Trajectories of Neoliberal Transformation

Abstract

This book has both empirical and theoretical goals. The primary empirical goal is to examine the evolution of industrial relations in Western Europe from the end of the 1970s up to the present. Its purpose is to evaluate the extent to which liberalization has taken hold of European industrial relations and institutions through five detailed, chapter-length studies, each focusing on a different country and including quantitative analysis. The book offers a comprehensive description and analysis of what has happened to the institutions that regulate the labor market, as well as the relations between employers, unions, and states in Western Europe since the collapse of the long postwar boom. The primary theoretical goal of this book is to provide a critical examination of some of the central claims of comparative political economy, particularly those involving the role and resilience of national institutions in regulating and managing capitalist political economies.

Income Distribution and Growth Models: A Sectoral Balances Approach

“…54 See Baccaro and Howell for a fuller discussion. 55 In terms of the inequality-consumption nexus considered here, both views contain important truths. On the one hand, the German middle class still fares relatively well economically, especially relative to top-income households.…”

The collective bargaining of flexicurity: A case for sector‐level analysis? The Italian chemical and metalworking sectors compared

“…By shaping a force field (Baccaro & Howell, 2017) within which different types of employers and employees set the terms of their (collaborative/adversarial) relationship, structural characteristics have historically opened (or not) the possibility for unions to strengthen their presence in firms, thereby conditioning the centrality accorded to the company level in multiemployer bargaining systems (Iversen, 1996). This micro-macro linkage between market conditions and institutional factors is reflected in the depth of CB (Clegg, 1976), namely, the capacity of sector-level unions to impose constraints on employers by coordinating their actions with workplace-level representatives.…”

L’Europe sociale : quelles politiques, quels modèles, quels syndicalismes ?

“…Lucio Baccaro et Chris Howell, parmi d'autres, ont montré comment, malgré leurs diversités institutionnelles maintenues quoique transformées, les États membres de l'Union européenne ont convergé vers un nouveau type de modèle néolibéral. L'État, loin de s'effacer, devient le principal agent des transformations qui imposent l'hégémonie des marchés (Baccaro, Howell, 2017). Les systèmes de relations professionnelles perdent leur place dans la régulation sociale au profit de l'unilatéralisme des employeurs (employeur discretion).…”