State–Society Relationships, Social Trust and the Development of Labour Market Policies in Italy and Sweden

Abstract

The first decade of the twenty-first century may be remembered for the rebirth of consensus on labour market policy. After three decades of bitter political and ideological controversy between a neo-liberal and a traditional social democratic approach, a new model, often labelled flexicurity, has emerged. This model is promoted by numerous political organisations since it promises to put an end to the old trade-off between equality and efficiency. Several countries are embracing the flexicurity model as a blueprint for labour market reform, but others, mostly belonging to the ‘Mediterranean Rim’, are clearly lagging behind. Why is it so difficult for these countries to implement the flexicurity model? This paper argues that the application of a flexicurity strategy in these countries is complicated by the lack of social trust between social partners and the state as well as political economy traditions that highlight the role of labour market regulation as a source of social protection.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Asbjørn Sonne Nørgaard and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper. Giuliano Bonoli would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Swiss National Science Foundation for the Project ‘Adapting Mature Welfare States to New Structures of Social Risks’, which provided the empirical information on which this article is based.

Notes

1. Not all scholars agree that these countries' good labour market performance is the result of a flexicurity strategy (e.g. Abrahamson 2006; Becker 2005; Schwartz 2001).

2. The selection of Italy might be criticised for country-specific factors that complicate the implementation of a flexicurity strategy (regional balance, role of the family, etc.). However, such country-specific factors are likely to exist in all countries. Moreover, these factors are potentially dependent on state–society relationships and the level of social trust.