This article deals with the new policy concept of 'flexicurity' in view of the emerging flexibility-security nexus currently faced by the European Union, national governments, sectors of industry, individual companies and workers. On the one hand there is a strong demand to make labour markets, employment and work organisation more flexible. At same time, an equally strong demand exists for providing security to employees -especially vulnerable groups -and for preserving social cohesion in our societies. Policy-makers, legislators, trade unions and employers' organisations have a strong need for new theory-inspired policy models and concepts that promise to reconcile these goals of enhancing both flexibility and security that at first sight seem incompatible. This article discusses the origins, conditions and potential of 'flexicurity' as policy or strategy at various levels of industrial relations. It also outlines a research agenda. ❖❖❖ SommaireCet article traite du nouveau concept politique de la « flexicurité » issu de l'imbrication récen-te entre flexibilité et sécurité à laquelle font actuellement face l'Union européenne, les gouvernements nationaux, les secteurs de l'industrie, les entreprises et les travailleurs. D'une part, il y a une forte demande de rendre plus flexibles les marchés du travail, l'emploi et l'organisation du travail. D'autre part, il existe une demande également forte de prévoir la sécurité pour les travailleurs -particulièrement pour les groupes vulnérables -et de préserver la cohésion sociale dans nos sociétés. Les décideurs politiques, les législateurs, les syndicats et les organisations patronales ont un besoin prononcé de nouveaux concepts et modèles politiques théo-riques qui promettent de concilier ces objectifs visant à augmenter à la fois la flexibilité et la sécurité, concepts apparemment incompatibles. Cet article se penche sur les origines, les conditions et le potentiel de «flexicurité» comme politique ou stratégie à divers niveaux des relations industrielles. Il expose également les thèmes de recherche qui devraient figurer à l'ordre du jour. ❖❖❖ E F * Tilburg University -

Moving beyond command-and-control: reflexivity in the regulation of occupational safety and health and the environment. Aalders, M.V.C.; Wilthagen, T. General rightsIt is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulationsIf you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: http://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. Direct regulation or command-and-control strategies by many policy-makers are considered to be unsuccessful in changing the conduct of companies threatening the safety and the health of their workers and polluting the environment. To improve occupational health and safety and the environment, they therefore stimulate self-regulatory policy strategies to make companies comply with social regulation. The relationship between external and internal modes of (self-)regulation is a subject gradually gaining the attention of researchers exploring alternatives for command-and-control regulation. But in a functionally differentiated society integration and coordination may be difficult to realize. The economic subsystem fails to acknowledge its social identity and, therefore, appears to be blind for its negative performance on the environment and the work place. The authors of this paper argue that moving beyond command-and-control can be feasible and desirable, at least to a certain extent, but that pitfalls are omnipresent. Solutions to several `regulatory dilemmas' are to be looked for. Sound empirical studies as well as a guiding theory are necessary. For this purpose the key concept of `reflexivity' is suggested, referring to the economic organisation's relationship with itself. In the paper the practical usefulness of this theoretical concept is explored against the background of regulatory practice in the areas of occupational safety and health and the environment. It is concluded that a mode of reflexive administrative law requires a `negotiating government', which adopts a mixture of strategies and learns to cope with issues like third party interests, access to information and enforcement.

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in AbstractThis paper discusses the recently coined concept of flexicurity. It is outlined how this concept gained importance in legislative and labour market policy reform in the Netherlands, linking a number of previously separated areas of policy-making such as flexibilization and deregulation of the labour market on the one hand and social security and the concern for the negative consequences of flexible employment on the other hand.

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your personal and scholarly purposes.You are not to copy documents for public or commercial purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. licence. www.econstor.eu If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated Flexicurity -a European Approach to Labour Market PolicyAlthough linguistically somewhat strange, "fl exicurity", the combination of labour market fl exibility and security for employees, has become a much praised cornerstone of European labour market policies. Obviously, in an environment with rapid technical progress and frequently changing market conditions, employers need to manage their labour force fl exibly. In order to achieve this fl exibility without creating an unbearable situation for employees, security is the second pillar of the concept. Security refers, however, to "employability" rather than safety from dismissal. As such, the concept looks like an innovative European way of consolidating economic and social interests, although some argue that much fl exibility is gained while the security aspect is being neglected. The concept has been successfully adopted in some European countries, notably Denmark and the Netherlands. However, each country has to fi nd its own concept of "fl exicurity" using a distinct combination of instruments that fi t the national institutional, social and civic context. O ne of the main challenges the European Union is currently facing is how, in the era of globalisation and ageing, to live up to European citizens' expectation of providing a distinct European Social Model. Can a true alternative be offered to sheer fl exibilisation, deregulation and the degradation of social standards and social cohesion? Will a strong social Europe also be a strong economic Europe? Can Europe indeed follow its own path compared to the rest of the world? 1 At the European level, the desire is expressed to maintain a solid balance between social and economic goals. The vexed question is how this model should be further developed in a concrete manner. As of 2006 this challenging question has specifi cally been dealt with under the heading of "fl exicurity". The objective of fl exicurity strategies is to combine employment an...

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