Protest and Social Concertation
Jose Aleman
countries, not all of which have appropriate organizational structures, have attempted to
reap the benefits of policy concertation at the highly visible and comprehensive national
level (Grote and Schmitter 2003).
If democracy is to be consolidated, however, distributive conflicts must be
institutionalized, demands must be channeled through democratic institutions, and actors
must abjure other tactics (Pereira et al. 1993; Przeworski 1992). Some therefore
recommend national policy concertation, even in countries with no history of labor
incorporation, by relying on “democracy and discussion” (Baccaro 2003). Others note
that trade unions will participate in social and economic pacts only if they are
“encompassing, centralized, and influential politically.” (Prezeworski 1992, p.130)
It is important that our analysis transcend the idiosyncratic consequences of
particular waves of democratization. With respect to labor politics, some countries have
consolidated working labor market institutions while others are struggling to put them in
This leads me to a second and related question: can tripartite institutions
contribute to the consolidation of durable and stable democracies?
NATIONAL POLICY CONCERTATION: BETWEEN SOCIAL DIALOGUE AND
REDISTRIBUTION
Traditional forms of policy concertation in northern Europe, many have noted,
were associated with social consensus (Katzenstein 1985), predictability in industrial
relations (Cameron 1984), low unemployment, high price stability, increased welfare
spending (Crepaz 1996), and reduced inequality and poverty (Nollert 1995; Brady 2003).
This gave rise to a number of political, sociological, and economic explanations that
6
This could be a function of the particular timing of their democratization, i.e. Southern Europe in the mid
1970s, Latin America in the 1980s or Eastern Europe and the early 1990s.
3
Convention