Inbetween Government Unilateralism and Corporatist Social Bargaining: The Cases of Public-Sector Pension Reforms in the UK and Ireland

Welfare reforms in recent decades have resulted in substantial cuts to social insurance programs in advanced European countries. While aiming at restoring the sustainability of the financially-stressed welfare programs, governments have promoted the reform in different ways. In some cases governments have taken a top-down, unilateral approach, pressing for retrenchment without consultation with those who will be adversely affected. In others, governments have adopted a corporatist approach by engaging in consensus-oriented negotiation with stakeholders.

While building on these general features of the retrenchment politics, the article asserts that there exists a hybrid path which combines certain features of government unilateralism and corporatist bargaining in distinctive ways. In particular, the article finds an under-researched type of social bargaining where governments negotiate with welfare insiders despite the lack of the institutional foundations for corporatist consultation. The negotiation, however, turns out to be a fragile process full of conflicts among involved actors. The article examines this unique type of social bargaining, drawing on recent examples of public-sector pension reforms in the UK and Ireland.