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Paper prepared for the ECPR General Conference, 3-6 September 2014 in Glasgow
Panel The Politics of Welfare and Social Policy Reform
How policies shape politics:
Labor market policy conflicts and coalitions in five western European countries
Abstract
This article contributes to the scholarly debate on how new social needs are politicized at the elite level. I am able
to demonstrate empirically that the labor market policy conflict is two-dimensional. The findings of an analysis of
five Western European countries indicate that depending on the labor market legacies, political actors fight not
only over the degree of generosity and state intervention, but also over the nature and the extent to which specific
activation policies should be promoted. I show that different regimes employ different types of activation
strategies to recommodify the unemployed and that this affects labor market politics.
Moreover, I address the unresolved question of whether social democrats represent the labor market insiders or
outsiders. I show that their strategies differ depending on the regime’s legacies and that they represent the
insiders in dualized countries (Germany, France and Italy) and the outsiders in flexicurity countries (Denmark and
Switzerland).
Flavia Fossati
Political Science Department
Swiss Politics and Comparative Political Economy
University Zurich
Affolternstrasse 56
CH-8050 Zurich
Phone: +41 (0)44 634 50 28
Email: fossati@pw.uzh.ch
Acknowledgments:
I would like to thank Silja Häusermann, Hanspeter Kriesi, Dominic Höglinger and Evelyne Hübscher for valuable
feedback on previous versions of this paper. I also thank the participants of the panel Political Representation and
actors' strategies at The Swiss Political Science Conference in Berne, February 2014 and the participants of the
panel The Changing Politics of Social Policy at the XVIII ISA World Congress of Sociology in Yokohama, 13-19 July
2014.
I am grateful for the support by the Swiss National Science Foundation, Pro-Doc Grant Grant Number
PDFMP1-126421.
1
Introduction
In Europe, over the last few austere decades, we have witnessed an activation turn. Thereby welfare
states have been transformed from (passive) securing arrangements to schemes which actively promote
labor market participation. This goal has been reached by introducing policies such as retraining
schemes, counseling, job creation programs, limits on benfits recipiency and increasing benefit
conditionality (Bonoli 2010; Bonoli & Natali, 2012; Torfing, 1999; Gilbert, 2002). Whilst reforms
introducing active labor market policies (ALMP) have been studied in detail, mostly in the form of case
studies analysis (Bonoli and Natali 2012; Clasen and Clegg 2011), the question of how these reforms
affect the politics of labor market policy has not been systematically addressed. In this article I aim to
complement the literature on the multidimensionality of post-industrial reforms by investigating which
issues are controversial among political actors and thus determine the labor market conflict. Then, I
consider the other side of the coin, and analyze which actors coalesce and how these patterns differ
depending on the labor market policy legacies.
The first contribution of this article is to show empirically that the decision-making process in the
domain of labor market policy no longer revolves merely around distributive issues along the lines of the
labor/capital conflict, but that it increasingly includes questions about the nature of the activation
policies (Bonoli and Natali 2012; Clasen and Clegg 2011). This is the case because in an era of austerity
most European countries have implemented ALMP reforms inspired by the guidelines proposed by
several supra- and international organizations (Ferrera & Gualmini, 2004; Graziano, 2007) to avoid
addressing the skyrocketing unemployment rates using purely expansive social policies. I argue that the
countries’ pre-existing institutional design, however, predefines the implementability and compatibility
of particular ALMP policies with the labor market regime. Thus, the very interplay of labor market
2
legacies and new policy strategies gives rise to the variety of activation policies which ranges from the
Nordic best-practice models to the less efficacious south-European versions, which neglect re-training
and human-capital development. Whilst previous studies have claimed, mainly in theoretical terms, that
activation policies differ significantly across countries, I am actually able to show empirically that
activation policies in five Western European countries differ, and either focus on occupational activation
strategies or on human-capital investment depending on the countries’ labor market legacies (cf.
Torfing, 1999; Barbier & Ludwig-Mayerhofer, 2004; Barbier & Fargion, 2004; Bonoli, 2010; Daguerre,
2007).
Second, I propose an institutionalist argument to explain how regime-specific activation conflicts come
about and how these shape the political actor’ s coalition patterns. In more detail, I argue that it is
precisely the existence of different institutional legacies which influences the nature of the activation
conflicts in different labor market regimes. In a country where, for instance, training policies are already
firmly established, the political conflict is likely to revolve around policies that are not yet implemented,
such as the introduction of public job schemes or unemployment benefit reductions. Hence, those
measures which differ from the countries’ standard policy repertoire are the ones which are most likely
to be controversial, and by consequence structure the politics of labor market policy1. Conversely, the
regime-specific policy repertoire is taken for granted - as far as it works - and hence is less subject to
political controversies.
Finally, I apply this framework to explain the allegedly puzzling diversity of the social democrats’
strategy when it comes to representing either labor market insiders or outsiders (Rueda 2007;
Schwander 2013). I solve this apparent contradiction by arguing that actors who belong to the same
group or party family are likely to differ with respect to the measures they propose depending on the
1 In my understanding “controversy” is the clearest indicator of political conflict.
3
institutional context. For instance, in a country where unemployment policies are reasonably generous
and hence cover the needs of the labor market insiders, social democrats may no longer focus on
representing these interests but rather concentrate on policies targeting the new social risks and
thereby expand their electorate. Conversely, if welfare provision for insiders is marginal, social
democratic parties are likely to support the interests of their traditional core-electorate and hence focus
on insider policies before turning to new challenges. Thus, the variation in labor market policy context
explains why the scholarly literature proposes contradictory expectations with respect to the strategy of
social democratic parties (Rueda, 2007; Schwander, 2013). In a nutshell, I argue that policy shapes
politics (Lowi, 1972) and that, by consequence, institutional settings shape the nature of the political
conflict and of coalition patterns.
I develop these arguments as follows: In the theoretical section, I elucidate why the labor market policy
conflict has become two-dimensional, and apart from a state-market2 conflict also involves a conflict
over activating strategies. In a second step, I theorize and develop predictions about the coalitions in
this policy domain. In the empirical section, by means of factor analyses, I show that the labor market
conflict is indeed characterized by two dimensions. According to the hypotheses, I find that the
traditional state/market conflict is complemented by a regime-specific activation dimension. Then, I
describe the political actors’ positions in the two-dimensional policy space and discuss the coalition
patterns. In the final part of the article, I analyze the strategy of social democrats in particular, to assess
whether they represent the insiders (Rueda, 2007), whether they instead focus on the outsiders, or
whether they represent both (Schwander, 2013). The last section summarizes the findings and explores
venues for further research.
2
Here I use economic and state/market conflict synonymously.
4
Theory
The conflict in labor market policy: economic and activation dimensions
The political conflict shaping the party system, and by consequence also social policy, is traditionally
represented as a labor-capital antagonism. This antagonism has an impact on the level of generosity and
universality of passive benefits, as well as the role and degree of state intervention (Esping-Anderson,
1990; Kitschelt, 1994; Korpi 1983; Lipset & Rokkan, 1985 [1967]). This basic political conflict can be
synthesized in the form of an axis with one side in opposition to state-interventionism and the other
opposed to market-oriented policies. With regards to social and labor market policies, left policy
positions - which were proposed mainly by social-democratic parties and unions - promote generous
passive benefits. These aim to reduce social inequality by insuring blue-collar workers against traditional
industrial risks (Esping-Anderson, 1990). Conversely, political actors on the right propose market-liberal
solutions to reduce state intervention and constrain universalistic and redistributive welfare state
spending.
Even though this conflict still structures labor market policy, it is no longer able to fully capture the
preferences and hence the nature of political contention in a post-industrial setting. In fact, the changes
that have occurred in the occupational structure as a consequence of post-industrialization and social
modernization have led to a differentiation of political preferences (Oesch, 2006; Kriesi, 1998; Rueda,
2007; Bonoli, 2005; Taylor-Gooby, 2005). Generous unemployment or pension insurance systems are
credited foremost to the decreasing share of workers in standard employment relations, but they
represent a suboptimal protection for the increasing share of unemployed and atypical workers (Bonoli,
2005; Berton, Richiardi & Sacchi, 2009).
5
The adverse economic conditions preclude the possibility of meeting new social risks, particularly the
rising structural unemployment rates, by simply increasing the decommodification efforts. Thus, most
reforms rely on social investment strategies (Morel, Palier & Palmer, 2012) and more specifically on
activation policies. Examples are numerous and include the third-way programs (New Deals) under
Labour in the UK (1997) (King & Wickham-Jones, 1999), the recently introduced Universal Credit (DWP,
2010; Smith, 2010) or the Hartz IV legislation in Germany (Fleckenstein, 2008). Overall, these activation
reforms are institutionalized to cushion the impact of the advancing liberalization of labor markets by
effectively reducing welfare state dependence and contemporaneously lowering expenditures (Giddens,
2000; Jensen, 2012; Morel, Palier & Palmer, 2012). The implication is that welfare states have been
transformed from “ securing” to “ enabling” institutions (Bonoli & Natali, 2012: 1–4; Taylor-Gooby,
2005; Torfing, 1999).
By consequence, labor market politics which once consisted of a one-dimensional conflict about the
generosity and universality of passive benefits, have evoloved to a two-dimensional structure that
includes an activation dimension (cf. Author 2013; Author & Colleague, forthcoming). Eventually, the
conflict over activation policies aims at negotiating whether the country-specific challenges should be
addressed by means of human-capital, occupational or liberal activation policies (Barbier &
Ludwig-Mayerhofer, 2004; Bonoli, 2010; Daguerre, 2007). Thus, the nature of the activation conflict can
be expected to vary depending on the labor market policy legacies.
To test the argument whether the labor market conflict is indeed two-dimensional and whether its
conflict depends on the institutional legacies of societies, I analyze five Coordinated Market Economies
(CMEs) - Denmark, Germany, France, Italy and Switzerland – that differ mainly with respect to their
activation models (most similar system design).
6
CME countries are characterized by strong horizontal coordination mechanisms and by unemployment
insurance systems that incentivize the investment in specialized skills (Hall & Soskice, 2001; Estevez-Abe,
Iversen & Soskice, 2001). Whilst the Variety of Capitalism (VoC) provides a good explanation for
institutional equilibria, it is less helpful in tracing reform trajectories within a particular regime. The
capability to assess change however is essential when studying political conflicts because reforms
provide insights into the issues which become controversial in different activation regimes.
At the heart of the present case selection lies Thelen’ s theory (2012) which proposes a framework that
enables researchers to distinguish between different strategies CMEs use to adapt their labor market
policies to liberalization pressures. The author distinguishes between countries which introduced
reforms leading two-tier labor markets and reforms focusing more on preserving social equality.
In the first case, labor market reforms retained the high level of labor market insider protection
(employment protection legislation) and contemporaneously allowed the market forces to operate
freely in particular segments of the economy. This dualisation of employment conditions leads to labor
market flexibilization at the margins and to increasing social inequality (Palier, 2012; Emmenegger et al.,
2012; Palier & Thelen, 2010). These inequalities, however, were not balanced by the comprehensive
introduction of activating policies as was the case in the Nordic CMEs. The countries following this
second liberalization route have in fact been able to cushion the effect of market-friendly policy reforms
with social programs that accommodate the demands of new social risk groups. Thereby, human-capital
activation policies have become the centerpiece of a strategy which successfully balances
re-commodifying and de-commodifying policies (cf. Rueda, 2007; Martin & Swank, 2012; Thelen, 2012).
Following this distinction, I allocate Denmark and Switzerland to the flexicurity model and France,
Germany and Italy to the dualizing model.
7
The legitimacy of this grouping is corroborated by Figure 1 which shows that flexicurity countries have a
high level of passive spending, a very flexible labor market (low employment protection) and a low level
of problem pressure (total number of unemployed individuals). Conversely, a distinctive feature of
dualizing countries is their extremely high levels of employment protection legislation for the primary
labor market, whereas labor market outsiders suffer from precarious employment conditions (Berton,
Richiardi & Sacchi, 2009; Palier & Thelen, 2010; Palier, 2010 Emmenegger et al., 2012). Moreover, even
though these countries spend as much on passive policies as a whole (as indicated by the size of the
circles), the level of problem pressure is conspicuously higher than in the flexicurity countries and hence
results in a comparatively smaller amount of spending per unemployed individual.
Figure 1: Employment protection legislation, government expenditure for passive labor market policies
and problem pressure
8
Aside from the flexibility of their labor market regulation, the level of problem pressure and the
generosity of passive benefits, these regimes differ with respect to the nature of their activation policies
(Barbier & Ludwig-Mayerhofer, 2004; Barbier & Fargion, 2004; Daguerre, 2007). Whilst the Nordic
activation measures concentrate on enhancing the human-capital of the unemployed, the liberal variant
is characterized by so-called work-first measures3 and the continental solution is based on an
“ occupational” strategy.
Bonoli (20104) summarizes these differences by means of a typology that captures the degree of
human-capital and “ pro-market” orientation. Similarly to Barbier and Ludwig-Mayerhofer (2004), he
argues that in the Anglo-Saxon countries5, the focus was laid on reinforcing coercion so as to prevent
welfare state dependency. Contemporaneously, these liberal countries keep human-capital investment
rather low. In the Nordic countries the activation policies are instead in line with the social investment
framework which relies on up-skilling and employment assistance (cf. Jensen, 2012). Finally, the
continental welfare states have a tradition of “ occupational” ALMPs which aim at keeping the
unemployed occupied mainly by short-time work while failing to systematically invest in their skills.
Hence, these measures focus primarily on retaining the unemployed’ s social networks (cf. Barbier &
Fargion, 2004; Daguerre, 2007). In a nutshell the characteristics of ALMPs differ fundamentally
depending on the labor market regime a country belongs to.
3 Work-first measures stress the need to swiftly re-introduce workers into the labor market principally by means of (negative)
incentives. 4 Bonoli (2010) proposes four ideal-typical ALMPs. The first is the occupational, which comprehends policies such as the
creation of public jobs and which is characterized by a low “pro-market employment orientation” and weak level of human
capital investment. The other three categories share a high pro-market orientation but diverge in terms of human capital
investment. First, there are schemes fostering the swift reintroduction of the unemployed into the labor market by means of
incentives but without investing in their skills (cf. time limits on recipiency, benefit reductions and conditionality). Second, there
are measures with a medium level of human capital investment, which assist the unemployed in looking for a job (counselling,
job search programs or job subsidies). Finally, there are up-skilling policies with a high pro-market orientation and a high degree
of human capital investment (job-related vocational training). 5 According to the Varieties of Capitalism (VoC) the Anglo-Saxon countries correspond to the Liberal Market Economies (LMEs).
9
Obviously, each regime is characterized by a particular mix of policies. Since these inherently belong to
the country’ s activation strategy repertoire these are less controversial than measures which are “ alien
to the system” . Hence, the expectation is that controversial policies determine the labor market policy
conflict.
Drawing on the theory presented above, I hypothesize that the labor market policy conflict is structured
by a state/market and an activation conflict in all countries (H1). Moreover, I hypothesize that the
activation conflict in the different regimes is determined by those policies which are controversial. The
dualizing regime is characterized mainly by short-time work schemes but lacks up-skilling and (coercive)
reintegration measures. Instead, the flexicurity countries have well-established training and incentive
schemes, whilst short-time measures are rarely implemented (especially in Denmark). Accordingly, I
expect that short-time work in Italy, France and Germany is uncontroversial and hence does not
determine the labor market policy conflict in these countries, whereas this is the case for training and
incentive-based reintegration measures in Denmark and Switzerland (H2).
Actor constellations in the labor market policy space
Regime-specific differences in activation conflict are, in turn, likely to determine different actor
preferences and coalition dynamics. Thus, I expect that the actual preferences of actors belonging to the
same party or actor family diverge depending on labor market policy legacies. For instance, it is
dysfunctional for social democratic parties to advocate increasing passive benefits in countries where
the replacement rates are already generous. Similarly, it is not conductive for liberal parties to insist on
liberalizing measures where employment regulations are already flexible.
10
In the following, I derive hypotheses on the regime specific coalition patterns. Thereby, I concentrate on
the most influential actors in the decision-making process, i.e. parties, unions, employers’ associations,
state bodies and social movement organizations (SMOs)6.
As shown in Table 1, depending on the legacies, similar political actors display different economic and
activation preferences. Particularly, social democrats can be expected to be located either in the
traditional left or the third way coalition depending on whether one considers the flexicurity or the
dualizing regime.
Table 1: Expected coalition composition in flexicurity and dualized labor markets
Economic dimension
Activation
dimension
State Market
Pro
activation
MODERN LEFT
THIRD WAY
- greens
- communists
- white collar unions
- social movement organizations
Flexicurity
- social democrats
- state bodies
- administration
- research institutes
- progressive liberals and
right-wing parties
Dualizing
- state bodies
- administration
- research institutes
- progressive liberals and
right-wing parties
Against
activation
TRADITIONAL LEFT
TRADITIONAL RIGHT
Flexicurity
- blue collar unions
Dualizing
- social democrats
- blue collar unions
- employers’ associations
- conservative government parties
6 See Table 6 and 7 for a list of the actors which were included in the analyses.
11
In the first quadrant (Table 1) I expect the modern left coalition which represents individuals with
preferences for generous passive and active labor market policies. Modern left actors foremost
represent sociocultural specialists, i.e. individuals with left-libertarian values, and labor market outsiders
(Kitschelt, 1994). Sociocultural specialists can be expected to endorse this policy strategy because of
their professional socialization. In fact, working in occupations characterized by interpersonal work-logic
(Oesch, 2006; Kriesi, 1998) sensitizes them to the needs of the unemployed and hence consolidates their
preferences for generous state intervention. At the same time, these above-average educated
individuals7 recognize that in a knowledge society the demand for skilled workers is the biggest obstacle
for the unemployed to be re-employed. A problem that can be best addressed by re-training measures
linked to adequate passive benefits.
In theory all left-oriented political actors could be expected to favor such extensive welfare state
engagement. However, in the light of constraints due to fiscal and budget austerity, not all left actors
may be in a position to pursue this kind of strategy. I expect foremost green parties, social movement
organizations, white-collar unions and left opposition parties (e.g. communists) to advocate modern left
policy packages because they are not in government and hence do not have budget responsibility.
Conversely, I do not expect social democratic parties to belong to this coalition because as mainstream
parties they compete for government responsibility. Thus, they are likely to refrain from proposing to
increase activation effort for new risk groups without making cuts in other social policy areas. Hence,
particularly in times of economic crisis, social democrats face the choice between accommodating the
new or the old social risks, whilst keeping the status quo for the other group.
In the bottom left quadrant I locate the traditional left coalition. This coalition focuses above all on
passive benefits and job-security regulations. Since overwhelmingly labor market insiders benefit from
7 These left-libertarian individuals have been shown to be particularly likely to vote for social democratic and
green parties (Kitschelt 1994; Kriesi 1998; Geering and Häusermann 2013).
12
such policy schemes, I expect this strategy to be adopted mainly by blue-collar unions and social
democratic parties who represent the insiders (Rueda, 2007). The incentives to foster their core
electorate’ s interests are clearly higher in countries where they are still affected by suboptimal
protection and are well organized. Thus, social democratic parties in dualized countries should refrain
from diversifying their policy offer to accommodate new social risks8, and focus on “ traditional left”
strategies instead.
On the contrary, I expect social democrats to propose third-way policies in regimes where traditional
social risks, i.e. the insiders’ interests, are already accommodated. In such regimes social democrats are
in a position to address new social needs by proposing activation measures and, where necessary, even
reallocate resources from traditional to new risk schemes. Accordingly, in flexicurity countries where the
insiders are well protected and do not fear (massive) cuts, both insiders and outsiders should have
similarly strong preferences for increasing the activation effort (Emmenegger, 2009) whilst maintaining
the status quo on passive benefits. Although in these countries activation offers are not essential for
insiders, these are nonetheless a backup in case of need. Thus, it is not surprising that in flexicurity
countries social democratic parties do not exclusively target labor market insiders in electoral campaigns
(Schwander, 2013).
The third-way coalition located in the top right quadrant favors increasing activation effort combined
with an above-average market orientation. Besides social democrats (in the flexicurity regimes),
government authorities, public administrations and progressive liberal or right-wing parties are likely to
endorse this policy package. In fact, these actors are the most likely to be influenced by the
supranational consensus, which combines the neoliberal insistence on balancing the budget with the
idea that a quick provision of labor market access is essential for reducing unemployment levels
8 These above all are particularly hard to mobilize since these groups are extremely heterogeneous (Bonoli 2005).
13
(Daguerre & Taylor-Gooby, 2004; Stiller & van Gerven, 2012). Furthermore, it is plausible to assume that
highly skilled workers, who are less likely to become unemployed, and individuals employed in technical
jobs9 prefer a less costly welfare state, and hence from a rational-choice perspective endorse
reductions in welfare spending and increasing re-commodification effort (Oesch, 2006).
Finally, in the traditional right coalition (bottom right quadrant) I expect to find primarily employers’
organizations and conservative/right-wing mainstream parties. These actors consider the current level
of welfare support to be high enough and thus give priority to budgetary rigor over any kind of welfare
expansion (Esping-Anderson, 1990). As argued by Huber and Stephens (2001), particularly
right-wing/conservative parties are characterized by preferences for subsidiarity and self-reliance, and
hence can be expected to dismiss not only an expansion of passive but also of active welfare effort (cf.
Miles & Quadagno, 2002).
Operationalization and methods
To analyze the implications of the “ activation turn” on labor market politics I rely on novel interview
data which was collected in Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, UK and Switzerland in autumn 2010. The
dataset is based upon semi-structured telephone interviews with the major policy-makers10 who are
active in the domain of labor market policy, i.e. parties, unions, state bodies, administrations and social
9 These jobs do not follow a pro-social or client centered work logic and hence entail more conservative and
market-friendly attitudes as compared to the sociocultural specialists. 10
Our NCCR-Democracy P11 research team originally contacted 161 political actors in the six countries. In the present analysis I
rely exclusively on the data collected in the first of the two interview rounds of our elite surveys. In total we were able to obtain
109 interviews in October 2010 (first round) and 118 in December 2010 (second round) (please refer to Table 5 in the
appendix for the response rate). We encountered severe difficulties in obtaining interviews in Italy and the UK. In particular,
we were able to reach just one employers’ organization in Italy (even though the most relevant one) and had no opportunity to
speak to a representative of the administration in the UK. In contrast, in Switzerland and in Germany the political actors were
very cooperative and we faced no problems in scheduling interviews at all. Finally, in Denmark and France we encountered
problems in particular with representatives of public administration, right-wing parties and employer’s associations.
14
movement organizations (SMOs).11 This kind of interview data is best suited to analyse the political
conflict structure because it allows assessing the underlying preferences of political actors
independently of possibly idiosyncratic, very specific and/or limited political reform processes (cf.
Häusermann 2010). Moreover, the precision of the questions we proposed to our interview partners
allows for a more accurate analysis of the conflict dimensionality as compared to data which relies on
very broad categories such as the Manifesto Data Collection (Manifesto Project MRG/CMP/MARPOR).
Furthermore, I was interested in measures which are able to capture both the political actors’
preferences with respect to policy measures (position measure) and their perception of the relative
importance of a particular policy measure (salience measure). Accordinlgy, Manifesto Data would be
inadequate because they provide merely measures of salience rather than of position. Due to the
shortcomings of the commonly used datasources we hence engaged in the collection of a more direct
and precise measure of position and salience. I rely on several items of our questionnaire to
operationalise the labor market policy conflict structure. In more detail, only those items were included
which are theoretically best suited to capture the economic dimension (state/market) and the different
activation models (Nordic and occupational). I also was careful to choose those items which best allow a
discrimination between the different actors’ positions, i.e. which have the largest possible variance.12
Nine preference measures meet these requirements (cf. Table 8). In detail, I operationalise the
economic conflict by means of three indicators capturing the generosity of passive benefits and the
degree to which the state engages in regulating social policy. The first item refers to the creation of
11
Interview partners were chosen as representatives of the major decision-making organizations who are experts in the field
of unemployment policy within the specific organizations. The relevance of the organizations included in the analyses was
cross-checked with two experts per country and validated by means of media analyses (see Kriesi et al. 2014). 12
I hence excluded items which were too generally formulated to capture specific labor market preferences ( “social inequality
should be reduced”) or uncontested items ( “solidarity with the unemployed should be increased”) and which accordingly do
not represent a political conflict ( see Tables 9 and 10 in the appendix for descriptive statistics).
15
public jobs.13
Especially in southern welfare states, the expansion of public employment is a way of
preventing unemployment and is associated with a generous leftist assistance to the unemployed. The
second corresponds to a state-led intervention to guarantee decent living standards to workers (raising
the minimum wage).
To operationalise the market orientation of the generosity conflict, I rely on an item capturing
preferences for unemployment benefit retrenchment and one aiming at “ increasing sanctions when an
unemployed person refuses a job which is deemed appropriate” . This second item captures a slightly
different form of generosity since non-compliance with activation requirements is sanctioned by
monetary disincentives such as freezing or reducing cash transfers (Clasen & Clegg, 2011; Kemmerling &
Bruttel, 2006; Trickey & Walker, 2001). Finally, two items operationalise preferences for lower and more
flexible employment protection (“ loosening of the hire-and-fire legislation” and “ increasing
working-hours flexibilization” ).
13
For the exact question wording, see Table 8 in the appendix.
16
Table 2: Operationalization of the conflict dimensions characterizing labor market policy
State Market
Economic conflict 1) The use of state programs to create
jobs (statejob)
2) Raising the minimum wage
(minwage)
3) Tougher sanctions for those who
refuse to accept an appropriate job
(sanction)
4) Reduction of unemployment
benefits (reducbenef)
5) Flexibility of working hours
(workhours)
6) Loosening of hire and fire legislation
(hirefire)
Pro activation Contra activation
Activation conflict Type 1: Human-capital activation
7) More retraining possibilities for the
unemployed (training)
8) Promotion of labor market
reintegration (reintgr)
Type 2: Occupational activation
9) The promotion of short-time work
(shorttime)
(Same items)
The activation strategies are operationalized by means of three questions. The human-capital activation
strategy is captured by the promotion of training and by the effort to reintegrate the unemployed in the
labor market by means of activation measures (“ reintegration” ). The occupational model instead relies
foremost on the retention of individuals in the labor market by means of short-time work (Sacchi et al.,
2011, Estevez-Abe et al., 2001; Thelen, 2001).
To test the first hypothesis and assess the dimensionality of the political space I conduct an exploratory
factor analysis with varimax rotation14
. Thereby, I include the nine items shown in Table 215
. For each
14
Missing cases were recoded as neutral both in position and salience; fortunately they only represent between 2 and 5%. 15
The non-governmental organization Attac Germany was excluded from the analyses because it proved to be an outlier in
the pooled model including all actors. Since this organization is only of minor importance in this policy domain, its exclusion
seems to be legitimate.
17
item, I constructed an indicator which takes into account both the actor’ s position on a given measure
and the salience of the measure for the actor16
.
To assess the stability of the actor constellation, three different types of checks were run. First, the
analyses were re-run only with parties and social partners (unions, employers’ associations) and state
bodies since these actors are the most influential players and hence can be expected to decisively shape
the labor market policy conflict. Moreover, the analyses were performed without issue salience
weightings and for each country separately.17
These additional analyses show that the actor
constellations are stable.
Analyses
First, I test whether a two-dimensional labor market policy space can be found in all five countries
included in the study. To this aim I show the pooled analysis including all 108 political actors (excepting
Attac Germany) in a single model. As theoretically expected, Table 3 shows that the nine labor market
policy items load on two distinct factors. However, the eigenvalues clearly indicate that only the
state-market factor (column 1) forms a strong homogeneous scale (eigenvalue 2.34), whilst the
elements on the activation dimension reach an eigenvalue of only 0.53 (column 2).
16
The combined indicator was developed by multiplying standardized salience and position for each actor. This strategy, which
involves weigting position by salience, gives less weight to positions on measures which the actor considers irrelevant and
allows the most significant conflicts to be captured. In fact, while political actors tend to have a stance on all issues, they may
judge them differently in terms of relevance. To capture the fundamental political conflicts it is hence pivotal to focus only on
those issues which are salient. An actor’s position on a given policy measure is gauged on a scale ranging from 1 to 5 (strongly
disagree - strongly agree). For the operationalization of a measure’s salience, I asked the respondents to indicate the most
important measure on the list that was submitted to them, the three most important measures, and the three least important
measures. The resulting salience indicator allocates three points to the most important measure, two points to the other two
important measures, zero points to the three least important measures and one point to the remaining ones. 17
See Tables 11 and 12 in the appendix.
18
Table 3: Pooled factor analysis (all countries)
Items* State/market Activation
Sanction 0.57 -0.03
Reduc. benefit 0.57 -0.06
Work-hours 0.67 -0.09
Hire-fire 0.47 0.04
Minimalw -0.70 0.05
State job -0.66 0.14
Training -0.31 0.41
Short-time -0.03 0.37
Reintegration -0.08 0.43
Eigenvalue 2.34 0.53
N 108* 108*
*Attac Germany was excluded from the sample
This finding18
, however, is consistent with my argument that different activation conflicts should be
expected depending on the labor market legacies of a regime. Accordingly, only when conducting
regime-specific analyses do I expect to find an adequately strong regime-specific second factor. The
activation factor should thus be characterized by functionally equivalent activation policies depending
on the regime characteristics. Hence, to unveil the differences in the second conflict dimension in Table
4, I present the results of the regime-specific factor analyses. In line with the first hypothesis (H1) I can
empirically corroborate that the political conflict in Western Europe circles around two types of labor
market strategies, namely passive and active policies and but that the precise conflict configuration
differs19
.
18
To interpret the findings of the factor analyses it is useful to consider that variables load strongly on a factor
when these contribute to discriminating between the observations (in this case the political actors). Accordingly, a
high factor loading is an indication that a policy is highly controversial. 19
The decision to analyze flexicurity and dualizing regimes separately is supported by the country-specific solutions presented
in Table 11 and 12, which unveil that the conflict structure is rather similar for the countries belonging to the same regime,
even though smaller deviations do appear, in particular for Germany.
19
Table 4: The factor state/market and the activation by regime
Flexicurity Dualized
Items Denmark and Switzerland Germany*, France and Italy
State/market Activation State/market Activation
Sanction 0.52 -0.23 0.58 -0.09
Reducbenef 0.71 -0.07 0.51 -0.26
Workhours 0.46 -0.33 0.71 -0.13
Hirefire 0.46 0.03 0.55 -0.16
Minimalw -0.53 0.22 -0.76 -0.05
Statejob -0.31 0.61 -0.72 -0.02
Training -0.11 0.48 -0.30 0.40
Short-time 0.00 0.59 0.20 0.35
Reintegration -0.09 0.22 -0.02 0.66
Eigenvalue 2.12 1.21 2.71 1.95
N 40 40 67 67
*Attac Germany was excluded from the sample
Turning to the details of the findings summarized in Table 4, increasing sanctions, reduction of benefits,
flexibilising working-hours, hire-and-fire regimentation and increasing the minimum wage determine the
state/market factor. For this first factor, the regime specific variation is marginal, and concerns only the
magnitude of the loadings and the allocation of the item “ public job creation” which in the flexicurity
countries pertains to the activation dimension rather than to the state/market conflict.
While the composition of the economic factors is consistent across the regimes, the activation
dimension is regime-specific. I find that in the flexicurity countries, the loadings for training and
reintegration are rather low, which means that these programs are less controversial This
uncontestedness supports the expectation that measures which are part of the regimes’ labor market
policy tradition are less contested than “ alien” ones. Hence, the undisputedness of active reintegration
and training programs points to the strong human-capital orientation of flexicurity countries.
20
Conversely, policies which do not pertain to this repertoire (public job creation and short-time work)
polarize more and hence display higher factor loadings.
In the dualizing regimes, instead short-time work results to be the least controversial policy instrument.
This is not surprising since it is the standard solution governments implement to address unemployment
particularly in times of crisis (Sacchi, Pancaldi & Arisi, 2011). Conversely, and mainly because of the
virulent insider-outsider debate that characterizes dualizing countries, measures addressing active
reintegration - particularly of the labor market outsiders - are highly contested. The reason why
reintegration measures for outsiders are debated is that – particularly in times of austerity - welfare
policy resembles a zero-sum game, where an expansion of outsider-friendly policies often disadvantages
the insiders. Finally, also “ training” is hardly implemented in dualizing countries. Since this approach
proves effective in the Nordic context, political actors seem to debate and partially disagree on their
implementability, which leads to a moderate loading of 0.4.
In a nutshell, the expectation that policies which are uncharacteristic for a regime, are particularly
subject to controversies and by consequence heavily determine the political contest, can be
corroborated. First, I found that the structure of the economic dimension is rather consistent between
the different countries, whilst the activation conflict is clearly regime specific. Second, the composition
of the activation dimension closely mirrors the debates over policy measures which are atypical for the
specific regime. Conversely, policies that are well-anchored in a country do not drive the political
conflict. Accordingly, political actors in regimes with strong human-capital activation and already flexible
labor markets debate the utility of short-time work, whereas regimes that apply short-time work
wonder whether training and reintegration policies might be the better alternatives.
21
The actor constellations in the labor market policy space
Flexicurity countries
After describing the labor market conflict patterns let us now analyze the political actors’
preference-based coalition patterns. Figure 2 and 3 show the positioning of parties, employers’
associations, unions, SMOs, state bodies and the administration in the labor market space. The
coalitions correspond to the quadrants which result from the state/market and the regime-specific
activation factors which were presented above.
In the first quadrant we find the modern left coalition, which is composed by actors who support both
increasing activation effort and increasing state intervention. The actors located in the third way
quadrant share a strong activation orientation but endorse market-liberal policies on the economic
dimension. The remaining two coalitions both oppose an expansion of activation policies. However,
whilst the traditional left coalition is strongly in favor of state intervention, the right coalition is for
retrenchment on both the activation and the economic dimensions.
22
Figure 2: Actor configuration in the flexicurity countries (Denmark and Switzerland)
Legend
Denmark: Unions: AC Akademikernes Centralorganisation, FTF Confederation of Professionals, LO Confederation of trade
unions; Employers’ organizations: DA Confederation of Danish Employers, DI Confederation of Danish Industry; Parties: SD
Social Democrat party, Venstre Liberal Party, DF Dansk Folkepartis, KF Konservative Folketsparti, RG Red-Green Alliance, SF
Socialist Folkeparti; Administration: NLMA National Labor Market Authority, DEC Economic Council, advisory board to the
government; NGOs, Charities and Think-tanks: SFI Danish national center for social research, ECLM Economic Council of
labor movement, CEPOS Conservative think-tank.
Switzerland: Unions: Unia Unia, KV Kaufmännischer Verband Schweiz, Syna Syna Arbeitslosen Kasse, AS Angestellte
Schweiz, SGB Scherizerischer Gewerkschaftsbund, TS Travail.Suisse, Gewerkschafts-dachorganisation; Employers’
organizations: SBV Dachverband Schweizerischer Baumeisterverband, SGV Schweizerischer Gewerbeverband, SAV
Schweizerischer, Arbeitgeberverband, Swissmem Swissmem; Parties: Gruene Grüne Partei Schweiz, FDP Freisinning
Demorkatische Partei, die Liberalen, SVP Schweizerische Volkspartei, CVP Christlichdemokratische Volkspartei, BDP
Bürgerlich Demokratische Partei, SP Sozialdemokratische Partei; Administration: BE Canton Bern, AG Canton Argau, SODK
Conference of the cantonal social ministers, SECO State Secretary for Economic Affairs; NGOs, Charities and Think-tanks,
Caritas Caritas Switzerland, Attac Attac Switzerland, NGO, Kabba NGO on behalf of the unemployed, AvS Avenir Suisse
Figure 2 shows that the modern left coalition in the flexicurity regime is composed of several unions,
namely the Swiss confederation of trade unions (SGB), the Swiss union Travail Suisse and Unia, the Swiss
union of professionals (KV), and the Danish union federation LO. Moreover, we find the coordinating
23
organ of the Swiss cantons (SODK), a Swiss SMO (Caritas), and the Danish Red-Green alliance as well as
the Danish green-socialist party (SF).
This composition supports rather well the hypothesis that in flexicurity countries foremost the greens
and political actors without government responsibility endorse policies aiming at expanding
redistribution and activation. All these actors hence endorse the strengthening of activation measures
beyond the traditional repertoire to include measures such as short-time work and public job creation to
complement the mainly human-capital focused activation strategy. Hence, this finding supports the
hypothesis whereby actors without government responsibility can afford to suggest expansive reforms
irrespective of the adverse economic context.
In the lower left quadrant we find the traditional left coalition. This coalition is characterized by a
moderately skeptical attitude towards non-standard activation policies and by a more or less clear
endorsement of state intervention. The Swiss SMOs Attac and Kabba, and the Danish white-collar union
FTF clearly endorse increasing state intervention and are located on the left extreme of the state/market
dimension. Whilst still part of the traditional left coalition, the Swiss state actors (e.g. the cantons
Aargau and Berne), the State Secretary for Economic Affairs (SECO), its Danish pendant (NLMA), and the
Danish Folkeparti (DF) take a more moderate stance on the economic dimension.
This left coalition includes actors who by tendency endorse generous welfare benefits but disagree on
the necessity to introduce additional and untypical activation policies such as short-time work and public
job schemes. This is not surprising since to a large extent these unions represent white-collar workers
who profit more from training-related activation than from short-time work. Swiss state bodies instead
can be expected to reject activation expansion in order to contain public spending.
24
These findings thus clearly contradict the hypothesis that state bodies and administrations in Denmark
and Switzerland endorse a third-way strategy because of their contact with international and
supranational bodies of experts. On the contrary, I find that state bodies and administrations are rather
skeptical of expanding the activation repertoire and overall are oriented towards preserving the
status-quo.
The third way coalition is composed of the social-democratic parties, the Swiss Greens, the Swiss
white-collar employees (AS), the Swiss employers’ organizations (SGV), and the Danish Economic
council (ECLM), which is an advisory board to the labor movement. These organizations are strongly in
favor of additional activation policies but for the preservation of the status-quo in terms of passive
welfare effort. In this group we notice a clear outlier, namely the Swiss Christian-Democratic Party
(CVP), who is favorable to a substantial liberalization and contemporaneously for an above average
strengthening of the activation effort.
The composition of the third way coalition sustains the hypothesis that where welfare states address
traditional risks efficiently, social democratic parties are able to turn towards groups who are newly at
risk. Hence, in the flexicurity countries these parties canfocus on the interests of the labor market
outsiders who could be reintegrated in the labor market by means of public job creation schemes. But
also industrial production workers - who in a post-industrial setting are under pressure from
international competition and outsourcing - strongly profit from short-time work schemes.
As expected, the traditional right coalition is composed mainly of the employers’ organizations
(Swissmem, SBV in Switzerland and the DI, DA in Denmark), and conservative parties (the Swiss
Peoples’ Party, the Danish Conservative party) and the conservative think-tanks (CEPOS and Avenir
Suisse). All these actors share a pronounced market-liberal stance but differ widely in the degree to
which they oppose additional activation policies. Finally, there is a moderate sub-group of traditional
25
right actors, namely the Swiss conservative democrats (BDP), the Swiss liberal party (FDP), the Danish
liberal party (Venstre) who, in economic terms, favor the status-quo. Overall, the actor constellation in
Denmark and Switzerland suggests that in countries where welfare state benefits are generous and
contemporaneously problem pressure in terms of unemployment level is comparatively low20
, actors
facing government responsibility are less likely to endorse an expansion of passive and active effort.
20
In 2010 the youth unemployment (as percentage of the youth labor force) for Denmark reached 13.8% and in Switzerland
7.2%. As compared to the UK (19.1%), Italy (27.9%) and France (22.5%) these figures are moderate. The only exception to this
pattern is Germany with just 9.7% youth unemployment. The low level of problem pressure can be underpinned also with
figures for long-term unemployment (as percentage of the unemployed). In 2010 Denmark this was 19.1% and in Switzerland
34.3%. Compared to France (40.1), Germany (47.4) and Italy (48.5) this again indicates a good performance on the part of the
Swiss and Danish labor markets. Only the UK has similarly low levels of long-term unemployment (32.6%) (Source: OECD key
tables 2010).
26
Dualisation countries
Figure 3: Actor configuration in the dualizing countries (Germany, France and Italy)
Legend
France: Union: Solidaires Solidaires, UNSA Union nationale des syndicats autonomes, CFECGC Confédération française de l'encadrement,
CFDT Confédération française démocratique du travail, CFTC Confédération Française des Travailleurs, CGT Confédération générale du
travail, FSU Fédération syndicale unitaire; Employers’ organizations: CGPME Confédération Générale des Petites et Moyennes Entreprises,
MEDEF Mouvement des entreprises de France, UNAPL La confédération interprofessionnelle des professions libérales, UPA Union
Professionelle Artisanale; Parties: UMP Union pour le Mouvement Populaire (UMP), PS Parti Socialiste, FN Front National, PCF Parti
Communiste Français, LO Lutte Ouvrière, NPA Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste, FO Force Ouvrière, EELV Europe Ecologie Les Verts;
Administration: MDT Ministère du Travail; NGOs, Charities and Think-tanks: AC! Agir contre le Chômage!, APEIS Association Pour l'Emploi,
l'Information et la Solidarité, CNPE Comité national des privés d'emploi CGT, MNCP Mouvement National des Chômeurs et Précaires, SNC
Solidarités nouvelles face au chômage
Italy: Unions: COBAS Confederazione dei Comitati di Base, UIL Unione Italiana del Lavoro, CISL Confederazione Italiana Sindacati dei Lavoratori,
CIGL Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro; Employers’ organizations: Conf Confindustria; Parties: PD Partito Democratico, SEL
Sinistra Ecologia e Libertà, UdC Unione di Centro, PdL Popolo della Libertà, Lega Lega Nord, IdV Italia dei Valori, PdCI Comunisti italiani, PRC
Rifondazione Comunista; Administration: MdL Ministero del Lavoro, INPS Istituto Nazionale Previdenza Sociale; NGOs, Charities and
Think-tanks: ISFOL Istituto per lo Sviluppo della Formazione Professionale dei Lavoratori, ACLI Associazioni Cristiane Lavoratori Italiani
(ACLI, patronato CISL), ALVP Movimento Associazione Lavoratori Vittime del Precariato, INCA Istituto Nazionale Confederale di Assistenza
(patronato CIGL), ARCI Associazione di Promozione culturale, RdC Rete della Conoscenza
Germany: Unions: KGA Koordinierungsstelle gewerkschaftlicher Arbeitslosengruppen, IGM Industriegewerkschaft Metall, Verdi Vereinte
Dienstleistungsgewerkschaft, DGB Deutscher Gewerkschafts Bund; Employers’ organizations: BDA Bundesvereinigung der Deutschen
Arbeitgeberverbände; Parties, Linke Die Linke, CDU/CSU Christlich Demokratische Union/Christlich Soziale Union, NPD
Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands, FDP Freie Demokratische Partei/Die Liberalen, SPD Sozialdemoratische Partei Deutschlands,
Gruene Grüne Partei Deutschland; Administration, BKS Bundesvereinigung kommunale Spitzenverbände, BMAS Bundesministerium für
Arbeit und Soziales, BWM Bundeswirtschaftsministerium, BA Bundesagentur für Arbeit; NGOs, Charities and Think-tanks: Caritas Caritas
Deutschland, EFD Erwerbslosenforum, Attac Attac Deutschland, INSM Initiative Neue Soziale Marktwirtschaft, PW Paritätischer
Wohlfahrtsverband, Bertels Bertelsmannstiftung, IAB Institut für Arbeitsmarkt und Berufsforschung.
27
In the dualisation countries (Figure 3) the modern left coalition includes several unions (the German
unions IGM, DGB and Verdi, the French unions UNSA and CFECGC) and several SMOs (the French MNCP,
the German Paritätischer Wohlfahrtsverband and the Italian INCA and ACLI). As expected, also the
greens in Germany and France (EELV) and the (former) communists (PCF, PdCI, PRC in Italy and die Linke
in Germany) cluster in this quadrant. Thus, similarly to the finding for the flexicurity countries, it is
mainly actors who do not have government responsibility who favor expansion on both labor market
dimensions.
In the traditional left cluster we find the German and the French Socialist parties (SPD and the PS), the
left-oriented Italia dei Valori and most unions. Only the Italian confederation of trade unions (CIGL), the
Christian-democratic union (CISL) and the French CDTC belong to the third-way coalition and hence
strongly support additional activation measures. This finding corroborates the expectation that in
dualizing labor markets, social democrats do not concentrate on activation measures which favor labor
market outsiders (education and active reintegration) but stick to the traditional solution of short-time
work and focus on the needs of the insiders. Figure 3 also shows that the position of the German
socialists (SPD) tends to a centrist position on the state/market axis, which in the light of their
liberal-leaning Hartz IV reform, might not surprise after all.
The state bodies and administrations which were expected to be situated in the third-way coalitions are
consistently located in the right coalition, e.g. moderately to the right, and diverge widely on the
activation axis. Interestingly, a similar pattern has been detected for the state bodies in Denmark and
Switzerland, as well. Only the Italian Ministry of Employment and the German Ministry for Social Affairs
behave consistently to the hypotheses and are located in the third-way coalition. Hence, the hypothesis
that the conservative government parties pertain to the right coalition can be partially underpinned for
28
the dualizing countries. In fact, both the German CSU/CDU and the Italian PDL meet the expectations,
only the French UMP is situated in the third-way coalition endorsing additional reintegration measures.
Interestingly, in the dualizing countries the right coalition is extremely divided on the state/market
dimension but has a very homogeneous stance in refusing increasing human-capital activation effort.
These right-oriented actors seem thus to disagree foremost on whether employment conditions should
be liberalized further, an issue which has been pushed particularly by employers’ organizations and
government parties in the dualizing countries to countervail the rigidities of the continental welfare
states. Conversely, issues linked to activation measures seem less debated and/or relevant for the
political contest.
As expected, I was able to show that employers’ associations are consistently located in the right
coalition, that state bodies do not necessarily pertain to the third-way coalition and that unions spread
across the modern and the traditional left cluster. However, the most interesting finding is that
concerning the dualisation debate. In fact, I was able to show that social democrats pursue different
strategies depending on the labor market regime. In fact, in the flexicurity countries they consistently
accommodate the interest of the labor market outsiders by asking for more public employment and for
short-time work, whereas in the dualizing countries they focus on redistributive policies and oppose
active reintegration measures which would benefit foremost the outsiders. Hence, in the dualizing
countries social democrats accommodate their traditional and primary clientele, namely the labor
market insiders. Conversely, in the flexicurity regime social democrats accommodate foremost the
outsider - since the interests of the insiders are already accommodated by the generous and
encompassing system. By consequence, this result nicely underpins my expectations that socialist
parties should not be expected to implement exactly the same policies independently of the
institutional context they are embedded in.
29
In sum, the present analyses show that the political contest in labor market policy is two-dimensional
and revolves around a state/market axis that results to be very similar in all regimes, and an activation
axis that instead is regime-specific. Hence, I am able to support the literature arguing that activation
policies and their conflict lines differ across regimes (Bonoli, 2010; Barbier & Ludwig-Mayerhofer, 2004).
Moreover, I contribute to the debate on whether social democratic parties represent the interests of the
insiders or of the outsiders by showing that their strategy depends on labor market legacies. Thus, these
parties focus on the interests of the outsiders where the labor market policy schemes are already
generous and protect insiders adequately, whereas in the countries where unemployment policies are
marginal they foremost engage for their core clientele. In line with the argument proposed by Thelen
(2012) I suggest that “ institutional starting points” are pivotal in explaining political actors’ strategies,
reform trajectories and in the end eventually labor market politics.
Conclusion
This article analyses the structure of the labor market conflict in five CME countries and tests whether
the traditional framework of state intervention versus economic liberalism is still adequate to capture
labor market policy preferences. I argue that this is not the case since, as a consequence of the changing
socio-economic context, political actors are confronted with new social risks and hence adapt their
strategies by introducing ALMPs. In fact, challenges such as long-term unemployment, in concomitance
with increased financial strain can be accommodated best by means of activation and
re-commodification policies which become the pillars of “ modernizing” welfare reforms.
In the light of the “ variety of activation” literature, I hypothesized that labor market regimes differ with
respect to the activation measures they implement and that by consequence the political contest
30
differs, too. I claim that political actors disagree foremost on those issues which are alien to the system.
Hence, whilst in flexicurity countries measures such as training are widely agreed upon as basic pillars of
the human-capital activation model, policies such as short-time work and public job creation can be
expected to be hotly debated. Conversely, I expect that political actors in dualizing countries, which
traditionally rely on short-time work to regulate unemployment, have been increasingly assessing the
necessity to widen the activation repertoire to include training and active reintegration measures.
Lastly, I test the argument according to which actors belonging to the same actor family may differ in
policy strategy depending on the institutional legacies. Focusing on social democratic parties, I am able
to corroborate the expectation that they concentrate on the labor market insiders in dualizing countries
but extend their mobilization to outsiders in flexicurity countries.
The analyses rely on a telephone survey of the major players active in labor market policy carried out in
autumn 2010 in Denmark, France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland. In the interviews with unions, parties,
state bodies, employers’ organizations and social movement organizations, the political actors
responsible for the domain of unemployment were asked to express their organizations’ position on a
battery of policy items, and in a second step to classify them in terms of saliency. I then used this
information to construct an indicator by multiplying the preference and salience score of each item. I
performed a factor analysis on these items to assess both the dimensionality of the political conflict
structure and the actor constellations.
The findings corroborate the expectation that in all countries the labor market policy space is structured
along two dimensions, namely a state/market and an activation conflict. The analyses also reveal that
whereas the economic dimension is regime invariant, the activation conflict depends on whether the
country has a flexicurity or a dualizing labor market legacy. This finding nicely underpins the theoretical
31
argument of the “ variety of activation” literature which argues that across Europe we witness
qualitatively different activation schemes.
I argued that the labor market policy preferences differ because of institutional legacies, in particular
the activation schemes. In the flexicurity countries (Denmark and Switzerland), a strong orientation
towards a generous and human-capital activation practice was expected and, I could show that the
political contention in these countries is mainly about whether it is necessary to increase state efforts in
the activation domain by means of expanding short-time work or creating employment in the public
sector. In the dualisation model, which is characteristic of France, Italy and Germany, the labor force is
split into insiders profiting from rather generous benefits and an increasing share of workers with
precarious or atypical contracts. Here, the political conflict on the second (activation) dimension was
shown to be defined by activation preferences relating to reintegration. It thus appears that policies
which are alien to the system, and hence the most controversial, drive the politics of labor market
policy. In other words, institutional legacies shape today’ s labor market politics.
32
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Appendix
Table 5: Response rates in the two waves of interviews with policy-makers per country: percentages
Response
rates
First interview
Second interview
Contacted Cooperated Cooperated
Denmark 20 16 15
Switzerland 24 24 24
Germany 25 22 21
France 27 25 25
Italy 36 22 18
Total 132 109 118
35
Table 6: Political actors in Denmark and Switzerland
Denmark Switzerland
Unions
AC Akademikernes Centralorganisation Unia Unia
FTF Confederation of Professionals KV Kaufmännischer Verband Schweiz
LO Confederation of trade unions Syna Syna Arbeitslosen Kasse
AS Angestellte Schweiz
SGB Scherizerischer Gewerkschaftsbund
TS Travail.Suisse, Gewerkschafts-
dachorganisation
Employers’ organisations
DA Confederation of Danish Employers SBV Dachverband Schweizerischer
Baumeisterverband
DI Confederation of Danish Industry SGV Schweizerischer Gewerbeverband
SAV Schweizerischer Arbeitgeberverband
Swissmem Swissmem
Parties
SD Social Democrat party Gruene Grüne Partei Schweiz
Venstre Liberal Party FDP Freisinning Demorkatische Partei, die
Liberalen
DF Dansk Folkepartis SVP Schweizerische Volkspartei
KF Konservative Folketsparti CVP Christlichdemokratische Volkspartei
RG Red-Green Alliance BDP Bürgerlich Demokratische Partei
SF Socialist Folkeparti SP Sozialdemokratische Partei
Administration
NLMA National Labour Market Authority BE Canton Bern
DEC Economic Council, advisory board to the
government
AG Canton Argau
SODK Conference of the cantonal social ministers
SECO State Secretary for Economic Affairs
NGOs, Charities and Think-tanks
SFI Danish national centre for social research Caritas Caritas Switzerland, Charity
ECLM Economic Council of labour movement (AE) Attac Attac Switzerland, NGO
CEPOS Conservative think-tank Kabba NGO on behalf of the unemployed
AvS Avenir Suisse, Think-tank
36
Table 7: Political actors in Germany, France and Italy
Germany France Italy
Unions
KGA Koordinierungsstelle gew.
Arbeitslosengruppen
Solidaires Solidaires COBAS Confederazione dei Comitati di Base
IGM Industriegewerkschaft Metall
Metall
UNSA Union nationale des syndicats
autonomes
UIL Unione Italiana del Lavoro
Verdi Vereinte
Dienstleistungsgewerkschaft
CFECGC Confédération française de
l'encadrement, Confédération
générale des cadres
CISL Confederazione Italiana Sindacati
dei Lavoratori
DGB Deutscher Gewerkschafts Bund CFDT Confédération française
démocratique du travail
CIGL Confederazione Generale Italiana
del Lavoro
CFTC Confédération Française des
Travailleurs
CGT Confédération générale du travail
FSU Fédération syndicale unitaire
Employers’ organisations
BDA Bundesvereinigung der
Deutschen Arbeitgeberverbände
CGPME Confédération Générale des
Petites et Moyennes Entreprises
Conf Confindustria
MEDEF Mouvement des entreprises de
France
UNAPL Confédération
interprofessionnelle des
professions libérales
UPA Union Professionelle Artisanale
Parties
Linke Die Linke UMP Union pour le Mouvement
Populaire (UMP)
PD Partito Democratico
CDU/CSU Christlich Demokratische
Union/Christlich Soziale Union
PS Parti Socialiste SEL Sinistra Ecologia e Libertà
NPD Nationaldemokratische Partei
Deutschlands
FN Front National UdC Unione di Centro
FDP Freie Demokratische Partei/Die
Liberalen
PCF Parti Communiste Français PdL Popolo della Libertà
SPD Sozialdemoratische Partei
Deutschlands
LO Lutte Ouvrière Lega Lega Nord
Gruene Grüne Partey Deutschland NPA Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste IdV Italia dei Valori
FO Force Ouvrière PdCI Comunisti italiani
EELV Europe Ecologie Les Verts PRC Rifondazione Comunista
Administration
BKS Bundesvereinigung kommunale
Spitzenverbände
MDT Ministère du Travail MdL Ministero del Lavoro
BMAS Bundesministerium für
Arbeit und Soziales
INPS Istituto Nazionale Previdenza Sociale
BWM Bundeswirtschaftsministerium
BA Bundesagentur für Arbeit
NGOs, Charities and Think-tanks
Caritas Caritas Deutschland AC! Agir contre le Chômage! ISFOL Istituto Sviluppo della
Formazione Professionale dei
Lavoratori
EFD Erwerbslosenforum APEIS Association Pour l'Emploi,
l'Information et la Solidarité
ACLI Associazioni Cristiane Lavoratori
Italiani (ACLI, patronato CISL)
Attac Attac Deutschland CNPE Comité national des privés
d'emploi CGT
ALVP Movimento Associazione Lavoratori
Vittime del Precariato
INSM Initiative Neue Soziale
Marktwirtschaft
MNCP Mouvement National des
Chômeurs et Précaires
INCA Istituto Nazionale Confederale di
Assistenza (patronato CIGL)
PW Paritätischer Wohlfahrtsverband SNC Solidarités nouvelles face au
chômage
ARCI Associazione di Promozione
culturale
Bertels Bertelsmannstiftung RdC Rete della Conoscenza
IAB Institut für Arbeitsmarkt und
Berufsforschung
37
Table 8: Interview statement wording
1 State job The use of state programmes to create jobs.
2 Min. wage Raising the minimum wage.
3 Sanction Tougher sanctions for those who refuse to accept work that is deemed appropriate for
them.
4 Reduction benefit Reduction of unemployment benefits.
5 Work-hours Flexibility of working hours.
6 Hire-fire Loosening of hire and fire legislation.
7 Training More retraining possibilities for the unemployed.
8 Short-time The promotion of short-time work – the ability of employers to reduce workers hours
when orders are low.
9 Reintegration Reintegration in the labour market should be actively promoted.
Table 9: Correlation table
Sanction Red. ben Work-hours Hire-fire State job Min. wage Training Short-time
Sanction 1.00
Reducbenef 0.53 1.00
Workhours 0.29 0.26 1.00
Hirefire 0.28 0.24 0.35 1.00
Statejob -0.36 -0.41 -0.39 -0.27 1.00
Minimalw -0.31 -0.29 -0.52 -0.28 0.50 1.00
Training -0.19 -0.12 -0.18 -0.07 0.29 0.23 1.00
Shorttime -0.02 -0.05 -0.09 0.09 0.10 0.01 0.18 1.00
Table 10: Descriptive statistics all countries
Variable Mean St.dev. Min. Max.
1 Statejob 0.22 0.43 -1.00 1.00
2 Minimalw 0.24 0.39 -0.66 1.00
3 Sanction -0.01 0.31 -1.00 1.00
4 Reducbenef -0.13 0.29 -1.00 1.00
5 Workhours 0.37 0.35 -0.33 1.00
6 Hirefire 0.44 0.34 -0.5 1.00
7 Training 0.16 0.31 -0.33 1.00
8 Shorttime 0.07 0.28 -0.33 1.00
9 Reintegr -0.07 0.27 -0.66 1.00
Notes: N = 108 (Attac Germany has been excluded from the analyses)
38
Table 11: First factor by country: state versus market
Flexicurity Dualised
Items Denmark Switerzland Germany France Italy
Sanction 0.61 0.58 0.57 0.77 0.77
Reducbenef 0.54 0.71 0.11 0.71 0.34
Workhours 0.46 0.55 0.77 0.86 0.42
Hirefire 0.74 0.42 0.03 0.83 0.35
Minimalw -0.48 -0.64 -0.83 -0.82 -0.65
Statejob -0.39 -0.23 -0.48 -0.73 -0.76
Training -0.83 0.12 -0.78 -0.27 -0.06
Shorttime 0.19 -0.04 -0.03 0.32 0.05
Reintegr -0.23 -0.11 -0.10 -0.03 0.04
Eigenvalue 2.58 1.81 2.47 3.90 2.02
Expl. var. 49.69 52.21 45.73 77.69 49.38
N 16 24 20* 25 22
*Attac Germany was excluded from the sample
39
Table 12: Second factor by country: pro/contra activation
Flexicurity Dualised
Items Denmark Switerzland Germany France Italy
Sanction -0.30 -0.20 -0.19 0.16 -0.16
Reducbenef -0.46 0.06 -0.49 -0.09 -0.51
Workhours 0.19 -0.49 0.07 -0.08 -0.13
Hirefire 0.00 0.14 -0.16 -0.21 -0.17
Minimalw 0.25 0.16 0.28 -0.16 -0.28
Statejob 0.73 0.63 0.65 -0.24 0.00
Training 0.09 0.56 0.15 0.32 0.57
Shorttime 0.72 0.70 0.25 0.42 0.44
Reintegr 0.05 0.25 0.72 0.72 0.78
Eigenvalue 1.45 1.59 1.41 0.96 1.53
Expl. var. 27.93 46.34 25.97 19.10 37.32
N 16 24 20* 25 22
*Attac Germany was excluded from the sample
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