This article explains the long-term development of industrial relations from a cross-national comparative perspective. Its main thesis is that industrial relations systems accommodate to external changes self-referentially, in that the prevalent bargaining mode and its interaction with procedural state regulation guide the direction of adaptation by defining the possibilities for renewing the compromise between capital and labour under changed conditions. A combined longitudinal and cross-sectional analysis is used to show that the dichotomies between multi- and single-employer bargaining as the prevalent bargaining mode, and between the presence and absence of state regulation conducive to collective bargaining, have resulted in a polarization between countries where the compromise could be renewed within an organized framework and those where this renewal failed. Since the renewal of the compromise has been specific to Europe, the article concludes by discussing its prospects for durability and further adjustments.
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