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Corporatism in Crisis: Stability and Change of Social Partnership in Austria
Abstract
While recent developments in Western Europe provide numerous examples of the instability and decay of corporatist arrangements in the face of economic crisis, Austrian social partnership still exhibits remarkable stability. The article tries to explain this stability of corporatist politics in Austria. The Austrian case is also used to demonstrate some limitations of the academic literature on the breakdown of corporatism. However, stability in the Austrian case does not mean that nothing has changed. Changes have occurred within the existing institutional framework. Two main factors in the transformation of Austrian social partnership are pointed out, namely socio-cultural and political changes. Finally, some future perspectives of Austrian corporatism are outlined.
... Also, political allies could guarantee the implementation in the national legislature of the agreements that the IR parties reach [8]. In addition, a political culture of negotiating compromises [13] and extensive legal regulations supporting DC [10,13] were suggested as ways to facilitate the development and sustainability of DC. Other scholars such as Lehmbruch [14] and Van Den Bulck [15] considered the existence of policy networks as a prerequisite for successful DC. ...
... Also, political allies could guarantee the implementation in the national legislature of the agreements that the IR parties reach [8]. In addition, a political culture of negotiating compromises [13] and extensive legal regulations supporting DC [10,13] were suggested as ways to facilitate the development and sustainability of DC. Other scholars such as Lehmbruch [14] and Van Den Bulck [15] considered the existence of policy networks as a prerequisite for successful DC. ...
This study analyzes the sudden rise, quick success, and gradual decline of democratic corporatism (DC) in Korea. The analysis and discussion in this paper is based on qualitative approach, combining semistructured interviews and a review of archival evidence on the sustainability of social dialogue in Korea. In addition, we also provide supplemental quantitative evidence based on interview results. The present study indicates that an event such as a sudden economic crisis can lead to short-term outcomes such as a swift experiment with DC, but determination of the very nature of a tripartite agreement and the long-term sustainability of DC hinges on structural elements and path dependence formed and built up over decades. Events in Korea show that a direct transition from state authoritarianism to DC is a difficult, if not impossible, task.
... Quite surprisingly, SIBs then also swept across to continental European welfare states with a long tradition of social partnerships (for a similar phenomenon with corporate social responsibility, see Höllerer 2013). Evidently, such forms of traditional collaborative governance have lost much of its legitimacy in corporatist welfare regimes (Falkner and Leiber 2004;Gerlich, Grande, and Müller 1988;Haarmann, Klenk, and Weyrauch 2010), thus preparing the stage for new collaborative mechanisms such as SIBs. ...
Social Impact Bonds (SIBs) are a novel form of cross-sector collaborations and an alternative way of financing innovative social services. Based on an in-depth longitudinal case analysis and drawing from agency theory as well as resource dependence theory, we examine the process of interest alignment among involved partners over the lifespan of a SIB pilot project in Austria. Our study shows the multitude of problems and costs that such a challenging arrangement of multiple stakeholders brings along, thus dampening overoptimistic expectations in SIBs. We also suggest an analytical framework that improves the assessment of SIBs’ probability of success.
... Thus, the voters can blame or reward the parties for the failures or achievements of the Social Partnership. We assume that voters blame the SPOE and OEVP jointly at the ballot box when economic matters are working unsatisfactorily, and thus, we model the combined vote share of these two parties as a function of the economic prosperity within the country. 2 As can be seen in Table A.1, the combined vote share of the SPOE and OEVP was very high in the 1960s and 1970s, when the country was experiencing considerable economic growth and economic stability, for which the corporatist system is conventionally held responsible (Gerlich, Grande, & Müller, 1988). With the decelerating economic growth over the subsequent decades, some voters lost their faith in the competence of the SPOE and OEVP and their party-affiliated corporatist organizations in directing the country's economy to sufficient economic prosperity, and the combined vote share decreased accordingly. ...
a b s t r a c t Forecasting the outcomes of national elections has become established practice in several democracies. In the present paper, we develop an economic voting model for forecasting the future success of the Austrian 'grand coalition', i.e., the joint electoral success of the two mainstream parties SPOE and OEVP, at the 2013 Austrian Parliamentary Elections. Our main argument is that the success of both parties is strongly tied to the accomplishments of the Austrian system of corporatism, that is, the Social Partnership (Sozialpartnerschaft), in providing economic prosperity. Using data from Austrian national elections between 1953 and 2008 (n = 18), we rely on the following predictors in our forecasting model: (1) unemployment rates, (2) previous incumbency of the two parties, and (3) dealignment over time. We conclude that, in general, the two mainstream parties benefit considerably from low unemployment rates, and are weakened whenever they have previously formed a coalition government. Further, we show that they have gradually been losing a good share of their voter basis over recent decades.
... Some scholars have argued that, when taking a meso-level perspective, considerable intra-system diversity can be observed (Christiansen, 2012; Falkner, 2000; Lang and Schneider, 2008), and that across the different phases of the policy cycle, such as policy preparation and implementation , interaction modes may vary (Christiansen et al., 2010). In addition, taking a longitudinal view, research has demonstrated the dynamic nature of these concepts, implying that the formal institutions structuring interest group participation, as well as societal norms and practices linked to these interactions, may alter over time (Gerlich et al., 1988; Lindvall and Sebring, 2005; Öberg et al., 2011). Still, while acknowledging that the strength of corporatism, or pluralism, may vary across policy sectors as well as over time, other researchers have highlighted the significant and persistent impact of institutional legacies on state–society relations (Granados and Knoke, 2005, p. 303; Grote et al., 2008; Pierson, 2004; Van Waarden, 2002). ...
The interaction between organized interests and policymakers is an important ingredient of contemporary political systems. In earlier work, interest group scholars have distinguished groups who enjoy access to consultation arrangements from those who are bound to stand on the sideline. Frequently, these insiders are considered to be equally connected to public authorities. Yet, their degree of ‘insiderness’ differs significantly. By unpacking the set of organized interests that have gained access, this article distinguishes core insiders from groups that occupy a more peripheral position in an interest intermediation system. Empirically, we demonstrate and explain varying degrees of insiderness in the community of insider groups in Belgium, using the extensiveness of representation in advisory bodies as a proxy for access. Our findings show that, although nowadays a diverse set of organized interests gets involved in policymaking processes, the inner circle is dominated by traditional economic interests.
Wie institutionell bestimmtes Akteursverhalten am Beispiel der Sozialdemokratischen Partei Österreichs sowie des Gewerkschaftsbundes und der Arbeiterkammer den Einfluss der Sozialpartnerschaft auf arbeitspolitische Gesetzwerdungsprozesse (im Sinne der Guten Arbeit) bestimmt
It has proven difficult to determine the direction in which corporatism is moving. This discussion is marred by two shortcomings: A bias towards the macro-level and the lack of a clear distinction between the stages of the policy process. Trying to remedy these shortcomings, this paper follows the development of corporatism over the twenty years since 1980 and uses this material to illuminate the causes of the development of corporatism. The analysis consists of a comparative study of seven Danish policy areas. By focusing on the meso-level within one country we gain the methodological advantage of being able to hold constant a number of variables at the macro-level which are difficult to control for in cross-national analyses. We are thus in a position to illuminate the explanatory value of a number of commonly advanced explanations of corporatism: partisan influences; state traditions; and policy specific factors. These explanations are all found wanting. The paper concludes by suggesting an alternative explanation more consistent with the Danish data, namely that corporatism be studied from a perspective placing politicians and agency at center stage.
Organizing interests in Western Europe is part of the third wave of interest group studies to appear since the development of professional political science at the turn of the century. The first wave was mainly an American phenomenon; the second an effort to export interest group studies to Europe and elsewhere as part of a movement intended to encourage greater realism and less ideologism in European and comparative political studies. The Organizing Interests team has produced a useful book focused in substantial part on the theme of neocorporatism. The authors have not connected their work with the substantial body of earlier interest group research.
Three strategies which may emerge out of politicians’ concepts of rationality (problems solving, agenda management, creation of consensus) are applied to one of the main features of Austrian politics, namely the differentation of policy sectors dominated either by political parties or interest groups. The Equal Treatment Act, which had been transferred from the corporatist arena to the arena of the party system, involved the rationalities of both political parties and interest groups. This paper analyses the ‘extended’ process of legislation of this law (including implementation). The empirical findings are then linked to the theoretical propositions about the rationalities of the respective political actors. Finally, hypotheses about the conditions of issue transfers from the corporatist arena into the arena of the party system are suggested.
This discussion acknowledges that interest group - governmental relations deserve further study, but argues that the corporatist literature of the last decade has failed to give useful guidance to the research. One major complaint concerns the hostility in many of the sources to pluralist analysis. As critiques, these attacks have been too shallow to be defended as constructive debate and in dismissing pluralist writings important insights into group-Governmental relations have been neglected.The article broadly distinguishes two types of pluralism. There is the version which dwells on open competition between groups; there is also, however, a tradition of writing about and discussing closed group-departmental relations and sectorized policy-making. It is clearly this second strain that overlaps considerably with contemporary corporatist interest. It is suggested that it is worth reserving the term corporate pluralism for this model of segmented policymaking. This model is more descriptive than explanatory and is less ordered and systematised than corporatism appears to be in current theoretical use.It is further argued that in use many writers impute to corporatism little more than corporate pluralism suggests — and that advocates of corporatism now use the term in a less ambitious (an empirical) manner.
There has recently been a revival of interest in the notion of ‘corporatism’, with particular reference to its application in the context of liberal democratic political systems. The principal authors of this revival have depicted ‘liberal corporatism’ as involving relations between government and interest groups that are radically different from those characteristic of ‘pluralism’. However, deficiencies in their definition of liberal corporatism and shortcomings in their perception of pluralism point to a different conclusion.