Trajectories of Neoliberal Transformation: European Industrial Relations Since the 1970s

This book has both empirical and theoretical goals. The primary empirical goal is to examine the evolution of industrial relations in Western Europe from the end of the 1970s up to the present. Its purpose is to evaluate the extent to which liberalization has taken hold of European industrial relations and institutions through five detailed, chapter-length studies, each focusing on a different country and including quantitative analysis. The book offers a comprehensive description and analysis of what has happened to the institutions that regulate the labor market, as well as the relations between employers, unions, and states in Western Europe since the collapse of the long postwar boom. The primary theoretical goal of this book is to provide a critical examination of some of the central claims of comparative political economy, particularly those involving the role and resilience of national institutions in regulating and managing capitalist political economies.

Table of Contents:
Introduction; 1. Arguing for neoliberal convergence; 2. Quantitative analysis of industrial relations change; 3. Constructing a liberal market economy: the collapse of collective regulation in Britain; 4. State-led liberalization and the transformation of worker representation in France; 5. Softening institutions: the liberalization of German industrial relations with Chiara Benassi; 6. 'Well dug old mole!' The rise and decline of concessionary corporatism in Italy; 7. The conversion of corporatism: re-engineering Swedish industrial relations for a neo-liberal era; 8. Actors, institutions and pathways: the liberalization of industrial relations in Western Europe; 9. From industrial relations liberalization to the instability of capitalist growth; Bibliography; Index.

About the Author :
Lucio Baccaro is Professor of Sociology at the Université de Genève. He received his Ph.D. in industrial relations and political science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has authored numerous articles on the comparative political economy of industrial relations and labor markets, as well as on participatory and deliberative governance. Chris Howell is Professor of Politics at Oberlin College. He received his Ph.D. in political science from Yale University, Connecticut. He is the author of two books, Regulating Labor: The State and Industrial Relations Reform in France (1992), and Trade Unions and the State: Constructing Industrial Relations Institutions in Britain, 1890–2000 (2005). The latter won the 2006 Labor History prize for best book in labor studies.

Review :
'This is an important book for all scholars and practitioners of industrial relations. It includes very detailed and insightful analyses of developments in industrial relations in a number of European countries (Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Sweden), but its ambition goes well beyond that.' Roberto Pedersini, Transfer