ABSTRACT
In the period between 1980 and 1993, the historically entrenched dualization into policies for workers and policies for the poor on social protection became more pronounced. While the 1980s are often regarded as the heyday of the conservative-corporatist welfare state regime in scholarly literature, very few studies systematically shed light on the policy process needed to maintain those institutional arrangements. In 1988, a politically heterogeneous coalition consisting of several state governments challenged the policy monopoly of social policy experts at the federal level for the first time. A key role is attributed to the consensus within the status quo-oriented policy network surrounding the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs in the policy process. Labor market policy (LMP) patterns following the second oil-price crisis in the early 1980s were similar to those made after the first oil-price crisis in the mid-1970s, as were policies aimed at systematically reducing labor supply. Schmid points to the institutional context of German labor market policy.
