ABSTRACT
Academic interest in the role of employers in welfare state development has increased noticeably of late (see Gordon 1994; Jacoby 1999; Martin 2000; Mares 1996, 1997; Swenson 1991, 1997, 1999, 2000; Pierson 1995). This new literature provides us with many different ideas about why firms should have and actually do have an interest in (certain) social protection schemes, and why employers have historically not always taken an outright hostile stance in the social policy debates of the past. Take the following sample of explanations from the recent literature (Pierson 2000: 793-97): Employers or certain factions of them
1 have an interest in levelling the playing field with respect to national social protection standards for workers (Swenson 1991, 1999),
2 want to prevent worse things from happening and are therefore in favour of social policies that secure their influence on and control over social protection schemes (employers’ strategic voting on social policy; see Mares 1996, 2000, and Mares, Chapter 3 in this volume),
3 value the important latent functions of welfare state intervention that contribute to social peace and help secure a high level of labour productivity,
4 ‘support social protection that facilitates [the acquisition of ] the set of skills they need to be competitive in particular international product markets’ (Estevez-Abe et al. 1999: 1; Martin 2000),
5 find extremely beneficial the possibility open to them by welfare state programmes to adjust flexibly their workforce to a volatile economic environment, and
6 appreciate the compensatory role of the welfare state within a liberal trade regime (Garrett 1998; Ruggie 1997; Rodrik 1997; Rieger and Leibfried 1998).
