ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the theoretical foundations for the development of Britain's dominant school of industrial relations and trade union analysis founded upon the assumptions of 'liberal-pluralism'. Despite the resistance by 'putative members', the label 'Oxford school' has usually been deployed to pigeon-hole this essentially voluntaristic or liberal-pluralist conception of union-management relations. The chapter reviews in some depth the works of E. Durkheim, the Webbs and Allan Flanders in order to delineate major points of comparison and contrast and to illuminate their heritage in the themes of modern theory. Durkheim's conception of the forced division of labour has of course appeared prominently in recent accounts of trade union behaviour. None the less, as we have argued, some of the most interesting inferences from and parallels with Durkheim's account of abnormal forms have been less than fully explored in modern trade union theory and hence these are also worth a brief mention at this point.
