Varieties of Liberalization and the New Politics of Social Solidarity

This book examines contemporary changes in labor market institutions in the United States, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands.

Kathleen Thelen (Author)

9781107679566, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 31 March 2014

282 pages, 24 b/w illus. 9 tables
22.6 x 15 x 2 cm, 0.39 kg

"Thelen examines three aspects of labor markets - wage bargaining, education and training policy, and labor market policy - focusing on the cases of the United States, Germany and Denmark. She argues convincingly that though global and postindustrial change brought liberalizing pressures to all countries, they produced straightforward liberalization only in the United States, with Germany moving toward dualization and Denmark continuing the Nordic pattern of egalitarian capitalism. Thelen again produces a major breakthrough in our understanding of the processes of change in contemporary capitalism; the book represents the finest in comparative historical political economy."
John D. Stephens, Gerhard E. Lenski, Jr, Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Sociology, University of North Carolina

This book examines contemporary changes in labor market institutions in the United States, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands, focusing on developments in industrial relations, vocational education and training, and labor market policy. It finds that there are in fact distinct varieties of liberalization associated with very different distributive outcomes. Most scholarship equates liberal capitalism with inequality and coordinated capitalism with higher levels of social solidarity. However, this study explains why the institutions of coordinated capitalism and egalitarian capitalism coincided and complemented one another in the 'Golden Era' of postwar development in the 1950s and 1960s, and why they no longer do so. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, this study reveals that the successful defense of the institutions traditionally associated with coordinated capitalism has often been a recipe for increased inequality due to declining coverage and dualization. Conversely, it argues that some forms of labor market liberalization are perfectly compatible with continued high levels of social solidarity and indeed may be necessary to sustain it.

1. Varieties of liberalization and the new politics of social solidarity
2. Industrial relations institutions
3. Vocational education and training
4. Labor market policy
5. Coalitional realignments and institutional change
6. The future of egalitarian capitalism, in light of its past.

Subject Areas: Political economy [KCP]