1 August 2008
New Policy Brief published  Project 18a: Distributive Politics: Experimentation, Learning and Reform: National Social Pacts

The new policy brief deals with the role of Social Pacts in European Socio-Economic Governance. Written by Martin Rhodes, the brief provides answers to the key questions of relevance for policy-makers, i.e. (1) why did some countries achieve pacts but not others, and what were the conditions for their emergence; (2) what were the advantages of such pacts for policy making, and what determined their persistence or failure; and (3) given new demands for economic adjustment 10 years after EMU began, does social pacting still offer a viable strategy for socio-economic governance?
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23 July 2008
Analytical Report 4: Synthesis: A Fuzzy Set Analysis of the Resurgence of Tripartite Concertation in the 1990s  Project 18a: Distributive Politics: Experimentation, Learning and Reform: National Social Pacts

European economies underwent major economic adjustment during the 1990s, combining reforms related to the preparation for EMU with welfare state recalibration and labour market deregulation. This paper, written by Sabina Avdagic, seeks to understand national variation in the strategies of adjustment during that decade, and in particular in the varied reliance on social pacts as facilitators of reforms. Why were such concerted agreements struck in some countries, but not in others? Using a fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fs/QCA) of fourteen European countries, this paper assess the explanatory power of leading hypotheses about the emergence of social pacts.
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23 May 2008
Workshop and Practitioner Event: Governance and Social Pacts in Comparative Perspective  29 - 31 May 2008, Lisbon

The Workshop is organised in the framework of the NEWGOV Project 18a: "Distributive Politics: Experimentation, Learning and Reform: National Social Pacts". During the workshop, the authors of the case studies and experts will discuss and assess the work done since the beginning of the project. The workshop will be preceded by a public seminar with practitioners at the European Commission representation in Lisbon. The topic is: “Patterns of Social Concertation in Europe: Portugal compared with other European Countries”. The event is sponsored by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation Lisbon.
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for further information contact Ingo Linsenmann

6 November 2006
Analytical Report on the Institutional Emergence of Social Pacts  Project 18a: Distributive Politics: Experimentation, Learning and Reform: National Social Pacts

This report links the empirical evidence from five country reports to the overall analytical framework. It assesses the relevance of the four central pillars of the bargaining model - bounded rationality, context-specific and changing preferences, non-unitary actors, and perceptions of power - for the real-world strategies of actors, tests the bargaining model itself, and presents the steps in order to improve the model. The conclusions relate the study to the general literature on social pact emergence.
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27 September 2005
New EUROGOV Working Paper released; first paper from NEWGOV  EUROGOV No. N-05-01

‘The Emergence and Evolution of Social Pacts: A Provisional Framework for Comparative Analysis’ written by Sabina Avdagic, Martin Rhodes and Jelle Visser. This paper provides the scientific framework for the NEWGOV project Distributive Politics, Learning and Reform.
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