International institutions and supranational influence in employment relations 1

The management of the Eurozone in crisis times: Actors, institutions and the case of bailout packages

“…Although a detailed analysis of the conditionality measures is outside the scope of this article, these externally imposed requirements have been extensively documented elsewhere. Coverage of conditionality terms have been presented in both mapping exercises (Clauwaert and Schoemann, 2012; ETUI, 2013; Eurofound, 2013; Goyer and Valdivielso del Real, 2018; Moreira et al, 2015; Petmesidou and Glatzer, 2015) and in standard academic analyses (Currie and Teague, 2017; Glatzer, 2018; Goyer et al, 2015; Hickland and Dundon, 2016; Marginson, 2015; Mueller, 2015; Schulten and Mueller, 2013). From the perspective of industrial relations, labour market reforms imposed by the Troika were primarily felt in the three areas of collective bargaining: pay cuts/freezes in the public sector, lowering of the minimum wage and devolution of the locus of collective bargaining (Schulten and Mueller, 2013).…”

“…Financialization explanations correctly highlight the heightened intensity of (powerful) countries in seeking to protect domestic banks from their exposure to the rest of the Eurozone in the context of the institutional apparatus of the Maastricht Treaty. The assertion that actors seek to influence the design of new international institutions is uncontroversial (Keohane, 1984; see Goyer and Valdivielso del Real, 2018, for an overview). In the context of the Eurozone crisis, something as important as the distribution of the costs of adjustment to the crisis is certainly worth fighting about as national governments (creditor and debtor alike) operated under a range of reduced adjustment strategies (De Grauwe, 2013).…”

“…Second, actor-centred institutionalism emphasizes the relational character of how important actors interact strategically with each other (Scharpf, 1997: 36–58; see also Hall, 1984). Traditional analyses of the formation of international institutions highlight the prominence of important national governments to achieve collaboratively what they cannot on their own (Keohane, 1984; see also Goyer and Valdivielso del Real, 2018, for an overview). The resulting institutional outcomes are often based on convergence around lowest common denominator solutions.…”