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Free keywords:
Welfare state; Industrial relations; Citizenship; Denmark; France; the Netherlands; Germany
Abstract:
The article’s starting point is that the now-conventional conceptualization of welfare state
retrenchment as a shift from state provision of income support to market processes is misleading.
Rather, state provision may be replaced by benefits negotiated collectively by trade unions and
employers. As a first step to further investigate this development the article suggests a typology of
institutional contexts within which industrial agreements on social benefits emerge. This typology
is based on Thomas H. Marshall’s distinction between political and industrial citizenship.
Following the comparative method of the ‘parallel demonstration of theory’, the typology is applied
to four countries where collective agreements on social benefits have recently been concluded, namely
Denmark, France, the Netherlands and Germany. It is argued that, on the one hand, the state’s
activity or passivity in labour relations and, on the other hand, the timing of the institutionalization
of political and industrial citizenship is decisive for the development of collectively negotiated
benefits. The conclusion for comparative welfare state research is that, when viewing policies of
welfare state retrenchment, the research should systematically include industrial relations and their
historical trajectories in its frame of reference.
