ABSTRACT
Corporatism, the institutionalized co-operation of trade unions, employers and the state, played an important role in the expansion of state intervention and of social security in the 1960s and 1970s in the Netherlands, Austria and Belgium. In top-level tripartite meetings, important decisions about fiscal policy and social security programmes were made. In the 1990s corporatism has played an important role in the adaptation of the Dutch and Austrian welfare states to new economic and social requirements, an adaptation which has involved a major remolding of social and economic policy. In Switzerland, the situation has been different. Expansive fiscal policy has never been used in a encompassing way to tackle economic problems. Compared to that of other European countries, the Swiss welfare state emerged late. Judged by social security expenditures, it remained slim for a long time. It did not experience a dramatic expansion in the 1960s and 1970 as most other Western countries did. As a result, the need for retrenchment has been less felt in the 1990s. In the 1990s, the Dutch Wassenaar agreement was not matched in Switzerland nor was there a counterpart to the Austrian budget cuts of the mid-1990’s, which were approved by employers and trade unions.
