This article discusses three major issues related to tripartite social pacts:
first, the puzzles they present for classic theories of corporatism; second, the
contrasts between the political economies of ‘competitive
concertation’ and Keynesian coordination; and third, the problems of
assessing their effects in the context of complex causality. The main focus is
on one specific policy area: negotiated welfare state reforms. The conclusion is
that though such negotiations have dominated the process of welfare state
recalibration in Europe during the 1990s, tripartite social pacts are neither a
necessary nor a sufficient condition for success.
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