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Martin Rhodes (University of Denver)

22 November 2012 @ 15:30

 

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Date:
22 November 2012
Time:
15:30
Event Category:

“Coordination, cooperation and conflict: Employment policy responses to the crisis – and why they differ”

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to use the employment-labor market policy responses to the crisis of the last several years in Italy and Spain to understand these two countries’ capacity for coordinated policy-making and policy innovation. It tries to answer the puzzle as to why Spain’s previously well-established system of concerted policy-making breaks down in the crisis, producing a state-directed form of socio-economic adjustment, whereas Italy, which has failedto produce a consensus on economic reform over the last decade or so, was able to produce astrong coalition, involving employers, unions and government authorities, around a concerted response to the crisis. Although it is difficult to generalize beyond these two cases, the papertries to use this analysis to consider the nature of the relationship between coalitions and different types of labor market policy response, the extent to which those coalitions can be sustained or are weakened by crisis conditions, and the implications of that process for policy reform.