Jens Arnholtz
Biographic Data
| ID | 387251 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jens Arnholtz |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jens |
| FAMILY NAME | Arnholtz |
| SIGNATURE | ARNHOLTZ J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Copenhagen |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8404-7716 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 63 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 16 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Tensions and experimentation in setting, extending and enforcing working conditions
Labour clauses in public procurement, which require contractors to provide their employees with a certain minimum level of wages and working conditions, have garnered increased political and scholarly attention in recent years. However, much of the discussion has centred on legal provisions, with less consideration given to the intricacy of how these clauses are implemented and integrated within existing wage-setting systems. This article focuses…
Workers, Power and Society
We feel extremely privileged to have these four great scholars engage with and comment on the edited volume, which was the result of a process that we initiated to reflect and learn.We were fortunate enough to have a splendid group of contributors with us during that process, and we did indeed learn a lot.However, the process of theorizing and learning is far from over as the comments given in this forum illustrate.As we wrote in the conclusion t…
Promoting Social Europe by reversing liberalisation? Implementation of the revised Posting of Workers Directive in EU member states
The embedded flexibility of Nordic labor market models under pressure from EU‐induced dualization—The case of posted work in Denmark and Sweden
While many coordinated market economies have responded to internationalization by regulation that creates dualization between insiders and outsiders, the Nordic countries have opted for an embedded flexibilization in which strong unions and cooperative employers have combined flexibility and equality. However, in recent years, the Nordic countries have come under pressure from an EU‐induced dualization that has institutionalized mobile low‐wage w…
Revisiting the EU's new mobility regime
This paper serves as the introduction for a special issue investigating the current status of the new EU mobility regime close to 20 years after the first eastward enlargement. Our main claim is that EU labour mobility is shaped by and has created multiple hierarchies across the EU and within EU countries, as is evident in the unequal labour market outcomes of different groups of mobile EU workers. The EU migration regime has grown more complex a…
Posted work as an extreme case of hierarchised mobility
This article draws on a range of case studies to explain how worker posting can cause hierarchised labour mobility, involving nationality-based hierarchies in pay and conditions between workers in the same labour markets or work sites. This hierarchisation is most apparent on large construction sites, where companies systematically use posting for labour cost advantage, but it is also found on smaller sites and in other sectors besides constructi…
Labor Migration as a Source of Institutional Change
In this article, the authors examine the role of labor immigration as a source of institutional change. They use a "most different systems" comparative case study analysis of the Danish and Australian construction sectors to examine the impact of increased labor migration on skill-sourcing practices in countries with distinct national skill formation and industrial relations institutions. Drawing on 73 interviews with industry stakeholders, the a…
Power resource theory revisited
While their power is declining, unions and workers remain prominent actors in society. Therefore, there is a need to bring power resource theory back to the analytical forefront in the study of contemporary labour politics and labour market sociology. It provides the analytical perspectives necessary for a comprehensive and historical understanding of labour markets and labour politics. However, this article argues that the original theory develo…
Active Enactment and Virtuous Circles of Employment Relations
Transnational workers on large-scale construction projects are often poorly included in national industrial relations systems, which results in employment relations becoming trapped in vicious circles of weak enforcement and precarious work. This article shows how Danish unions have, nonetheless, been successful in enacting existing institutions and organising the construction of the Copenhagen Metro City Ring, despite initially encountering a hi…
Tensions, Actors, and Inventions
Chapter abstract This chapter argues that Bourdieu’s sociology of the state outlines an interesting research program, which focuses on innovation and transformation rather than only domination and reproduction. The chapter begins by presenting some of the epistemological and conceptual elements found in Bourdieu’s sociology of the state. The chapter then goes on to focus on his often overlooked sociohistorical approach to state formation, which i…
Collective wage regulation in northern Europe under strain
There has been much recent attention to the upheavals, often externally induced, in collective bargaining and labour market regulation in southern European countries. In this article, we introduce a set of studies of changes, typically employer-driven, in collective wage regulation in northern Europe. We discuss possible drivers of change: contagion from southern Europe, regime competition among the northern countries themselves and/or destabiliz…
Extra‐Institutional Changes under Pressure from Posting
The posting of workers has become a key topic in debates about how national labour relations respond to pressures from EU market making. While most prior studies have shown that national employment relations are under pressure from above (via EU regulation) and from below (due to increasing use of posting), the question is whether these pressures will lead to erosion of employment relations or adaptation at the national level. Taking the case of …
Law and the Formation of Modern Europe – Perspectives from the Historical Sociology of Law
Formulating European work and employment regulation during the pre-crisis years
This article discusses whether the pre-crisis political right-turn in the European Union (EU) has had an impact on the development of European work and employment regulation. It finds that although pro-regulation actors have been weakened in the year leading up to the crisis, the expected weakening of Social Europe is only seen in a minority of the eight cases of EU-level work and employment regulation analysed. It is argued that two mechanisms c…
Bourdieu in International Relations – Rethinking Key Concepts in IR
This book rethinks the key concepts of International Relations by drawing on the work of Pierre Bourdieu. The last few years have seen a genuine wave of publications promoting sociology in international relations. Scholars have suggested that Bourdieu’s vocabulary can be applied to study security, diplomacy, migration and global environmental politics. Yet we still lack a systematic and accessible analysis of what Bourdieu-inspired IR might look …
Transcended power of the state
Pierre Bourdieu's writings on the state consist of a series of more or less coherent investigations approaching the state from different angles. His writings on the state may seem to contain internal ambiguities. On the one hand, they argue for an actor-centered approach to the state while, on the other hand, elaborating the power of the state as an institution transcending these actors. The purpose of this article is to reconstruct Bourdieu's un…
Bourdieu in International Relations – Rethinking Key Concepts in IR
This book rethinks the key concepts of International Relations by drawing on the work of Pierre Bourdieu. The last few years have seen a genuine wave of publications promoting sociology in international relations. Scholars have suggested that Bourdieu’s vocabulary can be applied to study security, diplomacy, migration and global environmental politics. Yet we still lack a systematic and accessible analysis of what Bourdieu-inspired IR might look …
Revisiting the EU's new mobility regime
This paper serves as the introduction for a special issue investigating the current status of the new EU mobility regime close to 20 years after the first eastward enlargement. Our main claim is that EU labour mobility is shaped by and has created multiple hierarchies across the EU and within EU countries, as is evident in the unequal labour market outcomes of different groups of mobile EU workers. The EU migration regime has grown more complex a…
Active Enactment and Virtuous Circles of Employment Relations
Transnational workers on large-scale construction projects are often poorly included in national industrial relations systems, which results in employment relations becoming trapped in vicious circles of weak enforcement and precarious work. This article shows how Danish unions have, nonetheless, been successful in enacting existing institutions and organising the construction of the Copenhagen Metro City Ring, despite initially encountering a hi…
The embedded flexibility of Nordic labor market models under pressure from EU‐induced dualization—The case of posted work in Denmark and Sweden
While many coordinated market economies have responded to internationalization by regulation that creates dualization between insiders and outsiders, the Nordic countries have opted for an embedded flexibilization in which strong unions and cooperative employers have combined flexibility and equality. However, in recent years, the Nordic countries have come under pressure from an EU‐induced dualization that has institutionalized mobile low‐wage w…
Formulating European work and employment regulation during the pre-crisis years
This article discusses whether the pre-crisis political right-turn in the European Union (EU) has had an impact on the development of European work and employment regulation. It finds that although pro-regulation actors have been weakened in the year leading up to the crisis, the expected weakening of Social Europe is only seen in a minority of the eight cases of EU-level work and employment regulation analysed. It is argued that two mechanisms c…
Transcended power of the state
Pierre Bourdieu's writings on the state consist of a series of more or less coherent investigations approaching the state from different angles. His writings on the state may seem to contain internal ambiguities. On the one hand, they argue for an actor-centered approach to the state while, on the other hand, elaborating the power of the state as an institution transcending these actors. The purpose of this article is to reconstruct Bourdieu's un…
Posted work as an extreme case of hierarchised mobility
This article draws on a range of case studies to explain how worker posting can cause hierarchised labour mobility, involving nationality-based hierarchies in pay and conditions between workers in the same labour markets or work sites. This hierarchisation is most apparent on large construction sites, where companies systematically use posting for labour cost advantage, but it is also found on smaller sites and in other sectors besides constructi…
Law and the Formation of Modern Europe – Perspectives from the Historical Sociology of Law
Transcended power of the state
Pierre Bourdieu's writings on the state consist of a series of more or less coherent investigations approaching the state from different angles. His writings on the state may seem to contain internal ambiguities. On the one hand, they argue for an actor-centered approach to the state while, on the other hand, elaborating the power of the state as an institution transcending these actors. The purpose of this article is to reconstruct Bourdieu's un…
Bourdieu in International Relations – Rethinking Key Concepts in IR
This book rethinks the key concepts of International Relations by drawing on the work of Pierre Bourdieu. The last few years have seen a genuine wave of publications promoting sociology in international relations. Scholars have suggested that Bourdieu’s vocabulary can be applied to study security, diplomacy, migration and global environmental politics. Yet we still lack a systematic and accessible analysis of what Bourdieu-inspired IR might look …
Law and the Formation of Modern Europe – Perspectives from the Historical Sociology of Law
Formulating European work and employment regulation during the pre-crisis years
This article discusses whether the pre-crisis political right-turn in the European Union (EU) has had an impact on the development of European work and employment regulation. It finds that although pro-regulation actors have been weakened in the year leading up to the crisis, the expected weakening of Social Europe is only seen in a minority of the eight cases of EU-level work and employment regulation analysed. It is argued that two mechanisms c…
Tensions, Actors, and Inventions
Chapter abstract This chapter argues that Bourdieu’s sociology of the state outlines an interesting research program, which focuses on innovation and transformation rather than only domination and reproduction. The chapter begins by presenting some of the epistemological and conceptual elements found in Bourdieu’s sociology of the state. The chapter then goes on to focus on his often overlooked sociohistorical approach to state formation, which i…
Collective wage regulation in northern Europe under strain
There has been much recent attention to the upheavals, often externally induced, in collective bargaining and labour market regulation in southern European countries. In this article, we introduce a set of studies of changes, typically employer-driven, in collective wage regulation in northern Europe. We discuss possible drivers of change: contagion from southern Europe, regime competition among the northern countries themselves and/or destabiliz…
Extra‐Institutional Changes under Pressure from Posting
The posting of workers has become a key topic in debates about how national labour relations respond to pressures from EU market making. While most prior studies have shown that national employment relations are under pressure from above (via EU regulation) and from below (due to increasing use of posting), the question is whether these pressures will lead to erosion of employment relations or adaptation at the national level. Taking the case of …
Active Enactment and Virtuous Circles of Employment Relations
Transnational workers on large-scale construction projects are often poorly included in national industrial relations systems, which results in employment relations becoming trapped in vicious circles of weak enforcement and precarious work. This article shows how Danish unions have, nonetheless, been successful in enacting existing institutions and organising the construction of the Copenhagen Metro City Ring, despite initially encountering a hi…
Power resource theory revisited
While their power is declining, unions and workers remain prominent actors in society. Therefore, there is a need to bring power resource theory back to the analytical forefront in the study of contemporary labour politics and labour market sociology. It provides the analytical perspectives necessary for a comprehensive and historical understanding of labour markets and labour politics. However, this article argues that the original theory develo…
The embedded flexibility of Nordic labor market models under pressure from EU‐induced dualization—The case of posted work in Denmark and Sweden
While many coordinated market economies have responded to internationalization by regulation that creates dualization between insiders and outsiders, the Nordic countries have opted for an embedded flexibilization in which strong unions and cooperative employers have combined flexibility and equality. However, in recent years, the Nordic countries have come under pressure from an EU‐induced dualization that has institutionalized mobile low‐wage w…
Revisiting the EU's new mobility regime
This paper serves as the introduction for a special issue investigating the current status of the new EU mobility regime close to 20 years after the first eastward enlargement. Our main claim is that EU labour mobility is shaped by and has created multiple hierarchies across the EU and within EU countries, as is evident in the unequal labour market outcomes of different groups of mobile EU workers. The EU migration regime has grown more complex a…
Posted work as an extreme case of hierarchised mobility
This article draws on a range of case studies to explain how worker posting can cause hierarchised labour mobility, involving nationality-based hierarchies in pay and conditions between workers in the same labour markets or work sites. This hierarchisation is most apparent on large construction sites, where companies systematically use posting for labour cost advantage, but it is also found on smaller sites and in other sectors besides constructi…
Labor Migration as a Source of Institutional Change
In this article, the authors examine the role of labor immigration as a source of institutional change. They use a "most different systems" comparative case study analysis of the Danish and Australian construction sectors to examine the impact of increased labor migration on skill-sourcing practices in countries with distinct national skill formation and industrial relations institutions. Drawing on 73 interviews with industry stakeholders, the a…
Tensions and experimentation in setting, extending and enforcing working conditions
Labour clauses in public procurement, which require contractors to provide their employees with a certain minimum level of wages and working conditions, have garnered increased political and scholarly attention in recent years. However, much of the discussion has centred on legal provisions, with less consideration given to the intricacy of how these clauses are implemented and integrated within existing wage-setting systems. This article focuses…
Workers, Power and Society
We feel extremely privileged to have these four great scholars engage with and comment on the edited volume, which was the result of a process that we initiated to reflect and learn.We were fortunate enough to have a splendid group of contributors with us during that process, and we did indeed learn a lot.However, the process of theorizing and learning is far from over as the comments given in this forum illustrate.As we wrote in the conclusion t…
Promoting Social Europe by reversing liberalisation? Implementation of the revised Posting of Workers Directive in EU member states
Political science (15 works) · Economics (10 works) · Labor Movements and Unions (10 works) · Law (9 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Employment and Welfare Studies (8 works) · Social Policy and Reform Studies (8 works) · Business (7 works) · Labour economics (7 works) · Law (6 works)