The Irish Social Partnership Model: From Growth Promotion to Crisis Management?

Abstract

By analysing Ireland’s response to globalisation, this chapter explores an alternative to neoliberalism. Ireland had developed a neocorporatist social concertation model as a method of overcoming its economic crisis in the late 1980s and of promoting economic growth under globalisation. As Ireland had to face another severe economic calamity associated with the U.S.-originated global financial crisis of 2008, the hitherto existing social partnership began to break down. However, it has not discarded all social dialogue and fallen into a neoliberal free market model. Instead, it has been cranking up a new form of social agreement, such as the Croke Park agreement in the public sector, as well as a protocol for wage negotiations in the private sector. By examining the evolution of the Irish social partnership, I will appraise whether social concertation is still effective as an alternative form of developmental politics to neoliberalism under globalisation.