Comparing Policy Networks
Labor Politics in the U.S., Germany, and Japan

This book examines how labor policies were made in the US, Germany, and Japan during the 1980s.

David Knoke (Author), Franz Urban Pappi (Author), Jeffrey Broadbent (Author), Yutaka Tsujinaka (Author)

9780521499279, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 26 January 1996

308 pages, 30 line figures
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm, 0.413 kg

"...they show how our understanding of the very nature and meaning of the state has improved....the author deftly accomplishes his goal of showing that efficient and rational development is a social fiction whose meaning reflects neither efficiency nor rationality but the larger social fictions of different cutural systems....smoothly written and lively exposition of great coherence." John Boli, ASQ

The United States, Germany, and Japan - the world's three most powerful and successful free market societies - differ strikingly in how their governments relate to their economies. Comparing Policy Networks reports the results of collaborative research by three teams investigating the social organization and policymaking processes of national labor policy domains in the United States, Germany, and Japan during the 1980s. The researchers gathered information about policy goals, communication patterns, and political support connections from 350 key national organizations, including labor unions, business associations, public interest groups, government agencies, and political parties. These networks reveal similar conflict divisions between business and labor interests, but also distinctive patterns within each nation. Unique combinations of informal policy-making networks and the national political institutions may in part explain the differences in power structures and legislative decisions.

List of tables and figures
Preface
Acknowledgements
1. Policy-making in the organizational state
2. Three labor policy domains
3. Finding domain actors
4. organizational policy interests
5. Policy webs: networks, reputations, and activities
6. Fighting collectively: action sets and events
7. Exchange processes
8. Power structures
9. Variations on a theme of organizational states
Appendix 1. Legislative procedures in three nations
Appendix 2. Labor policy domain organizations
Appendix 3. Labor policy domain issues
Appendix 4. Labor policy domain legislative bills
Footnotes
References
Tables and figures.

Subject Areas: Comparative politics [JPB]