Wage Determination, Socio-Economic Regulation and the State

Abstract

This article examines changes in socio-economic regulation and the role of the state in the Netherlands, Spain, the UK, Sweden and Germany, against the background of the theoretical debate on transition from Fordist to post-Fordist growth strategies. The first focus is on reforms in the labour market and the welfare state, and their effect on the political and social processes through which wage norms are generalized in a national economy. The second is on the changing role of the state as an institutional form. The article starts from some basic assumptions of the regulation approach and delineates the status of the concepts of wage relation and wage determination, on the one hand, and the state, on the other. It then considers the debate over modifications to these concepts in the transition from Fordist to post-Fordist growth strategies, drawing on the trajectories of the five countries.