The Crisis in the Social Partnership Concept

Abstract

This article is devoted to a critical analysis of the broadly accepted concept of social partnership. The author analyzes social partnership as one widespread way that has been effective in promoting the interests of social groups under certain historical and political conditions. However, the social partnership model is now in crisis because it no longer serves as an effective method for promoting the interests of the working class and the poorest segment of society. The author exposes the key internal contradictions in the paradigm of social partnership that have precipitated its crisis and call for revaluation of the concept in both theoretical analysis and public administration. The author’s main argument is that the concept of social partnership in the modern world, especially in Russia, is a fiction. The emergence of an influential and radical mass social movement in the working class was a precondition for the social partnership of the 19th and 20th centuries. It forced a significant part of the ruling class to make concessions. Social partnership has since become a fading form of social struggle. The contradictions have not been removed, but they have been expressed in another format. The stagnation of the trade union movement in the first world and the crisis of traditional social democracy have established a new reality. The strength of one of the parties in social partnership has been significantly reduced. The ruling class has embarked on a global campaign against the social and labor rights of the population at large. Under these conditions, social partnership has lost its conceptual grounding. The institutions of social partnership have been powerless to defend the rights of the common people to pensions, medical care, accessible education, decent wages, guaranteed jobs and protection from poverty. The crisis in the concept of social partnership requires renewed vigor and dedication in the social movements that struggle to advance the social and labor rights of the people.