The Neo-Corporatist Approach Author(S): Frank L
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The City University of New York Review: Interest Groups and Politics in Western Europe: The Neo-Corporatist Approach Author(s): Frank L. Wilson Source: Comparative Politics, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Oct., 1983), pp. 105-123 Published by: Ph.D. Program in Political Science of the City University of New York Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/421599 . Accessed: 18/06/2011 11:56 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=phd. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Ph.D. Program in Political Science of the City University of New York and The City University of New York are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Comparative Politics. http://www.jstor.org Review Article Interest Groups and Politics in Western Europe The Neo-Corporatist Approach Frank L. Wilson Suzanne D. Berger, ed., Organizing Interests in Western Europe: Pluralism, Corpo- ratism, and the Transformation of Politics, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1981. Reginald J. Harrison, Pluralism and Corporatism: The Political Evolution of Mod- ern Democracies, London, George Allen & Unwin, 1980. GerhardLehmbruch and PhilippeC. Schmitter,eds., Patterns of CorporatistPolicy Making, London, Sage, 1982. Philippe C. Schmitter and GerhardLehmbruch, eds., Trends Toward Corporatist Intermediation, London, Sage, 1979. Harold L. Wilensky, The "New Corporatism," Centralization, and the Welfare State, London, Sage, 1976. In the mid-1970snew attentionwas directed at interest group politics in democratic settings. Much of the new interest centered on the seeming development of new corporatistforms of interest group/governmentinteraction in advanced industrial democracies. Initially, scholars applied neo-corporatist interpretationsthey had developed earlier in studying Latin America and the Iberian peninsula to western Europe.' Others broadenedtheir studies of elite accommodationin "consociational democracies"such as Holland and Austriato other western democracies.2Political scientists found growing signs of collaborationbetween governmentand groups in the makingand applyingof public policy in western Europe. The study of interest groups, at least in their neo-corporatistconfiguration, became fashionable once again. By the 1981 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, there were three panels devoted specifically to neo-corporatismand another half dozen panels included at least one paper dealing with some aspect of neo- corporatism. After nearly a decade of research on neo-corporatismin western Europe, it is appropriateto assess the contributionof this work to the development of a middle-rangetheory and to the bridging of the gap between theory and empirical study. 105 Comparative Politics October 1983 NeocorporatistTheory One of the most difficultproblems in approachingthe theory-buildingdimension of the literatureon neo-corporatismis that of identifying the specific object of the theory. PhilippeSchmitter, among the most importantof neo-corporatisttheorists, acknowledgesdifferences over the basic natureof the concept and suggests that one way to avoid confusion would be to label them "corporatism," and "corpo- ratism2".3 Unfortunately,there are more than two versions of what corporatism involves. The preponderantview is that corporatismis a form of interest represen- tation rivalingother means of group politics such as the traditionalpluralist view of interest groups. Schmitter prefers the term "interest intermediation"over interest representationbecause he questions whether formal interest associations transmit the preferencesof their membersand whether such representationis the majortask of these groups. For him and many others the focus is on the mode of structuring such efforts at the "representation"of functional interests in a western industrial society. Some extend this notion of corporatismas a form of interest representation to a more extensive system of political participationwhere citizens delegate their participatoryrights to the leaders of established and centralized groups.4 Corpo- ratist structures for them are "representationalbodies" that supplement or more likely replace other representationalforms such as political parties or parliaments. Indeed, the rise of corporatism is sometimes explained by the failure of other representationalbodies, especially parties, "to performas agents in the 'formation of the political will of the people.' "5 In a time of troubled and failing parties, corporatism permits "an end run around the seeming chaos of multiparty sys- tems.,"6 Another school of corporatetheory has a still broaderphenomenon in mind than simply a form of representation.For these theorists, western Europeancorporatism is a form of policymaking.Gerhard Lehmbruch stipulates that liberal corporatism for him is an institutionalizedpattern of policy formation.7Its alternativesare not other forms of participationor interest representationbut other policymakingmod- els such as party government. It features a high degree of collaboration among organizedand centralizedgroups in shaping and implementingpublic policy, espe- cially public economic policy. While there may be some overlap between the representationnotion of neo-corporatismand the policymakingversion, they are not intrinsicallylinked. Some even contend that in certain countries the represen- tationalform of neo-corporatismis undevelopedbut that one can nevertheless find substantialevidence of neo-corporatistpolicymaking.8 There is a still broaderview of contemporarywestern Europeanneo-corporatism among those who view it as an "economic system in which the state directs and controls predominantlyprivately owned business. ."9 Corporatismrefers to an economic system with a highly bureaucratized,interventionist ... state. It is contrasted with other economic systems including laissez-faire capitalism and socialism. In some of these economic versions of neo-corporatism, the main feature is the manipulationof groups within the system by the state and/or business interests. Some of these observers of corporatismend up with a concept very close to Lenin's 106 Frank L. Wilson notion of "state capitalism"as their corporatistsociety. The representationdimen- sion of corporatism may still be present, but it is only one, and often a minor, feature of the corporatisteconomic system. Still others view corporatism as a device for managing conflict in advanced capitalist societies. It is a political, institutional,and ideological response to stress in economic affairs which channels conflict into forms that are more easily con- tained.'o Some narrow the concept while still retainingthe focus on conflict man- agement. They see Europeancorporatism as a form of labor/managementrelations with the trade unions more disadvantagedin this system than the employers." In Marxistversions, corporatismbecomes a tool of social control to emasculatetrade unions and working-classmovements.12 Finally, some scholars see corporatismas a type of decentralizationreplacing or supplementingthe shiftingof governmenttasks to geographicallybased units. Under this interpretationof corporatismthere is a "devolution of public policymakingand enforcement on organized private inter- ests."" Specific government authority is devolved or "hived off' to functionally based, independentboards and agencies. All of these notions of neo-corporatism,of course, differ from the traditionaluses of corporatismto describe an overall type of political system as an alternativeto democracy or monarchy. The two most common conceptualizations are Schmitter's view of neo- corporatismas a mode of interest intermediationand Lehmbruch'sinterpretation of corporatism as a form of policymaking. Schmitter regards this as "productive confusion"and attemptsto clarify the interrelationshipbetween these two forms of corporatismwith a four-cell table.14 This table suggests that corporatistforms of interest intermediationmay coexist with pluralist(Schmitter's term is "pressure") Figure 1 Types of interest intermediationand modes of policy formation Pressure Concertation Examplee: embryonic Italian policy cooper- Examp:classic Ameri- ation between unions can politics; Pluralism pressure the state; Swiss French labourFresaurepolitics;and politics Vernehmlassung Interest Intermediation Through: Examples: frustrated Examples: Austrian British efforts at Paritdtische Kom- Corporatism negotiating a social mission; Swiss social contract; 'cure d'oppo- peace treaty; Swedish sition' in corporatist Harpsund democracy systems A la Sweden Source: