This article examines the emergence and institutionalization of social pacts in Ireland, Italy and South Korea. It argues that pacts emerge as deals between a weak government faced with a political–economic crisis and the more moderate sections of the trade union movement, and are institutionalized when (and if) organized employers come to support them fully. The unions become strategically committed to a social pact if the moderate factions prevail over the radical. Decision-making rules bringing the preferences of the rank-and-file to bear on the process of organizational decision-making seem to help the moderate union factions. The robustness of the analysis is tested by examining briefly a number of counterfactual cases.
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