“Coping with the Single Market: Corporatist Response Strategies in Germany and Austria”

Heinisch, Reinhard. (1999) “Coping with the Single Market: Corporatist Response Strategies in Germany and Austria” . In European Union Studies Association (EUSA) > Biennial Conference > 1999 (6th), June 2-5, 1999, pages 39, Pittsburgh, PA.

Abstract

While Germany is facing the wholesale disorganization of sectoral collective bargaining, the Austrian social partnership has gained new strength in the 1990s. Comparatively, Austro-corporatism proved able to undergo a process of skillful adaptation, despite Austria’s belated entry into the European Union and despite a number of apparent disadvantages and weaknesses of the Austrian economy. This paper explains German-Austrian differences in the performance and resilience of corporatist government in the face of European integration in terms of (i) the organizational differences between German and Austrian corporatism (sectoral concentration versus vertical centralization and little horizontal flexibilization); (ii) the long term policy strategies employed by labor unions in either system (co-determination versus macro-level policy influence); and (iii) by the different responses chosen by corporatist actors in Germany and Austria (internal organizational reforms versus becoming modernization brokers).