Austerity and Welfare Reform in South-Western Europe: A Farewell to Corporatism in Italy, Spain and Portugal?

Abstract

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.

When The Lenders Leave Town: Partisanship, Electoral Calculations and Vested Interests as Determinants of Policy Reversals in Spain and Portugal

“…2019). In the last few years, moreover, trade unions have lost an important part of their members and legitimacy, making them a less relevant stakeholder -even if Spanish and Portuguese governments reactivated social dialogue in the most recent years (Balbona & Begega 2015).…”

Critical trends of citizen participation in policymaking. Insights from Portugal

“…However, neither did the Troika seem to consider the expansion of participation in the country as a threat or an opportunity, nor did participatory processes directly address the austerity to, for instance, reformulate their principles and mechanisms. Although Balbona and Begega (2015) argue that attempts were made to reinforce political dialogue with social partners on the austerity guidelines, Teles (2016) mentions that significant consultation with the associations of local authorities would have prevented opposing austerity measures as merely top-down imposed reforms. This evidence mirrors what White (1996) argued: "[i]f participation means that the voiceless gain a voice, we should expect this to bring some conflict.…”

Embedding multinational firms in regional business systems: neoliberal and social‐democratic models in Spain

“…They also possess assets and resources which are desired by the government, namely the control of their affiliates. In this game of mutual reciprocities, active support by the social partners in the design and implementation of the measures taken by the government also implies a transfer of responsibility regarding the manufacture of public policies (Luque Balbona and González Begega, ).…”