This paper develops an analytical approach to comparative political economy that focuses on the relative importance of different components of aggregate demand—in the first instance, exports and household consumption—and dynamic relations among the “demand drivers” of growth. We illustrate this approach by comparing patterns of economic growth in Germany, Italy, Sweden, and the United Kingdom over the period 1994–2007. Our discussion emphasizes that export-led growth and consumption-led growth have different implications for distributive conflict.

Based on quantitative indicators for fifteen advanced countries between 1974 and 2005, and case studies of France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Sweden, and Ireland, this article analyzes the trajectory of institutional change in the industrial relations systems of advanced capitalist societies, with a focus on Western Europe. In contrast to current comparative political economy scholarship, which emphasizes the resilience of national institutions to common challenges and trends, it argues that despite a surface resilience of distinct national sets, all countries (...) have been transformed in a neoliberal direction. Neoliberal transformation manifests itself not just as institutional deregulation but also as institutional conversion, as the functions associated with existing institutional forms change in a convergent direction. A key example is the institution of centralized bargaining, once the linchpin of an alternative, redistributive and egalitarian, model of negotiated capitalism, which has been reshaped in the past twenty years to fit the common imperative of liberalization. (shrink)

By comparing developments in two southern Italian factories, this article contrasts “aggregative” and “deliberative” procedures in trade unions. In one of the plants, the preferences of some of the workers appear to have been changed by deliberation. The process of rational persuasion seems to have required, however, more than sheer circulation of information. Based on this evidence, the article argues that when a potential conflict of interests is involved, speakers need to provide evidence that they are animated by a “communicative” (...) rather than “strategic” intent. This implies validating their implicit claim to sincerity of communication. (shrink)

Based on field research at both the national and local levels, this article reconstructs the emergence of negotiated policy making in Italy in the 1990s. It argues that standard corporatist theory is totally incapable of accounting for the particular organizational mechanisms through which, at critical moments, that is, the moments in which policy change had to be introduced, consensus was mobilized among both middle-level union structures and rank-and-file workers in Italy. In fact, absent centralized organizational capacities, the Italian unions relied (...) heavily on democratic decision-making procedures. These procedures strengthened the unions' capacity to hold to their side of the bargaining in national negotiations through essentially two types of mechanisms, aggregative and deliberative. (shrink)