Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T15:21:42.113Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Representing Efficiency: Corporatism and Democratic Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Victor V. Magagna
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

What follows is an attempt to contribute to the renewal of democratic theory. The argument does not offer yet another substantive definition of “genuine” democracy. Nor does it proceed through the usual method of textual exegesis of the texts of democratic thinkers. Instead, it explores the implications for representative government of the set of political and economic practices to which comparativists have attached the label of corporatism. The central proposition of the argument is that corporatism poses a challenge to traditional notions about the core principles of democratic representation. Part one shows that corporatism can be seen as an alternative to the mode of democratic interest articulation known as pluralism. However, part two will show the ways in which the logic of corporatism implies a significant shift from established conventions of representation. The third section tries to build a defense of pluralism as a more democratic mode of representation than either corporatism or neo-Marxism.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 50 , Issue 3 , Summer 1988 , pp. 420 - 444
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1988

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

1. Held, David, Models of Democracy (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987), pp. 1–13Google Scholar; and Pennock, J. Roland, Democratic Political Theory (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), pp. 3–15.Google Scholar

2. Pitkin, Hannah Fenichel, The Concept of Representation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967).Google Scholar

3. Giddens, Anthony, The Nation State and Violence (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), pp. 17–34.Google Scholar

4. Pennock, J. Roland, Democratic Political Theory, pp. 309–59Google Scholar; and Pateman, Carole, Participation and Democratic Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5. Dahl, Robert, Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971).Google Scholar

6. Schmitter, Philippe C., “Still the Century of Corporatism?” Review of Politics 36:1 (01 1974): 93–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7. Wilensky, Harold C. and Turner, Lowell, Democratic Corporatism and Policy Linkages (Berkeley: University of California, Institute of International Studies, 1987), pp. 1–23Google Scholar; and Katzenstein, Peter J., Small States in World Markets (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985), pp. 17–38.Google Scholar

8. The concept of strategic actors has been drawn from an interpretation of theories of strategic behavior, especially as applied to strategic trade. See, for example, Gilpin, Robert, The Political Economy of International Relations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), pp. 215–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Keohane, Robert O., After Hegemony (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), pp. 67–69.Google Scholar

9. Zysman, John, Governments, Markets, and Growth (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983), pp. 55–98Google Scholar; and O'Conor, J., The Fiscal Crisis of The State (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1973).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10. Panitch, Leo, Social Democracy and Industrial Military (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11. See, for example, the discussion in Wilensky, Harold L. and Turner, Lowell, Democratic Corporatism and Policy LinkagesGoogle Scholar; and Harrison, R. J., Pluralism and Corporatism (London: Allen and Unwin, 1980)Google Scholar. But also see von Beyme, Klaus “Neo-corporatism: A New Nut in an Old Shell?” International Political Science Review 4:2 (1983).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12. Schmitter, Philippe C. and Lehmbruch, Gerhard, eds., Trends Toward Corporatist Intermediation (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1979).Google Scholar

13. Katzenstein, Peter J., Small States in World Markets, pp. 17–38Google Scholar; and Katzenstein, Peter J., Corporatism and Change (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984), pp. 239–57.Google Scholar

14. Schott, Kerry, Policy, Power and Order (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), pp. 18–40.Google Scholar

15. Offe, Claus, Contradictions of the Welfare State (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1984)Google Scholar; Olson, Mancur, The Rise and Decline of Nations (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982)Google Scholar; and Pizzorno, Alessandro, “Interests and Parties in Pluralism” Organizing Interests in Western Europe, ed. Berger, S. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 249–86.Google Scholar

16. Schmitter, Philippe C., “Interest Intermediation and Regime Governability in Contemporary Western Europe and North America,” in Organizing Interests in Western Europe.Google Scholar

17. Katzenstein, , Small States in World Markets, pp. 30–38.Google Scholar

18. See, for example, Esping-Anderson, Gøsta, Politics Against Markets: The Social Democratic Road to Power (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), pp. 3–40Google Scholar; and Lijphart, Arend, The Politics of Accommodation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968).Google Scholar

19. Ross, George, Workers and Communists in France (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), pp. 314–36.Google Scholar

20. Sabel, Charles, Work and Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 127–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Sabel, Charles, “The International Politics of Trade Unions” in Organizing Interests in Western Europe, pp. 209–48.Google Scholar

21. Olson, Mancur, The Logic of Collective Action (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965).Google Scholar

22. Tomlins, Christopher L., The State and the Unions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 68–69 and 141–43.Google Scholar

23. Lowi, Theodore J., The End of Liberalism (New York: Norton, 1969)Google Scholar; and also see, Lowi, Theodore J., The Politics of Disorder (New York: Basic Books, 1971).Google Scholar

24. Olson, , Rise and Decline of Nations, pp. 53–54.Google Scholar

25. Offe, , Contradictions of the Welfare State, pp. 35–87.Google Scholar

26. Schmitter, , “Still the Century of Corporatism?”Google Scholar

27. See, for example, the criticisms offered by Held, , Models of Democracy, pp. 186–221.Google Scholar

28. Katzenstein, , Small States in World Markets, pp. 80–135.Google Scholar

29. Dalton, Russell J. et al. , Electoral Change in Advanced Industrial Democracies (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), pp. 3–24 and 70–103.Google Scholar

30. Katzenstein, , Corporatism and Change, pp. 136–54.Google Scholar

31. Wilensky, Harold, The New Corporatism Centralization and the Welfare State (London: Sage Publications, 1976).Google Scholar

32. Lijphart, , Politics of Accommodation.Google Scholar

33. Hanson, Russell L., The Democratic Imagination in America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), pp. 148–54.Google Scholar

34. Held, , Models of Democracy, pp. 105–42Google Scholar; and Przeworski, Adam and Wallerstein, Michael “The Structure of Class Conflict in Democratic Capitalist Societies,” American Political Science Review 76 (1982).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

35. Katzenstein, , Small States in World Markets, pp. 39–79.Google Scholar

36. Schmitter, Philippe J. “Modes of Interest Intermediation and Models of Societal Change in Western Europe,” Comparative Political Studies 10 (1979): 61–90.Google Scholar

37. Hanson, , Democratic Imagination in America, pp. 3–53.Google Scholar

38. See Poggi, G., The Development of the Modern State (London: Hutchinson, 1978).Google Scholar

39. Wilensky, Harold L. “Leftism, Catholicism and Democratic Corporatism,” in The Development of Welfare States in Europe and America, ed. Flora, P. and Heidenheimer, A. (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1981), pp. 345–82.Google Scholar

40. For Pluralism see Dahl, Robert, A Preface to Democratic Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956)Google Scholar; Dahl, Robert “Pluralism Revisited” Comparative Politics 10 (1978): 191–204CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Lindblom, Charles E.Politics and Markets (New York: Basic Books, 1977).Google Scholar

41. Dahl, , Preface to Democratic Theory.Google Scholar

42. Dahl, , Polyarchy.Google Scholar

43. Alford, Robert R. and Friedland, Roger, Powers of Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 35–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

44. Dahl, Robert, Dilemmas of Pluralist Democracy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982), pp. 1–3 and 31–54.Google Scholar

45. Alford, and Friedland, , Powers of Theory, pp. 112–56.Google Scholar

46. Mill, J. S., On Liberty (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982).Google Scholar

47. Habermas, Jürgen, Communication and the Evolution of Society (Boston: Beacon Press, 1979)Google Scholar; and McCarthy, Thomas A. “A Theory of Communicative Competence,” Philosophy of the Social Sciences 3 (1973): 135–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

48. Walzer, Michael, Spheres of Justice (New York: Basic Books, 1983), pp. 3–30.Google Scholar

49. See, for example, Hanson, , Democratic Imagination in America, esp. pp. 361–401.Google Scholar

50. Przeworski, Adam, Capitalism and Social Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 205–22 and 239–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

51. Dahl, Robert, A Preface to Economic Democracy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985)Google Scholar; and Dahl, , Dilemmas of Pluralist Democracy, pp. 166–206.Google Scholar

52. For more sharply critical views of corporatism see Maier, Charles, In Search of Stability (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 153–85 and 261–73Google Scholar; and Lustig, R. Jeffrey, Corporate Liberalism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982).Google Scholar