ISSN:0080-6757    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9477.1989.tb00096.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1989

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Flexibility is a prominent catchword in recent economic and political debate. The need for increased flexibility in various areas of society is generally accepted. The article presents and criticizes the terms of this debate. As part of the general neoliberal trend flexibility is often perceived as a purely desirable quality. Less state, less unions and flexibilization by means of greater reliance upon markets are the policies that are proposed to overcome the crisis of the Western industrialized countries. However, flexible adaptation requires a foundation of stable institutions and behaviour patterns. Japan today represents one successful combination of flexibility and stability. Scandinavia ‐ and other small European countries ‐ have been attributed other successful combinations. Here, political stability seems to arise from a big state and an extended corporatist system and, according to Katzenstein, this does not contradict, but rather reinforces, the capacity for economic flexibility. Recent developmental trends, however, challenge this interpretation. The recent structural changes have been considered part of a general transition from Fordism to post‐Fordism. The international race to modernize or to implement post‐Fordism might imply a new ‘match’ of techno‐economic structures and sociopolitical institutions ‐ also in the Scandin

ISSN:0080-6757    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9477.1989.tb00097.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1989

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Two stones may be told about Norwegian macroeconomic management since 1973. The first one is theflexible‐adjustment story:Norway defended full employment using oil revenues to manage structural change. to keep manpower in the primary sectors and create new employment opportunities in the welfare state. The second is theparalysing‐rigidifies story:Norway used oil revenues to shelter its manufacturing industries and low‐productivity agriculture from competition, and to expand the welfare state which created numerous crowding out mechanisms. The first section below reviews some strong statements of these stories. while the following two sections review contemporary debates on the notions of flexibility and rigidity, relating also to the question of Norway's ‘democratic corporatism’. The final two sections attempt to take a more detached look at the events about which the two stories are told. Five phases are distinguished, and the two ‘consumption booms’ (1973‐77 and 1984‐86) and the following austerity phases (1977‐81,

ISSN:0080-6757    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9477.1989.tb00098.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1989

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

How has Denmark been able to adjust its economic and industrial policies in an era of major changes in the international economy? The article gives a survey of the last 10 years, especially more recent years. Before 1986 wage policy and public‐expenditure policy were dominant. Since then they have been supplemented by a new structural policy to increase the level of technology, to improve education and research and to change the composition of Danish exports as far as products and markets are concerned. The adjustment of policies has taken place in a stable multi‐centred political system. The process has been characterized by institutionalized campaigning, moulding of interests and mobilization of compromises and mutual understanding. The capacity for flexible adjustment seems to originate from the stability of the political system. Likewise, uncertainty and instability seem to weaken the capacity for political flexibility. During the last two years the transformation of the elite consensus into state programmes and administrative decision‐making has been hampered and the whole structural policy approach has been challenged by a neoliberal alternative. This is mainly due to an extraordinary parliamentary stalemate in a situation of extreme minority parliament

ISSN:0080-6757    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9477.1989.tb00099.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1989

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Surveying the economic legislation and policies of the new Blue ‐ Red coalition government in Finland in six separate fields ‐ competition policies, industrial relations, income policies, the financial system, taxation and the public sector ‐ the question is asked whether the different measures can be seen as parts of an overall strategy to change the Finnish mode of regulation. Is it possible that we are witnessing the development of a two‐tiered form of corporatism, combining a more traditional social corporatism on the macro‐level and a new liberal corporatism on an intermediate level of production and i

ISSN:0080-6757    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9477.1989.tb00100.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1989

数据来源: WILEY