Tripartism: Reality or Myth?

In: Government & opposition: an international journal of comparative politics, Volume 12, Issue 2, p. 194-211

Abstract

IT IS INCREASINGLY COMMON TO FIND ANALYSES OF BRITAIN AS A corporate state, or more circumspectly as developing a tripartite system of economic and industrial policy-making. Unfortunately, such work is often marked by a lack of definitional rigour and an inadequate consideration of relevant empirical material. In view of these limitations in the literature our article has two aims. Initially it examines the relationship between corporatism and tripartism, showing that in many ways tripartism can be viewed as a variation on one strand of corporatist thought, and what is more that it is the strand which appears most relevant to discussions of Britain. Subsequently, against this background, we examine empirical evidence to establish how far Britain can be described as having a tripartite system of economic and industrial policy-making.