Suchergebnisse

Has the strategy of the "external constraint" (voluntarily limiting the country's policy-making discretion by tying it to the European mast) contributed to Italy's stagnation over the past twenty-five years? The existing literature is divided on this question. The dominant interpretation is that Italy's stagnation is due to insufficient liberalization, and that the external constraint has had no negative and even a positive influence. An alternative interpretation emphasizes the demand compression and supply-side effects of the external constraint. Based on three case studies of public debt management, privatization, and labor market policy, this paper reconstructs the process by which the external constraint has affected outcomes. It argues that it has had a negative impact, but more as a necessary condition than as a sufficient one. In other words, it would probably have been possible to manage the external constraint differently to produce better outcomes, but without the external constraint, the stagnation would likely have been less deep. ; Hat die Strategie des "äußeren Zwangs" (die freiwillige Einschränkung der politischen Gestaltungsmacht eines Landes durch seine Unterwerfung unter europäische Vorgaben) zu Italiens Stagnation in den letzten 25 Jahren beigetragen? Die vorliegende Literatur ist in dieser Frage zwiegespalten. Die vorherrschende Deutung besagt, dass Italiens Stagnation einer unzureichenden Liberalisierung geschuldet ist und der äußere Zwang keinen negativen, sondern im Gegenteil einen positiven Einfluss gehabt hat. Eine alternative Interpretation verweist jedoch auf die einbrechende Nachfrage und die Angebotseffekte, die der äußere Zwang verursacht. Auf der Grundlage dreier Fallstudien zum öffentlichen Schuldenwesen, zur Privatisierung und zur Arbeitsmarktpolitik rekonstruiert dieser Beitrag den Prozess, durch den der äußere Zwang Resultate beeinflusst hat. Er vertritt die These, dass dieser Zwang zwar einen negativen Einfluss ausgeübt hat, dies jedoch eher als notwendige denn als hinreichende Bedingung. Es wäre, anders ausgedrückt, also wahrscheinlich möglich gewesen, anders mit dem äußeren Zwang umzugehen, und zwar so, dass bessere Resultate erzielt worden wären; ohne diesen Zwang wäre die Stagnation allerdings wohl weniger einschneidend verlaufen.

This paper provides a historical overview of comparative political economy as an interdisciplinary field of study anchored in political science and focused on advanced capitalist states. We argue that this field of inquiry has reached an impasse and that a more sustained engagement with macroeconomics provides a way forward. Against this backdrop, we review two distinct traditions of macroeconomics - New Keynesian and Post-Keynesian macroeconomics - and discuss their relative merits as vehicles for renewing the research agenda of comparative political economy. ; Dieses Paper bietet einen historischen Überblick über die Vergleichende Politische Ökonomie als interdisziplinäres, in der Politikwissenschaft verankertes und auf die entwickelten kapitalistischen Länder bezogenes Forschungsfeld. Wir argumentieren, dass dieses Forschungsfeld in einer Sackgasse steckt und dass eine grundlegendere Auseinandersetzung mit der Makroökonomie nötig ist, um voranzukommen. Vor diesem Hintergrund wenden wir uns zwei unterschiedlichen Traditionen der Makroökonomie zu - dem Neokeynesianismus und dem Postkeynesianismus - und diskutieren, inwiefern diese als Instrumente zur Erneuerung der Forschungsagenda der Vergleichenden Politischen Ökonomie beitragen können.

This paper makes two interrelated arguments. First, based on case studies of Sweden and Germany, it argues for a generalized liberalization trend in industrial relations, affecting not just "liberal" but also "coordinated" forms of capitalism. In coordinated economies, liberalization has not taken place primarily through outright deregulation, but has involved alternative mechanisms that increase employer discretion without fundamentally altering the form of existing institutions. Second, the paper links the liberalization of industrial relations to "secular stagnation" - i.e., to the growing difficulty that all advanced economies have in generating adequate levels of aggregate demand. It argues that strong unions and centralized collective bargaining were cornerstones of the wage-led Fordist model, and that the liberalization of industrial relations has undermined a crucial institutional channel for transmitting productivity increases into real wages and aggregate demand. Post-Fordist growth models are based on alternative drivers of growth, but they are all fundamentally unstable. ; Dieses Diskussionspapier führt zwei Argumente. Erstens zeigt es auf der Basis von Fallstudien zu Schweden und Deutschland, dass sich der gegenwärtige Trend der Liberalisierung der Arbeitsbeziehungen nicht nur auf die "liberale" Ländergruppe, sondern auch auf die "koordinierten" Kapitalismusmodelle erstreckt. In den koordinierten Ökonomien geschah dies nicht allein mittels durchgreifender Liberalisierungspolitik, sondern auch mittels alternativer Mechanismen, die die Institutionen intakt ließen, den diskretionären Handlungsspielraum der Arbeitgeber aber gleichwohl erhöhten. Zweitens verknüpft das Papier den Befund der Liberalisierung der Arbeitsbeziehungen mit der Debatte über "säkulare Stagnation", also der Schwierigkeit entwickelter Industrieländer, ihre gesamtwirtschaftliche Nachfrage adäquat zu entwickeln: Die Liberalisierung der Arbeitsbeziehungen hat die Gewerkschaften geschwächt, die Lohnfindung dezentralisiert und der Überführung von Produktivitätsfortschritten in Reallohn- und Nachfragezuwächse damit die institutionelle Grundlage entzogen. Die postfordistischen Wachstumsmodelle, die sich auf alternative Wachstumstreiber stützen, erweisen sich allesamt als instabil.

"This article proposes a new interpretation of the evolution of German industrial relations focusing on the interaction between macroeconomic dynamics and industrial relations developments and specifically on 'growth models'. It argues that there has been a shift in the German growth model from growth pulled by net exports and consumption simultaneously to almost exclusively export-led growth. In addition, exports of machinery and transportation equipment have become more price-sensitive, implying that wage and price increases now pose a greater threat to growth than in the past. These macroeconomic developments have spurred a set of adjustments in the industrial relations sphere with export-oriented firms seeking cost reductions and liberalizations. Industrial relations changes have in turn contributed to entrench export-led growth by augmenting the systemic importance of the foreign sector and reducing the relevance of domestic demand. The export sector has thrived at the expense of real wage stagnation, particularly (but not exclusively) in labour-intensive service sectors, and pattern bargaining has lost its ability to redistribute across sectors and boost domestic demand. The new German model is much leaner and meaner than in the past. Contrary to recent literature, its erosion and liberalization are not limited to the service periphery but affect the manufacturing core as well." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

This paper develops an analytical approach to comparative political economy that focuses on the relative importance of different components of aggregate demand—in the first instance, exports and household consumption—and dynamic relations among the "demand drivers" of growth. We illustrate this approach by comparing patterns of economic growth in Germany, Italy, Sweden, and the United Kingdom over the period 1994–2007. Our discussion emphasizes that export-led growth and consumption-led growth have different implications for distributive conflict.

This paper analyses the two most important international programmes for the voluntary regulation of corporate behaviour: the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Corporations and the UN Global Compact. It argues that international organizations adopted them mostly for reasons of political feasibility: by imposing minimal constraints on constituents the codes circumvented the most pressing problems of political acceptability associated with standard setting. It finds no clear evidence, however, that the network solutions adopted are technically more effective than traditional forms of regulation. The paper concludes that while it is unlikely that corporate behaviour will change simply as a result of participation in these programmes, if the programmes increase their ability to consistently discriminate between good and bad performers, the resulting 'soft' sanctioning power has the potential to alter corporate behaviour in the long run.

Based on quantitative indicators for fifteen advanced countries between 1974 and 2005, and case studies of France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Sweden, and Ireland, this article analyzes the trajectory of institutional change in the industrial relations systems of advanced capitalist societies, with a focus on Western Europe. In contrast to current comparative political economy scholarship, which emphasizes the resilience of national institutions to common challenges and trends, it argues that despite a surface resilience of distinct national sets, all countries have been transformed in a neoliberal direction. Neoliberal transformation manifests itself not just as institutional deregulation but also as institutional conversion, as the functions associated with existing institutional forms change in a convergent direction. A key example is the institution of centralized bargaining, once the linchpin of an alternative, redistributive and egalitarian, model of negotiated capitalism, which has been reshaped in the past twenty years to fit the common imperative of liberalization.