The Politics of Market Making and Industrial Relations in Europe

The nineties were the decade of market making both in the Eastern and the Western parts of Europe. Market making, both at the national level and at the supra-national levels went hand in hand with a dramatic reshaping of the political and social relations among key economic actors in both parts of the continent and the consolidation of supranational (European) actors. The course aims to offer analytical tools for the study of the nature of interlinkages between market-making and industrial relations. The course will identify the patterns and underlying causes of success and failure in market making and its interlinkages to industrial relations. Economic transformations undertaken in Eastern and Central Europe mostly under the banner of ‘Europeanization’ have largely disregarded the role industrial relations have played in the economic development and the evolution of supra-national market integration in Western Europe. A better understanding of the logic of the evolution of industrial relations in that part of the continent might contribute to a better understanding of the social and political regulations of markets and the specificity and the developmental potentials of the European model of institutionalized or social capitalism.

Target audience

The course is primarily intended to assist young university lecturers, assistant professors, advanced postgraduate students, and other scholars who are teaching or planning to teach such subjects at their home universities and institutes. It seeks to engage faculty in the fields of political science and sociology to develop courses on the politics of market making and industrial relations and researchers of the political economy of market making and economic transformation. It will equip the participants with the analytical tools drawn from the fields of political economy and sociology needed for the critical appraisal of the co-evolution of markets and industrial relations.

Course level

The course will be offered at a good upper-intermediate level. Previous exposure of the candidates to the political economy of economic transformations and/or the general literature on industrial relations will be a distinct advantage. At its core, the course is planned to be intelligible for all participants with basic knowledge of political sociology and/or intermediate political economics.

Course content

The course starts with a general introduction to the relationship between economic development and the evolution of industrial relations in Western Europe with a special focus on the divergent responses of European economies to globalization and the building of the European Single Market.

• The first large segment of the course will deal in more detail with the development of specific European national models ranging from deregulation to social pacts with a specific focus on the factors of divergence. It will discuss the two diametrically opposing responses to globalization and supra-national market making: the further decentralization of the British model and the transformation of the Italian system of industrial relations towards multi-level bargaining and social packing. It will contrast the evolution of the German and the Swedish model, the challenges to and the persistence of the major elements of the German ‘organized capitalism’, and the demise of the Swedish social-democratic model. Finally, it will discuss the political economy of social pacting, drawing lessons from such widely differing cases as the transformation of industrial relations in the Netherlands and Ireland.
• The second segment of the course will be devoted to the political economy of the supra-national development of industrial relations in the EU. The evolution of the institutions of European social dialogue, the Europeanisation of trade unions and business associations, the creation of the European Work Councils, the emergence of sectoral social dialog, and the possibility of cross-border collective bargaining will be discussed in this block. Special attention will be given to the political economy of the relationship between the European Monetary Union and the characteristics of collective bargaining.
• The third segment will discuss the relationship between market-making and the development of industrial relations in post-communist Central and Eastern Europe. This bloc will offer a general overview of the co-evolution of markets and industrial relations in the region, the major features of the developments at the level of firms, sectors, and nation-states, and the role played by collective agreements and social dialogue in these countries.
• The closing segment of the course will summarize the theoretical and political implications of the study of the co-evolution of markets and industrial relations in Europe. This part of the course will focus on the specific characteristics of European market-making and its impact both on the sustainability of different national models and the prospects and problems of the internationalization of industrial relations. The course will end with a round-table discussion of these issues participated by representatives of the European trade union movement and the European Commission.