the like. Sweden followed a strong dualization path, despite its Social Democratic welfare regime. Rathgeb also demonstrates the dismantlement of egalitarian institutions in Denmark—a feature that remains too often overlooked… Click to show full abstract
the like. Sweden followed a strong dualization path, despite its Social Democratic welfare regime. Rathgeb also demonstrates the dismantlement of egalitarian institutions in Denmark—a feature that remains too often overlooked in his view. The three next chapters analyze the policy reforms undertaken by different coalition governments since the 1980s in the three countries. The case studies rely on an impressive array of primary and secondary sources and more than 40 interviews with policy-making elites. The chapter on Austria underlines the role of social partners in the reforms under the grand coalition governments (1987–1999, 2006–2017). The two governing parties, which lacked unity (the case of a “weak government”), had a great deal of interest in relying on extraparliamentary consensus. The coalition between ÖVP and FPÖ did not dramatically change the situation, at least in the area of labor market policy, given the disagreements between the partners. The analysis of Sweden shows well the new ideological distance between the Social Democratic Party and the Trade Union Confederation in the 1990s and its consequences for policies. When there were center-left cabinets (1994–2006), the Social Democratic minority government was prone to promote more labor market flexibility and made fiscal consolidation a priority, thanks to parliamentary support from the bourgeois Center Party. The dualization trend was then reinforced under the new center-right governments (2006–2014) that excluded unions from policy making. The Danish case shows that center-right governments do not always prefer to exclude unions from the policy process. The center-right minority coalition (1982–1993), a weak government in the late 1980s, chose to establish a deal with the Trade Union Confederation to secure a parliamentary majority for its labor market policy reform. There are two important lessons from this well-written and well-executed study for political science. First, the book is an important investigation of the role of trade unions in the representation of new groups of (atypical) workers. As convincingly argued and demonstrated, unions deploy important efforts to improve the social protection of outsiders. The book marks therefore a departure from the dominant view in comparative political economy that has treated labor as an increasingly heterogeneous political actor and conceived trade unions primarily as representatives of insiders’ interests (e.g., David Rueda, Social Democracy inside Out: Government Partisanship, Insiders, and Outsiders in Industrialized Democracies, 2007). The merit of the analysis is also to show the mechanisms behind the trade union representation of outsiders' interests. In Denmark and Sweden, the presence of encompassing trade unions and the links established with unemployed workers through the Ghent system facilitate the incorporation of outsiders' interests. In Austria, the strong concentration and centralization of unionism impede the domination of the manufacturing sector and stimulate the ÖGB's ambition to represent all workers. Second, the innovative theoretical framework is an important step toward better treatment of the new political context in which governments operate. The variable of government strength makes it possible to integrate the growing fragmentation of party systems into the analysis of public policy. As shown by Rathgeb, divergences between governing parties— which are likely to increase with the formation of unusual coalition governments—matter for policy outcomes. Above all, these divergences can give nonstate actors in some instances more influence in the policy-making process. The conclusions on the limited but significant potential for trade unions in the conditions of weak government could well be valid in other policy domains and lead to new opportunities for some (usually weaker) actors; for example, environmental associations. Although the variable of government strength is innovative and deserves scholarly attention, one might question it as well. Rathgeb emphasizes the types of coalition governments and the number of partners needed for parliamentary support in the case of minority governments. However, it would be more accurate to describe the variable as a combination of two elements: the type of government and the ideological willingness to engage in reforms pushing for more liberalization. This second element is sometimes slightly hidden behind the first. Moreover, the empirical analysis reveals an important variation among the types of governments described as “weak.” The explicit consideration of both elements could therefore make the analysis even more convincing. Notwithstanding this desire for further precision, Rathgeb's excellent study engages with important and timely issues for both research and society and should be read widely by scholars and experts in the fields of welfare state politics, political economy, and employment relations.
               
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