Challenging varieties of capitalism's account of business interests
Neoliberal think-tanks, discourse as a power resource and employers' quest for liberalization in Germany and Sweden
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4237677 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Daniel Kinderman (0000-0003-2874-4549, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2016 |
| Pages | mww040 |
| Publication date | 2016-12-30 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Socio-Economic Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1475-1461 • E-ISSN: 1475-147X |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/ser/mww040 |
| OpenAlex | W2566401851 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 34 |
| References cited | 62 |
This article contributes to the debate on employer preferences.It challenges varieties of capitalism's argument that manufacturing employers in Coordinated Market Economies (CMEs) will tend to defend non-liberal institutions because of the comparative institutional advantage that they provide.It examines Germany and Sweden, two critical cases in this debate.It is based on interviews with key officials and an in-depth examination of the Initiative Neue Soziale Marktwirtschaft (INSM) and Timbro, think-tanks sponsored by German and Swedish employers to shape public opinion.In line with power resource theory, I find that both German and Swedish employers have a strong preference for liberalization.In both cases, they responded to left-wing threats, institutional constraints and situations of 'crisis' by launching a counteroffensive and promoting welfare state reform, labor market flexibility and deregulation.Employers have used discourse as a power resource to pursue an aggressive liberalizing agenda and to attack institutions that required active deregulation on the part of the state.Whether employers in CMEs seek to dismantle existing institutions altogether or soften and reengineer these institutions from within, one thing is clear: their use of radical neoliberal discourse is incompatible with the claim that they defend traditional institutions in any meaningful sense.
Capitalism · Economic system · Economics · Liberalization · Market economy · Neoliberalism (international relations) · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics) · Resource (disambiguation) · Think tanks · Elite Sociology and Global Capitalism · Labor Movements and Unions · Law · Social Policy and Reform Studies
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| Unique citing works | 34 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3,78 |
| Citation span | 2017 - 2025 (9) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 17 |