Abstract
According to the Varieties of Capitalism (VoC) approach, the gatekeeper role of the state is a key feature in the Mixed Market Economies (MMEs) coordination channel. Relying upon the ICTWSS dataset, the article investigates how this role was concretely deployed in the labour relations dimension. Special consideration is given to ground how this role took place before the path towards the EMU was set as well as to sketch out the dynamics of change that followed afterwards. A close inspection of the coordination channel allows, indeed, completing the picture about the juxtaposition between Mixed and Coordinated Market Economies that the distributive costs stemming from the Euro-crisis has made extremely salient.
Highlights
The cross-country redistributive costs brought about by the Euro-crisis constituted an extremely interesting case to be addressed within a comparative capitalism tradition [1]
The variety of Capitalism (VoC)-based literature focusing on institutional heterogeneity of the EMU [2,3,4,5,6,7], agreed in individuating the Mixed Market Economies as the variety mostly affected by the EMU’s institutional framework
This claim has remarkable implications, given that the overall VoC approach was originally built upon the dichotomous distinction between Liberal and Coordinated Market Economies (LMEs and CMEs respectively), leaving mid-spectrum cases in a sort of underspecified conceptual limbo
Summary
The cross-country redistributive costs brought about by the Euro-crisis constituted an extremely interesting case to be addressed within a comparative capitalism tradition [1]. Rhodes and Molina (8) were the first to define this variety in a consistent VoC framework by introducing the notion of gatekeeping, to account for the peculiar role held by the state in these political economies This role retained by the state is a fundamental part of the coordination channel occurring in the Mixed Market Economies, . The conceptual pitfall concerning MMEs lies exactly here, as both complementarities and coordination channel of this variety were not systematically addressed but remained substantially concealed behind the peculiar role of the state This shortage became even more striking, once the balance of payment disequilibria [9,10] that led to the Euro-crisis, revealed their full implications for VoC-based comparative analyses, namely the main juxtaposition in the EMU to be the one between CMEs and MMEs. It is obvious that a fruitful comparison and the assessment of the divergent trends among varieties, before and after the crisis, can be conceived only if the two varieties lay at the same level; meaning that both CMEs and MMEs should have institutional complementarities and clearly defined coordination mechanisms.
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