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Expanding Welfare State Borders: Trade Unions and the Introduction of Pro-Outsiders Social Policies in Italy and Argentina

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 November 2021

MARCELLO NATILI Open the ORCID record for MARCELLO NATILI [Opens in a new window]  and
ANGELICA PURICELLI
MARCELLO NATILI
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor at the Department of Social and Political Sciences, University of Milan, Via Conservatorio 7, 20122 Milan, Italy email: [email protected]
ANGELICA PURICELLI
Affiliation:
Network of Advancement of Social and Political Studies, University of Milan, Via Conservatorio, 7 - 20122 Milan, Italy email: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article investigates the drivers of trade union choices in the social policy arena in the age of austerity. Against the background of a political economy literature mostly emphasising trade union support for their stronger constituency – i.e. the ‘insiders’ – the article shows the existence of mechanisms potentially inducing trade unions to broaden their demands. Empirically, the study rests on an in-depth comparative analysis of the political process inducing the two largest trade unions in Argentina and Italy, the CGT and the CGIL, to support ‘pro-outsider’ social policy actively. Besides the comparison of two different geographical areas – though not so different in terms of original welfare state configuration – the main contribution of this article is outlining how the combination of dwindling organizational resources and growing competition from social movements and/or new radical unions leads traditionally insider-oriented unions to reach out to new constituencies and advocate expanded redistributive demands.

Keywords

trade unionswelfare statedualizationItalyArgentina
Type
Article
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 52 , Issue 2 , April 2023 , pp. 339 - 357
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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