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³ Lehmbruch, Gerhard, ‘Concertation and the Structure of Corporatist Networks’, in Goldthorpe, John H. (ed.), Order and Conflict in Contemporary Capitalism, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1984, p. 74 Google Scholar; Schmitter, Philippe C., ‘Interest Intermediation and Regime Governability in Contemporary Western Europe and North America’, in Berger, Suzanne (ed.), Organizing Interests in Western Europe, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1981, pp. 313–18Google Scholar; Williamson, Peter J., Corporatism in Perspective, London, Sage, 1989, p. 151.Google Scholar

⁴ One important exception is Lijphart, Arend and Crepaz, Markus M. L., ‘Corporatism and Consensus Democracy in Eighteen Countries’, British Journal of Political Science, 21: 1 (1991), pp. 235–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Kerstin Hamann and John Kelly, ‘Party Politics and the Reemergence of Social Pacts in Western Europe’, Comparative Political Studies, 40: 8 (2007), pp. 971–94.

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⁶ This study is likely to tell us something about the conditions for the survival of established corporatist institutions and practices; we do not claim to be able to generalize about the ‘social pacts’ that have recently emerged in countries with no previous history of corporatism; see Sabina Avdagic, Martin Rhodes and Jelle Visser, ‘The Emergence and Evolution of Social Pacts’, European Governance Papers, N–05–01, EUROGOV, 2005.Google Scholar

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¹⁷ In a system with transient coalitions, corporatist policy-making may be especially desirable for governments since the absence of stable party-political majorities might lead to ungovernability if interest organizations were not involved; see Blom-Hansen, Jens, ‘Organized Interests and the State: A Disintegrating Relationship? Evidence From Denmark’, European Journal of Political Research, 39 (2001), pp. 408–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Although established corporatism is different from ‘social pacts’, this point is clearly related to the argument that governments facing electoral pressures are more likely to support ‘social pacts’ in order to share responsibility for unpopular policy choices with interest organizations; see Hamann and Kelly, ‘Party Politics’.

¹⁸ Baccaro, Lucio, ‘What is Alive and What is Dead in the Theory of Corporatism?’, British Journal of Industrial Relations, 41: 4 (2003), pp. 683–706;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Molina and Rhodes, ‘Corporatism’, pp. 316–17.

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²⁰ The data collected by Franz Traxler, Sabine Blaschke and Bernahrd Kittel – see their National Labour Relations in Internationalized Markets – confirm that corporatism has declined in Sweden, but do not register any significant changes in corporatist institutions in the other countries considered in this article.Google Scholar

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⁴⁹ Andreas Ladner, ‘The Political Parties and the Party System’, in Klöti et al., Handbook of Swiss Politics, p. 213.Google Scholar

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