Suchergebnisse

This book examines contemporary changes in labor market institutions in the United States, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands, focusing on developments in industrial relations, vocational education and training, and labor market policy. It finds that there are in fact distinct varieties of liberalization associated with very different distributive outcomes. Most scholarship equates liberal capitalism with inequality and coordinated capitalism with higher levels of social solidarity. However, this study explains why the institutions of coordinated capitalism and egalitarian capitalism coincided and complemented one another in the 'Golden Era' of postwar development in the 1950s and 1960s, and why they no longer do so. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, this study reveals that the successful defense of the institutions traditionally associated with coordinated capitalism has often been a recipe for increased inequality due to declining coverage and dualization. Conversely, it argues that some forms of labor market liberalization are perfectly compatible with continued high levels of social solidarity and indeed may be necessary to sustain it.

This book examines contemporary changes in labor market institutions in the United States, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands, focusing on developments in three arenas - industrial relations, vocational education and training, and labor market policy. While confirming a broad, shared liberalizing trend, it finds that there are in fact distinct varieties of liberalization associated with very different distributive outcomes. Most scholarship equates liberal capitalism with inequality and coordinated capitalism with higher levels of social solidarity. However, this study explains why the institutions of coordinated capitalism and egalitarian capitalism coincided and complemented one another in the "Golden Era" of postwar development in the 1950s and 1960s, and why they no longer do so. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, this study reveals that the successful defense of the institutions traditionally associated with coordinated capitalism has often been a recipe for increased inequality due to declining coverage and dualization. Conversely, it argues that some forms of labor market liberalization are perfectly compatible with continued high levels of social solidarity and indeed may be necessary to sustain it.

"Since the start of its economic miracle, West Germany has shown a striking ability to manage industrial adjustment peacefully and with the cooperation of organized labor. Frequently compared to smaller "corporatist" democracies such as Sweden and Austria, Germany resembles these countries in outcomes - negotiated adjustment and labor peace - but achieves them in different ways. Kathleen A. Thelen, using a case study of Germany's leading union, the IG Metall, documents how peaceful collaborative adjustment results from the interaction of centralized bargaining and decentralized labor participation through the institutions of codetermination."--BOOK JACKET. "Thelen shows how the system of plant works councils created in the 1950s - in a form the union originally opposed - evolved into an integral part of the IG Metall's structure and strategies. Her examination of plant bargaining in three industries adversely affected by macroeconomic developments in the 1970s and 1980s - steel, automobiles, and consumer electronics - demonstrates how codetermination contributed to Germany's overall pattern of negotiated adjustment."--BOOK JACKET. "Analyzing IG Metall's responses to the issues of unemployment and technological change, Thelen traces a shifting balance between centralized bargaining and codetermination in response to changing macroeconomic and political trends. Comparisons with Sweden and the United States highlight the distinctive features of Germany's dual system that account for its continued resiliency."--Jacket

1.A theory of gradual institutional change /James Mahoney and Kathleen Thelen --2.Infiltrating the state: the evolution of health care reforms in Brazil, 1964-1988 /Tulia G. Falleti --3.The contradictory potential of institutions: the rise and decline of land documentation in Kenya /Ato Kwamena Onoma --4.Policymaking as political constraint: institutional development in the U.S. Social Security Program /Alan M. Jacobs --5.Altering authoritarianism: institutional complexity and autocratic agency in Indonesia /Dan Slater --6.Rethinking rules: creativity and constraint in the U.S. House of Representatives /Adam Sheingate --7.Historical institutionalism in rationalist and sociological perspective /Peter A. Hall.

This book examines current theories of institutional change. The chapters highlight the limitations of these theories. Instead a model emerges of contemporary political economies developing in incremental but cumulatively transformative processes. (Provided by publisher)

This paper argues that the German system of vocational training is undergoing subtle but significant changes from a mainly collectivist system to a more segmentalist one. To make the argument, the paper first discusses the two logics of collectivism and segmentalism, and how the German system is characterized by longstanding tensions between competing collectivist and segmentalist interests. In the empirical section, recent trends in the German system are portrayed to show that the system's segmentalist dimension has been strengthened at the expense of its collectivist dimension. These trends can be seen from developments in the participation of firms in training and from the changing politics of vocational training reform. To buttress our argument, we present three case studies on the debate over the modularization and Europeanization of vocational training, on the (re)introduction of two-year apprenticeships and on the unfolding conflict on vocational exams respectively. Before we conclude, we highlight parallels in contemporary trends in vocational training and changes in other realms of the German political economy. ; Dieses Papier dokumentiert den graduellen, aber transformativen Wandel des deutschen Berufsbildungssystems von einem kollektivistischen zu einem stärker segmentalistischen Modell. Zunächst wird gezeigt, dass die beiden Logiken des Kollektivismus und des Segmentalismus in der Geschichte der beruflichen Bildung schon immer in einem Spannungsverhältnis standen. Im empirischen Teil wird gezeigt, dass die segmentalistische Dimension während der letzen drei Jahrzehnte gegenüber der kollektivistischen an Bedeutung gewonnen hat. Dies wird anhand der Entwicklung der Ausbildungsbeteiligung von Unternehmen sowie der Politik der beruflichen Bildung dokumentiert. Insbesondere werden drei Fallstudien zur Debatte über Modularisierung und Europäisierung der beruflichen Bildung, zur (Wieder-)Einführung zweijähriger Ausbildungsberufe und zum sich anbahnenden Konflikt über die Organisation von Prüfungen präsentiert. Abschließend werden Parallelen zwischen dem Wandel der beruflichen Bildung und den Arbeitsbeziehungen im Allgemeinen herausgearbeitet.

This volume brings together original essays by scholars working on a diverse range of empirical issues, but whose work is in each case informed by a 'historical institutional' approach to the study of politics. By bringing these pieces together, the volume highlights the methodological and theoretical foundations of this approach and illustrates the general contributions it has made to comparative politics. The essays demonstrate the potential of the approach to illuminate a broad range of issues such as how and why institutions change, how political ideas are filtered through institutional structures in the formation of specific policies, and how institutional structure can have unintended effects on the shaping of policy. The reader is provided with both a thorough understanding of the method of analysis and an overview of the theoretical underpinnings of the approach