Political economists have always been interested in the differences in economic and political institutions that occur across countries. Some regard these differences as deviations from 'best practice' that will dissolve as nations catch up to a technological or organizational leader. Others see them as the distillation of more durable historical choices for a specific kind of society, since economic institutions condition levels of social protection, the distribution of income, and the availability of collective goods — features of the social solidarity of a nation. In each case, comparative political economy revolves around the conceptual frameworks used to understand institutional variation across nations. On such frameworks depend the answers to a range of important questions. Some are policy-related. What kind of economic policies will improve the performance of the economy? What will governments do in the face of economic challenges? What defines a state's capacities to meet such challenges? Other questions are firm-related. Do companies located in different nations display systematic differences in their structure and strategies? If so, what inspires such differences? How can national differences in the pace or character of innovation be explained? Some are issues about economic performance. Do some sets of institutions provide lower rates of inflation and unemployment or higher rates of growth than others? What are the trade-offs in terms of economic performance to developing one type of political economy rather than another? Finally, second-order questions about institutional change and stability are of special significance today. Can we expect technological progress and the competitive pressures of globalization to inspire institutional conver-gence? What factors condition the adjustment paths a political economy takes in the face of such challenges? The object of this book is to elaborate a new framework for understanding the institutional similarities and differences among the developed economies, one that offers a new and intriguing set of answers to 1111 211 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10111 1 211 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 20111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 40 1 such questions. 1 We outline the basic approach in this Introduction. Subsequent chapters extend and apply it to a wide range of issues. In many respects, this approach is still a work-in-progress. We see it as a set of contentions that open up new research agendas rather than settled wisdom to be accepted …

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An Introduction to Varieties of Capitalism

This article seeks to explain why Denmark and the Netherlands made dramatic progress reforming their welfare systems in the 1990s and why Germany had a relatively slow start. Some possible explanations found to be incomplete are institutional differences in welfare programs, the uniqueness of circumstances (for example, German unification), and the balance of political power in governing institutions. An important part of the puzzle is an increasing perception of the need to reform that was more widespread in Denmark and the Netherlands. The social construction of an imperative to reform in these countries generated a political consensus that was elusive in Germany but that may be developing under Gerhard Schroder's government.

The Social Construction of an Imperative: Why Welfare Reform Happened in Denmark and the Netherlands but Not in Germany

This paper challenges the validity and usefulness of the regime concept on five separate counts. These lead to two further and secondary (in the sense of indirect), but not less important, grounds for expressing the doubt whether further work of this kind ought to be encouraged. The five counts (or “dragons” to watch out for) are first, that the study of regimes is, for the most part a fad, one of those shifts of fashion not too difficult to explain as a temporary reaction to events in the real world but in itself making little in the way of a long-term contribution to knowledge. Second, it is imprecise and woolly. Third, it is value-biased, as dangerous as loaded dice. Fourth, it distorts by overemphasizing the static and underemphasizing the dynamic element of change in world politics. And fifth, it is narrow-minded, rooted in a state-centric paradigm that limits the vision of a wider reality.

CAVE! HIC DRAGONES: una crítica del análisis de regímenes

Varieties of Labor Politics in the Developed Democracies

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)

>> Considerable progress has been made during the past two decades in conceptualizing dynamics within German employers associations—in particular, explanations for declines in density—and the impact on the economy. The verification has not kept pace with theorization, however. This article provides empirics. The analysis confirms earlier conclusions that the interests of large and small employers have increasingly diverged since the mid-1980s. In contrast to the conventional wisdom, however, the authors find that organized labor has not contributed to the cost pressures that have prompted many smalland medium-sized enterprises to leave employers associations. The article also explores employers associations’ response to a more challenging environment in light of the “varieties of capitalism” literature. The decision of several German employers associations to offer different classes of membership has qualitatively expanded subnational variety within the German variety of capitalism

/pdf/why-are-german-employers-associations-declining-arguments-2c1esc6hz5.pdf

Why Are German Employers Associations Declining? Arguments and Evidence

The terms Verbandsvermeidung (association avoidance) and Verbandsflucht (association flight) have appeared with increasing frequency in analyses of the German economy over the past few years.' They vividly encapsulate the observation that fewer new firms are joining employers' associations, compared to a decade ago, and that members are both threatening to leave and actually leaving employers' associations at an unprecedented rate. The specter of declining membership in German employers' associationscentury-old pillars of organized German capitalism-is noteworthy because of the importance of these institutions to the German economy and society. A broad spectrum of scholars and practitioners agree that Germany's industrial relations system, which relies heavily on powerful employers' associations, has been a key component helping to generate its postwar economic success.2 Why, if employers' associations are so important, are companies fleeing them? Some attribute association flight to general social trends. Declining membership across a vast assortment of organizations throughout the world's most affluent countries is undoubtedly a hallmark of the postmodern age.3 Others blame the onset of association flight on German unification. Whereas scholars within this latter camp disagree over the possibilities of preserving the old western constellation of social and economic forces within the newly united Germany, they share the conviction that the immense economic, political, and social transformations triggered by the absorption of the German Democratic Republic and the implosion of the Soviet Union were external shocks that disrupted an otherwise smoothly functioning western German economic order.4 This article argues, in contrast, that neither a general social trend nor German unification has caused association flight. Association flight is instead the product of contradictions that arose within Germany's system of comprehensive pattern bargaining during the 1980s (well before German unification) that disrupted the distributive balance between large and small enterprises. Despite the upsurge in association flight, not all classes of firms are interested in leaving their associations. For the most part, Germany's largest and most

http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/422079.pdf

German Unification and Emerging Divisions within German Employers' Associations Cause or Catalyst?

Excerpt] Since the onset of the global financial crisis in late 2008 there has been a boom in positive assessments of the German economy. Little wonder. Remarkably, Germany has managed to bring down unemployment to more than one percentage point below the precrisis level and to maintain a current account surplus equivalent to 5 percent of its gross domestic product. This is not the first time that Germany's stock has ridden high. German economic institutions received praise for the "economic miracle" of the late 1950s and early 1960s, the "model Germany" economy that weathered the oil shocks comparatively well during the 1970s, and the "export world champion" economy of the mid-1980s. At other times, however, academics and journalists have been bearish on Germany. High unemployment dogged the German economy for a quarter century, starting in the early 1980s. From the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s, Germany was generally dismissed as the economic "sick man" of Europe. These oscillating appraisals of the German economy raise two questions: Does the current positive assessment of German economic institutions reflect something real, or is it just another speculative bubble? And, what is it about German economic institutions that has drawn the attention of so many over the years? In this book I address these questions by examining a key pillar of the postwar German economy, namely, the industrial relations system.

Holding the Shop Together: German Industrial Relations in the Postwar Era

Gewerkschaften und Arbeitgeberverbanden kommt in der Arbeits- und Sozialordnung der Bundesrepublik eine entscheidende Bedeutung zu. Dies ist nicht etwa in dem Sinne gemeint, das sie neben Religionsgemeinschaften, Vertretern sonstiger Verbande, der Wissenschaft oder Parteien an der institutionalisierten Gremienarbeit des sog. ‘offentlichen Lebens’ beteiligt sind, das ihre Vertreter also in Rundfunkraten, Selbstverwaltungsorganen und dergleichen mehr ‘ausgewogen’ reprasentiert sind — die Einschatzung ihrer herausragenden Bedeutung hat ihre Grundlagen vielmehr im ‘vor-institutionellen’ Raum.

Gewerkschaften und Arbeitgeberverbände

This study examines the failure of the effort by the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) and its national affiliates to obtain a uniform and binding set of regulations for Europeanwide collective bargaining within the European Community's 1989 Charter of Fundamental Social Rights. The trade unions were prompted to act by the program to create a single European market by the end of 1992. The author argues that labor's weak position economically and politically in the late 1980s and early 1990s, particularly at the national level, prevented the ETUC and its member confederations from winning support for their version of the Social Charter, since they could neither credibly threaten recalcitrant governments with social unrest nor convincingly offer them electoral aid.

Stephen J. Silvia

Papers

Why Are German Employers Associations Declining? Arguments and Evidence

German Unification and Emerging Divisions within German Employers' Associations Cause or Catalyst?

Holding the Shop Together: German Industrial Relations in the Postwar Era

Gewerkschaften und Arbeitgeberverbände

The Social Charter of the European Community: A Defeat for European Labor