argued, reacted differently from bigger states to the international economic crises of the 1970s. Instead of confrontational or protectionist strategies, they opted for negotiated processes of adaptation and free trade policies.
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- Information
- Social Concertation in Times of AusterityEuropean Integration and the Politics of Labour Market Reforms in Austria and Switzerland, pp. 53 - 74Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2013