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"This illuminating book considers the roles of social partners in regulating work and welfare through corporatist arrangements in three countries - all of which have strong traditions for social partner involvement. In the comparative study of Denmark, the Netherlands and Austria, Mikkel Mailand illustrates how the frequency of tripartite agreements has either been stable or has increased since the Great Recession of 2008, in spite of challenges from trade unions' loss of power and political developments. He therefore demonstrates that social partners are still strong enough to be included in corporatist arrangements. Moreover, the book posits that economic crisis in a 30 year perspective appears a stronger explanatory factor for corporatist development than social partner strength, government strength and government ideology. Using qualitative methods to offer a nuanced insight into corporatism within these countries, Corporatism since the Great Recession will be a useful read for both academics and students in industrial relations, political economy and other social science disciplines addressing the formulation of work and welfare related policies."

AbstractThe EU's social dimension has been strengthened since the mid-2010s. Recent research has shown how Commission entrepreneurship in meta-governance such as the European Pillar of Social Rights and the European Semester turned existing regulation in a more 'social' direction or led to new regulation strengthening Social Europe. This article asks whether the Commission also stands out as the most important actor in initiatives focused exclusively on working conditions and if the European social partners also in these are secondary reactive actors. Focusing on a recent case where the social partners had a treaty-based right to bargain—the Working Conditions Directive—the article confirms the Commission's dominance and the reactivity of the social partners. The choice not to bargain reduces the social partners to lobbyists attempting to influence other key actors. However, the case also shows the limits to Commission entrepreneurship in that EU member states and the European Parliament were able to influence the outcome in important ways.

Public sector industrial relations in Denmark are normally perceived as relatively consensual, and as a 'model employer' country with a strong collective bargaining tradition it is one of the countries where unilateral regulation could be least expected. However, in 2013, a lockout without any prior strike or strike-warning in the bargaining area for primary and lower secondary education only, came to an end through legislative intervention. The article includes three main arguments. First, the government and the public employers took these drastic steps because various factors created a rare 'window of opportunity' for them. Second, the reason a Norwegian industrial conflict in 2014 with a very similar point of departure ended very differently was first and foremost that the Norwegian process was not embedded in politics and policy reform to the same extent as the Danish process. Third, the Danish case shows that Denmark might not have escaped the trend towards unilateralism seen across Europe.

Artiklen viser, at decentral løn som forhandlingsemne tenderer til at blive fortrængt af andre lønemner som reallønssikring, reguleringsordning og ligeløn, og at det sandsynligvis er sværest at skabe ændringer i lønsystemerne under lavkonjunktur,fordi lønmodtagerorganisationerne tenderer til at prioritere reallønnen, når lønrammen er lille. Dybere diskussioner af decentral løn tages i højere grad i regi af periodeprojekter og kommissioner end under overenskomstforhandlingerne. Endvidere illustrererartiklen, at billedet af at 'arbejdsgiverne vil have mere decentral løn, mens lønmodtagerne ikke vil' er forsimplet. Det er primært de statslige arbejdsgivere, der i perioder har presset på for både øgede lokale lønandele og procesmæssige ændringer.På lønmodtagersiden har Akademikerne været de mindst skeptiske over for decentral løn. Endelige argumenteres der for, at 2022 var første gang en regering spillede sig direkte på banen i forhold til spørgsmål om decentral løn.

Danish municipalities have gone through a number of austerity-related government initiatives with consequences for job levels and public services. Moreover, the 'regulation mechanism', which ties public sector wages to wage development in the private sector, has worked as an indirect austerity measure leading to a quasi-pay freeze during the public sector collective bargaining rounds in 2011 and 2013. It is difficult, however, to isolate crisis-related consequences from other factors such as demographic development, outsourcing and pre-crisis reform. Social dialogue has played a very limited role in relation to the direct austerity measures, though case studies show that social dialogue at the local level has played a role in the implementation of austerity and restructuring measures. In the education area, working time was removed from the local bargaining agenda after a lock-out and government intervention in the 2013 bargaining round, but beyond this area no major changes in social dialogue institutions have taken place.

"Wissenschaftliche Analysen über Korporatismus lassen skandinavische Länder häufig außer Acht. Zudem werden die korporatistischen Beziehungen zwischen Staat und Sozialpartnern meist allein auf die Lohn- und Gehaltsverhandlungen oder die Einkommenspolitik bezogen. Sozialpolitische Arrangements geraten weit seltener in den Blick. Dieser Beitrag widmet sich beiden Leerstellen. Er zeigt die ungeminderte Bedeutung korporatistischer Strukturen in Dänemark und Norwegen. Korporatistische Arrangements finden sich hier auch jenseits der industriellen Beziehungen. Die Sozialpartner werden im Allgemeinen an der Formulierung und Durchsetzung sozialpolitischer Reformen beteiligt. Beide Länder weisen Rahmenbedingungen auf, die für den Korporatismus bedeutsam sind. Allerdings dominieren in Norwegen Formen des Makrokorporatismus mit zentralisierten Lohnverhandlungen, wohingegen in Dänemark der Mesokorporatismus (als ein Korporatismus in spezifischen Politikbereichen) überwiegt." (Autorenreferat)

In the mid-1990s, EU member states decided to coordinate their national employment policies through a common European Employment Strategy (EES). Building on a systematic comparative study of four member states, the author argues that the strategy has influenced the member states' employment policies to varying degrees, but that the impact, generally speaking, has been limited. In the article, the author examines the impact of the strategy as a result of `pressure' and key actors' strategic use of the strategy, and shows how these mechanisms work. Factors that can explain why a greater impact is found in Poland and Spain than is found in Denmark and the United Kingdom include: non-compliance with the EES predating the introduction of the strategy; relatively weak labour market performance; the lack of consensus among the main actors in the labour market; Europeanization; and strong economic or political dependence on the EU. Further, the author argues that the EES revisions in 2003 and 2005 have not increased the degree of impact, which instead seems to be diminishing.

This article describes how the interaction between the state and the social partners in Denmark has developed in four welfare-related policy areas (pensions, activation, continuous training, and maternity/paternity leave) and to what extent the interaction has led to corporatist arrangements. It is argued, first, that corporatism continues to play a role in Danish labour market and welfare state regulation, mostly in the form of ad hoc agreements on policy formulation and permanent involvement in implementation within specific policy areas and, secondly, that the 'grey zone', where the division of responsibilities between state and social partners is unclear, has been extended. The state and the social partners therefore have to define a new division of responsibilities.

This article reports on research into social partnerships aiming at labour market inclusion that developed during the 1990s in Denmark, the UK and Spain. Some of these partnerships are directly related to corporate social responsibility (CSR initiatives in individual firms), whereas others are only indirectly related (for instance, active labour market policy initiatives at local, regional and national level). Developments such as new target groups for such policies, the weakening of the social partners, ideological change, policy transfer and budget constraints of the state have led to more partnerships taking a multipartite form, meaning that not only the public authorities and the social partners, but also new actors such as business networks, commercial operators and NGOs, participate. The involvement of new actors poses a challenge for the traditional actors – among them the trade unions. Whether the relations between traditional and new actors are best described by conflict or by cooperation cannot be explained by regime theories. The decisive factor seems to be the extent to which the new actors challenge the privileged positions of the traditional actors.