Abstract
Based on quantitative indicators for fifteen advanced countries between 1974
and 2005, and case studies of France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy,
Sweden, and Ireland, this article analyzes the trajectory of institutional change
in the industrial relations systems of advanced capitalist societies, with a focus on
Western Europe. In contrast to current comparative political economy scholarship,
which emphasizes the resilience of national institutions to common challenges
and trends, it argues that despite a surface resilience of distinct national
sets, all countries have been transformed in a neoliberal direction. Neoliberal
transformation manifests itself not just as institutional deregulation but also as
institutional conversion, as the functions associated with existing institutional
forms change in a convergent direction. A key example is the institution of
centralized bargaining, once the linchpin of an alternative, redistributive and
egalitarian, model of negotiated capitalism, which has been reshaped in the past
twenty years to fit the common imperative of liberalization.
