Does Corporatism Really Matter? The economic crisis and issues of political theory

In spite of a recently growing interest in corporatism as a political explanation of cross-national variations of economic performance and as a device for successful crisis management, there is little evidence that corporatism matters as a determinant of economic outcomes. Two kinds of corporatism – as a pattern of interest intermediation or industrial relations, and as a system of concerted public policy-making – are distinguished and tested with OECD data from the 1973 – 85 crisis. Little or no support for either corporatist explanation was found. Alternative perspectives of industrial relations, labour organisations, public policy concertation, state administration, and politico-economic institutions are discussed as offering more promising explanations of differences in governments’ responses to economic crisis.