• ISBN13: 9780199590742
• Binding: Hardcover
• Subject: Politics and Current Affairs
• Publisher: Oxford UP
• Publisher Imprint: Oxford UP
• Publication Date: June 15, 2011
• Pages: 336
• Original Price: GBP 86.0
• Language: English
• Edition: N/A
• Item Weight: 636 grams

About the Book The result of a four-year long comparative research study centered at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, and financed by the European Commission's Sixth Framework Programme, <em>Social Pacts in Europe</em> presents the first full-length theoretical and comparative empirical study of new social pacts in Europe. Its aim is to bring the level of sophistication achieved in an earlier literature on neo-corporatism to the more contemporary phenomenon of 'social pacting'. The book brings a wide range of complementary theories to bear on the emergence, evolution and institutionalization of pacts, compares systematically a wide range of cases across Europe, and provides in-depth studies of Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, and Slovenia. Social Pacts in Europe</em> contributes to the scholarly debate on economic adjustment and institutional change in European capitalism by focusing on three inter-related questions: (i) what explains national variation in reliance on social pacts; (ii) what determines the outcomes of individual pact negotiations; and (iii) under what conditions are pacts repeated and become regular features of socio-economic governance? The book's theoretical innovations include a novel application of fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fs/QCA) to help explain national differences in social pact adoption; the application of a game theoretic approach to explain social pact emergence; and a reinterpretation of traditional neo-corporatist and new institutionalist theory to help understand social pact consolidation and institutionalization.<br>