ABSTRACT

This comprehensive study of the Great Recession and its consequences provides comparative analyses of the extent to which social concertation between government, unions, and employers varied over time and across European countries.

This edited volume – a collaboration of international country experts – includes eight in-depth country case studies and analysis of European-level social dialogue. Further comparisons explore whether social concertation followed economic necessity, was dependent on political factors, or rather resulted from labour’s power resources. The importance of social partners’ involvement is again evident during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Examining contemporary crises, the book will be of considerable interest to scholars and students of public and social policies, comparative political economy, and industrial relations – and more broadly to those following European and EU politics.

part I|50 pages

Concertation during times of crisis

chapter 1|21 pages

Introduction

Studying social concertation in Europe

chapter 2|27 pages

When governments include social partners in crisis corporatism

Comparing social concertation in Europe during the Great Recession

part II|93 pages

Preventing a crisis through pragmatic crisis management

chapter 3|22 pages

Back to the future

Germany's turn to neo-corporatism in times of crisis

chapter 5|26 pages

Crisis management in the Netherlands

Social concertation and constructive opposition

part III|90 pages

The perils of concertation in austere crisis contexts

part IV|59 pages

Crisis concertation in European perspective

chapter 11|25 pages

Conflict or cooperation?

Explaining the European Commission's and social partners' preferences for low-level social dialogue

chapter 12|17 pages

Social concertation at a crossroad

Crisis corporatism or corporatism in crisis?

chapter 13|15 pages

Postscript

Social partnership facing the 2020 coronavirus pandemic