Introduction: Is the European Union Capable of Integrating Diverse Models of Capitalism?

Johnston, Alison; Regan, Aidan

doi:10.1080/13563467.2017.1370442

Cited by 61 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 72 publications

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“…In line with recent contributions on the political economy of European monetary integration, we argue that the common core of labour market deregulation -loosening of dismissal protections for open-ended contracts and CB decentralisation -can be traced back to the shared economic constraints Southern European countries faced due to the imperatives of generating employment and stimulating export competitiveness within the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) (Höpner & Lutter 2018;Johnston & Regan 2018;Perez & Matsaganis 2019). This involved satisfying the preferences of export-oriented segments of business, EU authorities and foreign lenders for specific forms of liberalisation of labour market policy.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 54%

Under pressure. Economic constraints, electoral politics and labour market reforms in Southern Europe in the decade of the Great Recession

Bulfone

Tassinari

2020

European J Political Res

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Even when subject to comparable exogenous constraints during the Eurozone crisis and in its immediate aftermath, governments in Southern Europe have pursued distinct labour market reform agendas. What room for manoeuvre did governments of crisis-struck peripheral countries really have in shaping their labour market reform strategies, and how can we account for the observed variation? We address these questions by making a twofold contribution to the debate on the political economy of austerity in the Eurozone periphery. First, through the first systematic analysis of all labour market and collective bargaining (CB) reforms implemented in Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece over 2009-2019, we identify those elements of core labour market deregulation common across Southern European countries (namely, the loosening of employment protection for workers on open-ended contracts and the decentralisation of CB to the firm level); and those elements of variation, both crosscountry and crossparty, in the content of corollary labour market interventions that accompanied this core deregulation. Second, we explain these similarities and variations in reform outcomes as the product of the interaction of two factors: economic constraints and electoral dynamics. We argue that the implementation of the common core of deregulation is linked to the exogenous pressure to improve export competitiveness to which Southern European countries have been subjected since the crisis. Through the combination of survey data analysis and qualitative evidence, we then show empirically how the variation in the corollary measures accompanying deregulation is linked to the class composition of the electoral social blocs Southern European partisan governments rely on or aim to assemble. Based on this analysis, we identify four ideal-typical labour market reformist strategies attempted by Southern European governments during the decade of the Great Recession. The analysis highlights that although domestic politics plays a crucial role in shaping structural adjustment under crisis conditions, not all reform strategies are equally viable within the framework of Economic and Monetary Union.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 54%

Under pressure. Economic constraints, electoral politics and labour market reforms in Southern Europe in the decade of the Great Recession

Bulfone

Tassinari

2020

European J Political Res

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“…Second, comparative capitalism research (especially in the nascent growth model literature -see Baccaro and Pontusson, 2016;Johnston and Regan, 2018) needs to incorporate the role of domestic housing finance into their analysis to understand how debt accumulation affects national growth strategies. In varieties of capitalism research, Germany is often held up as the archetype coordinated market economy.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

It takes two to tango: mortgage markets, labor markets and rising household debt in Europe

Johnston

Fuller

Regan

2020

Review of International Political Economy

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Household mortgage debt unleashed devastating consequences for the global economy in 2007-2008. Despite the growing importance of household debt in financial markets, international political economy and comparative political economy have not theorized why it varies so much across Europe. We argue that variation in household debt can be explained by the intersection of two domestic institutions: labor market institutions (and by extension the welfare state) that enable households to withstand negative employment/income shocks, and mortgage finance institutions that govern households' credit access. We empirically demonstrate via a panel analysis of 17 advanced capitalist democracies that the impact of these institutions on household debt is co-dependent. Strong collective bargaining institutions (and generous welfare states), which protect borrowers from income and employment insecurity, are associated with higher household indebtedness, but only if housing finance institutions that encourage mortgage lending are present (i.e. in Scandinavia and the Netherlands). In contrast, liberal (financialized) economies have comparatively lower household indebtedness because their labor market institutions inhibit income security for borrowers. As household debt becomes more central to comparative political economy, our findings suggest that scholars who study financialization need to integrate labor market (and welfare state) institutions into their analysis to understand how domestic financial systems function.

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“…From the beginning, it should have been clear that the Eurozone did not comply with Mundell's (1961) (Johnston & Regan, 2017). The literature mainly distinguishes between the export-driven growth model of economies like Germany and the domestic-consumption oriented models of the Mediterranean economies.…”

Section: The Battle To Tame Economic Globalizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The literature mainly distinguishes between the export-driven growth model of economies like Germany and the domestic-consumption oriented models of the Mediterranean economies. While the former is strongly favored by the current governance institutions and rules in a number of ways, the latter is considered to be strongly penalized by them (Hall, 2014;Johnston & Regan, 2017;Streeck & Elsässer, 2015).…”

Section: The Battle To Tame Economic Globalizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

EU Break-Up? Mapping Plausible Pathways into Alternative Futures

Meyer

2018

SSRN Journal

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Following Brexit, the rise of populist Eurosceptics across the EU, Central Eastern Europe's flirtation with 'illiberal democracy' and the sovereign debt crisis, which essentially still remains unresolved ten years after it started, even some of the EU's most enthusiastic supporters are today wondering whether the EU could actually break apart. In the paper, I propose the scenario-planning method to address this question and to think about the future of the EU in a structured way. While the method is already well established in the study of socio-technical systems, the paper tests its transferability to the political economy of the EU. Along two drivers, the material struggle to tame globalization and the ideational struggle to fill the void that is resulting from the deconstruction of neoliberalism, the paper maps four plausible pathways into alternative futures. I conclude with a discussion of the potential of scenario-planning to improve the transfer of knowledge from academia into practice.

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Introduction: Is the European Union Capable of Integrating Diverse Models of Capitalism?

Cited by 61 publications

References 72 publications

Under pressure. Economic constraints, electoral politics and labour market reforms in Southern Europe in the decade of the Great Recession

Under pressure. Economic constraints, electoral politics and labour market reforms in Southern Europe in the decade of the Great Recession

It takes two to tango: mortgage markets, labor markets and rising household debt in Europe

EU Break-Up? Mapping Plausible Pathways into Alternative Futures

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