Suchergebnisse

Konzertierungen zwischen Regierungen und Tarifparteien, die in den letzten Jahren in mehreren europäischen Ländern wieder zu beobachten sind, spielen in der Reform der Wohlfahrtsstaaten eine wichtige Rolle. Regierungen, Arbeitgeberverbände und Gewerkschaften versuchen, durch die Vereinbarung sogenannter sozialer Pakte drei unterschiedliche politische Ziele zu kombinieren: die Reduzierung von Arbeitskosten, die Verbesserung von Anreizen zur Arbeitsaufnahme und die Flexibilisierung der Arbeitsmärkte. Der Beitrag analysiert zwei Beispiele erfolgreicher sozialer Pakte: die Niederlande und Italien. In beiden Ländern wurde zunächst ein Konsens in der Lohnpolitik erzielt und später weitergehende Reformen in der Sozial- und Arbeitspolitik durchgeführt. Anschließend werden zwei Länder unkoordinierter Reformpolitik am Beispiel Deutschlands und Frankreichs dargestellt. Zwei Faktoren werden als besonders bedeutsam für den Erfolg konzertierter Politik herausgearbeitet: die Handlungsfähigkeit der Verbände und die glaubwürdige Androhung staatlicher Intervention in die Tarifpolitik und die Systeme sozialer Sicherung. (Transfer / FUB)

The reform of the welfare state entails changes in interdependent policy fields stretching from social policies to employment and wage policies. These linked policy fields are often governed by varying sets of corporate actors and involve different decision making procedures. Adaptation in one policy field is often uncoordinated with other policies, and can work at cross-purposes, produce negative externalities, or fail due to missing supporting conditions. The paper has two objectives. It first argues that renewed emergence of tripartite concertation is due to the need to co-ordinate policies across policy fields. Second, it evaluates the institutional factors which have facilitated concertation in some cases, but not in others. Using a similar country design, the paper compares four continental European countries with similar reform pressures but different reform trajectories: France, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands. ; Die Reform des Wohlfahrtsstaates erfordert Veränderungen in interdependenten Politikfeldern, von der Sozialpolitik bis hin zur Beschäftigungs- und Lohnpolitik. Diese interdependenten Politikfelder werden von unterschiedlichen Konstellationen korporativer und politischer Akteure kontrolliert und sind unterschiedlichen Verfahren der Entscheidungsfindung unterworfen. Adaptionen in einem Sektor sind häufig nicht mit anderen politischen Entscheidungen koordiniert und können somit negative Auswirkungen haben oder aufgrund der ungünstigen Grundbedingungen fehlschlagen. In dem vorliegenden Discussion Paper wird zunächst argumentiert, daß die Notwendigkeit, politische Entscheidungen über die Grenzen der politischen Sektoren hinaus zu koordinieren, zu einer Renaissance dreiseitiger Konzertierung zwischen Tarifparteien und Regierungen geführt hat. Weiterhin werden die institutionellen Faktoren herausgearbeitet, die eine Konzertierung in einigen Fällen ermöglicht haben, in anderen jedoch nicht. Es werden vier Länder verglichen, die ähnliche Strukturen und Reformzwänge aufweisen, aber unterschiedliche Lösungswege gewählt haben: Frankreich, Deutschland, Italien und die Niederlande.

The German labour market has developed positively in the third term of the Merkel Government. The stable upward trend of the labour market is largely attributable to an increase in part-time employment, often in the service industry and in the low-wage sector. The increased magnitude of employment in the low-wage sector contributed to the solidifying of inequalities in income levels, despite the steady upward trend of employment in general.

In this article, we develop an analytical framework to study how economies and welfare systems have been adapted to the common challenges of post-industrialization, financialization, and the knowledge economy. We show that, despite the global interconnectedness of modern economies, national trajectories of growth and policy-making remain distinct. Our explanation focuses on the pursuit of different growth strategies in contemporary advanced capitalist economies. Growth strategies are in large parts welfare reforms. Governments use the policy tools of the welfare state such as employment policy, housing policy, pensions, minimum wages and education as facilitators for growth. They pursue them in different ways depending on the growth regime their economies are embedded in. The articles starts with an overview of two key concepts used to build our argument: i) the complementary relationship between national growth and welfare regimes and ii) growth strategies through which growth and welfare regimes are reformed in the new era of globalization, ICT and financialization driven growth. It then provides an overview of five main ideal-typical growth regimes that have developed in advanced capitalist economies: the dynamic services export-led growth regime, the high-quality manufacturing export-led, the FDI-financed export-led, the financebased domestic demand-led and the public-financed domestic demand-led ones. Finally, it analyses the ties between growth strategies and welfare reforms and thus identifies five main types of welfare state reforms strategies: dualization of welfare, social investment, fiscal and social attractiveness, commodification of welfare, and social protectionism. Within the Eurozone, because of external pressure, the latter strategy has been transformed into a «competitive impoverishment» strategy for Southern European countries.

In this article, we develop an analytical framework to study how economies and welfare systems have been adapted to the common challenges of post-industrialization, financialization, and the knowledge economy. We show that, despite the global interconnectedness of modern economies, national trajectories of growth and policy-making remain distinct. Our explanation focuses on the pursuit of different growth strategies in contemporary advanced capitalist economies. Growth strategies are in large parts welfare reforms. Governments use the policy tools of the welfare state such as employment policy, housing policy, pensions, minimum wages and education as facilitators for growth. They pursue them in different ways depending on the growth regime their economies are embedded in. The articles starts with an overview of two key concepts used to build our argument: i) the complementary relationship between national growth and welfare regimes and ii) growth strategies through which growth and welfare regimes are reformed in the new era of globalization, ICT and financialization driven growth. It then provides an overview of five main ideal-typical growth regimes that have developed in advanced capitalist economies: the dynamic services export-led growth regime, the high-quality manufacturing export-led, the FDI-financed export-led, the financebased domestic demand-led and the public-financed domestic demand-led ones. Finally, it analyses the ties between growth strategies and welfare reforms and thus identifies five main types of welfare state reforms strategies: dualization of welfare, social investment, fiscal and social attractiveness, commodification of welfare, and social protectionism. Within the Eurozone, because of external pressure, the latter strategy has been transformed into a «competitive impoverishment» strategy for Southern European countries.