National Institutions and the Fate of Diversity: What has Become of Nordic Corporatism?

The process of change in Western societies and economies since the late 1970s has been a complex and multifaceted one. Social and economic systems — economic management models, industrial relations, corporate governance, production systems — have undergone alterations that, in some observers’ opinions, have been no less than fundamental in nature. Developments in forms and nature of the international competition, underpinned by finance liberalisation, the impressive rise and advances of high-tech industries and geographical dispersion of firms and production regimes, have confronted national economic institutions and organisations with new challenges. These environmental changes have forced them to adjust their structures and strategies in accordance with the new realities of economic globalisation (Turner, 1992). Following Hall and Soskice (2001: 9), institutions here are defined as ‘a set of rules, formal or informal, that actors generally follow, whether for normative, cognitive, or material reasons, and organisations as durable entities with formally recognised members, whose rules also contribute to the institutions of the political economy’.