The name is absent

Aliki Mouriki

tions, which entail a change in their income and their professional status, if reliable and sustainable
alternatives to the security provided through the employment relationship are not available. Can in-
come be safeguarded outside the employment relationship through the ailing social welfare systems?
This question has in recent years become a source of major concern for the European workforce.
Given that transitions lie at the heart of the flexicurity agenda, the answer to this question is of vital
importance.

Consensus culture vs. adversarial culture

Consensus about economic and social policy goals between the main social actors (employers’
and unions’ organisations, political parties, state bureaucracies and interest groups) is a pre-requisite
in view of adjusting labour market and welfare institutions to change. Otherwise, they will become
(or remain) dysfunctional and thus undermine economic performance (Bruff, 2008a). Reforms that
involve hard choices and a redistribution of costs and benefits in particular, like the welfare state
reform, require “the construction of a political will and long-term commitments built on norms of
trust and networks of civic engagement, in order to overcome the inevitable oppositions of groups
who will loose” (Visser & Hemerijk, 1997:182, in Bruff, 2008a:32). However, the conditions that
make it possible for trust and consensus culture to thrive are very unevenly distributed.

Why is the ideology of social partnership present in some countries whilst not in others? Katzen-
stein has attempted to answer this question in his study of 7 small advanced industrial European
states in the mid-1980s.⁷⁰ In a more recent article (Katzenstein, 2003) that reviews his previous work,
he reiterates the point that the striking differences in the patterns of historical evolution and the strat-
egies in the countries under investigation as compared to those in larger countries can explain why
the former were more successful in adapting flexibly to the requirements of market competition and
political legitimacy than the latter (Katzenstein, 2003:12-13). In the small countries, the perception
of vulnerability generated an ideology of social partnership and an ability to learn from past mistakes
and adapt to external challenges. This made the acceptance of reforms easier (Katzenstein, 2003).

70 Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. See Katzenstein, P, 1985, Small states in
world markets: industrial policy in Europe, Cornell University Press.

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