Rigidity and Flexibility: Patterns of Labour Market Policy Change in Portugal and Spain, 1981–96

Abstract

Liberalization of labour market policy is a notoriously difficult political enterprise. This article presents a modified scheme that codes and aggregates labour market policy change. The model is applied to the cases of Spain and Portugal, where, for different reasons, liberalization of labour market policy has been high on the policy agenda since the early 1980s. Despite the presence of majority governments for much of this period, the results indicate that liberalization of labour market policy frequently fails and is often delayed. Furthermore, successful liberalization often occurs in policy packages where liberalization in one area of labour market policy is traded for greater rigidity in another