The end of national policy concertation? Western Europe since the Single European Act

Abstract

It is widely believed that policy concertation between states, employer organizations and trade unions is declining under the impact of liberalizing trends caused by factors such as increased mobility of capital, intensified international competition, diversification of patterns of production, greater social heterogeneity, decreased economic sovereignty, a political drift to the Right, European integration and recession. In this article this proposition is put to the test by examining the incidence and extent of national-level policy concertation in eleven West European countries during the decade following the passage of the Single European Act in 1985. It is found that rumours of the death of concertation are greatly exaggerated: there was no general decline in policy concertation during this period.