Alexandre, Afonso , Social Concertation in Times of Austerity. European Integration and the Politics of Labour Market Reform in Austria and Switzerland (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2013)

Abstract

Social concertation (aka neo-corporatism) is supposed to have been driven to extinction in Europe by a lethal cocktail composed of the spread of globalization, the implementation of neo-liberal policies at the national level, the process of European integration, the increase in social and sectoral inequalities and, most recently, the “times of austerity.” And yet, as Alexandre Afonso demonstrates, the announcement of its demise has been premature. Examining two countries (Austria and Switzerland) and two policy arenas (cross-border labor mobility and unemployment reform), he finds convincing evidence that resort to the mechanism of tripartite bargaining between state agencies and interest organizations representing capital and labor has not disappeared from the policy toolkit. The core of his argument is plausible, if unorthodox. The original literature on neo-corporatism tended to stress some combination of three factors: (1) the functional imperatives of open capitalist economies (especially of small ones); (2) the organizational structures of the participating class associations (especially hierarchical and monopolistic ones); and (3) the sponsorship of governments dominated by Social Democratic parties (and, sometimes, Christian Democratic ones). Whatever the validity of this approach during the Trente Glorieuses years after World War II, Afonso argues and presents convincing evidence that these are no longer driving the decisions to engage in policy concertation, at least not since the 1990s. What has replaced them – he argues – is something that the previous literature virtually ignored: the dynamics of party competition. When established centrist parties of either the Right or the Left are threatened by issue politicization from below and/or the rise of populist parties at the extremes, or when these parties are compelled to enter into broad coalitions in order to form and sustain governments, then, the temptation to resort to social concertation with and between capital and labor increases. It is not always successful in reaching an agreement, of course, but the appeal of trying to co-opt opposition and to enhance legitimacy makes the effort worth it. Conversely, in two-party systems with clear majority winners – especially ideologically cohesive and polarized ones – there is much less of an incentive. This all sounds quite plausible as the product of a sort of “soft” political rationality, but it immediately raises questions. One of the greatest strengths of the monograph is the extent to which the author anticipates these potential objections. Austria and Switzerland have long been at or near the top of the postwar list of corporatist offenders so that it is hardly surprising that they might be among the last-living practitioners of it. Afonso in his self-critical conclusion takes a summary look at other European cases and finds (rough) confirmation of his conclusions. Labour market policies might well be expected to be the most likely to be subjected to capital-labor bargaining, but what about other policy arenas. Looking into welfare (pensions and health) policies he finds less convincing confirmation in other cases. There is some evidence that social concertation was advocated or even attempted elsewhere under the hypothesized conditions of party competition, but it was much less likely to have been successfully in producing agreement. The author also hints in his conclusion that his preferred independent variable, the pattern of party competition, is itself changing rapidly and may already have exhausted its potential for spurring further efforts at neo-corporatism. Convincing as his evidence may be, there is still something missing. If this shift did take place when it did, why did it? Could it just possibly be that different values and weights of the “old” variables could explain why political parties have declined so much in their capability and credibility and, hence, need the supporting prop of social concertation in some policy arenas more than in the past? Certainly, to the extent that the emergence of new populist parties presents the greatest threat to established ones, much of that could be attributed to the “usual suspects” of globalization, neo-liberalism, regional integration, social inequality, austerity e così via. If so, the correlation that Afonso has uncovered might conceivably be spurious as well as ephemeral. Purely as a matter of social science craftmanship, this book is a model of clear conceptualization, knowledge of the previous literature, elaboration of explicit (even “rival”) working hypotheses, extensive data-collection from a variety of sources and reasonable inferences about causality. For specialists in the field of social concertation or neo-corporatism, it will be a seminal up-dating of the topic that is not likely to be surpassed for some time. For the novice political scientist or sociologist, I cannot think of a monograph that better demonstrates how to take a complex and controversial subject matter and turn it into a comprehensible and convincing piece of research.