ABSTRACT
Ireland and the UK are conventionally regarded as the only Liberal Market Economies (LMEs) in Western Europe. In both countries firms are said to rely heavily on markets to coordinate activities such as wage bargaining and training in highly decentralized bargaining systems (Hall and Soskice 2001b : 6-7, 19-20; Kitschelt et al. 1999 : 435). Their “liberal” welfare states rely on means-testing to distribute comparatively modest levels of benefit (EspingAndersen 1990 : 52; Huber and Stephens 2001 : 88-9); employment protection laws are weak by international standards (Hamann and Kelly 2008 ); their union movements have similar structures and density levels (Howell 2005 : 122; Wallace et al. 2004 : 146); 1 and both countries have a history of unsuccessful attempts at tripartite wage regulation in the 1970s. Amable ( 2003 : 180-1) points out that the designation of Ireland as an LME is problematic because of the centralized bargaining and active labor market policies introduced since the late 1980s (see also Crouch 2005 : 34-5). Nevertheless Ireland and the UK exhibit many institutional similarities sufficient to differentiate them from the CMEs of Western and Northern Europe.
