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
2 - Social Concertation as a Political Strategy
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
Modern political systems can be analysed at two levels: at the level of the mass citizenry, and at the level of the corporate groups controlling major resources within the system. At the mass level there is formal equality within territorialy defi ned electorates: within each constituency one vote counts as much as any other, and decisions are reached by some form of aggregation of equally weighted preferences. At the corporate level there is no equality: there may be provisions for parity in the organization of arenas of bargaining but what counts in the dealings among corporate groups is the capacity to mobilize, to control and quite particularly to withdraw resources of direct importance for the maintenance of the territorial political system (Rokkan in Flora et al. 1999: 261).
Gone with the Wind? The Transformations of Corporatism in Europe
In the 1960s, the Norwegian political scientist Stein Rokkan described the functioning of the political system in his country in a manner that stood in sharp contrast with textbook descriptions of modern democracies at the time. In Norway , Rokkan argued, the most important decisions in economic policy were not taken in parliament or within political parties but at bargaining tables gathering the government, trade union leaders, farmers, fishermen, smallholders and business organisations. In these bargaining rounds which “had come to mean more in the lives of rank-and-file citizens than formal elections”, decisions were not taken by majority rule but through “complex considerations of short-term advantages in alternative lines of compromises” (Rokkan 1966: 106).
in many ways, stein rokkan 's early description of the “corporate” sphere of decision-making functioning alongside the “mass-democratic” sphere would pave the way for a whole strand of research seeking to understand how collective decisions were made outside “official” chan nels of democratic representation, such as elections and parliaments. not only in norway , but in many other countries, stabilised patterns of interaction between private organised interests and public authorities played an essential role in social regulation, from the setting of wages to the management of health systems, pension schemes and economic policy.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Social Concertation in Times of AusterityEuropean Integration and the Politics of Labour Market Reforms in Austria and Switzerland, pp. 25 - 52Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2013