Social Pacts Revisited: ‘Competitive Concertation’ and Complex Causality in Negotiated Welfare State Reforms

Abstract

This article discusses three major issues related to tripartite social pacts: first, the puzzles they present for classic theories of corporatism; second, the contrasts between the political economies of ‘competitive concertation’ and Keynesian coordination; and third, the problems of assessing their effects in the context of complex causality. The main focus is on one specific policy area: negotiated welfare state reforms. The conclusion is that though such negotiations have dominated the process of welfare state recalibration in Europe during the 1990s, tripartite social pacts are neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for success.