IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ecoind/v44y2023i1p109-137.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The condition of European economic democracy: A comparative analysis of individual and collective employment rights

Author

Listed:
  • Andrew Cumbers

    (University of Glasgow Adam Smith Business School, UK)

  • Karen Bilsland

    (University of Aberdeen Business School, UK)

  • Robert McMaster

    (University of Glasgow Adam Smith Business School, UK)

  • Susana Cabaço

    (Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, Netherlands)

  • Michael White

    (Nottingham Trent University School of Architecture Design and the Built Environment, UK)

Abstract

The condition of European economic democracy is generally recognised to be in a fragile state. Recent discussions have centred on pressures to converge towards an Anglo-American model of flexible and deregulated employment relations and systems, consonant with a broader neoliberal economic governance discourse. Existing approaches suggest an uneven experience between countries around a general trend of deterioration. In this article we offer two new contributions to these debates. First, we introduce findings from an Economic Democracy Index (EDI) we have developed. This goes beyond existing indices of employment and industrial democracy to allow us to examine the changing nature of individual employment rights as well as collective bargaining conditions between European countries. Second, we depart from existing studies of European employment relations, which tend to take a comparative national approach, by situating national employment relations and trajectories within a wider set of spatial and social relations. Qualitative analysis of three country cases (Denmark, Portugal and Slovenia) supplements our EDI analysis. Our evidence suggests the importance of multi-scalar relational and institutional dynamics between social actors at the national scale and those at higher scales such as the European Union in understanding variations in country performance on the EDI.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew Cumbers & Karen Bilsland & Robert McMaster & Susana Cabaço & Michael White, 2023. "The condition of European economic democracy: A comparative analysis of individual and collective employment rights," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 44(1), pages 109-137, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ecoind:v:44:y:2023:i:1:p:109-137
    DOI: 10.1177/0143831X211064919
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0143831X211064919
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0143831X211064919?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:ecoind:v:44:y:2023:i:1:p:109-137. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.ekhist.uu.se/english.htm .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.