Abstract
In the 1980s, a fundamental shift took place in Dutch economic policy: Keynesian demand-management was exchanged for a neoliberal supply-side approach. The single most influential account of this transformation has focused on consensus among corporatist policymakers as key to the reforms. It is the origin story of the Dutch ‘polder model’. The problem however, is that there is surprisingly little evidence for corporatist consensus in the 1980s. Instead of consensus, we argue that there has been a conflict of ideas between Keynesians and supply-siders. And instead of corporatism, we point to bureaucratic elites as a crucial factor in the Dutch policy shift. From the mid-1970s onwards, an influential group of senior public officials emerged that successfully advocated for a supply-side policy, inspired by the industrialization policies developed in the 1950s. In so doing, we believe the Dutch case exemplifies the pathbreaking role of administrative elites as highlighted by Skocpol, Weir and Heclo, rather than corporatist consensus.
Highlights
In the 1980s, a fundamental shift took place in Dutch economic policy: Keynesian demand-management was exchanged for a neoliberal supply-side approach
In the 1970s, Dutch politicians, trade unions, and employers were at loggerheads and policymaking at the corporatist institutions came to a standstill
We argue that the Dutch case exemplifies, not so much corporatism but rather the innovative role of bureaucratic elites, as put forward by Skocpol, Weir and Heclo.[18]
Summary
TSEG union, FNV, in the 1970s and early 1980s, Wim Kok negotiated the renowned 1982 ‘Wassenaar Accord’ with the Dutch employers federation. Dutch economic policymakers were highly critical of the Keynesian policy paradigm at a surprisingly early stage They advocated for wage moderation, welfare state retrenchment and marketization, long before that conviction became dominant among political parties and trade unions. Weir and Heclo point to existing political legacies and policy models as crucial influences on policymakers We argue that this was the case in the Nether lands, and that existing legacies can help explain the relatively early ascent of anti-Keynesian sentiment among policymakers. Building on the seminal work of Peter Hall and Monica Prasad, our hypothesis is that Keynesian ideas have never been as dominant in the Netherlands as they were in countries like the U.S and the U.K.21 This is because the Netherlands has a prominent supply-side tradition of wage restraint and market-oriented supply-side thinking that underpinned the economic recovery and industrialisation policies of the 1950s.22.
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