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In a context in which multinational companies are increasingly able to choose their locations of production, this paper examines how social and political governance actors in host regional economies attempt to attract and retain foreign direct investment. Based on a comparative study of two regions in each of Canada, Ireland, Spain and the UK, it shows both national and in some cases sub-national variations in the nature of attempts to attract and retain foreign investment, as well as in the actors involved. The paper also discusses how these differences in policy interact with the characteristics of specific foreign investors. Our findings support arguments that attempts to embed regime-shopping firms are facilitated by active governance from social as well as state actors.

This article examines the impact of the current economic and financial crisis on the consistency of the corporatist dynamic that has oriented governments, trade unions and employers' associations towards consensus in Spain, Italy and Portugal over the past two decades. Following the analytical framework developed by Öbert et al. (2011), which interprets corporatism as a process of political dialogue, we analyse whether the conditions that make exchange possible have been altered during the crisis and, ask, if this is the case, whether such a transformation is cyclical or structural in nature. New limitations on the autonomy of national governments with regard to the design of socio-economic policies have arisen. These are related to the supervision of national politics by supranational institutions, the introduction of which has profoundly altered some of the basic requirements for corporatist political dialogue: the mandate or sovereignty in decision-making and the value of the assets available for exchange between stakeholders.

ResumenLos pactos sociales han sustentado la agenda de reformas socioeconómicas en la mayor parte de países de Europa occidental a lo largo de las últimas décadas. Sin embargo, la irrupción de la crisis económica ha erosionado la orientación general hacia el acuerdo. Desde 2008 se ha producido una deriva desde la «negociación hacia la imposición», que ha resultado particularmente intensa en el Sur de Europa. En España y Portugal, la puesta en marcha de reformas unilaterales por parte de los gobiernos bajo la vigilancia de las instituciones comunitarias ha provocado el debilitamiento de los pactos sociales. El artículo evalúa la reconfiguración de los equilibrios entre gobiernos y agentes sociales en estos dos países en el contexto de la crisis económica. Para ello, se analiza la emergencia de una nueva dinámica de intercambio político corporatista que combina el diálogo discontinuo y de corto alcance con la confrontación. PalabRas claveAgentes sociales; Conflicto sociolaboral; Diálogo social; Gobiernos; Intercambio político corporatista. abstRactIn most European countries, the reform agenda on socioeconomic issues has been backed on social pacts throughout the last decades. However, the upsurge of the economic crisis has hampered this general orientation towards agreement and consensus. From 2008 and on there has been a transformation «from negotiation to imposition» which has been particularly severe in Southern Europe. In Spain and Portugal, the implementation of unilateral reforms by the governments under the surveillance of the European institutions has provoked the weakening of social pacts. The article evaluates the reconfiguration of the relation between governments and social partners in these two countries as a consequence of the economic crisis. It also analyses the emergence of a new dynamic of corporatist political exchange which combines irregular and short-range dialogue with confrontation.

ResumenA pesar de ser España uno de los países europeos con mayor actividad huelguística durante los últimos treinta años, la investigación empírica en este campo es inusualmente escasa y adolece de la falta de un análisis de largo recorrido. En este trabajo se aborda el estudio de la actividad huelguística en España durante las tres últimas décadas con el principal objetivo de desarrollar una explicación teóricamente fundada de su evolución y de sus principales mecanismos causales. Del análisis desarrollado se desprende que el acusado descenso de los niveles de conflictividad registrados durante los últimos quince años es atribuible al desplazamiento de la lucha por la distribución de la renta del mercado, donde la huelga es el principal mecanismo de presión, al ámbito político, donde las modalidades de actuación no se limitan a la huelga. PaLabRas CLaveConcertación social; Conflicto industrial; Intercambio político. abstRaCtAlthough Spain has been one of the European countries with greater strike activity during the last thirty years, empirical research in this field is unusually low. In this work, strike activity in Spain is analyzed with the aim of developing an explanation of its evolution and its main causal mechanisms. The analysis shows that the sharp decline in the levels of industrial conflict recorded during the last fifteen years is attributable to a shift in the mode of distribution of the income from the production sphere, where the strike is the main mechanism of pressure, to the political arena where the modes of acting are not limited to the strike.