Book Review: Bernhard Ebbinghaus and J Timo Weishaupt The role of social partners in managing Europe’s great recession. Crisis corporatism or corporatism in crisis?

The financial crisis of 2008 unleashed a serious economic crisis across the globe and, accordingly, across the European Union (EU). The so-called Great Recession hit Europe severely and caused both short-term and long-term consequences at different levels for economic growth and employment, but also with regard to income inequality (Brzezinski, 2018). The EU’s policy responses to this crisis focused strongly on European actors, which promoted structural reforms at the national level (De la Porte and Pochet, 2014). In this multi-level context, however, it is also the Member States’ duty to respond to such a crisis in order to absorb the economic, political and social consequences. When reading about EU Member State policy responses, the relevance of the respective institutional contexts becomes evident (Kiess et al., 2017). It is this institutional context in which the social partners come into play. Policy-making by governments together with collective actors in neo-corporatist settings is not new. However, neo-corporatist structures seem to be especially relevant in times of crisis. It is this perspective of collective crisis management and policy-making that the anthology The role of social partners in managing Europe’s great recession. Crisis corporatism or corporatism in crisis? (edited by Bernhard Ebbinghaus and J Timo Weishaupt) draws together. By means of a comparative analysis, they aim at understanding cross-national variations in Europe with regard to government involvement of the social partners in crisis management. Moreover, the authors ask ‘what have been the main consequences of such concertation efforts (or their failure or their absence) on labour relations and the future of neo-corporatist policymaking?’ (p. 5).

In this book, the authors make use of the traditional concept of crisis corporatism, which was initially theorised by Schmitter and Lehmbruch (1979). By including socio-economic, political (politics, elections, institutions) and power-resource factors in industrial relations, they analyse the involvement of social partners across European countries during the financial and economic crisis in 2008/2009 and afterwards. In the space of 293 pages, the book covers national as well as European perspectives on corporatism in times of crises, as analysed by 17 authors. The country chapters ¹ explain in detail the political situation, the economic context and the respective industrial relations systems. They thus systematically shed light on the role of corporatist actors in crisis management processes, the prompt establishment of social pacts between actors in the respective social dialogues, but also government activities without social partnership.

The first part of the book includes two introductory chapters in which the authors explain their theoretical understanding and analytical approach. Bender and Ebbinghaus also describe a qualitative comparative analysis of 29 countries (27 EU members, including the United Kingdom but not Croatia, plus Norway and Switzerland) focusing on government policy-making during the Great Recession in order to understand the varying outcomes across Europe. With this analysis they prove that social concertation in times of crisis is still a relevant modus operandi. Or, as Bender and Ebbinghaus conclude: ‘Corporatism thus still exists in the form of bipartite social partnership across many European countries, while more extensive forms of political exchange via tripartite negotiations were adopted under particular circumstances, not only in Western but also several Eastern European countries after joining the EU’ (p. 45).

In order to better understand neo-corporatist activities in EU Member States in more detail, the second part of the anthology proceeds with national cases, among which pragmatic crisis management by social partnership dominated policy processes. For instance, Weishaupt scrutinises Germany as an example of a functioning inclusion of social partnership in the metal and electronics sectors. In this case, concerted action between the government and the social partners led to a quick economic recovery and has sustainably affected the social partnership in Germany, increasing public trust and the reputations of political parties. By contrast, the third part of the book depicts cases in which the social partners were excluded. Among others, Oscar Molina describes the case of Spain as an example of declining social concertation. There is no strong tradition of tripartite concertation in Spain. It is rather shaped by weak institutionalisation and low impact in the context of collective bargaining. Moreover, the strengths of Spanish social partnership depend on the respective political orientations of the governing party. During the Great Recession, the inclusion of the social partners depended on the government as well. While the Zapatero government (2008–2011) involved the social partners, even though with low impact, the Rajoy government (2011–2015) followed a unilateral approach ‘without even consulting the social partners’ (p. 183). Instead of gaining legitimacy by including social partnership, the Rajoy government relied on the parliament as its source of legitimacy.

Finally, the book’s comparative perspective is complemented by one chapter with a focus on EU-level social dialogue. Vincent Lindner scrutinises when and why social partners were involved at EU level. In this chapter, the author analyses the cross-sectoral social dialogue and its involvement in crisis management by the European Commission. He outlines that the Barroso Commission rather excluded social partners, whereas the Juncker Commission that followed put more priority on EU social dialogue and aimed to improve bipartite social dialogue, albeit with rather limited success.

The editors conclude with a postscript discussing social partnership in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. By analysing how ‘the European social model shaped the employment policy responses during the first wave of the pandemic’ (p. 280), the authors find that short-time working was implemented successfully across Europe and that so-called coordinated market economies were able to cushion employment repercussions better than liberal market economies. Likewise, in terms of social partners’ inclusion in crisis management, they find variations across European countries encompassing unilateral action by governments but also concerted action.

Not only does the book offer a comprehensive analysis of the Great Recession across Europe within the respective corporatist regime, but it also provides insights into the various systems of industrial relations, helping us to understand the context-related functioning of social pacts and presenting several examples of (im)balanced power relations between labour, ‘the market’ and government. Overall, in the case studies, the authors identify the power relations structuring social partnership across Europe. Crisis management is dominated either by the respective government (for example, in Poland), or social partnership, social pacts or social concertation are used by governments to increase legitimacy (for example, Spain). Likewise, they also prove a renaissance of corporatism (neo-corporatism) in times of crisis (for example, Germany) despite neoliberal developments. In addition, they show the limitations of social partnership with regard to crisis management at the European level. Although the European Commission officially promotes the idea of a Social Europe and structures that resemble national social partnership, the authors show that in times of crisis it is the European Commission that is unilaterally in charge of crisis management.

Taking into consideration the different levels of European social dialogue, one could argue that the sectoral perspective at the European level would have enriched the overall picture. During the Great Recession some sectors were affected more by the economic repercussions (such as the metal sector) than others (such as the textile sector). Therefore, different sectors needed different crisis management approaches. It would have been interesting to examine the crisis management carried out by the trade union and employer umbrella organisations representing specific sectors, especially the banking sector, in direct reaction to the banking crisis.

Altogether, in terms of the theoretical perspective of crisis corporatism, this anthology offers a lot of potential for further research, such as crisis management during the COVID-19 pandemic at the different levels of social dialogue (companies, Member States and EU social dialogue).