Introduction: Contested Terrain

In recent years, the term ‘European social model’ has acquired widespread currency. Although few have been prepared to spell out what they mean by the term, most would probably agree with Visser and Hemerijck (1997: 13–14), that it is predicated upon upholding fundamental principles in three particular policy domains. These are the right to work, including commitments to full employment and active employment policies; the right to social protection, involving encompassing basic social security cover for the non-working population; and the right to civilized standards in the workplace, covering issues of employment governance or regulation. Kittel (2002: 3), citing Ferrera et al. (2000: 13), adds two further common traits: a relatively egalitarian wage and income distribution, which relates to all three domains, and a high degree of interest organization on the part of employers and workers together with coordinated wage bargaining, which relates to the third. In each case, the above rights exist not just for the benefit of workers — they are the ‘rules of the game, and like all such rules, they constrain in order to enable’ (Marsden, 1999: 5).