Employment Research and State Traditions: A Comparative History of the United States, Great Britain, and Germany

EMPLOYMENT RESEARCH AND STATE TRADITIONS

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Employment Research and State Traditions A Comparative History of Britain, Germany, and the United States

CAROLA M. FREGE

1

3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © Carola M. Frege 2007 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2007 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available Typeset by SPI Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Biddles Ltd., King’s Lynn, Norfolk ISBN 978–0–19–920806–7 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

To Leonardo Felli

Acknowledgements This book brings to a conclusion an intellectual journey that took place in several geographical locations over a period of six years. It started in Ithaca where I was able to spend a year at Cornell’s ILR School, and it continued in Princeton, New York City, New Haven, London, Rome, and Berlin. On its long journey the book received institutional support as well as many stimulations and assistance from colleagues and friends. I am grateful to the ILR School and in particular to Lowell Turner and Harry Katz for inviting me as a Visiting Professor during 2000; to the Labor Studies Department at Rutgers and in particular to Sue Cobble, Adrienne Eaton, Charles Heckscher, Jeff Keefe, Doug Kruse, Saul Rubinstein, Lisa Schur, and Paula Voos, for their enduring encouragement, enthusiasm and intellectual stimulations during three wonderful years; and to the Industrial Relations (now Management) Department at the LSE and my colleagues, in particular Sarah Ashwin, Hyun-Jung Lee, John Logan, David Metcalf, and Richard Hyman, for their collegiality and support. A number of colleagues have read parts of the manuscript and provided substantial suggestions, gave comments at workshops or during private conversations at various stages of the project. In particular I want to thank Peter Ackers, Martin Behrens, Stephen Bronner, Paul Davies, Frank Dobbin, Simon Deakin, Mike Fichter, Matt Finkin, Marion Fourcade-Gourinchas, John Gerring, John Godard, Ed Heery, Richard Hyman, Greg Jackson, Sandy Jacoby, Berndt Keller, John Kelly, Michéle Lamont, David Metcalf, Walther Mueller-Jentsch, Marino Regini, David Soskice, Wolfgang Streeck, Manfred Weiss, and Adrian Wilkinson. I also benefited hugely from the works of or private correspondence with John Breuilly, Jennifer Platt, Dorothy Ross, Fritz Ringer, Peter Wagner, Peter Weingart, and James Whitman. I would also like to express my gratitude to Matthew Derbyshire and David Musson, my editors at Oxford University Press, for their patient, caring and efficient assistance throughout this process. I thank my cousin Lizzie Gilbert, a Renaissance scholar and book editor, for her wonderful job in editing the manuscript, in particular for reducing social scientific jargons and making it hopefully more readable. Last but not least, there are a few friends I owe a special debt of gratitude: Stephen Bronner, Sue Cobble, Matt Finkin, John Godard, Sandy Jacoby, John Kelly, and David Soskice. I benefited tremendously from their intellectual stimulation, their generous friendship, and their encouragement and advice

vii throughout my academic path. This book would not exist without them. Particular thanks go to John Kelly who volunteered to read the entire manuscript in the final stages of writing and provided ample amounts of comments and support. This is also an opportunity to thank my dearest friends outside of my own academic field who have uplifted and enriched my life throughout the years: Janine Arvaniti, Angelika Fehn Krestas, Susanne Fuchs, Elena Mancini, Wilderich Mueller-Wodarg, Volker Nocke, Petra Ogier, Lilja Székessy, Luca Viganò, Yang Lian, and Yo Yo. Finally, when this book was in its proof-reading stage we welcomed our son Matteo into the family, whose cheerful arrival made it all worthwhile and surely prevented any ‘post book blues’! Most importantly, I am at loss to thank my husband, Leonardo, for reading chapter by chapter with a very sharp pen, for his enduring encouragement, patience and optimism, his Italian gourmet cooking, and last but not least for his challenging micro-economic discourses, a daily reminder of the pleasures and pains of interdisciplinarity! Early versions of some material presented in the book appeared in: ‘Scientific Knowledge Production in the U.S. and Germany: The case of Industrial Relations Research’, Comparative Labor Law and Policy Journal (vol. 23, 2002); ‘Industrial Relations in Continental Europe: Comparing its Academic Traditions’, in Peter Ackers and Adrian Wilkinson (eds.) Understanding Work and Employment: Industrial Relations in Transition (Oxford University Press 2003); ‘Varieties of Industrial Relations Research: Take-over, Convergence or Divergence?’, British Journal of Industrial Relations (vol. 43, 2005); ‘The Discourse of Industrial Democracy: Germany and the US revisited’, Economic and Industrial Democracy (vol. 26, 2005).

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Contents List of Tables

xi

1. Introduction Outline for the Book Underlying Aims

1 4 7

2. Employment Research in Crisis Introduction Institutional Histories of Employment Research Employment Research in Crisis Anglophone Employment Relations: Three Critical Debates Conclusion

10 10 10 20 22 30

3. Varieties of Employment Research Introduction Methodology Results Conclusion

34 34 35 43 68

4. Path Dependencies and State Traditions in Comparative Perspective Introduction Approaches to Scientific Knowledge Production Path Dependencies of Employment Research Conceptualizing State Traditions: Three Path Dependencies Conclusion

73 73 74 78 87 91

5. Labour Movement Histories Introduction The Political and Economic Embeddedness of National Labour Movements Labour Movements and the State Discussion: State Traditions Conclusion

93 93 94 96 112 117

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6. Knowledge Institutions: Social Science Traditions Introduction Social Sciences and State Traditions Conclusion

120 120 120 139

7. Industrial Democracy Discourse Introduction Defining Industrial Democracy The Political Embeddedness of the Discourse on Industrial Democracy Conclusion

144 144 145 147 168

8. Conclusion: Varieties, State Traditions, and the Future of Employment Research Varieties of Employment Research Path Dependencies of Employment Research: State Traditions Future of Employment Research

172 172 175 179

Bibliography Index

186 208

List of Tables 3.1. Year/national affiliation of authors: U.S. sample

44

3.2. Year/national affiliation of authors: British sample

44

3.3. Year/national affiliation of authors: German sample

45

3.4. Year/disciplinary affiliation: all countries

45

3.5. Year/disciplinary affiliation: all journals

46

3.6. Year/broad research topics: all countries

48

3.7. Year/broad research topics: all journals

48

3.8. Year/specific research topics: all countries

50

3.9. Year/specific research topics: all journals

51

3.10. Year/nature of article: all countries

53

3.11. Year/nature of article: all journals

54

3.12. Year/qualitative vs. quantitative methodology: all countries

54

3.13. Year/qualitative vs. quantitative methodology: all journals

55

3.14. Year/small vs. large data-set: all countries

56

3.15. Year/small vs. large data-set: all journals

56

3.16. Year/comparative—longitudinal—one-time period studies: all countries

57

3.17. Year/comparative—longitudinal—one-time period studies: all journals

57

3.18. Year/analytical level: macro/sector/firm/micro: all countries

58

3.19. Year/analytical level: macro/sector/firm/micro: all journals

58

3.20. Dominant U.S., British, and German patterns in employment research

69

7.1. Discourse on industrial democracy during the nineteenth century: cross-country difference

169

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1 Introduction The fundamental questions of what scientific knowledge is, how knowledge is created in the social sciences, and how social science disciplines develop are rarely being discussed in the academic disciplines themselves. Since disciplinary epistemology was pushed out of mainstream research at the early twentieth century and created independent sub-disciplines (sociology of knowledge, history, or philosophy of science) we hardly find any direct exchange between them and the subject of their inquiries (Shaskolsky 1970: 6; also Maurer 2004). This became particularly notable during the last three decades in which the social sciences increasingly developed into an empirical field while neglecting theoretical reflections on their underlying foundations (Wagner 1990: 13). It seems that only in times of crisis will academics acknowledge the need to rediscover their disciplinary identities and reflect upon their metaphysical and methodological foundations, thus their intellectual histories (e.g. Levine 1995 or the Sociological Forum 1994 for sociology; Schmitter 1999 for political science). Research or the creation of scientific knowledge, in the area of work and employment, traditionally described in Anglophone countries 1 as Employment, Industrial or Labour Relations, or Labour Studies, is an interesting case to examine. Employment Relations 2 was established as an independent field of study in the 1920s in the United States (U.S.) and subsequently after World War II (WWII) in Britain and other Anglophone countries. Though originally established by U.S. institutional economists it soon came to be seen as an interdisciplinary field incorporating labour economists, industrial psychologists, personnel management scholars, industrial sociologists, and other social scientists working on labour issues. In Continental Europe and indeed 1

I am using Crouch’s term (2005) to primarily refer to Britain and the U.S. although the term also covers other countries of the former Commonwealth: Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Britain is used as an encompassing term without discerning between England, Wales, and Scotland. 2 I define the term ‘Employment Relations’ broadly as research on work and employment conducted by various social science disciplines. Note that my definition of Employment Relations incorporates the more narrowly defined research fields of ‘industrial relations’ (the study of employment institutions and regulations) and of ‘human resources’ (the study of the management of personnel at workplace level).

2

Introduction

in the rest of the world, research on work and employment has remained multidisciplinary, thus a sub-subject of various social science disciplines. Such a case of national differences in the development of a field pertaining to social science 3 is rather unique and asks for an examination of its intellectual history. Since its heyday of the 1950s–60s 4 Employment Relations as an academic field in the Anglophone world has increasingly been facing a crisis, which in recent years has provoked a small, though rather eclectic discussion on its constitution and future, in particular in the U.S. (Ackers and Wilkinson 2003; Adams 1993; Capelli 1985; Godard 1989, 1994; Godard and Delaney 2000; Jacoby 1990; Kaufman 1993, 2001; Strauss 1989; Whitfield and Strauss 2000). The crisis is related to the steady decline of trade unions and collective bargaining in most advanced industrialized countries during the last two decades. It is manifest, among others, in a declining number of students, the elimination, downsizing or merger of Employment Relations departments and programmes and the decline of publications in the field. Michael Piore, a prominent U.S. labour economist, for example, already in the 1980s declared the field as ‘dead’. 5 This is, of course, a slight exaggeration but many scholars share the view that the situation deserves to be taken very seriously. Whitfield and Strauss (2000: 287) state that ‘academic industrial relations is at a crossroad. There is uncertainty as to its subject matter, its conceptual makeup, its relations to other scholarly fields, and the approach its researchers are taking.’ Kaufman (1993: xv) concludes that the ‘hard times that have befallen industrial relations have led some scholars to question the field’s long-term prospects for survival’. And Kochan (1993: 370) manifests that ‘the field of industrial relations is indeed under siege if not in a state of crisis’. Diagnosing a crisis, whether in academia, politics, or personal life, can either lead to a stabilization of the old system or to reform and transformation. In intellectual history, crises frequently document turning points which foster scientific transformation and shifts of paradigm. Of course, academic disciplines are not given by natural law and there are examples of fields of study or schools of research which have dissolved, as for example ‘home economics’ which became ‘family economics’, or ‘Neo-Ricardian economics’ of the British 3

Employment Relations here does not refer to a social scientific discipline but to a ‘field of study’. 4 Strauss and Feuille (1978) describe a slightly longer period, between 1933 and 1959, as the ‘golden age’ of Employment Relations. 5 Comment made at the conference ‘Historical perspectives on American labour: an interdisciplinary approach’, ILR School, Cornell University, Ithaca, 21–4 April 1988.

Introduction

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Cambridge school which eventually succumbed to the U.S. Cambridge school of mathematically oriented economics in the 1960s (the famous ‘Cambridge capital controversy’). I do not envision, however, such a pessimistic scenario for the research area of work and employment: the labour force is steadily increasing in the global world and work remains, for good or bad, the main occupation for most human beings during their life. Yet the question remains whether Employment Relations as an independent interdisciplinary field will survive in the Anglophone world as we know it, and what changes are needed to ensure its survival, or whether the topic will find another intellectual home either in human resource departments of business schools or submerge into various established social science disciplines as is the case in Continental Europe and other parts of the world. This book takes the current critical situation of Employment Relations as an opportunity to address and reflect upon knowledge creation and its intellectual foundation in the area of work and employment. A comparative historical approach is used firstly to point out similarities and differences in national research patterns and secondly to explore the path dependencies of current research practices and their potential for transformation. For example, is there a variety or uniformity of national research patterns? And are the diagnosed problems of the field of Employment Relations context-related and limited to the Anglophone or U.S. context, or are they universal and thus immanent to the research field of work and employment? This study compares employment research in Britain, Germany, and the U.S. and traces its scholarly origins during the nineteenth century. The U.S. and Britain were chosen as examples of the Anglophone world because they first created Employment Relations as an academic field of study and because here the institutional crisis and academic debate is most vivid. Germany 6 was chosen as a representative example of Continental Europe because of its central position in the history and philosophy of social sciences where it is traditionally defined as the antipode to Anglophone traditions (Delanty 1997; Lepenies 1981: xxvi). The book then goes on to explore why and how the field of study developed differently in different countries and what implications can be drawn from this for the future of the field of study. Asking ‘why’ a particular development or research style did or did not occur in one country may be ‘whiggish’ since the question implies it should have but, as Rothblatt (1993: 7) argues, posing 6 I use ‘Germany’ throughout the historical periods of the nineteenth century for all German regions even though Germany obviously did not exist as a state entity until 1871 (German unification under Bismarck). Before then Metternich’s Deutsche Bund consisted of thirty-nine states.

4

Introduction

such a question does focus the attention on comparison, and this in turn leads us to new questions and, hopefully, new insights. In short the book’s analysis allows us to trace the enduring links between today’s research enterprise and its historical origins. The core thesis of this book is that employment research is deeply embedded in long-standing country-specific institutional and intellectual traditions. In particular, the comparative historical analysis reveals that employment research was born out of the economic but also political transformations of the nineteenth century and has thereby been deeply affected by different national state traditions. The book advocates a paradigm shift which recognizes the enduring embeddedness of the field in the national political economies and its inherent political and normative perspective on the world of work. Employment research needs to re-establish a policy-oriented research tradition which is not just a scientific exercise for its own good but reassuring of its continuing relevance for society.

OUTLINE FOR THE BOOK Chapter 2 provides an overview of the institutional development of employment research in the U.S., Britain, and Germany. In particular, it discusses symptoms of the current academic crisis and the written attempts to explain these developments. Not much work has been conducted in this area so far. Most studies discuss the status of employment research in a single country and essentially describe but not further analyse indicators of the crisis and problems of the field. Thus, most work is explicitly or implicitly focused on the U.S. (e.g. Kaufman 1993) and if comparative analyses are used at all they are usually restricted to the Anglophone hemisphere, in particular U.S. versus Britain (Capelli 1985; Godard 1989). Moreover, these studies focus on external or internal factors, which arguably challenge the survival of Employment Relations as a field of study. Thus, scholars have discussed external conditions of the subject in study and, for example, have linked economic globalization and deregulation trends to the erosion of orthodox employment regulations. Others have highlighted internal concerns of the field, such as the lack of theoretical depth and innovation or methodological deficiencies. This book contributes to the evolving debate by enlarging the comparative perspective towards non-Anglophone countries such as those of Continental Europe. More importantly, rather than focusing on the symptoms of this crisis, the book’s historical approach allows us to go a step further and to

Introduction

5

examine the underlying path dependencies of research patterns across various countries.

Varieties of Research Chapter 3 then investigates the existence of national research patterns on the basis of a comparative study of research outputs in prominent journals of Employment Relations in the U.S., Britain, and Germany. It poses the question as to how the problems that employment scholars consider to be important are determined in each country, and which techniques they employ to seek deeper understanding of their subject matter. How does research formulate questions, structure discourse, and evaluate arguments and evidence in each country? What are the main paradigms in each scientific community? What theories and methods are used? And how do differences in their answers to methodological and theoretical questions lead to distinctive and sometimes contradictory conclusions about the extent and limits of human capacities to influence and consciously shape employment institutions and events? Finally, to what extent do economic globalization and the internationalization of academic interactions have an impact on the various national research styles? Despite the increasing convergence of employment institutions and practices throughout the advanced industrialized world and despite the increasing international communication and interaction among the research communities, this survey finds that distinctive national research patterns remain in Employment Relations, which seem astonishingly resistant to the processes of universalization or modernization. These enduring cross-country variations suggest that the current crisis is mainly shaped by specific methodological and epistemological research characteristics, which are not necessarily universal or inevitable, but rather specific to the Anglophone, in particular U.S., context. Note that this book does not deny the increasing convergence or take-over pressures of U.S.-driven approaches to the social sciences across the world. However, my findings suggest that this process is likely to be more complex and uncertain than convergence advocates generally suggest. Social science research is still embedded in historically shaped path dependencies and these need to be taken into account in reform attempts—this is the focus and message of the book at hand.

Path Dependencies, State Traditions, and the Future of Employment Research A further core purpose of this book is to address how and why different research patterns developed in the three countries at stake and what impact

6

Introduction

they have on the future of the discipline. That is, what do these national differences teach us about the path dependencies of knowledge production? As a first step this book analyses the ‘cultural embeddedness’ of research in more detail. 7 The underlying theoretical assumption, outlined in Chapter 4, is that employment research, as any other social science, is not just determined by its subject matter (e.g. employment institutions and practices) but is socially constructed. The book emphasizes that social science disciplines or fields of study are not universal or determined by an invisible scientific law but shaped by specific socio-historical contexts (Camic and Gross 2001). This challenges the idea of a given naturalness of scientific progress in the social sciences. Thus, this book perceives social sciences as being continuously reinvented by strategic (academic) actors and structural conditions which are influenced by cultural legacies (Olson 1993: 2). In particular, the longitudinal perspective of this book allows us to analyse how pre-existing social, political, and intellectual conditions of the nineteenth century shaped the emergent national traditions of employment research and its academic organization (e.g. interdisciplinary field in the U.S. and Britain vs. multidisciplines in Continental Europe). The trajectories or path dependencies of employment research, which arguably still have an impact on research today, will be discussed on the basis of three different dimensions, substantive, institutional, and ideational: the subject field of academic inquiry (labour movement histories); scientific knowledge institutions (social science traditions); and the underlying intellectual traditions (industrial democracy discourse). Chapter 5 examines the histories of the subject field, which originate in the beginnings of industrialization and democratization during the nineteenth century in each country. It argues that employment research has been shaped by the development of its subject, employment institutions and regulations, and in particular by the different histories of trade unions in each country and their relationship to the state. Chapter 6 explores the broader context of scientific knowledge institutions and social science traditions in the three countries, which originate in the nineteenth century and were shaped by different state policies on higher education and scientific research. These scientific traditions matter, in particular, when seeking explanations for cross-national methodological and epistemological differences in employment studies. Chapter 7 explores the ideational embeddedness of employment research in country-specific intellectual traditions, which developed throughout the 7 Embeddedness is hereby used as a broad term referring to path dependency, thus more in the sense of Polanyi (1944) than Granovetter (1985).

Introduction

7

late eighteenth and nineteenth century. The focus here is placed on the national discourses on political and industrial democracy, thus on the ideational relationship between state, democracy, and economy. It is particularly these discourses that shaped the developing paradigms of employment research. Finally, Chapter 8 summarizes the book’s main empirical findings and theoretical implications. The three-dimensional approach provides a useful starting point to define the various path dependencies of conducting employment research and to help analysing cross-national variations of research characteristics. A core finding is that how research on work and employment was embedded in the political culture of a specific country during the nineteenth century is fundamental to the understanding of long-standing cross-national differences of Employment Relations research. The formation of social sciences during the nineteenth century coincided with transformations of the nation states, which in turn depended on the new discursive understanding of state and society. It makes sense therefore that scientific areas such as Employment Relations, which were closely connected to the advent of market economies and political democracies, became strongly embedded in countryspecific state traditions. My thesis is that employment research in Britain, Germany, and the U.S. can be characterized by their varying degrees of ‘political embeddedness’: research became either concurrent with the attempt to stabilize or improve existing political and social institutions which had an impact on the organization of work, or research sought to accompany and guide political, societal change. These different legacies have, as I shall argue, major implications for the future of the academic field of Employment Relations. This book advocates that the depoliticization of employment research, in particular in Anglophone countries, may be disadvantageous in the long run. Reclaiming a political, thus policy-oriented, notion of the study of work and employment may be a risky but, as I show, potentially necessary strategy for the future of our field.

UNDERLYING AIMS The study attempts to identify the origins of the academic crisis in Employment Relations from a cross-national perspective, analysing underlying causes and suggesting a path for transformation that might help to revitalize the field. It focuses on how employment research is embedded in specific institutional and intellectual traditions, and how state traditions have politicized or depoliticized the field.

8

Introduction

In a broader sense, this book is a sociological attempt seeking to reconstruct the discourse within which social scientists have studied the field of work and employment since the nineteenth century. It contributes to the sociology of knowledge as a specific case study from a comparative perspective, which is underdeveloped in research (see Wagner 1990). My underlying motivation in writing this book is relatively simple. Being educated in Britain, Germany, and Switzerland, working in Britain and the U.S., and married to a U.S.-educated economist (albeit Italian), I have always been exposed to different educational and research cultures, and would like to see the study of work and employment being more fully integrated in a cross-national understanding of research cultures. Thus, I wish to raise awareness of the national cognitive frames of knowledge production, even in such practice-oriented disciplines as Employment Relations. In particular, this might challenge scholarly approaches which take the current U.S. model of employment research as a benchmark to evaluate research in other countries. Instead, I wish to emphasize Karl Mannheim’s famous doctrine ([1929] 1936: 280) in encouraging academics to interrogate the social, cultural, and historical basis of their beliefs in order to avoid misunderstandings and acknowledge different perspectives. Employment Relations needs to broaden its agenda and engage more consciously in a dialogue between different traditions of national research. However, recognizing the national embeddedness of research does not advocate a retreat to national research agendas but in contrast calls for a more international, pluralistic approach to employment research which will allow various research traditions, ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ of the dominant U.S. model to participate in the pursuit of knowledge on a more equal level, independent of their national origins. I would like to point out that I am far from accusing the U.S. or blindly idealizing Europe. The latter has many academic problems on its own. Yet the worrying tendencies in employment research are currently most visible in the U.S., although they are also increasing in Europe. The current crisis in the U.S. might simply be due to the fact that the U.S. is generally much faster and unforgiving in social transformations in general as well as in academia. The U.S. universities are progressive in establishing new fields (gender studies as an example) but are equally fast in closing down academic schools (e.g. the neo-Ricardian school in economics). Finally, by demonstrating the extent to which employment research choices are rooted in history, I have proven that these choices are potentially open

Introduction

9

to re-examination. Employment Relations scholars from the various nations will have had their reasons for choosing their scientific path, but these might have been consistently hemmed in by their historical and cultural intentions (see Ross 1991). On hindsight, we may find that there are opportunities to learn from each other and to choose differently in the future, in particular in the context of the increasing crisis of the academic field of Employment Relations.

2 Employment Research in Crisis INTRODUCTION The industrial revolution and its social consequences in Europe and the U.S. in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries increasingly draw scholars from a variety of emerging social sciences (e.g. law, economics, political science, sociology, and anthropology) to engage in the analysis of the mechanics of capitalism and the social question, in particular the ‘labour problem’, that is, poverty and social unrest related to industrialization (Katznelson 1996). In the U.S. and Britain (and subsequently in other Anglophone regions) an independent field of study of Employment, Industrial or Labour Relations, developed in the early twentieth century. As outlined above, this development did not occur in the rest of the world, in particular not in Continental Europe, where research on work and employment remained multidisciplinary, conducted mainly by sociologists, political scientists, and lawyers. This chapter begins by outlining the various historical developments of employment research in the U.S. and Britain as the two countries with the longest traditions in Employment Relations. Then, the developments in Germany as an example of Continental Europe will be highlighted. Generalizing and classifying national traditions is a problematic task. Research is never homogeneous and there are always alternative lines of research. Note that this chapter does not attempt to achieve a complete coverage of the field of study in each country but merely wishes to outline its main, comparatively distinct features. The second part of the chapter offers a review of the existing literature on the institutional crisis of employment research in Anglophone countries.

INSTITUTIONAL HISTORIES OF EMPLOYMENT RESEARCH

U.S. The first Employment Relations course in the U.S. was created at the University of Wisconsin in 1920. Other universities such as the University

Employment Research in Crisis

11

of Pennsylvania (Wharton Business School, 1921), Princeton (1922), and Harvard (1923) followed. In the same year the National Association of Employment Managers changed its name to the IRAA (Industrial Relations Association of America), which was a forerunner of the current professional association, IRRA/LERA (Labour and Employment Relations Association), founded in 1947. After WWII, Employment Relations became increasingly institutionalized as an independent field of study in various U.S. universities. Employment Relations as an academic field was founded in the U.S. by institutional or political economists such as Richard Ely, Henry Carter Adams, and John Commons (the founder of the Wisconsin School), who were heavily influenced by the German historical school of economics and felt increasingly alienated in their economics departments which in the early twentieth century were turning towards neoclassical paradigms (Hodgson 2001). One might argue therefore that the ‘new political economy’ or institutional economics arose in reaction to the ascendance of the laissez-faire perspective within economics. The institutional economists found in Employment Relations a niche to pursue pragmatic, behaviourist, public policy-oriented research, which took into account institutional constraints in the labour market (Jacoby 1990; Kaufman 1993). Ideally, this perspective focused on the rules and norms underpinning economic activity, viewing institutions of work and employment as embedded within, and largely inseparable from, broader social, economic, and political institutions (Godard 2004: 229). However, these early theorists were not radical progressives, but liberals and conservatives at the same time. They were liberal in their desire for reforming some of the social processes operating in U.S. society and conservative in their desire to preserve the contours of a capitalist system and the parameters of wealth and power therein (deBrizzi 1983: 8). As Commons would have put it, they wanted to preserve capitalism by making it good. It comes as no surprise that when the IRAA was established in 1920 the top positions were taken over by pro-management conservatives. Their publication ‘Personnel’ became dominated by the conservatives and adopted a strident anticommunist tone that spilled over into more general anti-labour sentiments (in particular against militant workers) but continued to remain agnostic on the question of collective bargaining (Kimmel 2000: 197). Moreover, the pioneers of the field in the Anglophone world, Commons in the U.S. and the Webbs in Britain, were heavily engaged in the world of public policy (Hyman 2001b). Employment Relations was therefore developed as a policy-oriented field of research devoted to problem solving (Kaufman 2004: 117). Employment Relations in the U.S. arose as a relatively pragmatic, socially progressive reform movement, ‘occupying a position in the progressive centre to moderate left on issues of politics and economics, and spanning a diverse

12

Employment Research in Crisis

and not entirely consistent range of opinion with liberal business leaders on the more conservative side of the field and moderate socialists on the more radical side’ (Kaufman 2004: 2). The aim was to solve the labour problem without threatening capitalism. As Kaufman (2004: 121) stated, ‘the goals of efficiency, equity and human self-development were mutually served by an active, broad-ranging programme of social and industrial reform.’ In other words Employment Relations sought major change in the legal rights, management, and conditions of labour in industry, but at the same time was conservative and non-Marxist in that it sought to reform the existing social order rather than replace it with a new one. In fact, Marxists were antagonistic to the new field of Employment Relations since it sought to save through reform what they hoped to replace by revolution (Kaufman 1993: 5). At the same time, Human Resource (HR) practitioners (or what was formerly called personnel management) and managerial scholars also grew interested in the wider field of work and employment (Kaufman 1993: 19). As early as 1910 there were studies in the scientific engineering of human capital, as those by Frederick W. Taylor (Principles of Scientific Management 1911). According to Kimmel (2000: 5), by the end of World War I (WWI), however, academic researchers and practitioners in personnel management split into two camps, the ‘reformists’ and ‘managerialists’. The reformists adopted liberal values and continued to support progressive ideas of capitalist reforms, seeing a role for personnel managers in the meditation between workers’ and employers’ interests. ‘They defined their professional task as the regulation of labour relations in the public interest and the oversight of collective dealings between employers and employees’ (Kimmel 2000: 6). These scholars and practitioners would borrow from the theory and methods of the institutional labour economists. They were part of a wider progressive group of policymakers and scholars from different disciplines who came to the joint conviction that modern industries needed reform such as an employment department to promote employee welfare (Commons 1919: 167). The managerialists, on the other side of the spectrum, embraced scientific expertise and objectivity as the defining features of their profession and assumed a harmony between employers and employees (Kimmel 2000). Their task was to discover the source of problems in ‘sick’ companies where workplace relations were not harmonious and to then cure them. They used scientific techniques for ‘adjusting’ workers to industry, drawing mainly on industrial and social psychology. The idea was to improve workplace relations with the help of a special profession, which would apply, amongst others, the new science of psychology to the ‘human factor’ in industry. Over time, the more reform-oriented HR members found themselves increasingly marginalized within the management profession (Shenhav

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2002: 187). The triumph of managerialists meant a sharp split between psychological approaches and political and economic approaches to the study of employment. Managerialists favoured psychological approaches, which were seen as more objective: industrial psychology became very popular during WWI and thereafter and was increasingly regarded as the solution to the labour problem (Shenhav 2002: 183). This shift of the new profession of personnel management away from reform and towards ‘science’ also entailed a move away from a broad treatment of work and employment as involving economic and political as well as psychological and social factors, towards a narrow treatment of employment relations (industrial relations and human resources) as a fundamentally psychological concern (Kimmel 2000: 311). This approach gained dominance during the 1930s and 1940s. In 1922, business leaders even found their own rival organization to promote the field of employment/personnel management. The American Management Association (AMA), as it was named, campaigned vigorously for the open shop and against organized labour. Thus, in the early twentieth century the rising academic field of management increasingly excluded concerns with labour from their industry and personnel studies and pushed reformist scholars who were interested in that area towards the evolving field of Employment Relations (Shenhav 2002: 187). As a consequence, institutional economists interested in employment relations and reformist HR scholars started out with a common interest in pragmatic research leading to solutions of the labour problems. Over time disagreements arose over trade unions and collective bargaining (as one possible regulatory solution) and the two factions eventually split but learnt to coexist and to divide the problem of work and employment between them, with ‘personnel/human resource’ types handling the human element and ‘industrial relations’ experts handling the material and collective aspects of labour relations (Kimmel 2000: 312). For Kaufman (1993: 20), this divide remained a characteristic feature of the field over the following decades. These complicated developments partly explain why today there are two sorts of human resource scholars in the U.S.: the ones in the employment field under the umbrella of LERA and the human resource and organizational behaviour scholars which belong to the Academy of Management. Another indicator may also be the growing divide between business schools and free-standing schools of Employment Relations in the U.S. It comes as no surprise that the broad field of employment was perceived as an interdisciplinary study rather than a distinctive discipline (Kaufman 1993: 12). For example, as the director of the employment (then called industrial relations) section at Princeton J. D. Brown (1926–54) states, Industrial [Employment] Relations should include ‘all factors, conditions, problems and

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policies involved in the employment of human resources in organized production or service’ (quoted in Kaufman 1993: 201). However, interdisciplinarity was in reality pretty narrowly defined. The leading assumption was that the field should investigate a broad terrain by combining economics as well as psychology (see, e.g. the Committee on Industrial Relations in their overview of the field of study in 1926, quoted in Kimmel 2000: 304). Interdisciplinary research did not mean the dynamic interplay of related disciplines such as political science, sociology, or history and their different methodologies and paradigms. Labour economics and social psychology (in the tradition of the Hawthorne experiments) were clearly the leading disciplines in the employment research field in the U.S. After WWII the split between the two economic and psychological groups became larger and the field was increasingly dominated by labour economists and other institutionally oriented scholars interested in collective bargaining (Jacoby 2003; Kaufman 1993). The would-be stable coexistence of human resource and employment relations studies started to disintegrate in the 1970s–80s when the New Deal system of collective labour relations began to break down. Labour economists have since then increasingly dominated the LERA activities and research programmes as well as publications (Kaufman 1993: 193). According to Kaufman (1993: 155) it is no surprise that the past academic presidents of the LERA were all labour economists. Similarly, Mitchell (2001: 375) agrees that employment research in the U.S. was always dominated by labour economic paradigms, and probably now even more than in its heyday from the 1950s to the 1970s. During the 1970s mainstream economics developed towards a sharply focused analytical discipline with a strong methodological consensus centring on model-building and on the statistical–empirical verification of economic hypotheses mainly using mathematical tools (Solow 1997). This also had an impact on labour economics and led to the marginalization of the institutionalists. Thus, labour economics developed from an original institutional focus towards increasingly neoclassical (rational choice) paradigms (Boyer and Smith 2001; Jacoby 1990). Strauss and Feuille (1978: 535) note, if collective bargaining represents employment relations central core, then ‘labour economics has largely divorced itself from that core’. Labour economists are currently primarily interested in micro-level studies such as skill-wage differentials, labour contracts, or training (e.g. the leading Cambridge School in U.S. labour economics) than institutional research. In consequence, institutionalism may have lost its theoretical link to mainstream labour economics (Jacoby 2003). This development can be linked to the declining importance of institutions in the U.S. labour market such as trade unions or collective bargaining. One should note, however, that there is a difference between labour

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economists in economics departments and the labour economists employed in Employment Relations departments or business schools. The latter are usually still slightly more interested in institutions and are generally more empirically oriented than their counterparts in economic departments. 1

Britain At first, British universities were more reluctant than their U.S. counterparts to welcome a new field of social science research: the first university course in Employment Relations appeared when the Nobel-prize economist John Hicks offered a lecture series at the LSE titled ‘economic problems of industrial relations’ in the early 1930s. Only in the 1950s were academic appointments in Employment Relations made, first at the LSE, Manchester, and Oxford. The British counterpart to LERA, BUIRA (British Universities Industrial Relations Association), was established in 1950, twenty-seven years after its American counterpart, and initially only targeted academics hesitating to accept practitioners. This was very different to LERA/IRAA, which in the beginning was composed largely of business people with an interest in human resources (Kaufman 1993: 5). However, scholarly work on employment issues in Britain started much earlier with Beatrice and Sidney Webb, who with their insights into the dynamics of unionism and bargaining wrote the first classics in the field (Industrial Democracy 1897; History of Trade Unionism 1920), which were constantly referred to by later generations of employment scholars. One might state that the Webbs rather than Commons were the true founders of the Anglophone field of Employment Relations (Gospel 2005: 5). G. D. H. Cole, the outstanding Fabian of the post-Webb generation and founder of ‘Labour Studies’ in Oxford (McCarthy 1994: 201), also had a huge influence on the field. Cole’s early ‘memorandum’ advocated public ownership and workers’ control (McCarthy 1994: 202). However, most of these scholars, though politically motivated and interested in transforming the country by reforming the institutions of capitalism, ultimately stayed within the parameters of liberalism similar to their counterparts in the U.S. (Katznelson 1996: 27). In contrast to the U.S., employment as an institutionalized academic field was mainly developed by a heterogeneous group of scholars who founded the so-called ‘Oxford School of Industrial Relations’. The main examples were Fox 1 Recent innovative developments of labour economists affiliated to economics departments such as search matching models (e.g. Burdett and Mortenson 1998; Felli and Harris 1996; Mortenson and Pissarides 1994) have not been introduced in employment labour economics yet.

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and Clegg who studied PPE (Politics, Philosophy, and Economics) in Oxford, and Flanders who did not have an undergraduate degree at all. The field was characterized by ‘a strong current of positivist Fabian social engineering, common sense and Anglophone empiricism’, comparable to the early U.S. research (Ackers and Wilkinson 2003: 8), though it remained more interdisciplinary and kept its institutional and historical approach much longer. Gospel (2005: 3) characterized this approach as mainly focused on the ‘institutions of job regulation’, especially trade unions and collective bargaining. There was no actual split between employment and human resource scholars, such as in the U.S. This was partly owing to the fact that the field was less under the control of institutional economists than in the U.S., and that, at the time, behavioural sciences such as industrial psychology were less developed in British universities. Moreover, the leading paradigm was a pluralistic approach to employment: an acceptance of different interests between labour and capital, and the conviction that conflict could be regulated for the benefit of both parties (positive sum game). This pluralistic perception of the labour market and of industrial unrest became a defining characteristic of the academic field in Britain, more so than in the U.S. It was also more acknowledged in the wider British public. The 1970s saw the rise of a more radical Marxist frame of reference, opposing the pluralist desire of reaching stable employment relations, and instead focusing on class struggle and the subversion of the capitalist system. The radicalization of the 1968 student revolts affected employment scholars and a new generation of academics, in particular sociologists, rejuvenating the personnel of the discipline and adding much needed rigour to its theoretical and methodological approaches (Gall 2003). Prominent examples are Hyman’s Industrial Relations: A Marxist Introduction (1975), or Fox’s later work Beyond Contract: Work, Power and Trust Relations (1974). This Marxist stream was hardly apparent in the U.S. The general absence of Marxist social sciences in the U.S. has been widely documented (see Ross 1991) and British social sciences are commonly perceived as more progressive and ideological than those in the U.S.—but less progressive and more pragmatic compared than those in Continental Europe (Katznelson 1996: 18, 40). The outcome of this Marxist approach were sophisticated ethnographic case studies by industrial sociologists such as Batstone et al. (1977) and studies of the ‘Labour Process’ school (e.g. Chris Smith or Anna Pollert). Yet this radical approach did not last. As Wood (2000: 3) describes, ‘in the 1980s sociology as the key discipline within Employment Relations tended to give way to economics. This partly reflected the advent of neo-liberalism, as well as the past failings of the institutionalists to analyse economic problems such as productivity.’ Ackers and Wilkinson (2003: 12) put it into a political

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perspective: ‘the discipline’s best response to [Thatcher and] the New Right was a sceptical empiricism. Following political defeat, and in the absence of any new ideas, there grew a highly quantitative new empiricism, centred around the Workplace Industrial Relations Surveys (Cully et al. 1998; Millward, Bryson, and Forth 2000), a unique national, longitudinal data set on the state of British workplace relations. Employment Relations spent much of the 1980s and early 1990s counting, measuring, and at times denying, the very obvious dismantling of Clegg’s system of employment relations.’ In a nutshell, British Employment Relations developed a coexistence of qualitative (sociological) and quantitative (econometric) studies, the former being exemplified in Work, Employment and Society, the latter being exemplified in particular in the British Journal of Industrial Relations.

Germany In Germany, employment studies have a long tradition going back to Karl Marx (1818–83) and Max Weber (1864–1920), Lujo Brentano (1844–1931), and Goetz Briefs (1889–1974). During the twentieth century the field became dominated by law and political science but most prominently by sociology, the first university institute specializing in industrial sociology being introduced in 1928 at the Technical University Berlin (Keller 1996; Müller-Jentsch 2001). Despite the fact that the relationship between capital and labour and the emergence of labour institutions had been a topic in German social sciences since the mid-nineteenth century, Employment Relations was not established as an independent academic discipline (Keller 1996: 199). There is no Employment Relations department in any German university. The same holds true for all other countries in Continental Europe. Research on work and employment issues remained the subject of various social science disciplines. A few indicators should suffice to support this observation. First, although there have been increasing attempts in recent years to establish an Employment Relations field in Germany (e.g. the establishment of Industrielle Beziehungen: the German journal of industrial relations) the academic community directly associated with employment studies is still quite small. In 1995, GIRA (German Industrial Relations Association, established in 1970) counted 80 members versus 520 BUIRA members in Britain or 3,850 LERA members in the U.S. Virtually all GIRA members are affiliated with a department of sociology or another social science discipline. Moreover, an overview of Industrielle Beziehungen, the only specialized employment journal in Germany, between 1994 (its founding date) and 2004 revealed that published research has been conducted by scholars with a wide

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array of specializations: industrial sociologists, labour lawyers, political scientists, business administration scholars, and economists. Rarely does anyone call him/herself an Employment Relations scholar. Industrial sociologists are in the clear majority. One should also note that there is hardly any communication between the disciplines. Business administration or law scholars for example are rarely cited in the industrial sociology literature and vice versa (Müller 1999: 468). The field is really multi- rather than interdisciplinary. The individual contributions of diverse disciplines to the research in employment are evaluated in Keller (1996). According to him, political scientists have made occasional contributions to employment analysis (the focus is on unions as associations, ‘Verbände’), though they have never characterized their work in this way (see the overview by Abromeit and Blancke 1987). Economists have traditionally been preoccupied with labour market issues but have failed to integrate the parallel analyses of labour markets and of employment relations. Labour law is extremely influential in Germany because of the strong influence of the law in German employment regulation but has not reached out to integrate broader employment and societal issues (e.g. Hanau and Adomeit 1994; Weiss 1987). 2 Business administration is increasingly involved in employment issues and provides the main context for studies of human resource management and organizational behaviour, yet it rarely discusses these in the context of a broader concept of Employment Relations (Müller 1999). Finally, industrial sociology has made, according to Keller, the most significant contribution to the study of work and employment. Its central focus is core employment issues such as bargaining policies, working time, technical change, and rationalization, and their impact on work organization and social structure, but not labour market issues (Baethge and Overbeck 1986; Kern and Schumann 1984; Schumann et al. 1994). The history of employment research in Germany brings to light the close link with industrial sociology. From its very beginning industrial sociology included a much larger field of topics compared to Anglophone countries. It was closely connected to social philosophy and general sociology and was in fact regarded as the latter’s major sub-discipline (Müller-Jentsch 2001: 222; Schmidt, Braczyk, and Knesebeck 1982). It positioned itself within the broader societal context of industrialization, focusing in particular on the role of organized labour. Max Weber initiated the first systematic sociological research on German industry under the patronage of the ‘Verein fuer Socialpolitik’ (first empirical research on industrial work in large German firms) in the late nineteenth 2 Moreover, law in Germany is regarded as a discipline of the ‘Arts’ (Geisteswissenschaft), not of social sciences.

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century. The famous ‘Verein fuer Socialpolitik’, founded in 1872 by academics of the German historical school, intended to establish social fairness between capital and labour (Müller-Jentsch 2001: 223). Goetz Briefs developed the field of ‘Betriebssoziologie’ (sociology of the firm), later subsumed under ‘Industriesoziologie’ (industrial sociology) which became a major field of research during the 1920s and 1930s (Müller-Jentsch 2001: 222). Another major research project of the ‘Verein’ was launched in the first decade of the twentieth century and took on the selection and adjustment of workers in different segments of German industry (1910–15). According to Müller-Jentsch (2001: 224) this was the beginning of systematic industrial research in Germany. The core question was what kind of men were shaped by modern industry and which job prospects (and indirectly life chances) big enterprises offered them. Weber wrote a long introduction to the research project and outlined various questions to be addressed: social and geographical origins of the workforce; the principles of their selection; the physical and psychological conditions of the work process; job performance; preconditions and prospects of careers; how workers adjusted to factory life; their family situation and leisure time (Müller-Jentsch 2001: 224). Methodology was based on interviews and participant observation in selected companies. Müller-Jentsch (2001) argues that industrial sociology at that time was heavily shaped by the notion of workers’ exploitation and that this was advocated not just by Marxists but also by liberal scholars. Lujo Brentano, for example, was an early liberal economist and antipode of Marx and Engels but believed that ‘trade unions play a constitutional role in capitalist economies since they empower employees to behave like sellers of commodities. Only the unions enable workers to adjust their supply according to market conditions’ (quoted in Müller-Jentsch 2001: 225). After WWII sociology was gradually (re)established as an academic discipline. Industrial sociology quickly became a major focus (Maurer 2004: 7). In the early years after the war sociologists were primarily concerned with the question whether the political democracy introduced by the Allies would settle in Germany. There was a common conviction that democracy did not only concerned institutions but that it also needed a cultural basis in society. According to v. Friedeburg (1997: 26) it was feared that class conflicts would either escalate, endangering the democratization process, or that they would become too weak, endangering the reform potential of the labour movement. It was believed that only self-conscious workers could be a counterweight to the restorative forces in post-war Germany. As a consequence many sociologists focused on exploring worker consciousness and beliefs, that is, traditional employment topics.

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The first explicit project on employment after WWII was conducted by industrial sociologists in the late 1970s at the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt (Bergmann, Jakobi, and Müller-Jentsch 1979). This entailed a large empirical project on trade unions in Germany from a sociological point of view (Müller-Jentsch 1982: 408). In the same year, Employment Relations (Industrielle Arbeitsbeziehungen) was first introduced as an official topic at the German Sociological Congress (Berliner Soziologentag 1979). It is symptomatic that the first German textbook on Employment Relations should have been written by the industrial sociologist, Walther Müller-Jentsch (1986) and called Sociology of Employment Relations.

EMPLOYMENT RESEARCH IN CRISIS This brief historical review has shown that the field developed quite differently in the three countries, despite certain similarities between the U.S. and Britain. In the U.S., labour economics was, from early onwards, the leading discipline in employment research, initially with a strong institutional, policy orientation which was subsequently taken over by a more neoclassical approach to labour markets. In Britain prominent social reformers started the field and hence Employment Relations developed a very pragmatic public policy orientation, which was less influenced by labour economists. Moreover, it received a strong Marxist influence during the 1970s unparalleled in the U.S. The field became more interdisciplinary than its U.S. counterpart and was eventually dominated by scholars who received a degree in Employment Relations. On the other hand, Germany has a long intellectual (Marxist and liberal) tradition of researching employment issues, and has been traditionally dominated by industrial sociologists as well as labour lawyers. Whereas the field in Germany did not establish institutional independence and remained a multidisciplinary exercise, Employment Relations in the U.S. and Britain became an independent academic field. As outlined in Chapter 1, the academic field in the Anglophone world has since its heyday (1950s–60s in the U.S. and 1960s–70s in Britain) increasingly faced a crisis which in recent years has provoked a small, though rather eclectic discussion on its constitution and future, in particular in the U.S. Observers argue that this is not so much the case in Continental Europe and indeed in Germany where employment research is still perceived as a popular topic within the specialized disciplines (Gospel 2005: 7; Hyman 1995). However, a recent debate evolved among German industrial sociologists who perceive a

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growing crisis in their disciplinary status and theoretical assumptions (Kuehl 2004; Maurer 2004). 3 It is not the first time that employment scholars, in particular in the Anglophone world, have questioned their discipline. As Marsden (1982: 232) outlined, its interdisciplinary nature makes the field of employment potentially more prone to having to justify its existence than the more established social sciences. To him, it is no surprise that the field is undergoing sporadic spasms of self-doubt and anxiety as to the nature of its subject matter. In fact, Kaufman (1993: 105) pointed out that already in the 1960s employment scholars in the U.S. felt that their discipline had lost its intellectual bearings and argued over the benefits of interdisciplinarity, the cleavage between theory and practice, or the lack of intellectual cohesion (see also Wood 1978). Yet, arguably, the current crisis and subsequent debate is more than old wine in a new bottle. Whereas the former was an intellectual discourse about paradigms and methodologies while the field experienced a continuous growth of departments and programmes in the 1960s to 1980s (Kaufman 1993: 143), the current situation is characterized by a severe institutional decline, most apparent in the U.S., but also to a lesser degree in Britain and in other Anglophone countries such as Canada, Australia, or New Zealand. The institutional crisis is manifested, as mentioned before, in a declining number of students interested in employment; the elimination, merger, or significant downsizing of Employment Relations departments and programmes; a declining number of publications, grant opportunities, and author affiliations; and a diminishing public interest (Kaufman 1993: xv; also Jarley, Chandler, and Faulk 2001; Katz 1993; Towers 2003). Various well-established U.S. employment programmes have been disbanded (Chicago, Columbia, and recently Madison), or transformed to focus on ‘human resource management’ and have changed names (Georgia State, Loyola Chicago) (see Kaufman 1993: 145). In Britain, a similar development can be diagnosed. The prominent state-funded ‘industrial relations’ research unit at Warwick University was cut off from funding in the early 1990s. And recently the historical ‘Industrial Relations’ department at the LSE changed its name to ‘Employment Relations and Organisational Behaviour’ and merged into a Management department. Most major former employment departments are now part of business schools (e.g. Cardiff, Manchester, Strathclyde, and Warwick). Moreover, due to decreasing student demand curricula and student enrolments shift towards 3 Their argument is that German industrial sociology has not modernized its Marxist assumptions and this has lead to a theoretical vault and an increasing empiricism and mid-level theory making, thus without proper theoretical foundations, which is seen as dangerous.

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human resources and organizational behaviour, which is visible in the U.S. as well as in Britain. Graduate students in employment studies at the LSE and other British universities are increasingly non-European and mainly Chinese or Indian these days (this is not the case in other disciplines such as economics which still draws a large pool of European applicants, at the LSE for example). Ph.D. numbers are dropping dramatically in both countries and mainly consist of foreign (non-Anglophone) students. Membership in the U.S. academic association, IRRA (Industrial Relations Research Association) has fallen (especially among academics), the association has changed its name to Labour and Employment Relations Association (LERA). According to the latest statistics (2006) only roughly 11 per cent of LERA members are below 45 years old. The equivalent British association, BUIRA, has held its membership numbers which is mainly due to administrative changes in higher education such as the transformation of former polytechnics into new universities and the fact that BUIRA is more successful in holding on to its human resource scholars. 4 Finally, Jarley, Chandler, and Faulk (2001) state that the authorship in U.S. journals specializing in Employment Relations is largely casual and that the number of publications by LERA members has declined over the years. They found that only 34 per cent of all articles published in the six major U.S. employment journals over a period of ten years were produced by LERA members. More than half of the frequent contributors do not belong to the LERA and there are also notable differences between LERA members and non-members in the substance of their published research. Not surprisingly LERA members focus more on classic topics such as collective bargaining and unions. Some scholars even propose that the field’s decline is going beyond numbers, showing an erosion in the quality of scholarly work produced (e.g. Kaufman 1992). I will now critically review three factors which in the literature have been diagnosed as the main contributors to the current academic crisis.

ANGLOPHONE EMPLOYMENT RESEARCH: THREE CRITICAL DEBATES The literature on the current situation of employment research in the Anglophone countries commonly refers to three major problem areas. The first is related to the external environment, thus structural changes in the subject 4

Private communication with Edmund Heery, former BUIRA president.

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matter of employment relations. The other two are concerned with internal research characteristics, in particular the interdisciplinary status of the field and its ‘industrial relations’–‘human resource management’ controversy, and methodological and theoretical deficiencies. Most of the current discussions are confined to the U.S. representing the biggest academic market in the field (Strauss and Whitfield 1998: 7).

Structural Changes in Employment Relations Structural changes or transformations in employment institutions and regulations started to occur during the last two decades, such as the worldwide decline of trade unions and collective bargaining. Since these traditional features have been a core interest for employment scholars, they are commonly regarded as a major reason for the academic crisis in Employment Relations. There is a growing concern that the labour movement has reached a historical turning point (Frege and Kelly 2004). Towers (2003: xiii), for example, writes that ‘the trade union decline and growing employer power corresponds with the decline in the academic study and standing of Employment Relations. Some of its subject matter has either receded or entirely disappeared.’ Delaney and Schwochau (1995) state that ‘just as unions have been marginalized, so have those who study them’. Hyman (1995: 17) describes the employment literature of the past decade as replete with references to crisis and change, transformation, and transition of employment institutions and practices. Naturally this is being reflected in Employment Relations as an academic field and Hyman sees the field in disarray and observes that in many academic circles its idea is passé. Finally, one might add that the notion of ‘class’ as the major societal cleavage in a postmodern world has been widely surpassed by race, ethnic, religious, or gender diversities. As a consequence, the public and academic interest in employment relations is vanishing. Note that there are some more optimistic views arguing that the traditional core field of employment, unions and collective bargaining, has not completely vanished. Towers (2003: xvi) for example, despite observing structural changes, remains optimistic: ‘while employment relations are clearly changing, some sub-units of the discipline grow such as international and comparative industrial relations, and there will always be much to occupy students who do not choose to work solely within a managerial agenda’. But these views are a minority in the current debate. The large majority of studies propose that the traditional dependence of employment research on unions and collective bargaining is a real issue of concern.

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Industrial Relations or Human Resource Management? Related to the question whether research adapts to external realities and discovers new areas of work and employment is the relationship between the more narrowly defined areas of ‘industrial relations’ and ‘human resource management’, and to what extent they can coexist. Remember that I have used ‘Employment Relations’ as an encompassing term including industrial relations, defined as the study of employment institutions and regulations, and human resources, defined as the study of management of personnel at workplace level. As we have seen above there has been an uneasy relationship between the two areas which characterized the field in the U.S. since its very beginning. The literature is split on this subject and there are two main contradictory views. On the one hand, some scholars argue that human resource management has vanished and industrial relations are taking over the entire field (e.g. Kaufman 1993). This split apparently started already in the 1950s–60s. As an example, Kaufman (1993: 92) highlights the diminishing number of LERA members, who are affiliated to the behavioural sciences (which to him defines human resource scholars) over the two decades. These counted for only 15 per cent in 1990 (with the majority being in human resources and organizational behaviour, only a handful in sociology or psychology). Kaufman concludes therefore that the employment field has an increasingly narrow outlook on unions and collective bargaining and argues that this development decreased the influence of behavioural sciences, which had, according to him, an important role in Employment Relations in former times. At the same time labour economics, which Kaufman identifies as the core of industrial relations, has increased its dominance over the field. Other scholars agree with this interpretation of the past but diagnose a new trend suggesting that since the 1990s human resource management is on its way to overtake employment research in the U.S., and thus will turn Employment Relations into a sub-field of human resource management. Godard and Delaney (2000), for example, point to its increasing institutional reality: most academic job offers in Britain or the U.S. are now made in the area of human resource management rather than industrial relations. Other examples are that the prospects of tenure in U.S. business schools are increasingly lower for industrial relations than for human resource scholars or that most top employment journals (such as the British Journal of Industrial Relations or Industrial Relations) are not regarded as AA ‘tenure’ publications in top U.S. business schools. More specifically, the controversy between industrial relations and human resource management is also discussed in terms of their research ‘ideologies’. On the one hand, it is argued that the traditional ‘antagonistic’ ideology

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(‘them–us’ attitude) is still dominating the field and needs to be overcome. On the other hand, others find that the human resources ‘employer-friendly, cooperative’ ideology has already taken over the field, this being interpreted as a negative development. Finally, some scholars take a middle position and argue that both fields do not need to be ideologically distant and can coexist. (i) Scholars, who essentially favour a subordination of industrial relations into a broadly defined field of human resource management argue for a redefinition of Employment Relations which abandons the ideology of recognizing divergent interests between employees and employers, which to them is outdated. A major protagonist of this view is Kaufman (2001), who proposes that the employment field should incorporate human resource management in order to survive. He states (1993: 135) that ‘the ideological character of Employment Relations has gradually but perceptibly changed from broad-based, middle-of-the-road progressivism to a more narrow, liberalleaning, prounion perspective’. Therefore, as he argues at another place (2001: abstract), ‘the Employment Relations ideology is too narrow and restrictive on positive and normative grounds and has the dual effect of anchoring the field to institutions and values broadly associated with trade unionism while downgrading study and advocacy of non-union employers and the theory/practice of human resource management’. Kaufman (2001: 3) wishes to erode this old-fashioned ideology, which to him entails ‘the centrality of conflict of interest to the employment relationship, the importance of balancing power between management and employees, and the desirability of mechanisms for independent worker voice and representation’. Thus, he advocates (p. 28) ‘to replace ideological preferences for collective bargaining and prejudices against management with an open-ended, inclusive commitment to progressive employment relations from whatever source’. Kaufman justifies his proposition historically by arguing that the original employment paradigm, established by John Commons in the 1920s, included a ‘unity of interest’ strategy to improve employment and employers’ solution of human resources. According to Kaufman (1993: 112), Commons encouraged both the development of collective bargaining as well as that of progressive human resource management, in both union and non-union work situations. This was subsequently, since the 1950s, narrowed to a field focusing mainly on unions and collective bargaining. (ii) In contrast, Godard and Delaney (2000) argue that in the U.S. a new ideology developed based on a managerial perspective on high performance and human resources practices. This perspective is essentially a unitarist approach viewing managers as the primary actors in the employment relationship and seeing the adoption of appropriate management practices as a

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means of producing gains for both sides (Godard and Delaney 2000: 485). It challenges the traditional ideology of Employment Relations, which to them is the recognition of divergent interests between employers and employees and the conviction that the labour–management relationship is at least partly distributive (Godard and Delaney 2000: 497). It seems somewhat paradoxical that while management studies in the early twentieth century in the U.S. have pushed labour and employment out of their academic domain (Shenhav 2002), now Employment Relations seems to re-enter management studies through its human resources approach. Godard and Delaney (2000: 496) conclude that the new human resource ideology risks undermining the distinctive character of employment theory and research by underplaying the role of conflict in labour–management relations and by placing much less emphasis on labour institutions designed to provide workers with basic democratic rights and protection in a market economy. In contrast to Kaufman, who observes that the Employment Relations ideology has become too pluralistic and too antagonistic, Godard and Delaney diagnose the exact opposite. Thus, both sides acknowledge the same changes but interpret them very differently. Finally, Godard (1989: 31) criticizes the fact that not only has human resource management taken over the ideology of the field, but also that the traditional mainstream orthodox pluralistic perspective on employment (with its focus on collective bargaining) in itself has failed—for not being radical or critical enough. In essence, he argues that the original pluralist conception of organizations and the belief that unions enable workers to confront management as equals ignores the limited role and scope of collective bargaining and the legally authoritarian nature of work organizations as systems of superordination and subordination. In a similar vein, Marsden (1982: 235) argues in favour of transcending employment research into a ‘sociology of law’ since the subject of employment should not be employment ‘relations’ but the objectified ideologies or laws which govern employment practices. For him collective bargaining is inherently a political process and its main function is to define the content of the rules and regulations at work, thus the enforcement of particular ideologies (or interests) existing at workplaces. Ideology is converted into law by those with the power to do so (p. 247). In other words, Marsden argues for a radical (Marxist) approach to employment, looking at the power relations within the political economy. Similarly, Kelly (1998: 4) criticizes the increasingly managerialist or unitarist vision of Employment Relations and its main upspring, human resource management, and asks to focus on interests and power, and conflict in the employment relationship, thus reintroducing a Marxist perspective to the field.

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(iii) A middle position is taken by Kochan (2000), who is less pessimistic and argues instead that the field needs to broaden itself to incorporate human resource topics, thus ‘go where the action is or risk further decline and displacement by human resource management’ (quoted in Kaufman 2001: 3). Kochan proposes that employment scholars should pursue human resource topics without compromising their ideology and should overcome the ideological dualism between the two fields. Thus, similarly to Kaufman, he argues that Employment Relations only has a chance if it reintegrates human resource topics but this does not require conforming to a managerialist ideology. Similar arguments have been expressed in the British context where, as mentioned before, human resource management was never as ideologically distant from industrial relations as in the U.S. Quite the contrary, Britain has a strong critical human resource research tradition (David Guest, Karen Legge among others) and never had the same degree of ideological battles as experienced in the U.S., where personnel/human resource management already emerged as an independent field in the early twentieth century and developed independently from Employment Relations within the rising business schools (Kimmel 2000). As Godard and Delaney (2000: 493) rightly observe, most British academics view human resource management as a new management ideology rather than a separate academic field of study. In contrast to U.S. scholars, British researchers have expressed considerable concern over what the new personnel practices entail and how they really differ from the ‘old’ ones (Guest 1987; Storey 1995). As a consequence, various British employment scholars have argued that the threats posed to employment academics from human resource management have been exaggerated (e.g. Ackers and Wilkinson 2003: 16). The different Anglophone research approaches are also reflected in the institutional settings. In many U.S. schools, such as Cornell or Rutgers, the human resource/organizational behaviour scholars and the industrial relations scholars have little contact. British departments on the other hand usually combine both areas. It is common to offer joint graduate degrees, such as the M.Sc. ‘International Employment Relations and Human Resource Management’ at the LSE. Also, leading employment scholars in Britain took over human resource posts and key positions of influence, such as journal editorships and positions on the RAE panel (government-led research assessment of universities) (Ackers and Wilkinson 2003: 16). However, it is undeniable that in Britain too, student demand has shifted towards human resource management and that human resource scholars are increasingly obtaining prominent positions in British Employment Relations departments. It may just be a question of time until British practice catches up with the U.S.

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Methodological and Theoretical Deficiencies of Employment Research A final stream of discussion focuses on potential methodological and theoretical deficiencies of current employment research. The problem is not so much the disappearance of the subject matter and whether Employment Relations should incorporate human resource topics, but how exactly to intellectually come to terms with these challenges. For example, Ackers and Wilkinson (2003: 3) insist that ‘there is little sign, as yet, of a concerted disciplinary effort [in employment] to grapple with the new changes surrounding the contemporary employment relationship (especially the shift from male unionized manufacturing to female, non-union services)’. Moreover, the criticism refers to the heavy reliance on labour economics and the (subsequent) narrowing of methodologies, the lack of real interdisciplinarity, as well as the growing anti-intellectual, a-theoretical, empiricist nature of employment research. The interdisciplinarity of the field is seen as one of the defining characteristics of Anglophone employment research (see Kochan 1998) and was always recognized as a major advantage of the field. Interdisciplinarity is widely regarded as a major beneficial characteristic of a scientific field and as enhancing innovative research productivity (Dogan and Pahre 1990). Doubts are raised to what extent Employment Relations is really practised as an interdisciplinary field. Lewin and Feuille (1983: 357) already concluded in the early 1980s that ‘in reality little employment research is truly interdisciplinary, for specialists in particular disciplines rarely combine research forces with specialists in other disciplines’. Marshall (1998: 355–6) complains about the lack of a unified theoretical core. He argues that Employment Relations despite its long history of academic investigation has failed to produce a single disciplinary core theory in describing and explaining employment behaviour. ‘Sociologists, historians, psychologists, lawyers and others continue to make contributions, often with scant regard for each other.’ The argument that the field has not developed a core disciplinary theory is a well-known criticism on the lacking communication between the disciplines but also on how the field is lacking in interdisciplinarity. Some scholars also criticize the empiricist character of the field. For example, Marsden (1982: 235) argues that employment research has been atheoretical from its very beginning in the early twentieth century and has been trapped within the confines of empiricist epistemology since then. Thus, what Dunlop described in 1958 as a field consisting of little more than a ‘mountain of facts’ that seemed to be at a virtual dead end, has according to Marsden not changed much since then. Mitchell (2001: 387) also criticizes Employment

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Relations as being too descriptive and warns that a standard employment journal article is likely to be a highly statistical exercise, often within the labour economics paradigm, which creates a tendency for employment research to become ingrown. As a consequence, employment research today is more uniform than it once was and less interesting to non-specialists, and employment articles are not likely to make for ‘gripping bedtime reading’. Hyman (2001b) complains that the few discordant voices among employment scholars which provide innovative approaches, such as Giles and Murray’s emphasis (1989) on employment relations as critical political economy or Kelly’s mobilization theory (1998), only have a limited impact on the Anglophone orthodoxy and that alternative concepts of the world of work have been developed outside the boundaries of Employment Relations. He blames the empiricist, a-theoretical, pluralistic tradition of Anglophone Employment Relations. Kaufman (1993: 151) also criticizes that much of employment research is narrowly focused on exploring the details of current strategies and behaviour of employment actors while excluding bigger questions such as, for example, the appropriateness of the U.S. labour law or the competitiveness of U.S. employment practices. Moreover, he (Kaufman 1993: 151) criticizes that U.S. scholars regularly fail to acknowledge work from overseas. More specifically, Capelli (1985) finds that the much-used deductive nomological theory is not appropriate for the study of many employment phenomena, primarily because it requires individual-level analysis. Capelli advocates more group-level, inductive, and qualitative research. He argues (pp. 108–9) that U.S. research has undergone ‘a transformation of methodology’ towards the deductive and become more focused on the individual. He contended that this has ‘contributed to the decline of Employment Relations as a separate field and to less accurate explanation of employment behaviours’. Similarly, Godard (1989: 2) states that during the 1970s a ‘new generation’ of employment scholars has emerged in the U.S., which has subscribed to an empiricist philosophy of science and advocated the superiority of quantitative research and deductive theory construction. He continues that mainstream employment scholars have failed to generate much by way of deductive theory in the meantime, with most of their research remaining a-theoretical, and that they have been preoccupied with empirical phenomena, while failing to address more fundamental debates and problems in employment research. Godard argues that empiricist research is ultimately conservative with its acceptance of the status quo and its general assumption that a primary purpose of employment research should be to resolve policy issues (see also Ross 1991: 390). 5 5 This view is contrasted by Kaufman’s observation (1993: 128 ff.) that the field has increasingly turned away from its traditional pragmatic policy-oriented emphasis towards science building. This has, according to him, a detrimental effect on its interdisciplinary

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Employment Research in Crisis CONCLUSION

This chapter presented a brief introduction to the historical developments of employment research in the U.S., Britain, and Germany. How to explain the apparent Anglophone exceptionalism in the academic institutionalization of the study of work and employment will be part of the discussion of this book. The literature review summarized the current critique of Anglophone employment research, and revealed three potential problem areas, which supposedly challenge countries to different degrees: the changes of the subject matter (employment institutions); the potential dichotomy between industrial relations and human resource management; and their ideological, methodological, and theoretical deficiencies. First, in terms of the structural transformation of work and employment (e.g. the decline of unions) the question is to what extent academic research has adopted to the changing environment. Although there is agreement that the subject of employment has changed considerably over the last two decades the views are divided as to what extent and how this has triggered adequate changes in the academic field such as new areas of interest. A large part of the literature (e.g. Kaufman 1993) argues that employment research has not adapted and is still mainly concerned with unions and collective bargaining. Others have proposed that research in the U.S. has indeed adapted and shifted towards non-unionized workplaces and human resource topics (e.g. Godard and Delaney 2000). In sum, the literature is split and empirical data are needed to analyse the extent of change across countries. Second, the debate on the relationship between the human resource management and industrial relations research streams and their ideologies comprises alternative interpretations of reality (shift towards human resources or towards industrial relations) and disagreements on what is necessary for the survival of the field. Note that there are competing views on whether Employment Relations is taking over the field of human resource management, which should be empirically tested. The survey of journal publications of Chapter 3 should give us an indication of the increasing or decreasing popularity of human resource management or industrial relations topics. character. Thus, in contrast to scholars who criticize the absence of theory building, Kaufman critically observes its growth. He states that the increasing drive towards science building and theorizing in the social sciences since the late 1970s pushed the employment field back into the mainstream disciplines and away from interdisciplinary work. It remains unclear, however, why a stronger focus on theory should necessarily diminish interdisciplinarity rather than enhancing disciplinary collaboration. Usually, interdisciplinary cooperation is regarded as supporting scientific theory building. Moreover, Kaufman does not provide sufficient evidence that there has been a significant push away from policymaking towards more theory. It contradicts observations of other scholars as outlined above.

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Moreover, the discussion on human resources and industrial relations ideologies has a vague resemblance with the heated ‘class’ debates in the social sciences during the 1960s and 1970s. The focus of debate seems to be whether the field should become more ‘pro-union’ or ‘pro-management’. However, substituting a labour ideology with a managerial ideology or vice versa seems equally short-sighted and surely does not overcome the potentially vicious circle of traditional Anglophone them-and-us ideologies. What seems more sensible is to discuss the underlying research paradigms in each country. It may be that from a cross-country perspective the differences between an industrial relations and human resource approach in an Anglophone context do not appear as striking, and could, as Kochan and others suggested, easily coexist. Thus, one might argue that in an Anglophone context both groups of scholars, who are either close to the human resources or to the industrial relations stream, essentially use the same underlying approach of employment relations which differs from other countries. This approach could be defined as understanding employment relations as a primary outcome of the labour market, shaped by the relations of the two labour market actors, employers, and unions or employees. How this relationship looks like is what the two sides disagree on. But from a cross-country perspective, they share a common labour market outlook and this can be contrasted with a more socio-political perspective on employment traditionally pursued in Continental Europe. Finally, with regard to methodological and theoretical deficiencies most critics conclude that employment research has become too empiricist (atheoretical), quantitative, econometric, and less interdisciplinary. Many see a turning point in the late 1970s, which stipulated a growing quantification in all major social science disciplines especially in the U.S. but also in Europe. I would argue, however, that the increasing quantification of the 1970s cannot be completely blamed for the current problems of the field. It is only applaudable that employment research opened itself to the use of advanced statistical methods. What seems problematic is not the growth in sophisticated quantitative research methods but the parallel decline of qualitative, historical, and theoretical studies. To what extent and why countries may have experienced this trend or were able to preserve alternative methodologies is a question for a comparative analysis. We have already discussed differences between Britain and the U.S. One hypothesis of this book is that empiricism has more to do with broader country-specific social science traditions than with the particularities of employment research. Ross (1991), for example, traces the bias towards empiricism and scientism in U.S. social sciences back to the early twentieth century and links it with the ideological development of American exceptionalism at that time. Although there is no denial of a significant paradigm shift in

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the social science disciplines during the 1970s towards a stronger econometric, quantitative, empiricist methodology, the major causes of the current crisis in Anglophone countries may be deep-rooted, not just a recent phenomenon of the post-war period. To conclude, the literature, so far, has listed a variety of criticisms on the current academic practice in Anglophone Employment Relations. Moreover, there have been proposals of certain, sometimes contradictory remedies such as reforming the relationship between human resource and industrial relations streams and/or reinventing the traditions of 1920s’ institutional economics by John Commons and his followers. There is disagreement among scholars in the analysis of the academic crisis, its causes and potential remedies. For example, in the U.S. many have argued that the traditional institutional economic approach by Ely and Commons, which marked the early years of employment research and was subsequently taken over by neoclassical economics (Boyer and Smith 2001; Jacoby 1990), should be reclaimed. However, ‘going back to the roots’ is interpreted differently among scholars. For some critics, asking for a return to the origins of Employment Relations means to reinvent a historical, qualitative, and institutional approach which includes a concern about power relations at work. For other scholars, such as Kaufman, it means a reintegration of human resource management within employment research. These suggestions may not necessarily be exclusive of each other. Overall, there are interesting and important ideas how to tackle the institutional decline of employment research. However, the existing literature does not provide an indication of how likely and successful a reform of the academic field would be if it adopted the suggested remedies. This is due, to a large extent, to the existing literature’s primary focus on the symptoms of the problems rather than on underlying conditions. Generally speaking, the literature, so far, has made little effort in discussing the academic crisis as a holistic sociological phenomenon arising in a particular historical context. In other words, the sociological peculiarities of Employment Relations as a ‘scientific field’ or ‘knowledge production system’ (Bourdieu 1975) and their connections to its national environment have been largely ignored in favour of specific epistemological, or managerial criticisms. These may not be sufficient to explore the underlying factors why employment research developed differently in different countries and what its implications are. This book attempts to broaden and deepen this debate by conceptualizing the employment field as one knowledge production system among many that claim to be scientific as one which developed in a particular historical environment and created specifically national research traditions that continue to affect its organization and operation.

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By comparing the two Anglophone countries with Germany, the book explores why employment research developed differently in various countries, not just in terms of a distinctive academic field of Employment Relations versus a multidisciplinary treatment, but more importantly, also in terms of different research traditions (research theories, methods, and paradigms). This allows us to explain to what extent the outlined problems are unique for the U.S. and/or Britain and whether they also exist in Continental Europe/Germany. In fact, as the comparison with Germany will reveal in Chapter 3, what the critics of U.S. employment research propose as an alternative research scenario has strong resemblances with the mainstream research patterns in Continental Europe, thus qualitative, inductive, theoretical research with more emphasis on sociological than labour economic paradigms. Only by acknowledging and exploring different research styles across countries and their embeddedness in different country-specific institutional and intellectual traditions, can one analyse the sources of the current academic crisis and its potential to transform. In other words, we need to explore the past to understand the prospects and likelihood of reform and paradigm shifts. But before delving into the past, Chapter 3 first empirically explores and compares the existing research outcomes in the three countries.

3 Varieties of Employment Research INTRODUCTION This chapter explores the research patterns, or knowledge production systems, that exist in U.S., British, and German employment research. Knowledge production systems are broadly defined as forming the structure of the intellectual fields of the social sciences (Wagner and Wittrock 1991a: 6), that is, they determine how knowledge is defined, produced, and sustained, including organizational (e.g. interdisciplinary vs. multidisciplinary) as well as substantive (e.g. methodologies, theories, and paradigms) characteristics. Arguably, they are ‘systems’ in a Luhmannian sense in that they share a specific inner logic which holds the system together and which differentiates them from other systems. In other words, beneath every scientific discipline sits a set of assumptions about the principles and methods that organize its practice (Levine 1995: 295). As Bourdieu (1975) has stated, these knowledge systems are the result of previous intellectual struggles which are usually objectified in national institutions and dispositions and which command the strategies and objective chances of various scientific agents and institutions in the present struggles. As outlined in Chapter 2, exploring the inner logic of knowledge production systems and thus the path dependencies of research patterns is a prerequisite of understanding the likelihood of academic transformation. This chapter analyses the extent to which the knowledge production systems in employment differ across the three countries. For example, how do researchers formulate questions, structure discourse, and how do they evaluate arguments and evidence in each country? And are they subject to change over time? An underlying broader question is whether knowledge production systems are still nationally embedded or whether they have converged in recent decades to a universal knowledge system in Employment Relations. There is evidence of increasing pressure to internationalize social sciences in recent decades and the question is whether this induces national research patterns to converge. Similar discussions have evolved in other social sciences such as political science (e.g. Schmitter 1999) or law (e.g. Garland 2000; Nelken 2003).

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Thus, on the one hand, the ongoing globalization of the economy and employment should have an impact on the way work and employment is being studied, which historically has been embedded in the notion of the nation state and national employment regulations. On the other hand, there is evidence of an intensifying internationalization of academic research activities. There are an increasing number of joint publications by authors of different national contexts, joint international funding, international conferences, cross-citations, sabbaticals abroad, and an increase in younger graduate students obtaining at least part of their education abroad or of academics being employed at some point in their career in another country. For example, roughly 95 per cent of the current graduate students in Employment Relations at the LSE are non-British. Moreover, national funding institutions are increasingly fostering international research collaboration. Comparative and international courses are part of most Employment Relations curricula these days. There have also been efforts to create European Master’s and Ph.D. degrees through joint collaboration of European universities. Finally, new Employment Relations journals have been launched, aiming at supranational issues such as the European Journal of Industrial Relations or Transfer. And the British Journal of Industrial Relations recently changed its subtitle to ‘BJIR— an international journal of employment relations’ in order to attract international authors and topics. These developments pose the question whether and in what ways employment research will be affected by these trends. At first sight, one would predict that Employment Relations as a social science would be isomorphic with the evolution of its subject matter, as has already been discussed in Chapter 2. The practice of employment will lead the way for its academic field. Thus, if employment institutions and regulations become globalized, so will, eventually, its study. At a deeper level, the question emerges whether the way we conduct research and think about it, thus our research pattern or style— defined as research topics, methodologies, and theories—is changing as well. What speaks against a convergence is a possible continuing embeddedness of the social sciences, and thus of employment research, in their national context. In other words, Employment Relations may still be embedded in specific cultural or national traditions.

METHODOLOGY The study is based on a longitudinal, comparative data-set, the first of its kind, of employment journal publications in Britain and the U.S. as the two Anglophone countries, and in Germany as an example of Continental Europe.

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In order to explore the possible variation between national research patterns I conducted a comparative content analysis of articles published in the most prominent journals of the three countries. I analysed the two U.S. journals historically associated with Employment Relations: Industrial and Labor Relations Review (ILRR) and Industrial Relations (IndR) and left out journals which are more specific in their outlet (e.g. Comparative Labor Law and Policy Journal, Journal of Labor Research, or Labor History). A similar distinction was made by Mitchell’s study of U.S. journals (2001: 378). In Britain, the British Journal of Industrial Relations (BJIR) and the Industrial Relations Journal (IRJ) were analysed as the two traditional journals while excluding the more specialized European Journal of Industrial Relations. 1 In Germany, Employment Relations as an independent field is not well established and hence there is only one specialized journal, Industrielle Beziehungen (IB), which was launched in 1994. 2 Note that this study excludes specialized human resource management journals in all three countries. 3 Focusing on journal publications has potential drawbacks. The problem concerns comparability and comprehensiveness. A first objection may be that limiting the study to the top journals narrows the focus to the dominant discourse of the employment field. Thus, employment scholars are characterized in this study as a narrowly defined academic group which publishes in these journals, while excluding the wider community of the field (see a similar definition in Mitchell 2001 or Whitfield and Strauss 2000). I am fully aware that there may be alternative discourses which are being neglected in all three countries. It has been argued, for example, that Labor Studies publications in the U.S. are usually more radical than the mainstream employment field; however, they are also less academic. Some critics may argue that by excluding the sociological journal Work, Employment and Society I am neglecting the more radical labour process debates in Britain. I also excluded the scholarly 1 The EJIR was launched in 1996, making a comparative analysis over time difficult, but more importantly, its explicit claim to publish cross-national European research makes it a more specialized outlet. Including the EJIR would have biased the British sample by increasing its share of international, comparative work. Exploring cross-country differences between the traditional, mainstream journals is therefore a more reliable test of national research patterns. 2 There are a few other publications which deal with employment but have a broader agenda. For example, WSI-Mitteilungen (founded in 1947 as the journal of the research institute of the union confederation, DGB). It has a broad interest in macro-economic analysis, wage and income distribution politics, and social politics. SOFI-Mitteilungen publishes working papers of the SOFI, a prestigious institute of industrial sociology in Germany, founded in 1970. Finally, Gewerkschaftliche Monatshefte and Mitbestimmung are DGB-sponsored journals for a wider intellectual and unionist audience. 3 Mainly because there exists no journal in Germany equivalent to the Anglophone human resource management journals (except the Zeitschrift fuer Personalforschung: German journal of human resource research, which was only established in 1987).

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works of neighbour disciplines, for example by political scientists, sociologists, labour economists, or labour historians, which deal with specific employment issues. There is a popular perception that if one compares publications beyond the core U.S. journals and explores research by political scientists or sociologists, the differences to Europe might be less severe. However, including such journals in all three countries would have gone well beyond the scope of this study. But more importantly, my hypothesis is that including, for example, industrial sociology or human resource management journals would not have significantly changed the comparative results of this study. There is ample evidence from mainstream social sciences revealing enduring cross-national research differences (e.g. Levine 1995 for sociology; Smith 2000 for international relations; or a special issue of the Comparative Labor Law and Policy Journal 2002, 23(3) for labour law). More importantly, I conducted a small-scale study of publications in industrial sociology during the 1980s and 1990s and found strong cross-national differences between the U.S. and Britain (Work and Occupations and Work, Employment and Society) even for this very narrow sub-discipline and between two countries which share a lot of common scientific characteristics. 4 This all adds to my assumption that the exclusion of these journals should not have an impact on the validity of this study. Second, critics may argue that there is a growing number of international scholars and international research collaboration which increasingly mark the field of employment research. These projects include authors from different countries and are harder to classify as specifically national studies, since they are international in terms of their topic treatment and authorship. I do not categorically ignore this literature as long as it is published in the mainstream journals. However, in many cases such projects are published in edited book collections and are thus neglected in my survey. Note, however, that not all international research projects use ‘converged’, universal theories, and methodologies. Mostly, these books analyse a particular topic on the basis of country comparisons but from a firm theoretical and methodological standpoint given by the editors. I avoided examining book publications mainly because cross-country book comparisons would inevitably have involved some kind of subjective 4 I conducted a small-scale survey of the two top industrial sociological journals in the U.S. and Britain (no specialized journal exists in Germany): Work and Occupations and Work, Employment and Society (launched in 1987) during 1987–9 and 1999–2001 (N = 283). Data on request from the author. There was convincing evidence of significant country differences of research patterns over both time periods which supports my argument and justifies the focus on employment relations publications (e.g. the WO was more quantitative than WES; WES comprised a broader spectrum of authors from various disciplines, whereas WO was monopolized by sociologists).

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judgement 5 on which books are most important. I, therefore, opted for a more ‘objective’ journal route. One could criticize that the omission of book publications does not do justice to these authors and may not provide an accurate picture of the field, but these comparative/international publications still only have a small share of the entire book market (e.g. in February 2006 the website of Oxford University Press in the U.S. showed twenty-three publications for 2004–6 in ‘sociology’ out of which two dealt with an international topic; and the British website of Cambridge University Press comprised seventeen publications in ‘business and management’ for 2006, out of which two treated international topics). Finally, critics may argue that the German journal, IB, is not representative of German scholarly work on employment relations. It is true that most German employment scholars (as most German social scientists) publish in working papers, grant reports, conference papers, ‘Festschriften’, 6 and books, and rarely in journals such as the IB or a more specific disciplinary journal. Thus, the majority of publications are not only hard to assemble but could also not be compared to refereed Anglophone articles. An alternative approach would be to examine the main book publications in each country. However, this would probably not have changed the German findings compared to the U.S. and Britain. German scholars do not publish significantly more books than their counterparts in the U.S. or Britain. Most observers will also agree that the differences in research style between articles and books are similar across countries (see Mitchell 2001: 389 for the U.S.). Finally, and most importantly, one can argue that IB provides a critical case study. It has a profound international image and is likely to be most open to Anglophone research compared to other German outlets (it includes a British academic on its editorial board and also publishes English-written articles). Thus, if one finds national-specific research patterns here, one is likely to find them in other German publications as well. Using the IB may not provide a fully comprehensive picture of German research but a sufficient one for the purpose of this study. The content analysis of the five employment journals comprised two time periods: 1970–3 and 1994–2000 (IB could only be analysed for the second time period). 7 The time gap between both periods should grant a complete change 5 Quotation indexes are not reliable in a comparative context because virtually all ‘international’ indexes such as the ‘ISI index’ are U.S. biased, excluding many foreign journals and also book publications. 6 See the latest one on Wolfgang Streeck’s sixtieth birthday, 2006, Campus Verlag. 7 The ILRR goes back to the late 1940s, the IndR started in the early 1960s as did the BJIR. The IRJ only started in 1970 and this is why I used this date as the starting year for my analysis. The underlying idea was to use time periods in which most journals could be compared. The IB was founded in 1994 and this was chosen as the starting year for the second time period. The

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in generations of scholars and thus allow us to depict long-term trends in the literature (see Mitchell 2001: 379 for a similar argument). I would also suggest (on the basis of ‘participant observation’ as an editor of the BJIR) that recent publications in the sampled journals from after 2000 continue to be very similar to the research patterns of the observed 1990s. In order to compare the two periods, two dummy variables, 1990s and 1970s, were created. It was assumed that there is a linear trend of research development between the two periods. The sample contains 1,309 articles, 390 from the 1970s and 919 from the 1990s (of which 666 are U.S. articles, 552 British, and 91 German).

Characterizing Research Patterns The knowledge systems or research patterns were explored by focusing on institutional characteristics, the research subject, as well as methodological and epistemological patterns. I started by asking for authors’ professional affiliation, research topics, and research methodology. Thus, the driving questions are: which professions are dominant (e.g. how interdisciplinary are the journals?); how specifically national are the research topics; how much are they based on industrial relations or human resource approaches; how much do they include new, innovative topics; and finally how much variation do we find with regard to the methodologies used, is there for example a universal trend towards more quantitative methods, as has been suggested for the U.S. (see Chapter 2)? In addition, I asked for the national affiliation of authors in order to get some indication of how international the authorship of each journal is. Finally, I included an epistemological category research theories, purpose, and paradigms. This category comprises deeper-seated, often implicit assumptions on the definition of employment relations, the underlying research paradigms, their theoretical basis and purpose of research. How specifically national are these underlying assumptions? And have they changed or converged over time? Similar characterizations of scientific knowledge systems have been conducted elsewhere. For example, Levine (1995: 271) declared that all social sciences can be described by the topical specialities, the methodologies, and the philosophies. And Smelser (2003: 47) identified disciplines by their subject matter (dependent and independent variables), theories (the way these decision to examine seven recent years and four years in the 1970s was arbitrary and shaped by research grant constraints. However, both time periods are longer than in Mitchell’s journal analysis (2001) which covered two years in the 1960s and two in the 1990s. Moreover, the periods seemed sufficient to obtain reliable information on the variations of the published articles.

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variables are organized to produce explanations), and methods (how to produce, analyse, generate various levels of confidence in explanations). My study merely adds a national dimension. One could object that most scientific theories seem to be used independently from their country origin and that therefore it is futile to attempt to classify theories on a national basis. To give a few examples: Systems theory was originally conceptualized in the U.S. by Parsons and was then further developed in different parts of the world, for example by Luhmann in Germany. Postmodernism or discourse theory was developed by French scholars (e.g. Baudrillard, Derrida, Foucault, and Lyotard) but has its origins in Nietzsche and Heidegger. And game theory has its origins in Central European thought (von Neumann and Morgenstern) but was further developed in the U.S. (Nash). It would therefore be incorrect to argue that systems theory is American, postmodernism is German, and game theory is Hungarian. However, there may be a reason why system theory for example became so popular in Germany but less so in Britain and why game theory or mathematical logic, although originally conceptualized in Central Europe, became more popular in the Anglophone world. Moreover, there are also well-known theoretical developments which remain nation-focused. In employment research, the French ‘regulation theory’ is an approach born out of specific French social science traditions which did not expand internationally, whereas the ‘labour process theory’ was hugely popular in Britain and the U.S. but did not really make it to other countries. The question is whether certain cultural contexts are more open for certain theoretical developments than others, and if so why? These thoughts should justify an enquiry into national patterns of theories and paradigms in the research on work and employment. In addition, one might remember that our field is dominated by middle-range and ad hoc theories and these are more likely to be specifically national because they are more strongly related to specific real-life phenomena in employment. In sum, my underlying idea was to provide a reliable characterization of research patterns in Employment Relations and to examine to what extent national research styles emerge and whether they continue to exist over time. Note that the following empirical analysis is essentially inductive, heuristic, and explorative rather than deductive and hypothesis-testing. The variables were conceptualized as follows: (i) The national affiliation of authors (in case of two or more authors, the first author’s national affiliation) was clustered into four groups: Anglophone (in this sample: U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland), Continental European (Western and Central Europe: Germany, France, Italy,

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Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Austria, Hungary, and Yugoslavia); Asian (Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan, India); and the rest of the world (Israel, Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, Russia, and others). I also produced independent variables for each of the four regions and rearranged the rest accordingly. For example, U.S. authors were classified as an independent group to separate them from the other Anglophone countries. (ii) Authors’ disciplinary affiliation, as provided by the author, was broadly classified into ‘employment relations (including industrial relations and human resources) and business school’, ‘economists/labour economists’, and ‘other social scientists’ (sociologists, political scientists, lawyers, and others). 8 Industrial relations and human resource scholars were classified together since in many cases, in particular in Britain, former employment or industrial relations departments have been renamed human resource management departments, which makes a separate affiliation difficult. Similarly, business school affiliations were included since in the U.S. and Britain many employment scholars work in business schools or management departments. The remaining social sciences (sociology, political science, and law) were merged into one variable because their frequencies were low. (iii) The article subject was broadly classified into industrial relations (IR), human resources (HR), and labour market (LM) issues. IR issues comprised the following specific topics: collective bargaining, industrial democracy (works council, co-determination, consultation, and joint committees), unions, state (state as employer, public policies, social policy, and labour law), international (supranational organizations, globalization, MNCs, international labour rights, etc.), labour process (quality of working life, TQM, power relations, management strategies, corporate culture/climate, and organizational change), social issues (identity politics such as gender, race, disability discrimination, health, and safety), and other employment issues. HR issues focused on firm-specific personnel policies such as hiring/turnover, training/education, career, individual motivation, performance, labour productivity, employee participation (quality circles, employee involvement schemes, ESOPs, etc.) and general human resource management. Finally, LM issues comprised labour market trends, pay systems, and working time (including contingent or part-time work). The specific topics were based on Mitchell’s 8 Note that due to the nature of this study based on a survey of articles, authors’ affiliations might not always reveal the authors’ original professional training. An economist working in a business school would show here under the classification ‘ER and business school’. I argue that the departmental affiliation is more important in shaping research styles than the original profession. For example, a labour economist in an employment relations department is more likely to be shaped by the employment relations discipline and usually publishes in different journals than a labour economist in an economics department.

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study (2001) comparing U.S. employment journals and were further specified on the basis of the sampled journal articles. Classifying topics proved difficult. Articles were classified according to their main topic, but frequently articles comprised various topics and it was not always easy to decide on the most important one. For example, an article dealing with worker attitudes to join a union in France may be classified as an international article or as one dealing with union issues. Moreover, the categories are ultimately arbitrary. For example, some people might not agree with treating LM issues as a separate category from IR, but it seemed a sufficiently large category to treat on its own. Others may argue that TQM can be discussed from an HR as well as from an IR or labour process perspective. However, most TQM articles in this sample fell under the latter category. Moreover, even the specific topics are very general. Gender discrimination for example, which is classified here as part of IR, could include sociological analyses of how discrimination is practised at work or economic analyses focusing on outcomes such as wage inequality. Finally, the categories neglect the authors’ deeper agenda. For example, is there more emphasis on performance rather than equity in analysing employee involvement or pay? The classification into topics is a second-best solution. Ideally, one would require an in-depth content analysis of each article, but this was not feasible given the large set of data. (iv) The methodology was classified as empirical descriptive, empirical analytical-inductive, empirical analytical-deductive, think piece (essay, commentary, and literature review), and theoretical (theory building, methodology). In addition, I distinguished between quantitative or qualitative methods; small or large data-sets (smaller or larger than 300 cases 9 ); and comparative (nation, sector, etc.), historical/longitudinal or one-time-period/one– case-study research. Finally, the level of analysis was explored: macro/societal, sectoral/industrial, firm, or micro (group, individual). (v) Research theories, aims, and paradigms were predictably difficult to analyse. A comprehensive content analysis of all 1,309 articles was not possible. Moreover, as Platt (1996: 108) convincingly argues, most publications in the social sciences, in particular articles, are not explicit about their author’s underlying theoretical assumptions. Even a most systematic content analysis is therefore likely to encounter major problems in diagnosing underlying theoretical statements or research paradigms. Journal articles do not usually provide statements on general research assumptions such as positivism or 9 The threshold between small and large data-sets is arbitrary but for the purpose of this study I used 300 cases. This threshold seemed robust when tested against reasonable alternatives (200–500 cases).

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43

constructivism. This is particularly evident in empirically driven, hypothesistesting articles which form the majority of U.S. journal publications. As a second-best solution, I chose selective subgroups of articles to investigate their epistemological features, and I relied on secondary literature to support these findings. The aim was to outline broad national similarities and differences between the British, U.S., and German research patterns rather than to provide a comprehensive overview of all existing approaches in each country. RESULTS 10

Institutional, Topical, and Methodological Characteristics Nationality of Authors As can be seen in Table 3.1, during the 1970s and 1990s 85 per cent of all articles in the U.S. were published by U.S. authors. The share of U.S. authors was virtually constant over time (83 per cent for the 1970s and 85 per cent for the 1990s) and did not vary significantly between the two journals (for IndR 80 per cent in the 1970s and 85 per cent in the 1990s and for ILRR 87 per cent in the 1970s, 85 per cent in the 1990s). Anglophone authors from outside the U.S. made the second-largest group with a total of 11 per cent (12 per cent in the 1970s, 11 per cent in the 1990s). The British were the largest subgroup, though their share was decreasing: 8 per cent in the seventies and 4 per cent in the 1990s. The other countries all had very small shares. Asian authors had no articles in the 1970s and 1 per cent in the 1990s, Continental European authors produced 3 per cent of the articles in the 1970s and 2 per cent in the 1990s, and the rest of the world produced 2 per cent in the 1970s and 1 per cent in the 1990s. There was no significant variation among the U.S. journals. In Britain, a slightly smaller share of 79 per cent of all articles in both time periods were published by British authors, 14 per cent by Anglophone authors (excluding Britain), 4 per cent by Continental European authors, 2 per cent by Asians, and 2 per cent by authors from other countries (Table 3.2). Over time the share of British authors decreased from 87 per cent in the 1970s to 75 per cent in the 1990s. Anglophone authors (excluding Britain) slightly increased their total shares from 11 per cent in the early 1970s to 15 per cent in the 1990s, U.S. authors being the largest subgroup with overall 8 per cent (no significant variation over time). There was a slight variation between the journals which was constant over time: the BJIR was slightly less British 10

Based on crosstabs; all percentages are rounded up.

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Varieties of Employment Research

Table 3.1. Year/national affiliation of authors: U.S. sample U.S. authors

1970s IndR ILRR Total

95 (79.8%) 95 (87.2%) 190 (83.3%)

1990s IndR ILRR Total

166 (85.1%) 206 (84.8%) 372 (84.9%)

Asia

4 (2.1%) 1 (0.4%) 5 (1.1%)

Europe

Anglo-phone (excl. U.S.)

Rest of world

Total

4 (3.4%) 2 (1.8%) 6 (2.6%)

17 (14.3%) 11 (10.1%) 28 (12.3%)

3 (2.5%) 1 (0.9%) 4 (1.8%)

119 (100%) 109 (100%) 228 (100%)

2 (1.0%) 5 (2.1%) 7 (1.6%)

22 (11.3%) 26 (10.7%) 48 (11.0%)

1 (0.5%) 5 (2.1%) 6 (1.4%)

195 (100%) 243 (100%) 438 (100%)

Anglo-phone (excl. U.K.)

Rest of world

Total

13 (13.8%) 5 (7.6%) 18 (11.3%)

2 (2.1%) 1 (1.5%) 3 (1.9%)

94 (100%) 66 (100%) 160 (100%)

36 (18.5%) 21 (10.8%) 57 (14.6%)

2 (1.0%) 7 (3.6%) 9 (2.3%)

195 (100%) 195 (100%) 390 (100%)

Table 3.2. Year/national affiliation of authors: British sample British authors

1970s BJIR IRJ Total

79 (84.0%) 60 (90.9%) 139 (86.9%)

1990s BJIR IRJ Total

142 (72.8%) 151 (77.4%) 293 (75.1%)

Asia

5 (2.6%) 4 (2.1%) 9 (2.3%)

Europe

10 (5.1%) 12 (6.2%) 22 (5.6%)

dominated (overall 77 per cent in the BJIR and 81 per cent in the IRJ) but had a larger share of Anglophone authors (17 per cent compared to 10 per cent in the IRJ) and within that slightly more U.S. authors (9 per cent compared to 7 per cent in the IRJ). Surprisingly, in contrast to the U.S., Continental European and Asian authors were not published at all in Britain during the 1970s. In the 1990s, Continental European authors increased to 6 per cent and Asians to 2 per cent (with no significant differences between the journals), which was more than in the U.S. The share of articles by the rest of the world accounted for 2 per cent in the 1970s (similar to the U.S.) and 2 per cent in the 1990s (slightly more than in the U.S.). In other words, British journals seem to have been slightly less open to foreign authors during the 1970s compared to the U.S. but made up for it in the 1990s. In the German case, 76 per cent of all articles (in the 1990s) were published by German authors, which is slightly less ethnocentric with regard to their authors than in Britain or the U.S., and surprising given the

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45

Table 3.3. Year/national affiliation of authors: German sample German authors

Asia

Europe (excl. Ger.)

Anglophone

Rest of world

Total

69 (75.8%)

1 (1.1%)

3 (3.3%)

17 (18.7%)

1 (1.1%)

91 (100%)

1990s IB

language barrier (Table 3.3). The German journal attempts to circumvent this problem by occasionally publishing English language articles: 19 per cent were published by Anglophones (6 per cent U.S. and 13 per cent UK), 3 per cent by Europeans (excluding Germans), 1 per cent by Asians, and 1 per cent by authors from the rest of the world. It is interesting that Europeans make a smaller group than the Anglophones, which confirms the prominence of employment research as a primarily Anglophone enterprise.

Authors’ Affiliations To what extent did employment journals differ in the affiliations of their authors? As one would expect, U.S. journals published more articles by economists than their British or German counterparts (Table 3.4). Interestingly, this is not a recent trend, but the emphasis on economics was already apparent in the early 1970s. The economic bias of employment research in the U.S. seems therefore not to be just a recent outcome of the econometric turnaround in the U.S. social sciences in the late 1970s (Ross 1991) but has earlier roots and mirrors the institutional development of Employment Relations in the U.S. (see Chapter 2). More than half of all U.S. articles of both periods were Table 3.4. Year/disciplinary affiliation: all countries Employment/business

Economist

Other social scientist

Total

1970s U.S. Britain Total

86 (43.7%) 70 (53.8%) 156 (47.7%)

91 (46.2%) 40 (30.8%) 131 (40.1%)

20 (10.2%) 20 (15.4%) 40 (12.2%)

197 (100%) 130 (100%) 327 (100%)

1990s U.S. Britain Germany Total

147 (36.3%) 235 (73.2%) 25 (28.1%) 407 (49.9%)

229 (56.5%) 43 (13.4%) 11 (12.4%) 283 (34.7%)

29 (7.2%) 43 (13.4%) 53 (59.6%) 125 (15.3%)

405 (100%) 321 (100%) 89 (100%) 815 (100%)

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Varieties of Employment Research

Table 3.5. Year/disciplinary affiliation: all journals Employment/business

Economist

Other social scientist

Total

1970s IndR ILRR BJIR IRJ Total

52 (51.5%) 34 (35.4%) 37 (46.8%) 33 (64.7%) 156 (47.7%)

37 (36.6%) 54 (56.3%) 25 (31.6%) 15 (29.4%) 131 (40.1%)

12 (11.9%) 8 (8.3%) 17 (21.5%) 3 (5.9%) 40 (12.2%)

101 (100%) 96 (100%) 79 (100%) 51 (100%) 327 (100%)

1990s IndR ILRR BJIR IRJ IB Total

79 (44.6%) 68 (29.8%) 102 (67.5%) 133 (78.2%) 25 (28.1%) 407 (49.9%)

83 (46.9%) 146 (64.0%) 33 (21.9%) 10 (5.9%) 11 (12.4%) 283 (34.7%)

15 (8.5%) 14 (6.1%) 16 (10.6%) 27 (15.9%) 53 (59.6%) 125 (15.3%)

177 (100%) 228 (100%) 151 (100%) 170 (100%) 89 (100%) 815 (100%)

published by economists (53 per cent), 39 per cent by employment/business scholars, and 8 per cent by other social scientists. Comparing the 1970s and 1990s, there was a slight increase of economists (46 to 57 per cent) and a decrease of employment/business scholars (44 to 36 per cent) and other social scientists (10 to 7 per cent). As Table 3.5 shows, there were no significant differences in these broad trends between the IndR and ILRR journals. However, the data supported the popular perception that the ILRR is traditionally more drawn towards economics. In the 1970s more than half of the ILRR articles were published by economists (56 per cent), 35 per cent by employment/business scholars, and only 8 per cent by social scientists. The IndR was very different with the largest group being employment/business scholars (52 per cent), followed by economists (37 per cent) and other social scientists (12 per cent). In the 1990s economists increased to 64 per cent of all ILRR articles, employment/business scholars slightly decreased to 30 per cent, and other social scientists made 6 per cent. The IndR seemed to have followed this trend but was still more balanced with economists now making the largest group (47 per cent), followed by employment/business scholars (45 per cent) and other social scientists (9 per cent). In Britain, the distribution of affiliation was significantly different. The majority of articles (68 per cent) during all years were published by employment/business scholars, only 18 per cent by economists, and 14 per cent by other social scientists. Even more surprisingly, the trend over time was towards fewer economists and more employment/business scholars. In the 1970s, 54 per cent of articles were published by

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47

employment/business scholars (31 per cent by economists), and in the nineties 73 per cent (13 per cent by economists). Other social scientists decreased slightly from 15 per cent in the 1970s to 13 per cent in the 1990s (but still higher than in the U.S.). The most dramatic change occurred in the case of the IRJ. In the 1970s economists yielded 29 per cent but in the 1990s only 6 per cent of articles! Meanwhile, employment/business scholars increased from 65 per cent in the seventies to 78 per cent in the 1990s. Other social scientists also increased strongly from 6 per cent to 16 per cent. In contrast, in the BJIR other social scientists were much more dominant than in the IRJ in the 1970s with 22 per cent but this number halved by the 1990s. Economists decreased slightly but much less than in the IRJ from 32 to 22 per cent and employment/business scholars increased from 47 to 68 per cent. Despite the slight variations between the British journals (the BJIR having more economic publications than the IRJ), it is remarkable to see that the widely acknowledged trend towards economization of employment relations is merely a U.S. phenomenon and not evident in Britain. It is clearly not a homogeneous Anglophone trend. In the German case, given the lack of an independent field of employment studies, the majority of articles were published by other social scientists (60 per cent) which reveals the continuing multidisciplinary approach to employment research, followed by employment/business scholars (28 per cent), with economists making up the smallest group of 12 per cent. Dividing the social science cluster into separate professions revealed the strong dominance of sociologists in employment research. This confirms the discussion on German employment research of Chapter 2: 37 per cent were sociologists, 17 per cent political scientists, and 4 per cent lawyers.

Research Topics Given the cross-national diversity with regard to nationality of authors and departmental affiliation, it is not surprising that research topics varied substantially between the countries and they also varied over time. With regard to the broad categories, IR, HR, and LM issues, U.S. journals revealed overall (for both time periods) a rather balanced distribution between the three (27 per cent HR, 37 per cent IR, 36 per cent LM), whereas in Britain and Germany the vast majority of articles were published on IR (68 per cent in Britain and 92 per cent in Germany), less on HR (27 per cent in Britain and 1 per cent in Germany), and on LM topics (11 per cent in Britain and 7 per cent in Germany) (Table 3.6).

48

Varieties of Employment Research Table 3.6. Year/broad research topics: all countries IR topics

HR topics

Labour market topics

Total

1970s U.S. Britain Total

100 (43.9%) 84 (51.9%) 184 (47.2%)

61 (26.8%) 43 (26.5%) 104 (26.7%)

67 (29.4%) 35 (21.6%) 102 (26.2%)

228 (100%) 162 (100%) 390 (100%)

1990s U.S. Britain Germany Total

148 (33.8%) 266 (68.2%) 84 (92.3%) 498 (54.2%)

116 (26.5%) 80 (20.5%) 1 (1.1%) 197 (21.4%)

174 (39.7%) 44 (11.3%) 6 (6.6%) 224 (24.4%)

438 (100%) 390 (100%) 91 (100%) 919 (100%)

Comparing both time periods, research topics in U.S. journals underwent a major transformation (Table 3.7). Whereas in the seventies most articles were on IR (44 per cent IR, 27 per cent HR, and 29 per cent LM), most articles published in the 1990s were LM topics (34 per cent IR, 27 per cent HR, and 40 per cent LM). These changes were particularly evident in the ILRR (IR: 52 to 32 per cent, HR: 17 to 43 per cent, and LM: 30 to 43 per cent). Note the steep increase of HR issues. In contrast, IndR published less IR topics in the 1970s (36 per cent) than the ILRR but this share remained stable over time whereas IR topics in the ILRR decreased in the 1990s. HR topics were much more prominent in the IndR than in the ILRR in the 1970s but declined and converged to a similar level in the 1990s (35 to 28 per cent). Finally, LM Table 3.7. Year/broad research topics: all journals IR topics

HR topics

Labour market topics

Total

1970s IndR ILRR BJIR IRJ Total

43 (36.1%) 57 (52.3%) 42 (44.7%) 42 (61.8%) 184 (47.2%)

42 (35.3%) 19 (17.4%) 27 (28.7%) 16 (23.5%) 104 (26.7%)

34 (28.6%) 33 (30.3%) 25 (26.6%) 10 (14.7%) 102 (26.2%)

119 (100%) 109 (100%) 94 (100%) 68 (100%) 390 (100%)

1990s IndR ILRR BJIR IRJ IB Total

71 (36.4%) 77 (31.7%) 123 (63.1%) 143 (73.3%) 84 (92.3%) 498 (54.2%)

54 (27.7%) 62 (25.5%) 44 (22.6%) 36 (18.5%) 1 (1.1%) 197 (21.4%)

70 (35.9%) 104 (42.8%) 28 (14.4%) 16 (8.2%) 6 (6.6%) 224 (24.4%)

195 (100%) 243 (100%) 195 (100%) 195 (100%) 91 (100%) 919 (100%)

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49

topics increased slightly over time in the IndR but not as dramatically as in the ILRR. In Britain, in contrast to the U.S., IR topics not only scored high in the 1970s (52 per cent), but even more strongly in the 1990s (68 per cent). HR topics did not increase but slightly declined (27 to 21 per cent), while LM topics halved over time (22 to 11 per cent). Table 3.8 shows a more detailed picture comprising the individual topics of the IR and the LM category. HR issues were not subdivided (but included as a broad category) because the individual topics were too overlapping to allow clear distinctions (e.g. between training and careers). The most frequent topics in U.S. and British journals in the 1970s were HR (27 per cent in the U.S. and Britain), collective bargaining (U.S. 19 per cent and Britain 22 per cent), pay/working time issues (U.S. 18 per cent and Britain 11 per cent), labour market (U.S. 11 per cent and Britain 11 per cent), and unions (U.S. 11 per cent and Britain 11 per cent). Thus, the ranking was very similar in both countries. The remaining topics, state, industrial democracy, other IR issues, labour process, international and social issues, did not play a major role. 11 Over time, both countries developed different research interests. In the 1990s in the U.S. pay/working time issues and HR dominated (both 27 per cent), followed by labour market (12 per cent), unions (11 per cent), and social issues (7 per cent). Except for collective bargaining, which diminished substantially (5 per cent), the ranking did not change much over time. In contrast, in Britain unions became the main research interest in the 1990s (25 per cent), followed by HR (21 per cent), collective bargaining (12 per cent), other employment issues (10 per cent), pay/working time issues (8 per cent), industrial democracy (8 per cent), and international subjects (5 per cent). Industrial democracy and international subjects were a new feature during the nineties in Britain. When distinguishing individual journals (Table 3.9), one can see slight differences between the U.S. journals in the 1970s, but in the 1990s both journals converged (similar to the distribution of the broad topics). For example, both U.S. journals decreased collective bargaining topics dramatically over time (IndR 14 to 4 per cent and ILRR 25 to 6 per cent) whereas pay topics increased (IndR 17 to 27 per cent and ILRR 19 to 28 per cent). However, slight differences remained: whereas union topics became more 11 In fact, there were only three articles in the ILRR published between 1947 and 2004 with the phrase ‘industrial democracy’ in the article title or abstract, compared to nine articles in the BJIR (between 1966 and 2004) (using the electronic search engine of EBSCO Research Database).

Table 3.8. Year/specific research topics: all countries Labour market

1970s U.S. Britain Total

Pay/ working time

HR

CB

Indust. democ.

26 (11.4%) 41 (18.0%) 61 (26.8%) 44 (19.3%) 2 (0.9%) 17 (10.5%) 18 (11.1%) 43 (26.5%) 36 (22.2%) 16 (9.9%) 43 (11.0%) 59 (15.1%) 104 (26.7%) 80 (20.5%) 18 (4.6%)

1990s U.S. 54 (12.3%) 120 (27.4%) 116 (26.5%) 22 (5.0%) Britain 14 (3.6%) 30 (7.7%) 80 (20.5%) 47 (12.1%) Germany 3 (3.3%) 3 (3.3%) 1 (1.1%) 4 (4.4%) Total 71 (7.7%) 153 (16.6%) 197 (21.4%) 73 (7.9%)

Unions

State

25 (11.0%) 4 (1.8%) 17 (10.5%) 6 (3.7%) 42 (10.8%) 10 (2.6%)

10 (2.3%) 47 (10.7%) 12 (2.7%) 30 (7.7%) 99 (25.4%) 14 (3.6%) 12 (13.2%) 7 (7.7%) 10 (11.0%) 52 (5.7%) 153 (16.6%) 36 (3.9%)

Other employ. issues

4 (1.8%) 4 (2.5%) 8 (2.1%)

Intern. issues

Labour process

1 (0.6%) 1 (0.3%)

5 (2.2%) 2 (1.2%) 7 (1.8%)

Social issues

Total

16 (7.0%) 228 (100%) 2 (1.2%) 162 (100%) 18 (4.6%) 390 (100%)

18 (4.1%) 4 (0.9%) 4 (0.9%) 31 (7.1%) 438 (100%) 39 (10.0%) 19 (4.9%) 4 (1.0%) 14 (3.6%) 390 (100%) 14 (15.4%) 16 (17.6%) 20 (22.0%) 1 (1.1%) 91 (100%) 71 (7.7%) 39 (4.2%) 28 (3.0%) 46 (5.0%) 919 (100%)

Table 3.9. Year/specific research topics: all journals Labour market

Pay/ working time

HR

CB

Indust. democ.

1970s IndR ILRR BJIR IRJ Total

14 (11.8%) 12 (11.0%) 15 (16.0%) 2 (2.9%) 43 (11.0%)

20 (16.8%) 21 (19.3%) 10 (10.6%) 8 (11.8%) 59 (15.1%)

42 (35.3%) 19 (17.4%) 27 (28.7%) 16 (23.5%) 104 (26.7%)

17 (14.3%) 2 (1.7%) 8 (6.7%) 2 (1.7%) 27 (24.8%) 17 (15.6%) 2 (1.8%) 23 (24.5%) 4 (4.3%) 6 (6.4%) 3 (3.2%) 13 (19.1%) 12 (17.6%) 11 (16.2%) 3 (4.4%) 80 (20.5%) 18 (4.6%) 42 (10.8%) 10 (2.6%)

1990s IndR ILRR BJIR IRJ IB Total

17 (8.7%) 37 (15.2%) 4 (2.1%) 10 (5.1%) 3 (3.3%) 71 (7.7%)

53 (27.2%) 67 (27.6%) 24 (12.3%) 6 (3.1%) 3 (3.3%) 153 (16.6%)

54 (27.7%) 62 (25.5%) 44 (22.6%) 36 (18.5%) 1 (1.1%) 197 (21.4%)

8 (4.1%) 14 (5.8%) 28 (14.4%) 19 (9.7%) 4 (4.4%) 73 (7.9%)

7 (3.6%) 3 (1.2%) 11 (5.6%) 19 (9.7%) 12 (13.2%) 52 (5.7%)

Unions

State

25 (12.8%) 5 (2.6%) 22 (9.1%) 7 (2.9%) 55 (28.2%) 5 (2.6%) 44 (22.6%) 9 (4.6%) 7 (7.7%) 10 (11.0%) 153 (16.6%) 36 (3.9%)

Other employ. issues

1 (0.8%) 3 (2.8%) 2 (2.1%) 2 (2.9%) 8 (2.1%)

Intern. issues

Labour process

1 (1.1%)

3 (2.5%) 2 (1.8%) 1 (1.1%) 1 (1.5%) 7 (1.8%)

1 (0.3%)

Social issues

Total

10 (8.4%) 119 (100%) 6 (5.5%) 109 (100%) 2 (2.1%) 94 (100%) 68 (100%) 18 (4.6%) 390 (100%)

17 (8.7%) 2 (1.0%) 1 (0.5%) 6 (3.1%) 195 (100%) 1 (0.4%) 2 (0.8%) 3 (1.2%) 25 (10.3%) 243 (100%) 18 (9.2%) 4 (2.1%) 2 (1.0%) 195 (100%) 21 (10.8%) 19 (9.7%) 12 (6.2%) 195 (100%) 14 (15.4%) 16 (17.6%) 20 (22.0%) 1 (1.1%) 91 (100%) 71 (7.7%) 39 (4.2%) 28 (3.0%) 46 (5.0%) 919 (100%)

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Varieties of Employment Research

popular in the IndR over time (7 to 13 per cent) they decreased in the ILRR (16 to 9 per cent). Social issues dropped in the IndR (8 to 3 per cent) but increased in the ILRR (6 to 10 per cent). Overall, all findings on IR, LM, and HR topics provide a rather homogeneous picture for both U.S. journals in the 1990s. The findings cannot confirm the commonly held impression that the ILRR is less diverse than the IndR with regard to its articles’ topics. In Britain, the journals revealed even less variation and showed similar changes over time. During the 1970s the BJIR was mainly focused on HR, collective bargaining and the labour market whereas the IRJ was more diverse, including a large share of articles on industrial democracy (18 per cent). Both journals diminished their interest in collective bargaining over time (but still higher than in the U.S.) and revealed a significant increase in union research, in particular in the BJIR (6 to 28 per cent) which differs from the trend in the U.S. Pay and working time, topics that received increasing attention in the U.S. in the 1990s, did not figure prominently in the BJIR (11 to 12 per cent) and even decreased significantly in the IRJ (12 to 3 per cent). In the 1990s the BJIR seemed less diverse than the IRJ. For example, the IRJ consisted of 10 per cent international topics and 6 per cent social issues in the 1990s, whereas the BJIR did not publish any articles with a mainly international focus and only 1 per cent on social issues. This does not mean that no BJIR articles dealt with social or international topics but that these were not the main emphasis. In Germany, the picture was significantly different to both the U.S. and Britain. Most research was conducted on issues that were of less concern in the Anglophone journals. Priority was given to the labour process (22 per cent), followed by international topics (18 per cent), other employment issues (15 per cent), industrial democracy (13 per cent), and the state/public policy (11 per cent).

Methodology of Articles To a similar degree the methodology of articles varied significantly across countries. Topics and methods are clearly linked. Though it is difficult to predict which research topics are more prone to empirical rather than to theoretical investigations (IR as well as HR topics should be open to both), some topics are more likely to provoke qualitative rather than quantitative methods. The labour process, for example, would seem to induce more qualitative methods since major questions circle around how workplace relations are governed, whereas HR research is mainly output-oriented and therefore triggers quantitative methods.

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Empirical/Theoretical Research As Table 3.10 shows, overall, the U.S. yielded empirical publications, Germany was mainly theoretical and interpretative, and Britain took a middle position: 84 per cent of all U.S. articles in both time periods were empirical, compared to 72 per cent of British articles and only 41 per cent of German articles. Nearly half of all U.S. articles were empirical inductive (47 per cent) followed by empirical deductive articles (26 per cent). Empirical descriptive and think pieces each yielded 11 per cent and theoretical pieces were last (5 per cent). Germany revealed the other extreme with most articles being think pieces (43 per cent), followed by empirical inductive (22 per cent) and theoretical pieces (17 per cent). Britain took a middle position with the majority of publications being empirical descriptive (33 per cent), followed by empirical inductive (25 per cent) and think pieces (23 per cent). Table 3.10. Year/nature of article: all countries Empirical descriptive

Empirical inductive

Empirical deductive

Think piece/ essay

45 (19.7%) 74 (32.5%) 38 (23.5%) 42 (25.9%) 83 (21.3%) 116 (29.7%)

44 (19.3%) 20 (12.3%) 64 (16.4%)

43 (18.9%) 39 (24.1%) 82 (21.0%)

22 (9.6%) 228 (100%) 23 (14.2%) 162 (100%) 45 (11.5%) 390 (100%)

1990s U.S. 27 (6.2%) 240 (54.8%) 130 (29.7%) 29 (6.6%) Britain 142 (36.4%) 93 (23.8%) 59 (15.1%) 88 (22.6%) Germany 12 (13.2%) 20 (22.0%) 5 (5.5%) 39 (42.9%) Total 181 (19.7%) 353 (38.4%) 194 (21.1%) 156 (17.0%)

12 (2.7%) 438 (100%) 8 (2.1%) 390 (100%) 15 (16.5%) 91 (100%) 35 (3.8%) 919 (100%)

1970s U.S. Britain Total

Theory

Total

Comparing the two time periods, the trend towards empiricism and sophisticated statistical work was very obvious in the U.S.: 91 per cent of U.S. articles in the 1990s were empirical versus 72 per cent in the 1970s. In more detail, empirical inductive articles increased from 33 to 55 per cent in the 1990s, empirical deductive articles increased from 19 to 30 per cent, whereas empirical descriptive articles dropped significantly from 20 to 6 per cent, as did think pieces (19 to 7 per cent) and theory pieces (10 to 3 per cent). Thus, the notion of what empirical research is shifted over time away from purely descriptive towards more sophisticated, analytical work. Individual journals revealed no significant differences in the U.S. (Table 3.11). In Britain the pattern was very different. The scale of empirical work also increased in Britain over time though at a lower rate: 62 per cent of all articles in the 1970s were empirical versus 75 per cent in the 1990s. Moreover, the empirical articles were less analytical than their U.S. counterparts. In

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Varieties of Employment Research

Table 3.11. Year/nature of article: all journals Empirical descriptive 1970s IndR ILRR BJIR IRJ Total

Empirical inductive

Empirical deductive

Think piece/ essay

25 (21.0%) 41 (34.5%) 20 (18.3%) 33 (30.3%) 20 (21.3%) 30 (31.9%) 18 (26.5%) 12 (17.6%) 83 (21.3%) 116 (29.7%)

15 (12.6%) 29 (26.6%) 9 (9.6%) 11 (16.2%) 64 (16.4%)

25 (21.0%) 18 (16.5%) 20 (21.3%) 19 (27.9%) 82 (21.0%)

1990s IndR 17 (8.7%) 94 (48.2%) 59 (30.3%) 17 (8.7%) ILRR 10 (4.1%) 146 (60.1%) 71 (29.2%) 12 (4.9%) BJIR 56 (28.7%) 56 (28.7%) 38 (19.5%) 40 (20.5%) IRJ 86 (44.1%) 37 (19.0%) 21 (10.8%) 48 (24.6%) IB 12 (13.2%) 20 (22.0%) 5 (5.5%) 39 (42.9%) Total 181 (19.7%) 353 (38.4%) 194 (21.1%) 156 (17.0%)

Theory

Total

13 (10.9%) 119 (100%) 9 (8.3%) 109 (100%) 15 (16.0%) 94 (100%) 8 (11.8%) 68 (100%) 45 (11.5%) 390 (100%) 8 (4.1%) 4 (1.6%) 5 (2.6%) 3 (1.5%) 15 (16.5%) 35 (3.8%)

195 (100%) 243 (100%) 195 (100%) 195 (100%) 91 (100%) 919 (100%)

contrast to the U.S., descriptive pieces increased rather than decreased (from 24 to 36 per cent) (particularly evident in the IRJ: from 27 to 44 per cent). Inductive pieces decreased slightly (26 to 24 per cent) and deductive pieces only increased slightly (12 to 15 per cent) (visible mainly in the BJIR: from 10 to 20 per cent). Although theory pieces decreased significantly from 14 to 2 per cent, think pieces remained stable (24 per cent in the seventies, 23 per cent in the nineties). Qualitative/Quantitative Methods A related methodological characteristic is the use of qualitative or quantitative methods (Table 3.12). It comes as no surprise that the vast majority Table 3.12. Year/qualitative vs. quantitative methodology: all countries

1970s U.S. Britain Total 1990s U.S. Britain Germany Total

Qualitative

Quantitative

Total

35 (21.5%) 39 (39.0%) 74 (28.1%)

128 (78.5%) 61 (61.0%) 189 (71.9%)

163 (100%) 100 (100%) 263 (100%)

31 (7.8%) 154 (52.4%) 24 (58.5%) 209 (28.6%)

366 (92.2%) 140 (47.6%) 17 (41.5%) 523 (71.4%)

397 (100%) 294 (100%) 41 (100%) 732 (100%)

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of empirical articles published in the U.S. in both periods were quantitative (88 per cent), whereas the picture was more balanced in Britain (51 per cent). Germany provided the other extreme with only a third of the publications being quantitative. Over time, quantification increased significantly in the U.S. (79 to 92 per cent) but decreased in Britain (61 to 48 per cent). As shown in Table 3.13, U.S. journals were rather similar, though the ILRR was even more quantitative than the IndR (ILRR increased their quantitative articles from 81 to 95 per cent, the IndR from 77 to 88 per cent). There were larger differences between the British journals, with the BJIR being more quantitative than the IRJ (BJIR: 68 to 61 per cent in the 1990s; IRJ: 51 to 33 per cent). The two journals seem to represent different traditions of British employment research: a more quantitative tradition similar to the U.S. represented in the BJIR (e.g. LSE) and a more sociological, qualitative tradition in the IRJ (e.g. Warwick). Table 3.13. Year/qualitative vs. quantitative methodology: all journals Qualitative

Quantitative

Total

1970s IndR ILRR BJIR IRJ Total

19 (23.5%) 16 (19.5%) 19 (32.2%) 20 (48.8%) 74 (28.1%)

62 (76.5%) 66 (80.5%) 40 (67.8%) 21 (51.2%) 189 (71.9%)

81 (100%) 82 (100%) 59 (100%) 41 (100%) 263 (100%)

1990s IndR ILRR BJIR IRJ IB Total

20 (11.8%) 11 (4.8%) 58 (38.7%) 96 (66.7%) 24 (58.5%) 209 (28.6%)

150 (88.2%) 216 (95.2%) 92 (61.3%) 48 (33.3%) 17 (41.5%) 523 (71.4%)

170 (100%) 227 (100%) 150 (100%) 144 (100%) 41 (100%) 732 (100%)

Small/Large Data-Set U.S. journals favoured large-scale data, which usually translates into secondary rather than self-collected data, whereas Britain and Germany favoured smallscale data. There was a significant shift from the 1970s to the 1990s in the U.S. case, unlike in Britain (Table 3.14). Whereas 61 per cent of all empirical articles published in the ILRR and IndR (no significant differences) were small-scale in the 1970s (72 per cent in Britain), this number significantly decreased to

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Varieties of Employment Research Table 3.14. Year/small vs. large data-set: all countries Small

Large

Total

1970s U.S. Britain Total

99 (60.7%) 72 (72.0%) 171 (65.0%)

64 (39.3%) 28 (28.0%) 92 (35.0%)

163 (100%) 100 (100%) 263 (100%)

1990s U.S. Britain Germany Total

115 (29.0%) 211 (71.8%) 30 (81.1%) 356 (48.9%)

282 (71.0%) 83 (28.2%) 7 (18.9%) 372 (51.1%)

397 (100%) 294 (100%) 37 (100%) 728 (100%)

29 per cent in the 1990s (but remained constant in Britain) (Table 3.15). In Germany, even more than in Britain, most empirical articles in the nineties used small-scale data (81 per cent). Similarly to the quantification of the field, the tendency to use larger samples, which facilitate more sophisticated multivariate statistical analysis, is neither a universal nor an Anglophone phenomenon, rather one which appears exclusively in the U.S. (though exceptions exist in Britain with publications using the WERS data-set). Table 3.15. Year/small vs. large data-set: all journals Small

Large

Total

1970s IndR ILRR BJIR IRJ Total

49 (60.5%) 50 (61.0%) 36 (61.0%) 36 (87.8%) 171 (65.0%)

32 (39.5%) 32 (39.0%) 23 (39.0%) 5 (12.2%) 92 (35.0%)

81 (100%) 82 (100%) 59 (100%) 41 (100%) 263 (100%)

1990s IndR ILRR BJIR IRJ IB Total

64 (37.6%) 51 (22.5%) 89 (59.3%) 122 (84.7%) 30 (81.1%) 356 (48.9%)

106 (62.4%) 176 (77.5%) 61 (40.7%) 22 (15.3%) 7 (18.9%) 372 (51.1%)

170 (100%) 227 (100%) 150 (100%) 144 (100%) 37 (100%) 728 (100%)

Cross-sectional—Longitudinal—One-time Period Studies Empirical publications can also be characterized by the extent to which their analysis is comparative, longitudinal, or based on a one-time case study (Tables 3.16 and 3.17). Most social scientific work tends towards the latter

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Table 3.16. Year/comparative—longitudinal—one-time period studies: all countries

1970s U.S. Britain Total 1990s U.S. Britain Germany Total

Comparative

Longitudinal

One-time

Total

15 (9.2%) 6 (6.0%) 21 (8.0%)

31 (19.0%) 16 (16.0%) 47 (17.9%)

117 (71.8%) 78 (78.0%) 195 (74.1%)

163 (100%) 100 (100%) 263 (100%)

72 (18.1%) 56 (19.0%) 7 (18.9%) 135 (18.5%)

85 (21.4%) 73 (24.8%)

240 (60.5%) 165 (56.1%) 30 (81.1%) 435 (59.8%)

397 (100%) 294 (100%) 37 (100%) 728 (100%)

158 (21.7%)

and the U.S., British, and German journals did not differ here. There has been a trend, however, over time to increase comparative as well as longitudinal work, and this is equally evident in the U.S. and Britain. For example, 72 per cent of U.S. and 78 per cent of British articles were based on a onetime period investigation in the 1970s and these articles declined in the 1990s to 61 per cent in the U.S. and 56 per cent in Britain. Simultaneously, comparative work doubled in the U.S. (9 to 18 per cent) and even more so in Britain (6 to 19 per cent). Longitudinal work increased as well but to a lesser extent from 19 to 21 per cent in the U.S. and 16 to 25 per cent in Britain. There were no significant differences between the journals in both countries. Table 3.17. Year/comparative—longitudinal—one-time period studies: all journals Comparative

Longitudinal

One-time

Total

1970s IndR ILRR BJIR IRJ Total

9 (11.1%) 6 (7.3%) 4 (6.8%) 2 (4.9%) 21 (8.0%)

18 (22.2%) 13 (15.9%) 13 (22.0%) 3 (7.3%) 47 (17.9%)

54 (66.7%) 63 (76.8%) 42 (71.2%) 36 (87.8%) 195 (74.1%)

81 (100%) 82 (100%) 59 (100%) 41 (100%) 263 (100%)

1990s IndR ILRR BJIR IRJ IB Total

29 (17.1%) 43 (18.9%) 21 (14.0%) 35 (24.3%) 7 (18.9%) 135 (18.5%)

27 (15.9%) 58 (25.6%) 50 (33.3%) 23 (16.0%)

114 (67.1%) 126 (55.5%) 79 (52.7%) 86 (59.7%) 30 (81.1%) 435 (59.8%)

170 (100%) 227 (100%) 150 (100%) 144 (100%) 37 (100%) 728 (100%)

158 (21.7%)

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The German journal yielded 81 per cent one-time case studies (more than in the U.S. and Britain) and 19 per cent comparative work (a share similar to the Anglophone countries). There was, however, no longitudinal analysis present. Macro/Sector/Firm/Micro Level Finally, whether research focuses on the macro (national), sector, firm, or micro (individuals, groups) level differed widely among countries (Tables 3.18 and 3.19). Whereas U.S. journals favoured individual/group-level analysis (41 per cent micro, 27 per cent firm, 18 per cent sector, and 14 per cent macro), Germany favoured firm-level analysis (62 per cent firm, 13 per cent macro, 13 per cent sector, and 11 per cent micro), and Britain yielded the Table 3.18. Year/analytical level: macro/sector/firm/micro: all countries

1970s U.S. Britain Total 1990s U.S. Britain Germany Total

Macro

Sector

Firm

Micro

Total

35 (21.5%) 31 (31.0%) 66 (25.1%)

45 (27.6%) 21 (21.0%) 66 (25.1%)

28 (17.2%) 30 (30.0%) 58 (22.1%)

55 (33.7%) 18 (18.0%) 73 (27.8%)

163 (100%) 100 (100%) 263 (100%)

44 (11.1%) 76 (25.9%) 6 (13.3%) 126 (17.1%)

56 (14.1%) 65 (22.1%) 6 (13.3%) 127 (17.3%)

125 (31.5%) 124 (42.2%) 28 (62.2%) 277 (37.6%)

172 (43.3%) 29 (9.9%) 5 (11.1%) 206 (28.0%)

397 (100%) 294 (100%) 45 (100%) 736 (100%)

Table 3.19. Year/analytical level: macro/sector/firm/micro: all journals Macro

Sector

Firm

Micro

Total

1970s IndR ILRR BJIR IRJ Total

18 (22.2%) 17 (20.7%) 22 (37.3%) 9 (22.0%) 66 (25.1%)

24 (29.6%) 21 (25.6%) 11 (18.6%) 10 (24.4%) 66 (25.1%)

17 (21.0%) 11 (13.4%) 14 (23.7%) 16 (39.0%) 58 (22.1%)

22 (27.2%) 33 (40.2%) 12 (20.3%) 6 (14.6%) 73 (27.8%)

81 (100%) 82 (100%) 59 (100%) 41 (100%) 263 (100%)

1990s IndR ILRR BJIR IRJ IB Total

24 (14.1%) 20 (8.8%) 27 (18.0%) 49 (34.0%) 6 (13.3%) 126 (17.1%)

30 (17.6%) 26 (11.5%) 34 (22.7%) 31 (21.5%) 6 (13.3%) 127 (17.3%)

60 (35.3%) 65 (28.6%) 73 (48.7%) 51 (35.4%) 28 (62.2%) 277 (37.6%)

56 (32.9%) 116 (51.1%) 16 (10.7%) 13 (9.0%) 5 (11.1%) 206 (28.0%)

170 (100%) 227 (100%) 150 (100%) 144 (100%) 45 (100%) 736 (100%)

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most balanced distribution with firm-level analysis leading (39 per cent firm, 27 per cent macro, 22 per cent sector, and 12 per cent micro). There was strong evidence that the variation between U.S. and Britain was already evident in the 1970s and grew stronger in the 1990s. Thus, the U.S. increased its share of micro articles from 34 per cent in the 1970s to 43 per cent, which was essentially due to the ILRR (ILRR: 40 to 51 per cent, IndR: 27 to 33 per cent), whereas Britain halved its micro articles from 18 to 9 per cent (BJIR: 20 to 11 per cent and IRJ: 15 to 9 per cent). Moreover, whereas macro- and industry-level analysis decreased by half in the U.S. case between the 1970s and 1990s (macro: 22 to 11 per cent, sector: 28 to 14 per cent), British journals saw a slight decrease in macro analysis (31 to 26 per cent) but remained stable in their share of sector-level analysis (22 per cent). There were no relevant differences between the individual journals. Finally, in both countries the number of articles on the firm level increased (U.S.: 17 to 32 per cent, UK: 30 to 42 per cent).

Research Theories, Aim of Research, and Paradigms Theories As discussed in Chapter 2, there is no dispute over the fact that Employment Relations as a field of study is traditionally under-theorized. The presented empirical data strongly confirm this (in the 1990s only 4 per cent of all publications were of theoretical nature). An additional indicator for a discipline’s theoretical maturity is whether the research field comprises various theoretical schools (such as in sociology Postmodernists vs. Weberians vs. System theorists). Although the field of Employment Relations in the past has, for example, referred to the Oxford or Wisconsin school, these schools are characterized more by their specific methods (historical, institutional, qualitative, etc.) than by differing theoretical assumptions. It is commonplace to distinguish between grand or general theories, middle-range models and ad hoc approaches based on specific hypotheses. German social scientists are generally perceived as more inclined to place their research into a wider theoretical framework than their U.S. or British counterparts who have a preference for middle-range or ad hoc theories to build hypotheses derived from a critical reading of the existing literature and which are empirically tested. These national differences have been widely acknowledged in various social science disciplines (e.g. Delanty 1997, Schmitter 1999, or Smith 2000 for political science; Petee 1994 for sociology) but also in Employment Relations, for example by Mitchell (2001: 382), who

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describes U.S. research as largely applied research with a strong emphasis on testing mid-range hypotheses (see, e.g. the influential article ‘What works at work: overview and assessment’ by Ichniowski et al. 1995). Another example is the influential U.S. scholar Tom Kochan (1993: 372) who argues that the central task in Employment Relations is to develop middle-range theories, as an example he presents his own strategic choice perspective. In Germany, on the other hand, there seems to be a stronger attempt to affiliate oneself with the ‘grand social science theories’ (e.g. as a Weberian or a System theorist) and this ‘home address’ serves as a theoretical basis for the research (see also Kuehl 2004; Maurer 2004). A German article usually starts with a theoretical positioning of the author (see, e.g. Müller-Jentsch who declares himself ‘a Weberian rather than a Popperian’, IB 1996). This is highly uncommon in both Britain and the U.S. It is also telling that a recent annual conference (1999) of GIRA (German Industrial Relations Association) was entirely devoted to ‘Theories of Employment Relations’ whereas the U.S. or British annual conferences usually address more practical issues of concern. Which theories are commonly used? It is difficult to link each article to a specific theory since most are not explicit about their underlying assumptions. Moreover, most articles of the sample which have been classified as ‘theoretical’ are in fact literature reviews on a particular topic such as Frege (BJIR 2002) or they use empirical data to compare alternative theoretical explanations on a particular topic such as Flood, Turner, and William (BJIR 1996) on union membership participation or Godard (IndR 1997) on managerial ideologies and strategic and structural explanatory theories; or Capelli, Constantine, and Chadwick (IndR 2000) on economic and behavioural theories explaining employees’ family priorities and their labour market success. Rarely does one find ‘pure’ theoretical pieces such as Provis (BJIR 1996) on unitarism and pluralism in employment theory. Nevertheless, a few broad national tendencies can be outlined. In the German case most theoretical publications advocate an institutional/structural or action-theoretical approach (see Lengfeld 1998). An example of an institutional/structural approach is Kädtler and Kottwitz (IB 1994) on the East German transformation, who discuss the institutional transfer of German employment institutions and regulations rather than the actual practice in East German workplaces. An example for the action-theoretical approach is Schirmer (IB 1994) who locates the introduction of lean management in terms of political negotiation processes between middle managers. The institutional/structural approach became particularly prominent in the literature on neo-corporatism which had its heyday in the 1970s–80s (e.g. Schmitter and Lehmbruch 1979; Streeck and Schmitter 1985). From the mid-1980s onwards, German employment research increasingly focused

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on Weberian action-theoretical approaches (Lengfeld 1998: 438) such as the labour politics approach (Jürgens and Naschold 1984), workplace social constitution (Hildebrandt and Seltz 1989), or micro politics (Burns 1961; Lauschke and Welskopp 1994). Their common assumption is that workplace relations are seen as a permanent political process in which different collective actors try to gain power to influence the structures of communication and regulations. Thus, the emphasis is on the political processes within an organization resulting from the unspecified employment contract and the ongoing ‘power games’ of the strategic actors (Müller-Jentsch 1996: 50). A major example is Kotthoff (1981, 1994), who describes the dynamics of workplace relations between management and works councils over time by focusing on the norms and political motives of these collective actors. In sum, theoretical approaches in German research seem to be taken from sociology and are less used for middle-range hypothesis building rather than as a guide for qualitative, hermeneutic (interpretative) research. This can be contrasted with the long-standing practice in U.S. research on borrowing theories from economics or psychology, in particular since the early 1980s, which produces individualistic theories such as rational choice or strategic choice theories or behaviourist, socio-psychological approaches (Cappelli 1985; Godard 1994). Cappelli (1985: 98) alerts us that in the 1950s and 1960s political and sociological approaches to employment issues, especially to studies of unions, contributed to the understanding of employment in the U.S. (e.g. Bendix 1963; Lipset et al. 1963; or Olson 1965), but that this has been taken over by economic and psychological approaches (see also Lewin and Feuille 1983). As Mitchell (2001: 382) recently observed, most theories used in U.S. research are developed in economics and applied to build testable hypotheses. The economic or socio-psychological emphasis is easily supported by most U.S. publications in my sample, such as Boroff and Lewin (1997) or Lincoln and Kalleberg (1996) in the ILRR, respectively, both drawing on economic and organizational behaviour concepts; or the above-mentioned article by Cappelli, Constantine, and Chadwick (2000) on economic and behavioural theories explaining employees’ family priorities and their labour market success. This theoretical bias towards economic and behavioural theoretical assumptions is also visible in the classic U.S. textbooks such as An Introduction to Collective Bargaining and Industrial Relations by Katz and Kochan (1992) or The Transformation of American Industrial Relations by Kochan, Katz, and McKersie (1986), or A Theory of Labor Negotations by McKersie and Walton (1991). Britain stands somewhat in between the German and U.S. theoretical preferences. Most British empirical articles in my data-set resemble the U.S.

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approach of literature-based hypotheses testing. Yet the theoretical pieces are slightly more based on sociological or political science and much less influenced by economics or behavioural sciences. A few examples of the BJIR are Rubery (1997), who criticizes economic explanations of wages and emphasizes explanations which take conflict and opportunism at the labour market into account; Provis (1996), who discusses political science and managerial theories on unitarism and pluralism; or Moore (1995), who analyses anthropological and sociological accounts of how societies shape the definition and meaning of work.

Purpose of Research Another epistemological characteristic to be discussed is the purpose of research. There is a tendency among German social scientists to speculate about future developments and to treat the scientific process as an inherently political process (Gerst and Kuhlmann 1997: 34). This can also be found in the sampled employment publications. Viewing employment research as a political process can be traced back to the traditions of German industrial sociology and is found in theoretical as well as empirical work. Early sociological thinking, such as the early Frankfurt School, was mostly concerned with elaborating a theoretical framework for societal analysis based on philosophical, normative foundations (Wittrock, Wagner, and Wollmann 1991: 41). This tradition is still noticeable in current German industrial sociology. Parallel to this theoretical approach an empirically driven ‘critical industrial sociology’ (and subsequently employment research) developed which had the explicit aim of being more than a pure ‘critique of ideology’. While being sceptical about the revolutionary potential of the working class, it wanted to go further and explore practical possibilities of societal change (Kern and Schumann 1970). One major focus of the empirical research in German industrial sociology was to explore the possibility to create greater ‘societal rationality’ (in a Weberian sense) in the organization of work. Scientists, it was felt, should help to influence (and participate in) the societal rationalization process on the basis of a scientific diagnosis. The researchers, it is claimed, have a moral or emancipating, that is, political role in social sciences, not a neutral one. Note that this political scientific agenda can but in most cases does not lead to a pragmatic public policy approach. A widespread conviction has recently been expressed by Kuehl (2004: 14) arguing that ‘it is a sign of quality if the findings of industrial sociological research are not easily transferable to the practice of companies or unions but instead are perceived as “irritating enlightenment” by the actors’ (also Bergmann 1982).

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In contrast, it has been widely suggested by philosophers of science that Anglophone social sciences are traditionally more influenced by the positivist notion of neutrality and objectivity of researchers as being mandatory for scientific research (Delanty 1997; Platt 1996: 37). Early social scientific studies in the U.S. and Britain were characterized by their fusion of analysis and prescription, of research and public policy recommendations. ‘In the U.S. these early tendencies were not sustained, and those researchers who fused social science and ethics were eclipsed by those who favoured a more scientific approach to social questions. This new conception of social science first and foremost insisted upon the objective, detached, and scientific character of the academic study of society, modelled upon the natural sciences’ (Bulmer 1991: 152). Evidence for an emphasis on ‘neutrality’ and having an ‘objective’ attitude, without declaring personal values is easily found in the journal publications at hand. In particular, the dominance of quantitative empirical work in the U.S. correlates with the vision of objectivity and neutrality. As an additional support I used a subset of all articles from the first published issue to the last issue of 2004 which dealt with ‘industrial democracy’ (in the title or abstract) in the ILRR (N = 13 between 1947 and 2004) and BJIR (N = 9 between 1966 and 2004) (source: EBSCO research database). The idea was to restrict the numbers of articles but more importantly to use a topic which would lend itself to an evaluative and normative stand. However, in none of the U.S. publications did I come across an explicit subjective, political standpoint by the authors (see, e.g. Cappelli and Rogovsky 1998; Erickson and Kuruvilla 1998; Hammer, Currall, and Stern 1991; Taras and Copping 1998). The British publications were usually similar, focusing on neutrally interpreting empirical data rather than being explicitly normative (e.g. Loveridge 1980; Perotin and Robinson 2000; Sadowski, Backes-Gellner, and Frick 1995). However, I found a stronger likelihood in the British articles to link research results to public policy issues. For example, Fernie and Metcalf (1995) make explicit comments on the lessons of their study for right-wing as well as left-wing public policymakers (though they are careful not to position themselves in either direction). Another example is a ‘matched’ set of two articles in the U.S. and Britain on a similar topic: Hammer, Currall, and Stern (1991) in the ILRR analyse role definitions and performance of worker representatives on boards of directors on the basis of a data-set of fourteen U.S. firms. They explore different role expectations from management and worker side. Their aim is to outline obstacles to an effective performance of worker directors in pursuing mutual interests (i.e. ‘to define a worker director role that best serves their joint interests’, p. 678). The authors are very careful not to take sides, and they do

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not make explicit policy recommendations. In contrast, Hanson and Rathkey (1984) in the BJIR use a similar method, an opinion survey, on a related topic but their conclusion is much more policy-oriented. They provide a survey of managers’, union officials’, and workers’ views in four large British companies on what type of employee participation they want. The authors conclude that the large majority of workers wish greater participation and involvement at work, that this is not a passing phenomenon, and that policymakers should take this into account. Note that this research was conducted in a time where there was a public debate on increasing industrial democracy mechanisms in Britain (e.g. Employment Act 1982 of the Conservative government). This may have induced a stronger reference to public policy. However, I think, it is still justified to see these comparative examples in line with general statements in the literature that public policy related research has had a long tradition in British social sciences (e.g. McCarthy 1994). See also Keith Sisson’s recent public statement on BUIRA’s website (12/2006) assuring the enduring importance of the academic field of Employment Relations for the practice of HR managers in Britain. In sum, even though there is a discussion as to what extent this emphasis has declined since the 1970s (Whitfield and Strauss 2000: 145) one can safely conclude that the British public policy interest is still stronger compared to the U.S., where a public policy orientation was never as pronounced. This difference has also been found in other disciplines such as Bulmer (1991) for social policy research.

Research Paradigms The final issue concerns the concept of employment relations. What is the underlying definition of employment relations? Unfortunately, articles are even less explicit on their paradigms than on their theoretical underpinning. What follows is a tentative interpretation of the national patterns of employment paradigms, supported by secondary literature. There have been some comparative discussions on paradigms in employment research which distinguish between ‘Anglophone individualism’ and the ‘European social model’ (Hyman 2004), or between a unitarist paradigm (emphasizing common interests of employer and employees), a pluralist paradigm (emphasis of employment relations as a system of rules and regulations to resolve conflict within and between different industrial interest groups), and finally a political economy paradigm (defining employment relations as being shaped by economic but also political forces, e.g. Godard and Delaney 2000). Anglophone research traditionally favoured a pluralistic model (with a focus on collective bargaining). For example, Dunlop’s classic conceptual work

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(1958) in the U.S. explicitly narrows employment regulations down to collective bargaining. Note that most textbooks or graduate courses in the U.S. are still titled Collective Bargaining rather than Labor or Employment Relations. In Britain the classic work by the Webbs and also by Flanders or Clegg are also exemplary for the traditional focus on collective bargaining as the core of Employment Relations. However, one can observe a shift towards a unitarist model (with a focus on progressive human resource management) which is gaining increasing popularity in the U.S. but also in Britain. As we have seen in Chapter 2, some scholars even talk of a fundamental paradigm shift from pluralism to unitarism in the U.S. (Godard 1994). Despite these common factors there are differences between the U.S. and Britain. The British academic treatment of employment relations may be best described, as Davies and Freedland (2002) convincingly argue, in Kahn– Freund’s famous term ‘collective laissez-faire’. The British employment system of the twentieth century was less legalistic than its U.S. counterpart. The emphasis was more on a pluralistic notion of laissez-faire than on contractual relations between employers and employees. This stand has been disintegrating in recent years with the breakdown of collective bargaining and the increase of European-style statutory consultation mechanisms and voluntary social partnership arrangements at workplace level. It is not yet clear what the new paradigm will eventually look like (Davies and Freedland 2002). However, to illuminate the enduring differences between the British and U.S. scholarly discourse, the dominant paradigm in the U.S. might be described as ‘contractual laissez-faire’. Thus, the focus is on the contractual notion of employment relations, which can be collective though they are increasingly individual. In contrast, Continental European scholars are traditionally more attracted by a ‘political economic’ paradigm, which includes the above-mentioned socio-political interpretation of work and employment. Thus, a large majority of German scholars perceive ‘social partnership’ (thus cooperative relations between various stakeholders of the employment relationship such as employer, state, and unions) as the ideal form of employment relations. Social partnership requires strong legal rights for workers and their interest representatives (e.g. co-determination), and should not be confused with the voluntary ‘partnership’ agreements between management and workers currently en vogue in Anglophone research (see Ackers and Payne 1998). This paradigm may be open to change in the future given Germany’s increasing attraction to liberalizing their employment relations. Moreover, German publications traditionally have a tendency to describe changes within work and employment as wider societal changes, and they are likely to interpret employment phenomena as socio-political processes rather

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than as singular outcomes of imbalances in the labour market, as is more typical in U.S. and British research (Hetzler 1995). In other words, in German publications employment issues are seen as being shaped by socio-political as well as market forces, whereas Anglophone publications are more dominated by the latter. This matches Hyman’s (1995: 39) diagnosis that ‘continental European research interprets industrial relations as part of more general socioeconomic relations and not just as a Dunlopian societal sub-system where broader macro issues can be described as external and be left out as is the tradition in the U.S.’ Continental European research is more rooted in general theories of the economy and society: ‘Employment relations research in continental Europe commonly displays a more critical or radical analytical thrust, with a strong emphasis on the dynamics of conflict in employment relations and an explicit rejection of the economic framework of analysis traditional in Anglo-American approaches. This approach created a growing, diverse and innovative research community in Europe in recent years when at the same time employment relations research in Anglo-American countries declined’ (Hyman 1995: 30). Continental European research also incorporates a larger variety of micro, meso, and macro research perspectives. Hyman (2004: 287), for example, notes the emphasis on the interdependence of the three analytical levels and highlights the editorial statement of the IB editors when the journal was launched (1994: 6): ‘The aim is to link the micro perspectives of employees and firms to the meso perspective of associations and intermediary actors and the macro perspective of state and society.’ This perspective, according to Hyman, would be much less emphasized in the Anglophone context. Similarly, Mitchell (2001: 384) suggests that if one wants to find employment relations literature dealing with larger societal issues today, it is more likely to be found abroad than in the U.S. And Wood already in the 1970s (1978: 45) argued that British employment research lacked a concern ‘for such things as the “wider society”, the existing inequalitarian structure, or even, as Hyman claims, the “frontier of control” ’. Wood (1978: 45) states that this neglect arises because of the ‘liberal-pluralistic orientation of the British employment paradigm (exemplified in the Oxford School) which focuses principally on the methods of determining substantive rules and, in particular, collective bargaining, and not primarily on the determination of the methods, nor on its results’. In a nutshell, one may argue that employment relations in Anglophone countries has been traditionally defined as a separate unit of analysis, as an autonomous system independent from political or economic systems, which has been exemplified in Dunlop’s application (1958) of Parsons’s system theory to employment relations. The long-standing ideology of Anglophone pluralism, however, encouraged a separation of the political from the industrial

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(Ludlam et al. 2003: 609). Thus, as Ludlam et al. (2003: 609) argue, ‘although the political system was perceived as a major determinant of the shape of employment relations systems the self-sustaining nature of the latter was emphasized, as the focus of analysis became the institutions of collective bargaining’. One might add that the self-containing nature of employment relations basically meant that employment was shaped by economic rather than political forces. Finally, there is empirical support in my survey for the outlined crossnational variations of employment paradigms. For example, a search on ‘politics’ in the title or abstract of all articles in the ILRR over nearly sixty years, between 1947 and 2004, provided only four results (Brody 1989; Godard 1992; Hamann 1998; Locke 1992), out of which three were of comparative nature and one historical (of the four authors one was Canadian and another was German). Similarly, in Britain in the BJIR (between 1966 and 2004) ‘politics’ appeared in the title or abstract of only six articles—many of them on a comparative/international topic or related to the E.U. (two authors of the six were German) (Hassel 2004; Ludham et al. 2003; Mahnkopf 1992; Marks et al. 1998; McIlroy 1998; Wailes, Ramia, and Lansbury 2003). A second and final example looks at the varying treatment of workplace relations in the German and Anglophone literature. There is the widespread conviction in German research that one can only understand workplace phenomena if one links them to the wider system of society and ideology (Bahrdt 1982: 14). For example, many articles published in IB dealing with the reorganization of work link the occurrences at shop-floor level to the wider situation of workers in society (e.g. in terms of democratic participation rights). A typical example is Heidenreich and Töpsch (IB 1998) who discuss workplace implications of the arising ‘knowledge society’ or Bogumil and Kißler (IB 1998) who analyse the impact of organizational modernization on employees and their participation as a political process at workplace level. Reorganization of work, or as the Germans call it, ‘rationalization’, 12 seems to be evaluated not just as the technical liberation of workers, but as part of their economic and political/social liberation. As Schneider (IB 1995: 334) puts it, liberation from work and within work should be the dual aim of rationalization. This critical understanding is typical for much of the German industrial sociology work on rationalization in the last few decades. In contrast, Anglophone research on the reorganization of work seems to traditionally emphasize the reconciliation between the social and technical systems at the workplace level and focuses on behaviourist, human 12 The term is meant in a Weberian sense as the spread of formal rationality in an organization.

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relations consequences rather than on the societal, political consequences of the production process (Braczyk, Knesebeck, and Schmidt 1982: 48; Glaser 1971). This is evident in earlier as well as more recent publications. I have not come across any U.S. publication on high involvement or high performance work systems which links developments at shop-floor level to broader sociopolitical issues (see, e.g. articles in the ILRR during the 1990s: Adler, Goldoftas, and Levine 1994; Osterman 1994; Paul and Kleingartner 1994). Also, earlier publications on work reorganization such as Shepard (ILRR 1970) do not discuss broader social issues. The same can be said about British publications on high performance work systems during the 1990s (e.g. in the BJIR: Deery and Erwin 1999; Ramsay, Scholarios, and Harley 2000; Wood 1999).

CONCLUSION This chapter presented the findings of a comparative study of employment journal publications in the U.S., Britain, and Germany. Table 3.20 provides a summary of the main ideal-typical (simplified) national research patterns. To sum up: First, U.S. journals were slightly more ethnocentric than the British, and the Germans were the least, but in all cases the vast majority (between 70 and 90 per cent) of articles were published by national authors and this did not change much over time. Moreover, 96 per cent of all articles in the U.S. during the 1970s and 1990s were published by Anglophone authors (U.S., Britain, and others). This figure was even larger in Britain during the 1970s (98 per cent) but dropped slightly during the 1990s to 90 per cent. These findings confirm the Anglophone dominance of the field of study. To conclude, though the British and German journals were slightly more nationally diverse than the U.S. journals, none of these were truly international in terms of their authorship. Second, the U.S. was increasingly dominated by labour economists, Britain increasingly by employment/business scholars, and Germany by other social scientists. The findings challenge the widespread assumption that Employment Relations as an independent discipline in Anglophone countries necessarily produces more interdisciplinary research than in other countries and confirms scholarly concerns as expressed in Chapter 2 (e.g. Lewin and Feuille 1983: 357). Note that this is in particular the case for U.S. employment research and due to the long-standing and increasing dominance of labour economists, but less for Britain which remains more interdisciplinary. Third, as the observations in Chapter 2 suggested, our findings confirm the decline of IR issues in U.S. publications but cannot necessarily confirm a

Table 3.20. Dominant U.S., British, and German patterns in employment research U.S.

Britain

Germany

Institutional Affiliations of authors (ranked)

Primarily economists, second IR/HR/business Primarily IR/HR/business, second economists Other social scientists (especially industrial sociologists)

Nationality of authors

Virtually all U.S., some Anglophones, very few Virtually all British, a larger share of Europeans, Asians, and virtually nobody Anglophones, some Europeans, a few from the rest of the world Asians and rest of the world

Most German, some Anglophones, a few Europeans, a few Asians and rest of the world

Research subject Broad topic of research

HR

IR

IR

Specific topics: five most common in the 1990s (ranked)

HRM, pay, labour market, unions, and social issues

Unions, HRM, collective bargaining, other employment issues, pay

Labour process, international/comparative, other employment issues, industrial democracy, and state

Methodology Nature of articles

Empirical (inductive)

Empirical (descriptive)

Think pieces/essays

Empirical research: quantitative/qualitative

Quantitative

Qualitative and quantitative

Qualitative

Small/large scale

Large scale

Small scale

Small scale

Comparative, longitudinal, one-time period

One-time period

One-time period

One-time period

Analytical level

Micro (individual, group) level

Firm level

Firm level

Theories

Middle-range theories; economic (rational choice) theories, sociopsychological/ behaviourist theories

Middle-range theories; economic (rational choice) theories, sociopsychological/ behaviourist theories

Grand theories; institutional, action theoretical approaches

Purpose of research

Research to solve social problems, i.e. the Research to solve social problems, i.e. the Research as a purpose in itself, to find labour problem, hypothesis-testing, ideally labour problem, hypothesis-testing, ideally ‘truth’/to understand (‘verstehen’) and as researchers as neutral agents researchers as neutral agents; but more a political process, ideally research is not explicit policy-orientation neutral but critical

Paradigms/definition of employment relations

Employment relations as a labour market outcome (economic process); contractual laissez-faire

Epistemology

Employment relations as a labour market outcome (economic process); collective laissez-faire

Employment relations as a political–economic process; social partnership/co-determination

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huge increase of HR topics. In fact, labour market issues were the topic which increased most over time and this correlates with the increase of labour economists. The fact that IR topics declined can be explained by the declining relevance of unions and collective bargaining in the U.S. since the early 1980s. However, the widespread thesis that the decline of the traditional employment institutions leads to an automatic decline of IR topics cannot be supported in the British case. British unions experienced a significant reduction of their power between the 1970s and 1990s while research on IR issues (in particular union research) was higher in the 1990s than in the 1970s. Moreover, HR topics were not as popular. One should note, however, that the continuing presence of IR topics in Britain might have been induced by the recent labour law reforms of the Blair government such as the introduction of a minimum wage and unionization procedures. On a different side, Britain opened itself to alternative issues (others, international, and social) during the 1990s and this indicates an interest in exploring new, modern topics. This did not happen so much in the U.S. In short, one could conclude that the U.S. increasingly turned into a labour economic field and also neglected to open up towards alternative topics. Finally, it is remarkable how little HR was a topic in German research (1 per cent) and how strongly the field focused on IR issues (92 per cent). One explanation may be that German human resource scholars are disproportionally more likely to avoid the IB and publish in specific human resource journals compared to their Anglophone counterparts. However, given that most human resource journals in Germany are practitioner-oriented and that in Britain or the U.S. the supply of academic human resource journals is much larger, this is not a likely scenario. A more sensible explanation may be that traditionally, personnel management was treated in a highly legalistic manner in Germany and is still not very receptive to the strategy-driven human resource management paradigm (Müller 1999). A further question concerns the international level of employment research. The two proxies of internationalization used in this study, 13 the share of foreign authors and international topics for each journal, reveal that the ongoing globalization of the economy and the research community has not corresponded in a strong international research environment in the Anglophone countries, though it has to a certain extent in Germany. And it has surely not translated into a convergence of research patterns at this stage. 13 Additional indicators could be the degree to which national research topics (e.g. union organizing in Britain) are being discussed from an international, comparative perspective, or the share of foreign literature in the bibliography of the articles. These measures would have required an extensive content analysis which was not possible given the sample size—but see tentative data from the BJIR on next page.

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Thus, despite the fact that an increasing amount of employment scholars engaged in international, comparative research projects, the numbers compared to non-comparative studies are still rather small with regard to journal publications. Germany seems the most internationalized, partly due to the fact that it is a latecomer in a field dominated by Anglophone research and, one may argue, to the fact that German employment relations is increasingly shaped by supranational bodies such as the European Union. The latter is also true for Britain, which may explain why Britain is relatively more international than the U.S. The prominent absence of international topics in the U.S. seems to confirm the stereotype of U.S. research as being parochial and ethnocentric (Hyman 2001b). The tentative differences between the U.S. and Britain are also supported by internal Blackwell publisher’s data (2006) which reveals that the top ten institutions which regularly download BJIR articles from the web are all British and no U.S. universities. Moreover, the International Social Science Index (ISI) index data for 2005 shows that although BJIR authors frequently cited U.S. journals they were themselves less likely to be cited in U.S. journals. Fourth, the findings support the well-known argument that Anglophone social sciences are in general more empirically and pragmatically oriented (Bulmer 1983; Mitchell 2001; Schmitter 1999; Whitfield and Strauss 2000) compared to German research, which is more theoretical (Delanty 1997). It also confirms criticisms, expressed in Chapter 2, on the increasingly a-theoretical character of employment research in the U.S. One should note that with regard to the empirical work the study revealed important differences between the two Anglophone countries and assigns Britain a middle position between the U.S. and Germany (see similar findings for political science, Smith 2000), which is further substantiated in our findings on quantitative versus qualitative methods. Fifth, in Germany as well as in Britain, most publications were qualitative in the 1990s whereas in the U.S. most work was quantitative. This confirms the common perception of the U.S. social sciences as being quantitatively biased (Bender and Schorske 1997; Ross 1991). Thus, despite the slight variation between the British journals (BJIR is slightly more quantitative than the IRJ) the British data challenge the argument of a universal or Anglophone trend towards quantification since the 1970s. So far this has been mainly a U.S. trend, partly enhanced through the computerization of social sciences, but also through the long-standing emphasis in U.S. academia towards pragmatic, positivist research, and their scepticism of European-style historical and descriptive approaches (Schorske : 328). It is telling that already in the 1970s a large percentage of U.S. publications were quantitative even on ‘sociological’ topics such as flexible specialization (e.g. Shepard ILRR 1970).

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The data also confirm the perception of British employment research as being more descriptive inductive and less analytical deductive (see Cappelli 1985). Sixth, U.S. research was biased towards large-scale data, Britain and Germany preferred self-collected small-scale data, and all preferred one-time rather than comparative or longitudinal research. Moreover, the U.S. data with their emphasis on micro-level analysis challenge Mitchell’s finding (2001: 385) that employment research in the U.S. is generally not interested in the micro level. However, taking all countries together, the firm level has generally been the most important level of employment analysis. In Britain as well as in Germany the firm was the most popular level of analysis during the 1990s and in the U.S. the second most important. Thus, overall employment research has been mostly occupied with workplace relations rather than industry or national-level employment systems. Seventh and finally, with regard to research theories, purpose, and paradigms one can conclude that theories in Germany are usually of a sociological nature and generate a foundation for hermeneutic research, whereas in U.S. and to a lesser extent in British research theories are more middle-range hypotheses or models that can be empirically tested. The research purpose in Germany is traditionally geared towards ‘truth’ finding whereas in Anglophone countries research is more explicitly used as a problem-solving tool. Note that in Britain there is a stronger emphasis than in the U.S. on public policy implications. Furthermore, in Britain and the U.S. employment relations is traditionally perceived as a primary labour market outcome though their paradigms slightly differ between concepts of contractual laissez-faire (U.S.) and of collective laissez-faire (Britain). In Germany, the leading paradigm is to interpret employment relations as a socio-economic process and the emphasis is traditionally on ‘social partnership’. In sum, the findings revealed patterns of employment research differing significantly across the three countries, overriding the variation sometimes found between journals of one country. In particular, I would like to highlight the significant variation between the two Anglophone countries, which challenges the commonly accepted notion of a homogeneous Anglophone style in conducting research. The next chapter provides a framework on how to explore these country variations in more detail.

4 Path Dependencies and State Traditions in Comparative Perspective INTRODUCTION The longitudinal survey of journal publications across the three countries discussed in Chapter 3 suggested that employment research, so far, has remained embedded in national-specific cultures and traditions. There is no reason to assume that these national research varieties are deviations from a standard (such as the U.S. model), or delays in reaching that standard. On the contrary, the variety and persistence of national intellectual profiles over time undermines assumptions of a universal, linear evolution of the social sciences and instead highlights their enduring historical embeddedness. These findings confirm Platt’s judgement (1991: 131) that national research patterns in the social sciences are not ‘random characteristics bundled together arbitrarily but are interconnected and form distinctive patterns, which are not easily transformed over time’. The findings also challenge positions advocating that the increasing convergence of employment regulations and practices throughout the globalized world and the intense international communication among the research community will inevitably lead to a convergence of national research patterns, and thus create a homogeneous, universal style of research. In particular, the findings do not support a simplistic take-over thesis, thus the prediction that Anglophone research will take over Continental European traditions (or the U.S. taking over British research). The survey shows sustained divergence so far: distinctive national research patterns remain which seem astonishingly resistant to processes of universalization. How can we then explain the ongoing diversity and persistence of national research patterns and the potential paths on which a successful transformation of Employment Relations may be founded? The following three chapters identify long-standing roots of the national research profiles in the specific substantive, institutional, and ideational constellations under which social scientists have tried to develop discursive understandings of their

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employment systems. The present chapter develops a heuristic framework of the path dependencies of scientific research and how cross-national variation in knowledge production can be accounted for. The framework is based on the sociological literature on knowledge, briefly reviewed in the following paragraph.

APPROACHES TO SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION Various disciplines, in particular ‘sociology of knowledge’, which I will focus on, but also history or philosophy of science have developed approaches to analyse the determinants and processes of knowledge production. For a long time, knowledge creation, while regarded as the proper subject matter of logic (and psychology), was viewed as lying outside the realm of social science because it was not considered a social process. In recent decades references to knowledge creation as a social activity, that is, the premise that knowledge is not objective but derives out of a specific social context, has become the core paradigm of the sociology of knowledge. Already Auguste Comte claimed that ‘the mind is social’ (1875). Karl Marx proclaimed that a society’s economic situation provides a major foundation not only for societal organization but idea systems as well (Mohan and Kinloch 2000: 15). Georg Lukács (1923) argued that society and the social sciences that study it are no more ‘rational’ than they are totemistic. Max Weber (1904) in his famous essay on objectivity in social sciences denied the existence of a social objectivity outside the discourse of science. But he also rejected Marx’s view by suggesting that ideas do not emerge from one single component of social life, in this case economic, but that philosophical, religious, linguistic, and scientific ideas and values, together with the structure assumed by a specific society, are all interdependent constituents of human action and knowledge (Mohan and Kinloch 2000: 15). This provided the pathway to a new field of study, the sociology of knowledge, which can be roughly divided into three approaches: a structural, cognitive, and process-oriented approach. The sociology of knowledge originally asked how the social position or situation of individuals and groups shapes their knowledge (Swidler and Arditi 1994). Karl Mannheim (1893–1947) was the first to systematically consider knowledge creation as a social process. He argued that people use knowledge to adapt to their environment and since environment is not the same everywhere, knowledge will differ. He sought to trace out the specific connection between actual interest groups in society and the ideas and modes of thought

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which they espoused. Truth came to be seen as a product of its social location. 1 Thus, early sociology of knowledge distinguished between the content of ideas, their ‘internal’ substance, and the social and therefore ‘external’ factors that condition this content (Camic and Gross 1998). Kuhn’s ‘The Structure of Scientific Revolution’ (1962) introduced a new phase to the philosophy of science and ultimately to the sociology of knowledge. Kuhn was interested in the rational reconstruction of the acceptance or dismissal of research hypotheses within the academic community. Sociologists have been following his lead by analysing the internal processes of scientific knowledge creation, in particular how scientific communities establish shared assumptions and how these norms of investigation shape knowledge. Thus, the assumption was that research paradigms shift not only because of external pressures but potentially also because of developments within the academic communities. However, while this was a huge contribution to the understanding of knowledge creation, it went to the other extreme by neglecting the wider socio-historical conditions surrounding the intellectual communities. Kuhn assumed an almost total independence of the shape of the cognitive structures or content of scientific thoughts from either the institutional structures or the broader societal processes (Mendelsohn 1977). In sum, the early sociology of knowledge and Kuhn’s theory mark a divide between external and internal interpretations. This divide is what, in Camic and Gross’s terms, the ‘new sociology of knowledge’ has attempted to overcome since the 1970s (e.g. Knorr-Cetina 1999; Latour and Woolgar 1979). The new sociology of knowledge starts with the assumption that knowledge, whether scientific or not, is socially constructed and examines how scientific knowledge is situationally as well as cognitively determined. A core theme is to understand what kinds of social organization and dynamic processes make whole orderings of knowledge possible, rather than focusing in the first instance on the differing social locations or on the interests of individuals or groups. Most recent studies seek process-oriented accounts on a behavioural level or with regard to group settings such as knowledge creation in laboratories. Thus, focusing neither on large-scale forces like class or the capitalist economy, nor on influences such as the intellectual milieu or interests of individual actors, recent work has explored how authority, power, and practices 1 Note that the concept of socially constructed knowledge raises pressing metaphysical questions concerning the extent to which social reality is constructed by social science or vice versa (reality determining social science), in other words whether social reality is an objective entity or entirely socially constructed (Delanty 1997: 111). These questions on the relationship between reality and knowledge are a subject of current philosophical debates between constructivists and realists (see Bhaskar 1989 for an excellent introduction). The book at hand is concerned with the more empirical question of which factors shape scientific knowledge creation.

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within institutions shape knowledge. For example, the unequal distribution of academic rewards such as employment, career mobility, salaries, fellowships, and prestige mean that even though scientific communities lack unified authority, their basic social organization forces them to act as if some ideas were better than others, some problems and problem solutions more important than others, and so forth. Thus, the manufacture of scientific certainty may well be a product of such central activities as departments deciding whom to hire or fellowship committees assessing research proposals. In a nutshell, the sociology of knowledge has developed macro, micro, and meso (process-related) approaches and has produced an impressive array of insights on the determinants and processes of knowledge creation. What is less represented are comparative and historical dimensions, that is, studies exploring processes of knowledge creation over time and across locations (Wagner 1990). A comparative historical perspective seems necessary in particular when studying broader, more institutional processes of knowledge production such as the development of entire scientific fields or disciplines. Such a perspective allows exposing structural and ideational path dependencies which provide limitations for actors but also give them cognitive, institutional, or political resources or materials to create knowledge (Wagner 1990: 17). The present book contributes towards a comparative historical interpretation of knowledge production in the social sciences. It is based on insights of the sociology of knowledge, which perceive social sciences as being continuously reinvented by strategic (academic) actors and structural conditions. However, rather than describing the internal processes of reproduction and innovation, this book focuses on the macro level and explores the embeddedness of these processes in historical path dependencies, which are interpreted from a comparative perspective.

Social Science Disciplines and National Variations Not surprisingly, there exist only a remarkably small number of knowledge studies on scientific disciplines (Heilbron 2004: 25). Moreover, these are mostly historical accounts of particular disciplines in a single country (e.g. Danzinger 1990 for U.S. psychology; Geuter 1983 on German psychology; Kimmel 2000 for U.S. personnel management), although some scholars have focused on the entire social sciences in one country. Ross (1991), for example, studied the distinctive characteristics of U.S. social sciences and linked it to the ideology of American exceptionalism and its national culture. With regard to Employment Relations, Kaufman has written a history of the field in the U.S. (1993) and recently published (2004) a volume describing

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the varying degrees of academic institutionalization of Employment Relations during the twentieth century in various regions of the world such as Europe or Asia. He provides a rich description of a large number of countries without, however, offering a comparative framework of analysis. As Wagner and Wittrock (1991b: 342) note, it is puzzling to see the neglect of comparative studies since they seem indispensable when exploring the social and cultural embeddedness of social sciences: ‘In particular, given that the formation of disciplinary social sciences coincided with transformations of the nation states and that the latter transformations were crucially dependent on new discursive understandings of state and society, the neglect of comparative research is indeed surprising.’ Although it is a common observation in social sciences that national intellectual traditions exist (Wagner and Wittrock 1991b: 341), few attempts have been made hitherto to systematically and comparatively explain specificities of national knowledge discourses. All we have are a few observations by academics stating that cross-national differences in the social sciences do exist, for example, by the prominent British historian John Breuilly (1992: 3): ‘as a European historian I have always been struck by the extent to which national boundaries shape historical study. Historians are trained in different ways from one state to another. Most of those historians then study their own country. The few who study the history of other countries generally take over the questions and methods by indigenous historians; sometimes, more interestingly but not necessarily any more comparatively, they introduce the concerns of their own national historiographies into their study of another country.’ Another example is Braczyk, von dem Knesebeck, and Schmidt (1982: 48) who with regard to the field of industrial sociology observe that ‘as all empirical analytical disciplines, industrial sociology did not develop in a coherent manner but was influenced by specific national socio-economic developments, power relations and political cultures’. On a comparative level, however, there are some studies on mutual scientific influences across countries, such as the German influence on early U.S. social sciences (Ash 1983; Manicas 1987; Shaskolsky 1970), or the U.S. influence on German post-war social sciences (Weyer 1984). There are also some studies, primarily dating from the 1970s, that conceptualize U.S. versus European social scientific styles (Wolff 1970: 31–67). Yet most of these studies are restricted to descriptions of differences rather than exploring possible explanations. Finally, there are some culturalist interpretations of national research traditions which foster the embeddedness of research patterns in different cultures. Galtung (1981), for example, identifies four different national styles

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in academia: Saxon, Teutonic, Gallic, and Nippon styles. He provides an entertaining discussion on the variation of academic daily conduct and discourse in different countries, such as national habits of how to discuss and criticize paper presentations. However, much of it is a detailed description rather than an explanation of why these differences exist. Another comparative example is Harwood (1993) who provides a similar classification of research styles and attempts to explain them by referring to different socio-economic backgrounds of German and Anglophone scholars. He characterizes German scholars as ‘comprehensives’ and Anglophone scholars as ‘pragmatists’. He then links those national styles to a class analysis of academics, arguing that the comprehensives usually come from the traditional educated middle class (‘Bildungsbürgertum’) and sustain broad cultural interests in the arts. Pragmatists, in contrast, usually come from the commercial or lower middle class; they prefer hobbies such as hiking or gardening and are employed in more technically oriented institutions of higher learning. This analysis has been heavily criticized for not clarifying the underlying process by which social class and institutional work interacts (Tuchman 1997). In particular, Harwood fails to explain why the middle class in the U.S. or the lower class in Germany is apparently less ‘interested’ in an academic career and what their structural and cultural constraints or incentives are.

PATH DEPENDENCIES OF EMPLOYMENT RESEARCH This book attempts to contribute towards a more conceptual and historical understanding of the cultural embeddedness of scientific knowledge production. In contrast to Galtung and Harwood who remain at an a-historical level, my analysis focuses on the various path dependencies of knowledge production, thus the historical legacies of research cultures. As Hodgson (2001: xiv) rightly argues, the reconstruction of a specific social scientific field cannot be fulfilled without an adequate knowledge of its intellectual history. 2 Note that I use Pierson’s definition of path dependency (2004: 20) which refers to dynamic processes involving positive feedback or self-reinforcement, which generate multiple possible outcomes depending on the particular 2 This is in line with recent sociological theories which highlight the importance of culture and ideas on shifts in how societal actors understand their interests. These theories developed partly as a reaction to the growing hegemony of rational choice theorists (Lamont and Thévenot 2000: 4). They point instead to the enduring importance of cultural models and practices for the understanding of societal phenomena and on how they converge or vary cross-nationally (e.g. Hall 1993; Katzenstein 1996).

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sequence in which events unfold. Yet each step in a particular direction makes it more costly to reverse course. As Levi (1997: 28) so brilliantly described: Path dependence has to mean, if it is to mean anything, that once a country or region has started down a track, the costs of reversal are very high. There will be other choice points, but the entrenchments of certain institutional arrangements obstruct an easy reversal of the initial choice. Perhaps the better methaphor is a tree, rather than a path. From the same trunk, there are many different branches and smaller branches. Although it is possible to turn around or to clamber from one to the other—and essential if the chosen branch dies—the branch on which a climber begins is the one she tends to follow.

Moreover, which branch or path is chosen is not necessarily a ‘rational’ decision. Thus, the acceptability and success of a particular theory in Employment Relations may be determined on grounds other than the internal logical structure of the argument or the weight of evidence used to support it. A theory may gain acceptance in the field not simply because it provides the most ‘adequate’ explanation for a phenomenon but, rather, because the explanation it offers arrives in a form that is particularly attractive to a specific national culture or a particular group of scholars who are leading in the field (see DeBrizzi 1983: 6). Differently put, the country-specific research patterns may resemble a ‘frozen ideology’ in the words of Liedman (1993), except that the patterns are not really frozen but rather constantly repeated, re-instantiated, and thus part and parcel of a living academic community (Wittrock 1993: 304). Where these ‘frozen ideologies’ come from is the focus of this book. How then can one explore the cross-national variation of research in Employment Relations? This is, without doubt, an ambitious enterprise: not one single factor can capture the variations across the different research dimensions. Ideally, a comprehensive inquiry would require a complex set of multiple factors, touching upon fundamental social scientific dichotomies such as structure versus actor, path dependencies versus strategic choices, institutions versus culture, or materialism versus idealism. It would reach into various disciplines and would be historical and comparatively informed. Thus, for the study of employment research one would need a comparative history of Employment Relations and its ideas in Germany, Britain, and the U.S., a history of knowledge production, a history of the relations between Employment Relations and related disciplines, a history of influential academics in the field, and a social history (students and their background). We would also need a theory to interconnect historical, structural, and cognitive determinants and the actions of each scientific community (Weingart 1976). However, as Fourcade-Gourinchas (2001: 398) manifests, we do not yet have a satisfactory

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encompassing theory of knowledge formation that would allow us to account simultaneously for the above variables, in particular the social structures and institutions of knowledge production, and for the latter’s intrinsic, substantive ideational nature. In particular, we have no theoretical foundation to analyse cross-cultural variations of social science disciplines. This book provides a first contribution by laying out specific path dependencies which seem important for the analysis of cross-country variation in employment research and for the field’s potential transformation. The developed categories and framework should be seen as propositions rather than final conclusions, thus as an attempt to develop a new perspective on the determinants of social science fields. Moreover, this book does not include a search for linear causal processes in the past (e.g. Mahoney and Rueschemeyer 2003); my analysis is not geared towards predicting specific research outcomes in a particular country. My trajectories are heuristic tools rather than a tight theoretical framework, exploring interrelations between variables rather than determining causalities. The emphasis is on exploring path dependencies in a non-causalistic manner. Finally, the book is more interested in exploring the broad variations of research patterns across countries than in the subsequent reproduction processes in a specific country. However, a logical consequence would be that the factors which account for the existence of these research trajectories in the first place are also those which are responsible for the reproduction of these research patterns (see Thelen 2004: 213). Consequently, current reform attempts are advised to consider these factors when transforming employment research. The heuristic framework is based on two main premises, a methodological and a substantive one.

Comparative Historical Analysis First, as outlined before, the book starts from the assumption that understanding the variation of knowledge production in different countries requires a comparative historical analysis of the conditions under which a coherent domain of discourse and practice was established in the first place. The analysis will concentrate on the nineteenth century as the period in which social sciences, industrialization, and the rise of the labour problem began, which led to an intellectual engagement with work and employment. The nineteenth century is the formative period of the institutionalization of social sciences, although many sources of social sciences go back to the eighteenth century (Wagner 2001: 1). The nineteenth century created certain parameters of knowledge production which have endured in their outlines

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to our present day. I therefore adopt Thelen’s assumption (2004: 39) that national research patterns or knowledge clusters are not created ‘of a piece’ but ‘rather evolved as successive layers which were patched on to a rudimentary framework developed during the nineteenth century’. My aim is to compare this ‘rudimentary framework’ across countries. Obviously, the ideal would have been to study the intellectual history of employment research in all three countries from the nineteenth to the twentyfirst centuries. Given the usual space and time limitations this was not possible. But it was also not necessary. I focus on the nineteenth century because this is the period when intellectuals first studied aspects of work and employment in all three countries. Remember that this book is not conceived as a history of the academic institutionalization of the employment field (i.e. the creation of departments), which occurred in the twentieth century, but as a much broader history of ideas on work and employment that started much earlier. It is sensible to assume that scholars started to reflect on these matters during the time of industrialization and democratization in Europe and the U.S. This approach neglects the processes through which the original research patterns were reproduced and transformed during the twentieth century. In other words, I ignore potentially pivotal points in each country’s history during the twentieth century when discourses may have changed (such as the 1920s with the advent of progressive labour legislation, or the 1970s quantitative ‘revolution’ in the social sciences). Arguably, such developments were experienced in all three countries and are therefore less significant in comparative perspective. But I also exclude exceptional time periods such as the Nazi regime in Germany which interrupted independent scholarly work in various ways. However, there are indicators from German labour law research that despite these exceptional conditions the main research paradigms and methodologies survived throughout the Nazi period (Weiss 2001). For example, the major legal principle of co-determination, which shapes much of post-war German employment relations, ultimately goes back to the midnineteenth century (see Chapter 7). 3 This continuity indicates the strength of the historically embedded research patterns. Thus, there is reason to suggest that the major paradigms and trends in research did not alter significantly throughout the twentieth century. Moreover, this book’s interest lies less in ‘institutional re-production’ than in ‘institution building’. The emphasis is not so much on internal change throughout time but on exploring the apparent stability of research patterns 3 They were first legalized during the Weimar Republic and then re-institutionalized after 1945.

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in the investigated periods of time (see also Thelen 2004: xiii). I am not denying that institutions are ambiguous, leaving space for actors to interpret these institutions differently, and they are prone to change (see Jackson 2005). However, this book’s focus is on the underlying historical core characteristics of these institutions. Finally, one should add that searching for historical path dependencies of the nineteenth century to explain institutional stabilities in one country or continuing cross-national variations is a growing method among social scientists (Mahoney and Rueschemeyer 2003). Similar investigations have been made, for example, by Shenhav (2002: 199), who investigates the field of management studies and concludes that ‘much of today’s management and organization theory is epistemologically and theoretically infused with the ideological parameters that were born during the efforts to establish the legitimization of management during the end of the nineteenth century’. Other examples are found in the field of law on legal cultures (Nelken 2004) or on traditions of privacy (Whitman 2004), in ‘law and finance’ on legal origins (e.g. civil vs. common law) (LaPorta et al. 1997), or in the field of sociology on theoretical traditions originating during the nineteenth century (Levine 1995). To conclude, this study is an attempt to explore certain pathways of crossnational research. It is therefore a potential victim from two sides: on the one hand, historians may dislike the study’s comparative nature since it will unavoidably produce generalized statements which undermine the inherent varieties of knowledge production and ideas, and neglects the often diverse path dependencies within each of these countries. Yet what should be noted is that this book, in line with all comparativist work, is a study of relative differences. It acknowledges that, as Whitman (2004: 1163) wisely states, ‘no absolute generalization about national traditions is ever true’. One should also not forget, in Amenta’s slightly provocative words (2003: 97) that ‘comparative historical research by social scientists may do good by dismissing the, arguably, inessential and sometimes parochial arguments plausible to experts on one country alone’. On the other hand, the study might be subject to a social scientists’ critique of historical determinism. Surely, this book does not entail a simplistic historical determinism, which would assume that ‘specific paths are set at a given point in time so that actors are ineluctably condemned to follow a specific trajectory without possibility of change or exit’ (Crouch 2005: 74). As outlined above, the book does not deny that changes happen over time and are endogenously or exogenously induced and reinforced by strategic actors. In accordance with Weir (1992), the book conceptualizes the original pathways, which are investigated during the nineteenth century,

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as characterized by elements of continuity that shape but do not preclude change.

State Traditions The second, more substantive characteristic of my framework refers to the importance of state traditions in the development of the study on work and employment. It seems indisputable from a comparative historical perspective that social sciences are closely related to state and societal developments. Social sciences, in contrast to the natural sciences or humanities, are outcomes of their own subject of study, the advent of modern society. In other words, social sciences are part of what they intend to analyse. They are participants as well as observers. In particular, social sciences developed after the bourgeois revolution and the advent of Enlightenment in Europe, wishing to enable the young societies to understand themselves as a man-made institution rather than godgiven. Social sciences are also inseparably linked with the industrial revolution, which led to transformations—the social problem—that were increasingly seen as problematic and threatening the foundations of bourgeois society (see Therborn 1974). In other words, social sciences were an outcome of specific political changes in Continental Europe in the nineteenth century as well as a means of self-reflection for the new societies (Wagner 1990: 57). In the words of Giddens (1984: xxxiii), ‘an expansion of political selfmonitoring on the part of the state was characteristic of modernity in the West in general, creating the social and intellectual climate from which specialized, “professional” discourses of social science have developed but also express and foster.’ State formation developed differently in the various countries during the nineteenth century across Europe and in the U.S. The literature commonly divides Anglophone and Continental European state traditions or state traditions within Europe. The term state traditions has been widely used to describe national variations of societal phenomena. For example, Crouch (1993: 296) uses ‘state traditions’ in his seminal book Industrial Relations and European State Traditions to explain different types of employment relations systems. His definition refers to structural country-specific patterns of relationships between the state and society (respectively organized interests). Similarly, Hall (1986; quoted in Crouch 1993: 296) traces current industrial practices back through a long historical trajectory and classifies countries on the basis of their state traditions, such as ‘statist France’, ‘market-governed Britain’, and ‘organized Germany’.

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There are also sociological studies of knowledge which explore the importance of the state and of politics for the practice of social sciences (e.g. Wagner 1990). Commonly, scholars refer to the structural characteristics of states but also to their ideational or philosophical foundations. With regard to the structural differences, Wagner (1990, 1991) in his impressive examination of the historical developments of social sciences in France, Italy, and Germany highlights the importance of state traditions as political structures to explain cross-national variation in the scientific organization and practice of the social sciences. On a similar vein, Fourcade-Gourinchas (2000) fosters, among other things, the structures of the national state in her analysis of the different developments of the economic profession in Britain, France, and the U.S. As Wagner (1990: 36) puts it, the variation of social sciences between continental Europe and Anglophone countries cannot be explained without considering the crucial importance of the pro-active state for social science development in continental Europe. In continental Europe the creation of social sciences happened in the period of constituting national states, thus after a relatively short ‘liberal’ phase in the middle of the nineteenth century the central state institutions regained overwhelming importance within society. This special role of the state articulated itself among other things in the orientation of the elites towards the state and in the form of the law and distinguished continental European countries from Anglophones in which ‘civil society’ had more dominance (see also Hughes 1958: 13).

State and society were increasingly perceived as separate entities in Continental Europe but not in the Anglophone context. Badie and Birnbaum (1983: 124) even talk of a ‘government by civil society’ in the U.S. Thus, one important characteristic of the dominance of the state within society is the degree to which the state shapes the social order, in particular the actors of civil society. Wittrock and Wagner (1996: 105) alert us that in Continental Europe sophisticated administrative state structures existed long before the establishment of the modern democratic state, which makes a crucial difference to Anglophone countries. Thus, the formalization of rules (codified law) and of central state institutions (public bureaucracy) in Continental Europe specified and codified the relation of political authority to societal actors and provided a long tradition of rule enforcement which reached deep into societal structures. The civil society in Continental Europe defined itself not so much as an arena outside the state or government than as being enabled and embedded by the state. A related phenomenon is that Germany during the nineteenth century fostered the rationalization of the law before the rationalization of economic

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production, whereas in Britain the reverse was the case (and was built into the common law structure) (Rueschemeyer and Van Rossem 1996). One major explanation for the dominance of the state in Continental Europe is its long history of strong absolutist monarchs, when the state was identified with the monarch; and only after the French Revolution was the state conceived as an entity based on a constitution. In contrast, the British monarchs had less absolutist power than the rulers of Continental Europe and there were early alliances between aristocracy and bourgeoisie to limit the king’s and therefore state’s power. Moreover, it has been argued that Britain as an island never needed a strong military army to defend its land, which was a crucial factor in the formation of state administration and public bureaucracy in Continental Europe (Giddens 1985). Furthermore, some studies highlight ideational or philosophical characteristics of state traditions which embrace concepts of the theoretical interaction between state, society, and democracy. As Durkheim announced, ‘every nation has a moral philosophy that is in harmony with its character’ (quoted in Levine 1995: 103). More specifically, Wagner (1990: 30) calls these ‘cognitive orientations’ or ‘intellectual traditions’ of scientists. Wittrock, Wagner, and Wollmann (1991: 74) note that intellectual traditions have sometimes effectively stifled the emergence and development of some fields of social science. And Levine (1995: 271) proposes that social sciences in different countries are characterized by diverse theoretical approaches that reflect philosophical differences, which are embedded in different nation-states. 4 Finally, let me provide a few examples of how the state shaped the national roles of social sciences during the nineteenth century. In particular, social scientists in Continental Europe got their intellectual stimulation from various social conflict lines and interactions with political connotations, which were very different in the Anglophone societies (Wagner 1990: 37). Despite major differences between the main Continental European countries they all had traditions of sharp ideological disputes and fragmentation over ideas of how to organize a modern state and modern society, over differing concepts of liberalism and labels for class distinction that set them apart from Britain and the U.S. (Maier 1975: 5). This can be explained with the Continental Europeans’ 4

I adapt Levine’s proposition (1995: 273) that ideational traditions express intellectual dispositions that indicated the peculiar bent of the modernizing nations during the nineteenth century and that were shaped by certain cultural and political structures. Thus, the ideational traditions are not treated as pure linear outcomes of structural conditions but as independent though interrelated entities (see Steinmetz 2000: 7). The intention of this book is therefore to regard both the ideational traditions as well as the structural settings with their institutions and rules, enforcing and enabling practices, ‘without loosing sight of the simplest fact that ideas and institutions are always situational and are neither disembodied nor mindless’ (Wittrock 1993: 309).

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experience of various periods of political institutional reconstruction of their societies and the continuing struggle to create a nation-state and to legitimize such a state, which was continuously meshed by class struggles. It therefore made sense to combine societal issues with questions of political institutions and with questions of the relationship between state and society in a more substantial, normative manner. In contrast, in societies which only experienced very slow, gradual societal changes as in Britain, or where the constitution responded to all liberal demands and could be supported as a continuing shared basis for the society, as in the U.S., social scientists were more likely to perceive social change as a slow, smooth, politically adjustable process and to see social sciences as a cognitive instrument to support such a process (Wagner 1990: 37). Thus, in the U.S. the bourgeois society never had to fight the state for its rights. The U.S. did not know feudal social structures or class cleavages. It was therefore relatively unproblematic to legitimize the new U.S. state on the principles of liberty and equality. In Continental Europe, on the contrary, political power first had to establish the situation which, for the Americans, seemed to be the natural order (Grimm 1986: 97). As Manicas (1987: 210) proposes, ‘the U.S. was different enough to continental Europe for Americans to share a belief that there was nothing wrong with their country’s basic political institutions and that, accordingly, “problems” could be dealt with in piecemeal, ameliorative fashion.’ Finally, the differing ideational state traditions also have an impact on what scholars tend to study in the various countries. Levine (1995: 274) demonstrates that the British long-standing academic preoccupation with the properties, rights, and utilities of individual actors fits well with the long British struggle for personal liberties and with Calvinist strains, in Scotland and England, that focused attention on the individual’s personal conduct, while the ability to take the nation-state for granted relieved British thinkers from attending to issues of collective identity and organization that preoccupied their counterparts in Germany or France. In the U.S. the Calvinist and liberal traditions also figured strongly, yet the socio-political and cultural conditions were different. U.S. thinkers were shaped by the formative influences of frontier improvisationalism; the relatively modest role played by hereditary social status, the importance of voluntary associations, the weak state structure, and a general scepticism of rigid categories and established authorities. In contrast, certain features of the German cultural and political structures made their thinkers especially averse to the project of grounding an ethic on foundations supplied by the lawful properties of natural phenomena (Levine 1995). They included the inward-looking feature of Lutheranism with its doctrines of salvation through faith and its celebration of subjective

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freedom. Thus, German Idealism (and even Romanticism), which characterized much of the nineteenth-century intellectual discourse, grew out of Lutheranism and particularly Pietism, which had its strongholds in northern Germany (Ringer 1992). But German Idealism was obviously also shaped by Germany’s repressive political situation. Idealism developed as a reaction against French Enlightenment and the Napoleonic dominance in Europe at that time and was seen as one way to express an increasing sense of national and cultural distinctiveness. The German repressive state of the nineteenth century has often been associated with a German intellectual tendency to find freedom in an ideal realm, since it was unavailable in political reality (Levine 1995: 274). To conclude, this book adapts Wittrock and Wagner’s ‘constellational approach’ (1996: 107) to the study of knowledge and research patterns. This approach focuses on the specific state traditions in a given historical context and takes differences in such historical constellations of institutions as a starting point for explaining deviations in scientific developments between countries. Thus, deep-seated state differences arguably tend to set the stage for substantially different outcomes in terms of societal structures as well as scientific research settings. It is important to highlight that state traditions, whether structural or ideational, are not deterministic. They should not be perceived as ‘constraints to human actions, but as sets of historically established rules of action and as “containers” of resources and rules, which actors can draw upon and which enable them to pursue their courses of action’ (Wittrock and Wagner, 1996: 107). In other words, I approach these state traditions as ‘social conventions’ (Salais and Storper 1992) which highlights the fact that state traditions are temporarily agreed-on conventions with a certain stability that do not, however, completely predetermine outcomes.

CONCEPTUALIZING STATE TRADITIONS: THREE PATH DEPENDENCIES In order to operationalize the importance of state traditions in explaining cross-national differences of employment research, this book will discuss three major path dependencies from a comparative perspective: a substantive dimension (what is being researched), an institutional dimension (how is it researched/research tools), and an ideational dimension (what are the underlying ideas). I investigate the subject field of academic inquiry by focusing on labour movement histories; the scientific knowledge institutions by

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Path Dependencies and State Traditions National state traditions

Subject field/labour movement histories

National research patterns

Social science traditions

Industrial democracy discourse

Figure 4.1. Path dependencies of employment research

focusing on social science traditions; and the underlying intellectual traditions by focusing on the discourse of industrial democracy (Figure 4.1). As Wittrock and Wagner (1996: 91) remind us, social sciences have often been seen merely as a mirror of social and political processes, in particular as an intellectual response to the ‘social question’ of the nineteenth/twentieth centuries. You will recall that the reviewed literature on the crisis of Employment Relations (Chapter 2) has emphasized a similar functionalist interpretation and linked the developments in the subject matter (e.g. union decline) to the problems the academic field currently faces. Such a functional-evolutionary understanding of the relationship between social science and societal institutions cannot, however, sufficiently explain the empirical evidence of my comparative study of journal publications (Chapter 3). A functionalist approach neglects the way political and social structures not only constrain but also enable new ways of understanding societal

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phenomena, and how scientific discourses can have an impact on the world they study. Thus, rather than restricting myself to a functionalist perspective I use a wider, multilayered and historically founded approach to analyse the path dependencies of research practices. This approach also recognizes that research patterns are shaped by social science traditions as well as ideational trajectories. These additional factors have been introduced in comparative studies of social sciences (see above). For example, Wittrock, Wagner, and Wollmann (1991: 63) have emphasized social science traditions, thus the academic institutionalization of scientific traditions (also Shils 1970). And scholars such as Fourcade-Gourinchas (2001) or Wagner (1990) have introduced the notion of intellectual discourses.

Subject Field: Labour Movement Histories A first factor examines the subject field, employment relations, which originated in the nineteenth century at the time of industrialization and democratization and was characterized by different interactions between the labour movements, the state, and employers in each country. I will concentrate on the labour movement as the main actor which had an impact on the research on work and employment. As mentioned before, it is a straightforward (functionalist) hypothesis that research patterns are primarily shaped by their subject, thus that the specific employment institutions and practices in each country shape the way work and employment are perceived and studied. In particular, because Employment Relations is a problem-oriented field of study, it is even more likely to be shaped by the real world of employment which differs from country to country. 5 As Dunlop (1958: 329) states, ‘different interests of academic experts seem largely a reflection of their type of employment system’. Hyman (2001b) points out that the different national employment systems provoke different research topics: for example, an emphasis of Anglophone research on collective bargaining and in Germany on social partnership and co-determination. In a similar vein, scholars have highlighted that research follows changing policy questions (Derber 1964; Dunlop 1977; Strauss and Feuille 1978). Capelli (1985) argues that shifts in employment research topics easily occur as a reaction to shifts in government, 5 Note that there may be a stronger dependence between subject and academic treatment in the Anglophone countries than Germany or Continental Europe. It can be argued that the empiricist, pragmatic approach, which traditionally characterizes Anglophone research, may render research more dependent on its actual developments of its subject matter than the more theoretical approach exercised in Continental European countries. Thus, the more empirical and pragmatic a discipline the more dependent it is on changes in its subject of inquiry.

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union, or employer policies. For example, the increasing interest in human resource issues in the U.S. can be understood as a reaction to the increasing number of non-union workplaces and anti-union employer and/or state strategies. Similar arguments about the importance of the subject field and its history have been made in other social sciences. Schmitter (1999: 3), for example, speaks of the evolution of political science as isomorphic with the evolution of its subject matter. Fourcade-Gourinchas (2001) finds that with regard to economics the organization of the economy and the role of economic knowledge in relation to different economic sectors in each society has a crucial impact on how the economic discipline developed in different countries. Note that the subject field and its history is a necessary but not sufficient explanation for cross-national research variations. As we have seen in Chapter 3, the U.S. and Britain revealed significant differences in their research patterns despite similarities in their employment institutions. What’s more, similar research topics can be researched in very different ways. The fact that the U.S. traditionally has a strong interest in human resource policy whereas German academics are more interested in the labour process—both approaches look at the workplace—indicates the existence of different paradigms, aims of research, and social science legacies. Thus, these variations cannot be sufficiently explained on the basis of different labour movement histories. Two additional path dependencies are introduced.

Social Science Traditions A second factor explores the broader context of scientific knowledge institutions and social science traditions, which originated in the nineteenth century and were shaped by different state policies on higher education and scientific research. These scientific traditions matter in particular when seeking explanations for cross-national methodological and epistemological differences in social sciences. There is a well-established literature exploring how scientific research is influenced by scientific organizations or concepts of knowledge. Merton (1968: 521) was one of the first to argue that research patterns are influenced by specific forms of knowledge organization in society. In FourcadeGourinchas’s words (2001: 400), ‘scientific discourses [research patterns] are inevitably driven by broader, nationally constituted, cultural frameworks embodied in specific institutions of knowledge production’. And Ringer (1992: 26) convincingly proposes that intellectual communities such as academic

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disciplines cannot be adequately discussed without reference to the history of educational systems in each country, which is heavily dependent on the specific relationship between state and society.

Traditions of Industrial Democracy Discourse A third and final trajectory is introduced which explores the ideational embeddedness of the research field in larger country-specific intellectual traditions. The assumption is that ideational or discursive traditions of social science fields have a certain independence of their subject matter and of their academic institutionalization and can shape research patterns in different ways, in particular with regard to its research paradigms, aims, or theories. In other words, ‘what academics perceive as an exciting intellectual problem, therefore, might depend on cognitive frames and a web of social and professional experiences, both of which are in great part defined within a particular national culture’ (Fourcade-Gourinchas 2001: 353). A particular topic of interest is the national intellectual discourse on political and industrial democracy. Different state philosophies, especially the philosophies of Idealism in Germany or of Liberalism and Positivism in Britain and the U.S., shaped the subsequent discourses on the relationship between the state, democracy, and the economy during the nineteenth century. In particular, the relationship between political and industrial democracy, as experienced differently in each country during that time, shaped the development of different research paradigms in the study of work and employment. A core question is whether the workplace became conceptualized as primarily shaped by market forces or was seen as part of the wider political democracy and if so in what ways.

CONCLUSION This chapter outlined a heuristic approach towards explaining national differences in knowledge production systems, in our case research into work and employment. The framework builds on the sociological literature on knowledge in the social sciences and contributes a comparative historical analysis of path dependencies in employment research. Despite recent calls concerning a diminishing significance of nation-states (Rothblatt and Wittrock 1993: 7) this book works against the grain and fosters instead the national state’s enduring

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importance at least in the field of scientific knowledge creation. The trajectories provide a broad spectrum of the complex dimensions of state traditions and how employment research is embedded in such traditions. In sum, the framework highlights the significance of national employment actors (in particular labour movements) and their relationship to the state in shaping research outcomes. This substantive dimension shapes the professional affiliation of researchers, their research topics and to a lesser extent research paradigms. The framework also reminds us to conceptualize employment research as a social scientific field of study, which is inevitably embedded in long-standing national traditions of scientific knowledge production such as university structures and scientific traditions of knowledge creation. These social science traditions have a significant impact on the methodological and theoretical characteristics of employment research but also on the choice of research topics. Finally, the third trajectory focuses on the importance of intellectual conceptions of industrial democracy and the wider political economy, that is, to what extent and how the workplace became regarded as part of the political democratic regime. This dimension therefore explores in particular the embeddedness of epistemological research characteristics such as the paradigms of employment relations in wider ideational traditions but also has an impact on, for example, which professions got interested in employment research in the different countries. Note that the cross-country variations of employment research are being explained by a combination of the three path dependencies. In other words, each of the three trajectories shapes multiple research characteristics (Chapter 3). Moreover, the three approaches are not independent from each other but are strongly interrelated. For example, the development of the labour movement in each country influenced the scientific discourse on industrial democracy and vice versa. The way scholars discussed industrial democracy during the nineteenth century had major implications for the future implementation of democratic institutions in the workplace. Moreover, the discourse on industrial democracy was also shaped by the development of the national scientific systems. The following chapters will discuss each approach in more detail.

5 Labour Movement Histories INTRODUCTION This chapter discusses the first of the three path dependencies of employment research, the subject field of employment relations. In particular, it addresses how the emergence of national labour movements during the nineteenth century had an impact on the development of a scientific understanding of work and employment in each country. As outlined in Chapter 4, the nature of the subject field shapes its academic inquiry, in particular researchers’ affiliations, their topics of study, and their research paradigms. For example, the more legalistic nature of German employment regulations provokes legal scholars and political scientists to engage in the field whereas the more market-driven nature of employment relations in the U.S. attracts economists. However, on a deeper level, one needs to inquire about the historical roots of these varieties in employment research, which is the purpose of this chapter. Rather than providing an encompassing history of employment systems in the three countries, which deserves a separate book, this chapter restricts itself to the comparative history of one actor, the labour movement, and its relation to employment research. Choosing to focus on the labour movement rather than on employers does not imply that the latter did not influence the development of employment systems (see Jacoby 1991). Yet as the academic field of employment was traditionally more interested in unions, they had a larger impact on research characteristics. There is a well-established literature on the emergence of the working class, class consciousness, the development of union movements, socialist political parties, and on the history of socialism in the specific countries (e.g. Thompson 1963). There is also some comparative historical work on European countries (Breuilly 1992; Geary 1989; Mommsen and Husung 1985) or comparisons between the U.S. and Europe (Marks 1989). My intention is therefore not to rewrite a general history of labour movements but to concentrate on those cross-country variations which had an impact on the research traditions of the three countries.

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A major comparative characteristic of the labour movements which this chapter addresses is their relationship to the state. The extent to which national labour movements became more or less state-oriented during the nineteenth century, thus whether unions saw themselves primarily as ‘political movements’ and as democratization forces rather than as specific interest groups in the economy, had a lasting impact on the subsequent academic discourse on work and employment.

THE POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC EMBEDDEDNESS OF NATIONAL LABOUR MOVEMENTS Trade unions have been broadly characterized as a complex mixture of social movements (implying a shared purpose or idea) and organizations (fulfilling a variety of functions in the economy, political life, and society) (Flanders 1968: 43) while displaying a multiplicity of goals, identities, and ideological orientations (Hyman 2001a: 1). This book uses a system-theoretical perspective which defines unions as actors in specific societal systems, the economic and political system. Based on Luhmann’s social theory (1984), modern societies are built on various polycentric subsystems that are relatively stable organizations and grounded in their own specific system logic which distinguishes them from each other and allows them a certain autonomy independent from external pressures. Among the core societal systems of modern capitalist societies, which developed throughout the nineteenth century, are the political and the economic systems. Countries developed complex relations and dynamics between both systems, frequently referred to as ‘political economy’. 1 Understanding the variety of political economies across capitalist societies is the focus of the current debates of the literature on the ‘variety of capitalism’ (Hall and Soskice 2004). Major differences are observed between the Anglophone and Continental European political economies. In a nutshell, the Anglophone tradition, deriving from its long-standing laissez-faire political philosophy, tends to separate rather strictly between the polity and economics, the latter being governed primarily by market processes (von Hayek 1973). In contrast, the Continental European tradition is of a more coordinated nature which separates both 1 Note that economists define the term ‘political economy’ in a very different way (i.e. as the economics of political decisions or how politics effects economic outcomes, Drazen 2000).

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systems less severely and allows the political system to intervene more substantially in the regulation and logic of the economic system. Employment relations are a good case to analyse the inherent dynamics of the political economies. They are continuously shaped, in a Luhmannian sense, by both economic and political system logics to different degrees across the varying countries. In particular, trade unions are part of this dynamic interplay and ultimately belong to both systems at the same time. As Flanders (1970: 15) expressed, ‘trade unions have always had two faces, sword of justice and vested interest’. They pursue a whole range of economic and political aims, instruments, and identities which are difficult to distinguish since they are heavily interrelated. ‘It is almost banal to state that all economic decisions [of unions] will have political/social implications and that, conversely, most political acts imply an economic importance’ (Lösche 1973: 102). However, I want to point out the unions’ underlying primary identification or orientation towards the state, their embeddedness in the political system. In other words, to what extent have unions identified the state as an important employment actor or partner alongside employers? I am comparing the degree of state-oriented unions, with the Continental European unions (Germany) being generally more state-oriented than their Anglophone counterparts (and U.S. unions slightly less state-oriented than British unions). 2 Note that I define the political system here rather narrowly in relation to formal political institutions excluding civil, non-institutional activities of resistance or protest by individuals or small groups (but see Hattam 1993). My definition of ‘stateoriented unions’ therefore excludes social movement unions if they are mainly concentrated on the civil society, defined as lying outside the state sphere. 3 I also exclude anarchic unions which have political ambitions but are opposed to the state.

2 My classification is different to Hyman’s union identities (2001a). He broadly associates Britain with a market-oriented unionism, Germany with civil society unionism, and Italy with a class-oriented unionism. However, the distinction between civil society and class-oriented unions is not clear cut from a comparative perspective. Hyman does not emphasize that class orientation can mean different things in different countries, thus anarchic, shop-floor-oriented actions in some countries, or state-oriented union actions in others. The latter is similar to his civil society unionism. I prefer to focus on the unions’ degree of state orientation which highlights more profoundly the differences between Anglophone and Continental European traditions. 3 Note that ‘civil society’ is differently defined in Anglophone compared to Continental European political thought (see Cohen and Arato 1992). Social movement unions are usually defined as unions which put a strong focus on social justice and create alliances with community organizations or other social movements to foster civil, minority, environmental, or other social issues (see Frege, Heery, and Turner 2004).

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The state-orientedness can be observed in the unions’ desire for economic and social change to provide workers not just with better working conditions but also with more democratic rights at work and in society as well as improved social conditions. The legendary German union leader Ludwig Rosenberg (leader of the Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund (DGB) 1962– 9) summarizes the political nature of unions as being more than interest groups, ‘namely a social organisation which shares responsibility for society as a whole’. Thus, ‘the [political] unions see themselves as an organisation which extends beyond the interests of the workers, preserving the state, forming society and are responsible to everyone’ (quoted in Beyme, p. 199). It should be added that state-oriented unions usually represent the interests which are inherent in a capitalist system and pursue reformist goals rather than representing interests which transcend the system (Beyme 1980: 119). Finally, discussing labour movements from a comparative perspective focuses inevitably on relative cross-country differences. I am forced to neglect the many country-specific debates within the labour historian community. Winter (1985: 361) observes that the history of the working class is ‘a field of study of persistent confusion and controversy, not only in terms of the definition of “class consciousness”, but also because historians rarely agree as to what constitutes valid evidence of its existence’. Topics of disagreement include the definition of ‘class consciousness’ in a particular national context or the degree of radicalism of certain unions or labour movements. I will touch on these debates but not discuss them extensively. In addition, as explained in Chapter 4, I focus on the nineteenth century leaving aside developments in the twentieth century. This time period is appropriate for my analysis: it is during that time that the labour movements in each of the three countries developed from loose movements into formalized union organizations with distinguishable identities and orientations towards the state, which shaped the emerging academic discourse. The following sections discuss union–state relationships in each country in more detail.

LABOUR MOVEMENTS AND THE STATE

Germany The German labour movement emerged during the 1848 revolution (Born’s Arbeiterverbrüderung) reflecting the relatively late point of industrial take-off. These early union organizations did not have a long public existence and were

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rapidly driven underground, suppressed and destroyed by the authoritarian state in the subsequent years. Not until the emergence of German industry in the late nineteenth century (Germany was transformed from a predominantly agrarian society in 1860 to one of Europe’s leading industrial nations by 1914) and the parallel liberalization of the political system did working-class organizations emerge as a visible societal force. Craft trade unions reappeared during the 1860s, the time of the European-wide recession, which provoked workers to strike for higher wages and to seek for organizations to do so. In 1869 the northern states in Germany created a limited legal right of coalition building for non-governmental associations, which had been already granted in Britain in 1824. During this less repressive time political parties in Germany started to establish union branches; the potential membership basis for unions, factory workers, was still quite small compared to Britain or the U.S. For example, Bebel and Liebknecht’s party, SDAP (Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei), founded the international union cooperations (‘Internationale Gewerkschaftsgenossenschaften’), Lassalle’s ADAV party (Allgemeiner Deutscher Arbeiterverein) under Schweitzer founded the social democratic worker associations (‘sozialdemokratische Arbeitervereine’), and Hirsch’s liberal party (Fortschrittspartei) the Hirsch-Dunckerische unions. 4 Until 1933, German unionism was deeply divided in politically differing unions with the Socialists heading the strongest organization. Most importantly, in 1875 the left-wing parties (Lassalle’s and Bebel and Liebknecht’s) merged into the German Socialist Party (SAD, Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands), later renamed Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). The SAD created their union branch, ‘Freie Gewerkschaften’ (Free Unions), which soon became the defining unions for the German labour movement and will be the focus of the subsequent discussion. In 1890, these free unions formed a national federation whose leader Carl Legien was a Social Democrat. German unions were officially declared to be non-political associations for various legal reasons, but, as I wish to argue, in practice they were part of a strongly political labour movement which included political parties and unions. The major reason for the formal political ‘neutrality’ was the Prussian law on associations (1850) which forbade political associations to include women and young adults—a restriction unions did not want to comply with. The founding congress of the SAD in Gotha attempted to establish in theory a formal independence and neutrality of the unions from their political party: ‘It 4 Also called pseudo-unions, since Hirsch wanted a decentralized grass-root movement to foster the harmony between worker and capital interests.

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is the duty of the unionists to keep politics out of the union organisation, and instead to join the SAD, because only the Party can improve the political and economic position of the working class’ (Klönne, 1989: 73, my translation). However, as Moses (1982: 135) demonstrates, despite the fact that they were successful in that ‘the laws imposed an official neutrality upon the unions there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that the so-called Free Unions belonged to the socialist camp’. In reality, unions were regarded as an appendix to the political branch of labour and for decades did not have much influence on the party (Lösche 1973: 115). This understanding is also explicit in Rosa Luxemburg’s writings who considered the German unions as superior to the English, precisely because they were subordinated to the party (Moses 1982: 140). 5 It is no coincidence that the founding congress of the SAD asked union members to become members in the party. 6 Union leader Legien concludes, ‘in Germany it is impossible to raise the importance of unions above the political party, since the entire movement is ultimately political’ (protocol of the party congress, Cologne 1893: 215, my translation). In particular, ‘the political party was perceived as aiming at a radical transformation of society whereas unions were restricted by the current legal conditions of the bourgeois state. However, being seen as recruitment agents and prep schools for political education disqualified any importance and value of independent union work and ultimately made unions more dependent on their political party’ (Steinberg 1975: 126; also Perlman 1949: 89; Sturmthal 1972: 65). Thus, unions were supposed to help workers in the current capitalist situation and to increase their collective identity and self esteem as preconditions for the future socialist production model. A final evidence that despite the formal neutrality unions were in practice strongly political was the fact that the conservative government was not convinced of the formal independence of unions from parties and included the Free Unions under the repressive Socialist Laws. The Socialist Laws, implemented by Bismarck (1878) in order to fight back the growing Socialist infiltration of German politics, affected socialist parties as well as socialist unions and severely interrupted the early success of the socialist labour movement in Germany. 5 Bernstein summarizes the attitude of the party executive towards the unions in 1900 (1900: 378; quoted in Moses 1982: 136): ‘For the early socialists the unions were for a long time only a necessary evil. A necessary evil in two senses: It proved impossible to dispense with this form of the movement permanently. Considerable sections of the working class could not be won away from the union movement and many workers could only be moved by the hope of social betterment into joining a working class organization. For good or ill unions had to be tolerated. But in the majority of cases this toleration was fairly grudging.’ 6 However, the union leader at a later congress was not successful in convincing the congress that party members should also become union members.

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After the Socialist Laws After the end of the oppression (which, contrary to Bismarck’s aims, radicalized the movement) in 1890, the newly reconstituted SAD quickly achieved impressive election results (Reichstagswahlen 19.7 per cent of votes) and the Free Unions counted 301,000 members. Although the Free Unions were anxious to have the party support for reviving the union movement at that time, a few years later (1896) they decided they could do better on their own and wanted to escape the tutelage of the party (Moses 1982: 135). With the end of the depression and the starting economic boom, union membership increased dramatically in the beginning of the twentieth century. The Free Unions (then called Allgemeiner Deutscher Gewerkschaftbund (ADGB)) counted 2,600,000 members in 1914, one of the largest figures in Europe (Klönne 1989: 100). The organizational and numerical union growth which was partly a result of the accelerated industrialization from 1887 to 1914, was one of the reasons for the change in the unions’ strategy. Unions also became more successful in securing working time reductions, better pay, and working conditions and achieved increasing trust of the working people which strengthened their position in the movement (Klönne 1989: 101). At the same time the unions’ political view became more reformist and less revolutionary, thus more social-democratic than socialist/Marxist. Increasingly, unions did not see strikes as a means to overthrow the entire bourgeoiscapitalist system but as trying to improve the current conditions. They realized that most workers joined unions out of material interests, especially because of the insurance and welfare provisions (Steinberg 1975: 132). Moreover, unemployment was low and real income of the workers grew constantly. The increasing size of companies and of their membership led the unions to believe that their material and social interests could not only be achieved through political action but also through collective bargaining. This increased the trust of workers in unions and the unions’ influence in the labour movement grew. Legien (union congress, Frankfurt, 1899) concluded that unions did not want to build a revolution but preferred an evolution. In short, the increasing debate on Eduard Bernstein’s revisionism (Bronner 2001) within the socialist party coincided with a growing pragmatism within the union movement and with a growing importance of the Free Unions. Between 1890 and 1914 we witness the slow integration of the unions and the SPD into the emerging democratic capitalist state. Unions still called for the abolition of capitalism while at the same time increasingly functioning within the capitalist framework. Thus, Germany’s mainstream left was becoming more pragmatic in its political aims (symbolized in the historic split between social democrats and communists).

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Lösche (1973: 113) interprets this process of revising Marxism as being strongly linked with changing economic factors. As said above, the unions obtained increasing power within the labour movement and this led to a centralization of the movement (starting in 1890 when Legien reorganized the union movement and set up a centralized executive council). Moreover, the following years saw the amalgamation of craft unions into industrywide unions. 7 As a result, by 1914 almost two-thirds of all German union members were organized in only six big unions. This centralization process clearly helped to institutionalize unions as major political actors. At the same time the unions’ economic power resources increased due to the booming economy and unions were slowly accepted by employers and the government as legitimate actors in the labour market and society at large. This was different to the British context where unions were accepted much earlier. Eventually these developments forced party leaders such as Bebel or Kautsky to view unions not exclusively as ‘recruiting schools’ for the party but as more equal partners of the political party. The party congress in Mannheim (1905) marked a watershed in party–union relations. It made consultation with the unions on major policy initiatives mandatory. Some even argue that the party became increasingly subordinated. Observers spoke of an effective trade unionization of the SPD (Perlman 1949: 81). In 1912 the SPD parliament members consisted of a third of union members. This development went hand in hand with an increasing revisionism (reformism) within the union movement which mirrored similar developments within the socialist party which eventually became social-democratic. In sum, the fact that in Germany the socialist party emerged before an effective union organization existed had a significant impact on the political identity and organization of unions. The unions emerged in Germany as the weaker bodies of the worker movement and were under the governance of the party for a long time (despite their so-called neutrality). Even after the unions’ strengthening at the end of the nineteenth century the socialist party and the Free Unions were working together very closely and regarded themselves as 7

According to Hyman (2001a: 20) the socialists’ notion of class interests and class unity did its part to influence the organizational form and ideological outlook in which unions developed. Socialists were suspicious of craft-based organizations as sectional and divisive. The preferred alternative were industrial unions which covered all workers in one sector and enabled a common front against employers and a centralization of the movement in a single union confederation which would embrace the entire working class. Tenfelde (1986: 6) provides another explanation pointing out the fact that German unions have operated under relatively backward political and legal conditions. The centralization in industrial unions provided a force to transcend the level of individual craft unions in order to strengthen their political foothold against the state and employers and on the other hand provided the path for future corporatist arrangements, whereas in Britain the more advantageous external circumstances allowed the tradition of craft unions to remain alive in the labour movement.

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part of one political movement. It is short-sighted to conclude that because of the close interaction unions did not need to get politically involved. The opposite occurred. Thus, although the unions were not directly involved in political activities, which were controlled by the SPD, the close relationship with the party obviously had a huge impact on unions’ class consciousness and political identity. They were from the very beginning strongly embedded in the political arena.

Britain Whereas German unions were politically integrated from their very beginning, the British labour movement experienced waves of political unionism throughout the nineteenth century but eventually developed into a craftand class-based, more economically oriented union movement. The question why an archetypal Marxist proletariat developed so un-revolutionary a physiognomy is, of course, contentious (Phillips 1989: 12). Some historians argue that the British labour movement and its working class were consistently moderate in their politics, whereas others observe discontinuities with British labour history changing its course at certain critical junctures. Essentially, one can conclude that discontinuities existed and that the British labour movement experienced waves of politicism but these were never really revolutionary and never strongly focused on the state. Britain, as the first industrial nation, gave birth to the first national union movement in the world (Hyman 2001a: 66). It started with the corresponding friendly societies at the end of the eighteenth century (e.g. Thomas Hardy’s shoemaker society, 1792) which, however, were quickly forbidden. It took another few decades (1824) to abolish the existing law against coalitions which then facilitated the growth of the union movement. The dominant labour movement at that time was the Chartist movement (1838–52), fighting for equal voting rights (suffrage) for all (male) citizens as a step towards socio-economic improvement of the working people. 8 In essence, the idea was that economic exploitation and political subservience could be righted by parliamentary means. The Chartists was a rather informal, decentralized, idealistic movement which failed after 1848 due to the lack of a centralized leadership and of political power, the betterment of the economic situation of the working people during the mid of the century, and 8 Chartism was a movement for parliamentary reform named after the People’s Charter, a bill drafted by the London radical William Lovett in May 1838. It contained six demands: universal manhood suffrage, equal electoral districts, vote by ballot, annually elected parliaments, payment of Members of Parliament, and abolition of the property qualifications for membership.

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the introduction of some reformist legislation (such as the ten-hour working day law for women and children in textile factories, 1847). The impact of the decline of Chartism on the further development of the British labour movement has received different interpretations in the literature. There is a common view among many historians that the demise of Chartism as an apparent development of mass-based politics was followed by a shift to popular, non-class liberalism (Breuilly 1992: 117). For example, the Webbs (1894: 180) argued that the surviving craft unions learnt their lesson from the failure of this political period and became sceptical of political means. Others (e.g. Musson 1972), however, have stated that craft unions were genuinely a-political and thus largely unaffected by social and political turbulence. This is supported by Phillips (1989: 35) who argues that the decline of Chartism only highlighted the peculiarity of British politics within Europe, which have deeper roots in British liberal philosophy: ‘Radicalism here offered up no martyrs and few victims. The state was not in the end forced into wholesale repression or indoctrination’. Phillips (p. 34) quotes the Tory Home Secretary (1842) observing the economism of the working class by declaring that ‘cheap bread, plenty of potatoes, low-priced American bacon, a little more Dutch cheese and butter will have a more pacifying effect than all the mental culture which any government can supply’. What is undeniable is that between 1850 and 1914 the British labour movement centred on their craft-based trade unions. Union membership in the late 1850s stood at about 600,000, an impressive figure and clearly the largest in Europe. The TUC (Trade Union Confederation), the first (and only) national all-union body in Britain, was established in 1868 to assist union leaders in collective pressure for legislation to protect union activities. Unions at the time remained restricted to skilled (craft-based) workers and there was no attempt and no need to create industry-wide unions. This changed from 1870 onwards, when membership recruitment began to extend outside the ranks of the skilled and the labour movement experienced another wave of radicalism. This movement was called ‘New Unionism’ and aimed at extending their organization to a wide range of trades and industries with a largely lower-skilled workforce previously not involved in collective activities. The New Unions were widely regarded (and defined by many of their Socialist leaders) as radical and militant. At the same time, they were also more state-centred than the traditional unions. They were, for example, in favour of an eight-hour working day imposed by legislation whereas the established unions opposed this as a challenge to the principle of free collective bargaining (Hyman 2001a: 81). Yet the uniqueness of the New Unions should not be overestimated. Over time there were increasing overlaps and mutual learning between the old and new unions. For example, where the New Unions

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established bargaining relationships with employers, a more pragmatic orientation soon prevailed (Hobsbawm 1949: 135, quoted in Hyman 2001a: 67). Moreover, as Pollard (1985: 38) outlines, the ‘old’ unions transformed in those years, and subsequently produced membership gains much larger than those of the New Unions. Several of the craft unions became less exclusive in their recruitment (and also accepted unskilled workers) and many accepted into their programmes that core agenda of the New Unions, the eight-hour day by legislation. Finally, the New Unions covered only 7 to 13 per cent of total (TUC) union membership in Britain during 1892–4 (Pollard 1985: 38). Pollard (p. 49) concludes that ‘the significance of the New Unionism was that it added to the impetus and the strength of revival of all unions, rather than that it created a separate new class on its own. The handful of inexperienced socialists failed to impose socialism on the British trade union movement.’

Towards the Creation of the Labour Party It is well established that after the demise of Chartism and New Unionism British unions generally withdrew from an involvement in radical political campaigns during the second half of the nineteenth century and revived only with the foundation of the Labour Representation Committee in 1900 (renamed the Labour Party in 1906) (Phillips 1989: 41). There were some socialist organizations established in the 1880s–90s but these did not extend to any kind of mass support. But, as Phillips (1989: 40) highlights, it is misleading to say that unions eschewed politics completely after Chartism. British unions endorsed less of a radical, Socialist political stance than Liberalism and were less bent on changing the state or winning state power (Pollard 1983: 33). For example, among a sample of 144 union leaders in the North-west in the third quarter of the century, 130 were identified with Liberalism (Phillips 1989: 40). The successful union leaders who sought nomination as Liberals in the elections were described as ‘Lib-Lab’ MPs and in most cases were by no means on the radical wing of their party (Hyman 2001a: 80). As Engels commented somewhat despairingly, the union leaders had become ‘the tail of the great Liberal Party’ (Labour Standard, 23 July 1881). However, one should not view this attachment as a complete displacement of radical and class politics; it also marks a potential adaptation of Liberalism to the working class. According to Phillipps (1989: 41), ‘while not a party of the working class for itself, the Liberal Party was capable of combining a vigorous notion of democratic government, a hatred of social privilege and an objection to monopolistic wealth, a disposition to prefer civil liberties to strenuous law enforcement and an approval of at least some collectivist legislation on questions like working hours’. Thus, liberal politics, both because of shared liberal

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values and because of the political need to incorporate workers’ votes, incorporated labour into the existing political system and prevented any coherent radical, socialist alternative for the working class (Breuilly 1992: 147). Breuilly (p. 150) concludes that, ‘the great power in the hands of the British workers was primarily based upon the nature of economic development: the demand for certain types of skilled labour and the lack of large injections of capital to substitute for that labour (labour aristocracy)’. It was this economic power, due to the early and successful industrialization of Britain, which led to a coalition between the working class and employers and not some independently formed social, cultural, or political relationships (Breuilly 1992: 150). It was also the economic strength of workers during that period which led the political parties to incorporate organized labour demands. Thus, unions became an increasingly powerful movement in the British society of the second half of the century which was supported by substantial legal recognition through the state. The restricted legality was conceded in 1824, as mentioned before, and was strengthened by the Friendly Societies Act of 1855, and more decisively by a series of labour statutes dealing with contracts, strikes, and protection of funds, passed between 1868 and 1875. According to Phillips (1989: 38–9) ‘these measures conferred an official approval of trade unions which had pointedly been refused to Chartism in the 1840s. They coincided with the governmental persecution of Socialists on the continent, thus Germany. In contrast to Germany the British governments felt that the conflicts between labour and capital occurred within an autonomous zone, into which the executive should not intrude except as a neutral intermediary.’ The Labour Party finally emerged from various union groups only in 1900/6 when the latter realized they needed a distinctive political representation and could not rely anymore on the Liberal Party to defend their right to strike (i.e. in the Taff Vale case) (Stearns 1971: 203). The Liberal Party towards the end of the century had lost much of its previous radicalism, was racked by internal divisions, and increasingly dropped its sympathies for working-class demands (Hyman 2001a: 80). However, it was not in order to enhance socialist policies that the unions sought direct labour representation at the end of the century. The TUC’s decision to set up the Labour Party had scarcely any doctrinal significance (Phillips 1989: 44). It stemmed, rather, from the enlarged scope of union organization and the political (though not socialist) ambitions which membership growth fostered. The Liberal Party was increasingly unable and unwilling to fulfil these aspirations, in a period when its electoral fortunes were low (Phillips 1989: 44). 9 9 Marks (1989: 66) argues that ‘the previous arrangement with the Liberal party was found to be unsatisfactory not on ideological grounds, but mainly because liberal party constituencies

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Not surprisingly, the Labour party differed little from the Lib-Lab tradition and before 1914 basically focused on defending narrow union interests (e.g. by reversing the Taff Vale judgement to restore union immunities). In fact, in electoral terms, the Labour Party failed to advance for a long time and would have been helpless without support from unions. Certainly many socialists were rapidly disillusioned (Hyman 2001a: 83). Coates (1975: 12) argues that the Labour Party basically became a parliamentary expression of union aspirations which involved no coherent programme and no officially accepted socialist commitment. The muted socialism which it espoused was as much due to the cautious leadership of the Labour Party as to the more conservative views of the union leaders. The leaders of the British labour movement were only vaguely committed to a form of socialism and approached most problems in a pragmatic, non-doctrinaire way (Mitchell and Steams 1971: 22–49). 10 According to Stedman Jones (1974: 499–500), ‘the Labour Party was the generalization of the structural role of the trade union into the form of a political party. It was not accountable directly to its constituency, but indirectly via the trade unions upon which its real power was based’. McKibbin (1974: 247) concludes that ‘no one can claim that the Labour Party failed to serve the cause of socialism, because as a trade union party it was never designed to do so’. In a similar vein, Hyman (2001a: 45) argues with regard to the unions that it is ‘customary to regard British unions as the closest European analogues to American business unionism, long committed to a pragmatic role as labour market actors. Less radically anti-statist as their U.S. counterparts, British union leaders from the nineteenth century usually recognized the need for a political role to influence government policies in their own interests (and founded the Labour Party to do so), but few defined themselves primarily as political actors.’ Moreover, Beyme (1980: 123) observes that ‘the relationship between the ends and means was usually seen quite differently in British unions than on the European continent. Even unions which were quite prepared for tough (militant) measures rarely had radical programmes. A statement like: The expression “militancy refers to the methods but not the aims” would have been unthinkable in Germany or other continental European countries.’ failed to adopt enough workers as candidates despite favorable attitudes of the party leadership. The Labour Representation Committee (LRC) was seen as a relatively innocuous means of achieving a limited straightforward goal, that of securing return of an increasing number of workers/labour members to Parliament’ (Lovell and Roberts 1968: 37). 10 Braunthal (1978: 214) concludes that ‘anarchism was foreign to the character and traditions of the Englishmen and from Marxism the English Socialists only adopted the idea of rule of society over the production forces as the economic goal of socialism. Obviously some socialists were infected with Marxist ideas (such as Hyndman) but it never became a worldview’ (see Beyme 1980: 126; McKibbin 1984).

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Labourism What seems a paradox, especially for a Continental European observer, is the apparent coexistence of a strong class-consciousness of the British working class and the absence of a mainstream socialist political party. It seems justified therefore to perceive British class consciousness as being more culturally than politically defined and to conceptualize its labour movement as ‘ouvrierism’ (Winter 1985: 36) or ‘labourism’ (Marks 1989). The classic study of the Labour Party by McKibbin (1974) illustrates this interpretation. McKibbin argues that the mass support of the Labour Party in its early years was based ‘upon a highly developed class consciousness and intensive class loyalties’, but these notions had no intrinsic socialist content, latent or actual, and had very frequently an anti-socialist bias. The Labour Party was less the party of socialism than of ‘ouvrierism’. Moreover, the union leadership was characterized by a craftbased class consciousness which was intrinsically anti-middle-class and antisocialist (Winter 1985: 362). Stedman Jones (1974: 490–7) agrees by observing that ‘the working-class culture was directed towards the family and home rather than towards the workplace’. Consequently, the world of the British worker during the 1880s and 1890s was a world largely without politics and without the belief that things could be changed. The British working class has therefore been described as ‘a class apart’ (Meacham 1977), displaying principles of class identity and them-and-us feelings but—and this is crucial—‘without a totalizing vision of an alternative’. ‘Them-and-us represented a natural, not a socially remediable, division’ (Hyman 2001a: 68). Their class consciousness sprang from the practical experience of wage workers (in a Thompsonian sense), rather than out of a socialist critique of a class society as in Continental European countries (Kendall 1975: 188). 11 In sum, a labour movement dominated by trade unions and focusing on economic interests had established a secure place for itself during the second 11 Observers in the nineteenth century had similar views. Phillips (1989) quotes Taine, a conservative French literate, who witnessed a march of the British brick makers of Oldham around 1870, ‘It is remarkable that these unions do not deviate from their original object: they have no other aim but wage increases, and do not think in terms of seizing political power, which they most certainly would do in France. They are in no way political, not even social; they envisage no Utopias, do not dream of reforming society, putting down usury, abolishing the hereditary principle, of equal pay for all or of making every individual a partner in the State’ (Notes on England, London 1971: 232). In a similar way Engels writes to Bebel from London in 1883: ‘Do not on any account whatever let yourself be bamboozled into thinking there is a real proletarian movement going on here. . . . The elements at present active may become important . . . but only if a spontaneous movement breaks out here among the workers and they succeed in getting control of it. Till then they will remain individual minds, with a hotch-potch of confused sects, remnants of the great movements of the forties, standing behind them, and nothing more’ (Marx and Engels on Britain, Moscow 1962: 561).

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half of the nineteenth century. It was approved not only by the leaders of progressive public opinion but also by the liberal state (Phillips 1989: 45). On the one hand, this is an outcome of a union pragmatism which eschewed the revolutionism and utopianism of working-class political parties. On the other hand, it also reflects the longevity of industrialization and the gradual acquisition by British employers and politicians of a clearer understanding of its nature. This led to the early political inclusion of the British working class which was partly due to the British state lacking resources to suppress workers’ protests, but also because political integration was seen as an effective tool to maintain social stability (Katznelson 1996: 271). In a nutshell, unionism was more acceptable to the elite because it posed less of a challenge to the regime than a working-class party would have done and though it was militant, the interests it pursued were primarily sectional (and economically driven) rather than embracing the entire working class.

U.S. Whereas for a German–British comparison it is important to point out who created whom, the unions their political party or the other way around, for the U.S. the core characteristic was not the existence but the absence of union– party relations. The U.S. labour movement is characterized by the absence of a political arm as well as by the absence of a proactive state in employment relations. Historians have long debated the Sombartian question (1906) why no mainstream, union–supported left-wing party emerged in the nineteenth century. As well documented, political parties based on the labour movement became electorally important in every advanced capitalist country except the U.S., and this clearly shaped the nature of their labour movement (Archer 1997). It is well known that the AFL (American Federation of Labor) under Gompers developed the concept of ‘business unionism’, which understood unions as economic actors in the labour market mainly pursuing economic goals with economic means and leaving politics to the political actors. This interpretation is usually not disputed, however there are disagreements among labour historians (similar to Britain) on the early years of the U.S. labour movement: some advocate an exceptionalism theory of the U.S. labour movement, arguing that U.S. labour was essentially reformist and economically oriented and lacked a socialist stream from its very beginning (Katznelson 1981; Lipset 1983). For example, in his famous study Katznelson (1981) traces the separation of the labour movement and class politics, thus the separation of work and politics as it showed in the twentieth century, back to the beginning of the nineteenth century.

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Another group of labour historians, referred to as part of the ‘new labour history’ in the U.S., challenges the exceptionalism thesis by pointing to a militant shop-floor tradition of U.S. labour (Hattam 1993). For example, Voss (1993: 1) argues that the U.S. labour movement did not appear to differ significantly from the British or French—two countries at roughly the same stage of capitalist development—in the mid-nineteenth century when the U.S. working class emerged. All were primarily movements of skilled craft workers, all shared broad similarities in rhetoric and behaviour. This perspective provides a non-institutional labour history focusing on worker militancy outside the official institutional realm. It observes a significant turn in the development of the U.S. labour movement after the Civil War. The basic idea is that U.S. labour began as a movement which was political and militant in the beginning and which at the end of the nineteenth century had turned into a movement that recognized its limits in the fight against the juridical courts (which were not supportive of pro-labour collective action), and ultimately conceded and confined itself to the economic realm (Hattam 1993). One can challenge this view by arguing that militancy in itself (like in Britain) does not make the U.S. labour movement less exceptional or more political, in particular more state-oriented, especially if labour unrest and strikes are work-based rather than general and nationwide. Basically, these U.S. workers’ organizations advocated a producers’ interpretation of the economic development. Skilled workers at that time considered themselves as producers rather than wage earners and their producers’ aim was to create a more equal economy where small producers made a living in a decentralized republican economy. Skilled workers thus united with small manufacturers to oppose bankers, lawyers, and land speculators (the quintessential nonproducers) who were supposedly endangering the republican nation through their abuse of political and economic power (Hattam 1993: 18). This notion of a ‘producers’ ideology’ is less evident in Continental Europe. Surely, craftsmen in Europe would initially adopt an occupational rather than class identity and were collectively organized in their guilds but cooperating against the nonproducers to secure their nation did not make sense in their context. Moreover, according to scholars affiliated to the new labour history, the U.S. workers’ organizations acted politically. Hattam (1993) argues that there were close links between workplace relations and politics in this pre-bellum era. She points out (p. 109) that there was a clear division between the producers and non-producing classes with the producers supporting the Jacksonian Democrats and the non-producers supporting the Whigs. One can challenge this position and argue that supporting different political parties at this stage did not necessarily mean that workers acted politically in the labour market or

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at their workplaces. There was a clear division between the role as a worker or producer and the role as a citizen. Moreover, looking at the political aims of these producers one quickly finds that they were not politically reformist in any sense and did not advocate a programme of egalitarian reform. Their core aim was pressing for a competitive market guaranteed by anti-monopoly legislation. To conclude, in spite of these interpretative differences one can agree that during the nineteenth century political moderation and industrial militancy have coexisted side by side in the U.S. and that incidences of shop-floor militancy existed but did not transform into a significant political voice.

Post-Civil War There is less disagreement between scholars with regard to the U.S. labour movement after the Civil War. It is widely acknowledged that labour’s relation to the state changed significantly when several labour organizations began to contest the labour conspiracy convictions of the U.S. courts and pushed for legal reform. At the same time the producers’ ideology slowly turned into a more class-oriented ideology of differences between labour and capital, and workers started seeing themselves as members of a distinct working class. Moreover, the post-war wage earner’s class concept was originally to seek legislative protection for strikes and collective bargaining but it eventually developed into a voluntarist mistrust of the government and its courts (Hattam 1993: 205). Even the more collectivist ideologies of the post-bellum period did not develop into a radical political interventionist movement. The major aim was to fight for state protection of essential instruments to act as equal labour market actors, not for improvements of workers’ social conditions through political means such as a welfare state model. The U.S. labour movement in the post-bellum time comprised a variety of unions, yet the major division was between the Knights of Labor and the AFL in the 1880s. The Knights were the dominant union until the 1880s, the Knights and the AFL obtained equal membership numbers in 1890 and since then the AFL became the dominant movement and the Knights lost their influence (Hattam 1993: 116). The rise of the Knights of Labor signified a radical phase in the late nineteenth century, the most radical union movement of U.S. history (1869–1902). The Knights grew to be the largest and most prominent of all Gilded Age labour organizations. The dominant faction within the Knights remained within the producer tradition of pre-bellum times. Their conviction was that craft unions had no power to address the true cause of labour’s degradation which lay in ‘the present arrangement of labour and capital’, whereby ‘capital

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dictated’ and ‘labour submitted’ (quoted in McNeill 1887: 402). Only by organizing more broadly would workers be able to emancipate themselves (McNeill 1987: 408). To achieve this goal the Knights advocated education, mutual aid, and cooperation (Voss 1993: 73). By 1883 the Knights membership grew to almost 50,000. However, as is discussed in Chapter 6, the Knights did not pursue a socialist policy and they rejected the idea of class conflict. The principal cleavage existed between the producing and non-producing classes; propertied independence and civic participation remained the main goals (Hattam 1993: 114). The Knights were not interested in legal reforms (Hattam 1993: 112) but aimed at a decentralized political economy avoiding monopoly power and cooperative relations between the classes (McWilliams 2002: 142), which shows certain similarities between them and the New Unionism movement in Britain at the time. By the early twentieth century, as scholars seem to agree, the U.S. movement clearly stood apart from its European counterparts. Whereas workers in Britain had incorporated less-skilled wage earners into general unions and had launched the Labour Party, workers in the U.S. had been unable to build either a lasting broad-based labour movement or a powerful socialist party (Voss 1993: 2). The eventual demise of the Knights of Labor was the tip of the toe to discredit working-class-based political mobilization in the U.S. In contrast to the Knights the traditional U.S. unions and the leading AFL eschewed the organization of less-skilled workers and the pursuit of political power. It was not until the post-WWI period and the New Deal that less-skilled workers were successfully incorporated and that national unions actively tried to build political institutions. Most historians conclude that during the last decade of the nineteenth century U.S. labour turned away from the state and instead adopted a strategy of business unionism. Hattam (1993: 9) argues that the AFL turned away from a producers’ perspective of the economy, acknowledging that concentrated capitalist power was here to stay. Workers therefore became convinced that they needed to act collectively to protect themselves from the enormous increase of capital’s power (Hattam 1993: 134). According to Hattam (p. 140), trade union rights (right to organize and to strike) needed to be protected and the prevailing legal doctrine of criminal conspiracy had to be repealed. Unions turned to the courts as their prime activity only to learn after years of unsuccessful battles how difficult it was to obtain change through judicial procedures. By the turn of the century the AFL had become disillusioned with the prospects of political reform. It seemed clear that the courts or government were not willing to grant unions the same rights as capital. This was very different from the British experience but similar, to a certain extent, to the early German experience (anti-Socialist laws).

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Why the U.S. courts reacted in such a way has been the focus of a longstanding discussion (see Finkin 2005; Tomlins 1993). One explanation is that the U.S. state was afraid of any collective organizations undermining the weak power of the young state and unions were also seen as compromising U.S. capitalism which was widely seen to be the soil of progress and freedom. Corporate America clearly had an impact on the courts’ decisions. However, whereas state-driven repression radicalized the German labour movement it did not in the U.S. Rather, as Hattam laid out, the power of the courts and their deliberate anti-union decisions played a decisive role in the AFL’s conclusion that political action was not rewarding and in its turn to business unionism. In the early twentieth century the AFL grew convinced that workplace issues had to be addressed through collective bargaining and that industrial conflict and politics were left for the concerns of the citizens (Hattam 1993: 4). Although the AFL moved into a formal coalition with the Democratic Party in 1912 this had no real impact on the politics of the party. As Mink (1986: 264–5) notes, ‘this coalition was one in which unions were dependent on a middle-class party, rather than one in which a middleclass party was dependent on a significant labour wing’ (quoted in Voss 1993: 2). A final factor that deserves attention is the U.S.-specific concept of the state. Max Weber (1935: 155) already stressed the secular, liberal, laissez-faire tradition of U.S. politics and its distinctive, individualistic religious tradition, based on the dominance of the Protestant sects that facilitated the rise of capitalism. According to Weber (1935: 55–6), the U.S. was the only pure bourgeois society without medieval heritage or complicating institutional heritage. More specifically, Lipset and Marks (2000: 22) emphasize that ‘the anti-statist, antiauthoritarian component of U.S. ideology, derived from Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, remains an underlying source of weakness of socialism in the U.S.’ They argue that U.S. radicals have generally been more sympathetic to libertarianism and to syndicalism than to state collectivism (Lipset and Marks 2000: 22). And according to DeLeon (1978: 4) American radicalism (one should add on the left and right) has been permeated by suspicion, if not hostility, towards centralized power. This intellectual heritage can be witnessed in the behaviour of the labour movement as well as of political parties. For example, Lipset and Marks (2000: 22) describe the ideology of the AFL as syndicalist for much of the first half century and that of its competitor (IWW, Industrial Workers of the World) as anarcho-syndicalist. Both organizations regarded the state as an enemy and felt that government-owned industry would be much more difficult to resist for workers and unions than private companies. This did not prevent unions from being militant, but the militancy remained at shop-floor level.

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In sum, there can be no doubt that the U.S. labour movement under the guidance of the later AFL-CIO became neither as involved in party politics and the wider social democratic movement as their German counterpart, nor did they create a political party which would represent workers’ interests in the political sphere as in Britain. Given the U.S.-specific political circumstances, their main focus became the economic arena and their aim economic justice. Thus, independent from whether unions were initially interested or not in influencing politics, the argument here is that the unusual structure of the U.S. state, the dominant position of large capital in U.S. society, and the absence of strong class-based identities among the workforce compelled unions to focus on the labour market rather than on polity. Thus, even if they had an initial potential to become more political, in the end, from a comparative perspective at least, they did not succeed in practice.

DISCUSSION: STATE TRADITIONS The above overview of the historical developments of the three national labour movements revealed clear distinctions between their degrees of stateorientedness, despite the fact that all movements faced periods of political radicalism at various moments of time. Marks (1989: 1) uses the shorthand description of U.S. business unionism, British labourism, and German socialism to describe the three union movements (see also Kendall 1975; Mommsen 1986; Stearns 1971; Tenfelde 1988). The three labour movements stand for rather different state policies and traditions, thus different forms of political economies. In more detail: the German labour movement faced a state which at the end of the nineteenth century became proactive in social as well as economic policies. The Prussian– German state in the nineteenth century used highly interventionist industrial policies (e.g. Customs Union, Zollverein) to accelerate industrialization to keep up with the early industrializing countries such as Britain or Belgium, but also to keep these economic developments under their control—rather than pursuing a laissez-faire strategy. The Prussian state also acknowledged a responsibility for the well-being of the wider society including the poor. From early on, it developed a comparatively strong engagement in social policy issues. For example, the Prussian cultural minister introduced a law on child work when his civil servants observed that working children hardly went to school (Wachenheim 1967: 16). Germany pioneered the first social security laws, laws on occupational health and safety, and mandatory limited participation rights of workers in the late nineteenth century (co-determination)

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(see in more detail Chapter 6). Not by way of collective bargaining but by decree of the chancellor did Germany become the country with the most modern social security system of its time. In this setting it made sense that German unions developed an early attraction to the state, leading them to look to the state rather than to interactions with employers for an improvement of labour conditions (Klönne 1989: 91; Lösche 1973: 115). Contrast this with the U.S. where the federal government remained relatively weak and passive prior to WWI and where business had no serious challengers to its economic and political power and influence (Jacoby 2003: 64). Moreover, not just unions, also German workers looked upon the state for help. Geary (1981: 41) found that German workers with considerable economic grievances often petitioned the emperor for help against their employers. Another crucial consequence of the ‘state mindedness’ of the German labour movement, was that it expected industrial control to follow automatically upon seizure of political control. In other words, no one thought of advancing labour’s control in the workplace by means of ‘shop rules’ or ‘union working rules’ which helped British or U.S. unionism to become entrenched in industry (Perlman 1949: 92). 12 There was also no anarchic tendency as in France or Italy where political unions meant not necessarily state-oriented but state-opposed unions. Furthermore, one should not forget that German labour had to fight for political rights of the working class against the aristocratic/bourgeois state. Germany, once industrialized, adopted parliamentary forms of government, yet without producing either a classic individualistic bourgeoisie or undergoing a full bourgeois democratic revolution. The political order remained authoritarian but also paternalistic (welfare oriented). In the beginning of the twentieth century, the negative, antagonistic relationship of the German state towards organized labour (e.g. the Socialist laws) transformed into a positive, corporatist one. The developments of the nineteenth century therefore laid the foundation for the subsequent close collaboration between state and unions in the twentieth century. With regard to Britain the fact that the unions established a political party to represent workers’ interests at the political level is linked to two basic outcomes. On the one hand, it indicates that the union movement saw the 12 To give an example from the U.S. which shows a completely different attitude: ‘Upon matters of wages and obnoxious rules that oppress and rob us, we should not look to legislative bodies for protection. It would be unmanly for us miners to ask either national or state legislators to exercise a paternal surveillance over us and the difficulties which we ourselves can supervise and control’ (1888 contribution of the U.S. miners’ National Progressive Union, quoted in Marks 1989: 189).

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need to have a political voice and was successful in establishing such a party when the Liberal Party failed to represent their interests—much different to the U.S. where such a strong need was not felt; nor was the political structure of the U.S. open to the development of such a party. On the other hand, due to the fact that the union movement initially influenced the political party rather than the other way around and that the worker constituency was politically more conservative and less radical (as compared to the Continent), the Labour Party became a workers’ party but not so much a socialist (intellectual) party as, for example, in Germany or France. Though it would obviously be wrong to say that British unions were non-political throughout the nineteenth century, it makes sense to argue that they were not strongly embedded in a state-oriented political movement. Politics was used to guarantee workers’ rights and the freedom to organize and to strike but the battle for economic improvements was fought in the labour market. This was mutually reinforced by the ‘laissez-faire’ state tradition in British politics. In most European countries, collective organization and collective bargaining were eventually legalized by creating a positive right to unionize, to bargain, and to strike. In Britain, by contrast, ancient prohibitions were removed in a very different manner: by creating a set of legal immunities covering a defined area of employment relations, within which the courts were denied jurisdiction (Hyman 2001a: 69). It is symptomatic that the TUC fought for the ‘Trade Union Act’ (1871) and the ‘Conspiracy and Protection of Property, and Employers and Workmen Act’ (1875). According to Hyman (2001a: 76) these laid the foundation for the voluntaristic employment system in Britain ‘based on negative immunities rather than positive rights’. For example, in the eyes of the law, while workers became free to organize collectively, the employer was equally free to dismiss those who joined a union. Hence, what developed was a major disjuncture between de jure and de facto employment rights and while unions were entitled to bargain collectively, employers were equally at liberty to refuse to negotiate or to recognize a union, whatever its level of membership (Hyman 2001: 76). Consequently, common law traditions and the weak employment law meant that the ‘collective contract’, so important in many other countries, did and does not exist in Britain. Collective agreements are binding in honour only, of legal relevance only if they are incorporated into employees’ individual contracts (Hyman 2001a: 70). De facto rights are dependent on labour’s power position vis-à-vis the employer. However, as the Webbs (1897) rightly observed, rights sustained only by collective strength tend to ebb and flow according to the general state of the labour market. Consequently, it made a lot of sense for British unions to focus on collective bargaining and on increasing their power in the labour market rather than on state policies.

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Last but not least, the relationship between unions and the British state was also shaped by the relatively early development of political democracy. The British labour movement, after the period of Chartism, never had to fight for political democracy; it grew up with it (the electoral law of 1867 gave all male heads of households the right to vote, in1884 the law was expanded to male tenants). Thus, when British labour began to stake its political claim, political democracy had long since become an unquestioned national inheritance. Consequently, one could argue that the British unions avoided any attempts to press on the ideological front. The overriding objective of unions was, therefore, to enhance its economic power. In sum, both characteristics, ‘ouvrierism’ and the absence of an interventionist concept of the state, rendered the British union movement a powerful, at times militant class organization without a radical political voice. Therefore, the labour movement perceived the economic and political systems as two separate entities with different system logics and clearly emphasized its activities in the former. Hyman (2001a: 83) expresses this in the following: ‘Paradoxically, a third of a century of pressure for independent working class political action ultimately reinforced the traditional mind-set which segmented politics and employment relations.’ Similarly, Minkin (1991: 9) concludes that the existence of an autonomous Labour Party tended to reinforce the perception of two distinct spheres, a political one and an industrial one, which was the province of trade unionism. In other words, the development of the two centres, the Party and the TUC, seemed to imply the acceptance of two orders and two sets of functions. To conclude with Crouch’s words (1993: 191), ‘the British labour movement therefore stands midway between those of Western European countries and those of the U.S. in their relationship to politics’. Finally, in the U.S. the bifurcation of labour strategies in the economic and political realms was even more pronounced than in Britain. Unions developed as part of the economic arena and were rarely accepted as legitimate political players (the closest they came was during the New Deal era). 13 An important factor was the existence of democracy before the rise of the labour movement as in Britain. Commons (1926) argues that universal manhood suffrage, which 13

Hoxie summarizes this well (1923: 45; quoted in Hyman 2001a: 8): American business unionism is ‘essentially trade-conscious, rather than class-conscious. . . . It aims chiefly at more, here and now, for the organized workers of the craft or industry, in terms mainly of higher wages, shorter hours, and better working conditions, regardless for the most part of the workers outside the particular organic group, and regardless in general of political and social considerations, except in so far as these bear directly upon its own economic ends. It . . . accepts as inevitable, if not as just, the existing capitalist organization and the wage system, as well as existing property rights and the binding force of contract. It regards unionism mainly as a bargaining institution and seeks its ends chiefly through collective bargaining.’

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U.S. workers secured at least two or three generations before labour in other countries, was a major cause of the lack of class consciousness among American workers. In other words, similar to Britain, working men had less incentive to organize politically on a class basis. Moreover, unlike European countries the U.S. did not enter the industrial era with a legacy of strict controls on civil associations which were independent from the state. In 1842 unions were released from prosecution for conspiracy under common law (Commonwealth vs. Hunt) which made unions legal unless actual or intended harm could be attributed to their actions (Marks 1989: 69). This ruling gave to U.S. unions a modicum of security under the law that was only achieved by British unions in 1875 and by German unions during WWI. Until the 1880s (when new applications for the law of conspiracy were founded) U.S. unions were left relatively free of state interference. These years saw the emergence of autonomous and sectional unions on much the same lines as in Britain (Marks 1989: 69). Thus, on the one hand, U.S. unions had more freedom to organize than their European counterparts; yet, on the other hand, the state and large corporations provided less opportunities for the worker movement to intervene in policymaking. Hattam (1993: 11) argues that the decentralized, weak structure of the U.S. state and its division of power between branches and across levels of government, combined with the dominance of the courts within the divided U.S. state (South/North) significantly shaped the formation and development of the U.S. labour movement (see also Tomlins 1993). In particular, it made political action less rewarding for U.S. workers, compared to their European counterparts. Whereas in Germany legislation was the primary institution responsible for initially curbing labour organizations (e.g. Socialist laws) and then later on allowing them to institutionalize on that basis, in the U.S. courts were the primary institution for containing workers’ collective action under the common law doctrine of criminal conspiracy. The unusual power of judicial interpretations (a sign of a weak executive power) in the U.S. repeatedly undermined the rewards of political organizations as hard-won legislative victories for labour were continually challenged by the courts. Even successful political mobilization seemed to provide little or no leverage over government policy towards labour in the U.S. (Hattam 1993: 11). ‘The AFL recognized the double-jointedness of the U.S. state (only legislative politics was discredited by judicial obstruction not working class protest as a whole) and directed its energy and resources into strategies that would not leave its members trapped in between legislatures and the courts’ (Hattam 1993: 8). In sum, the German state became proactive in developing the backward economy and civil society at the end of the nineteenth century and after

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initial attempts to prevent the growth of the labour movement the state began to incorporate them into the polity and economy. Both spheres developed together, became interdependent, and produced a ‘corporatist political economy’. In the U.S. organized labour at no time achieved more than a relatively marginal status in the national polity (Tomlins 1993: 11). Both the economic and political sphere developed rather independently from one another, except that both were decisively shaped by the large firms of the emerging corporate economy which governed the economy and employment relations and also became the central actors of the emerging democratic U.S. state and its ideological configuration (Tomlins 1993: 11). Thus, as Tomlins concludes, the emerging political economy can be described as a ‘corporate’ one. Finally, in Britain, compared to the U.S., large corporations were less powerful and labour (party and unions) was more powerful. The state, however, took an essentially laissez-faire attitude to economic affairs for a long time, similar to the U.S., though the British courts were not as anti-labour as they were at times in the U.S. The British political economy can therefore be characterized as ‘pluralistic’.

CONCLUSION In contrast to the classical evolutionist view that all unions begin by being radical and ideological and go through a maturation process, ending by being pragmatic and less ideological (Beyme 1980: 117), this chapter pointed to long-standing and enduring variations of the historical development of labour movements in different nations. It also indicated the importance of state traditions for analysing these variations. Note that the classification of the three labour movements in more or less state-oriented unions is of course ideal-typical and underplays the regional variations within, and similarities between, the countries and their labour movements (Berger 1994; Breuilly 1992). For example, the AFL was far from being homogeneous (e.g. the doctrine of voluntarism, which was supported by most craft unions, was subject to attack by socialists entrenched in some of the largest affiliates of the AFL, including the International Association of Machinists or the United Mine Workers of America) (Marks 1989: 6). There were also more or less politically active unions in Germany (in former times the printers’ unions were less political than the metal workers’ unions, see Marks 1989). Hyman (2001: 92) reminds us of the existence of a radical communist British union, CPGB, launched in 1924, which, however, was the smallest union in Europe in relation to the size of its country. Also, the classification neglects

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historical developments over time such as the fact that many British unions developed socialist agendas during WWI though these did not last (Hyman 2001a: 68). Finally, as with all national comparisons, clustering the three labour movements faces the problem of benchmarking. The literature on U.S. exceptionalism usually compares the U.S. with Britain pointing to the stronger political labour movement in the latter (e.g. Voss 1993). However, from a Continental European perspective, the U.S. and Britain share more similarities than differences, and the British labour movement is usually characterized as a less state-oriented movement compared to Continental Europe. Despite these limitations it still makes sense to argue that on a comparative level the German labour movement of the late nineteenth century was more state-oriented than its British and U.S. counterparts. These historical variations have repercussions on union movements today and studies have discussed the persistent cross-country variation in unions’ strategies, behaviour, and political activities, which are partly based on the different external environments but also on different union traditions (Frege and Kelly 2004; Hyman 2001a; Marks 1989). More crucially for our present discussion are their repercussions on the academic treatment of employment, paradigms, theories as well as researchers’ affiliations. For example, the long-standing interaction between the German state and labour and the early development of corporatist features (on paper from 1848, in practice since Weimar) clearly influenced the paradigms of German scholars to perceive employment relations as a socio-political process and unions as broad societal movements rather than narrow economic actors. The classic essay by Goetz Briefs (1927) (the first chair in industrial sociology in Germany) on ‘Unions and Union Politics’ provides an excellent illustration. He argues that unions do not only have economic but also legitimate political interests, and contends that ‘unions represent the interests of the workers as human beings, as personalities, as citizens and as parts of the national community’ (p. 1,132). Another example is the concept of ‘social partnership’ which developed in Germany as the juridical expression of class compromise. Compare this with the Anglophone liberal approach which fosters the notion of free interrelations between the actors (e.g. free bargaining) as the solution to class conflict. The prominent historian Mommsen (1985: 2) notes a related distinction in the works of German and British labour historians: ‘German historians have traditionally paid more attention to the political activities of unions than their role in employment relations. The history of unions in Germany has as a rule come to be seen as an integral part of the history of social democracy. Very

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differently in Britain where the history of unions has always been regarded as more or less equivalent to that of the labour movement.’ With regard to Britain, scholars approach employment more as a mixed, socio-economic issue, perceiving unions like in the U.S. as a labour market actor, but also as a class actor trying to balance power relations in the labour market. This mirrors British unions’ tensions between an economic and a political system logic. Their middle position may provide some explanation why British employment research developed the most extensive interdisciplinary approach (compared to the mainly sociological German or the mainly labour economic outlook in the U.S.), and led to a dual existence of a longstanding qualitative labour-process tradition focused on workplace relations and a more ‘U.S.-style’ labour economic tradition. Finally, work and employment in the U.S. are perceived as primarily an outcome of free labour market forces rather than of state policies. Unions as labour market actors were and still are interpreted in certain academic circles as a practical ‘labour problem’ for managers and for the economy. This perception ultimately encouraged the development of dedicated employment research institutes at U.S. universities to deal with this matter. In sum, this chapter discussed the national histories of the labour movements and analysed how the variation between more or less state-oriented movements influenced the national intellectual discourse on employment research.

6 Knowledge Institutions: Social Science Traditions INTRODUCTION This chapter discusses our second path dependency of employment research, the traditions of social science practices in the three countries. As outlined in Chapter 4, it has been widely acknowledged that social sciences and their disciplines are social constructs, embedded in specific historical contexts and shaped by national cultures and philosophies (Levine 1995: 100). Social sciences are not just the outcome of a universal, automatic progress of science, nor are they natural, pre-determined categories, but can vary from country to country. As Ross (2001: 1) alerted us, ‘the content and borders of the disciplines that resulted in the beginning of the twentieth century were as much the product of national cultures, local circumstances and accidental opportunities as intellectual logic’. This chapter explores how modern knowledge institutions (higher education and research systems) developed during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and how they were shaped by different state traditions. These country patterns, so I argue, have endured in their outlines right up to the present and continue to shape new actors entering the scientific fields, despite the intensifying internationalization of academic research (see Ringer 1992: 28). In other words, one cannot compare scientific research on work and employment across countries without taking these national knowledge traditions into account. In particular, one would expect that the cross-national differences I found in the methodological and epistemological characteristics of employment research (Chapter 3) are strongly shaped by national social science traditions. SOCIAL SCIENCES AND STATE TRADITIONS There is a well-established literature on the rise of higher education in nineteenth-century Europe (e.g. Green 1990; Ringer 1969; Rothblatt and

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Wittrock 1993; Wagner et al. 1991), and in particular on the relationship between the rise of social sciences and modern society (see Wittrock et al. 1991 for an extended review, but also Shils 1970; Coleman 1986; Giddens 1985; Weir and Skocpol 1985), though less has been done on specific institutions of higher education such as universities (Wittrock 1993: 306). It is widely recognized that the emergence of the modern university is by and large a phenomenon of the late nineteenth century, though its roots can already be found in the late eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries. It is in this period that universities were resurrected as primary knowledgeproducing institutions (rather than the colleges run by the Catholic Church for example) and that the idea of a research-oriented university became predominant (Wittrock 1993: 305). This development is deeply connected with the rise of the modern nation-state and the new economic capitalist order in Europe and North America. Universities therefore came to be key institutions both for knowledge production, in particular technological progress, and for strengthening a sense of national and cultural identity (Wittrock 1993: 321). The double transformation of political systems (democratization and the rise of the welfare state) and that of scientific institutions (the rise of the researchoriented university) deeply shaped European and American societies at that time (Wittrock and Wagner 1996: 90). This conjunction was not coincidental. How both interrelated and produced specific sets of rules were, however, diverse in different countries. Major questions which were debated in all countries were, for example, the pros and cons of a liberal versus vocational education and pure versus applied research. Though the intellectual histories of the three countries reveal traces of all traditions, the task is here to provide a comparative account of the major relative trends in each country with the inevitable drawback of simplifying matters. This chapter attempts to highlight that the countries’ different choices and paths were shaped by an interwoven set of state structures and national philosophical traditions. The case of employment research is particularly well suited to explore these links since it is probably the scientific subject most closely related to the ‘social question’ (which triggered the development of social sciences) and is therefore strongly intertwined with the rise of industrialization and democratization during the nineteenth century. The following sections discuss the developments of each country in more detail.

Germany As Ringer (1969) outlines in his seminal work on the German Mandarins (the educated class), Germany (in particular Prussia but other German states

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followed) in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries developed a higher education and university system unique in Europe and the world at that time. It became the embodiment of the specialized research-oriented ideal and the model for the progressive system of higher education until the U.S. university model took over in the early twentieth century (Wittrock 1993: 312). Prussia was the first European state to secularize and institutionalize the educational sector during the eighteenth century, which was characterized by the old scholastic, theological medieval education system prevailing in most European universities. It introduced the study of ‘public administration, statecraft, and law’, called ‘Kameralistik’, which comprised practical secular knowledge usable for the benefits of state bureaucracy and the wider society. The reason for this early engagement in the educational system lay in the state’s concern to create a dedicated civil servant system to stabilize the monarchy by democratizing the feudal class system through education. Non-nobles were encouraged to achieve a higher social status by entering the state bureaucracy which required the completion of a university degree. Education thus became a social capital to enhance one’s social status (Ringer 1969: 20). Whereas, for example, the British system of state administration relied on its hereditary elite, the German (in particular the Prussian) system of public administration entailed selection on the basis of achievement and knowledge, against social origins, tradition, and economically grounded influence (Müller 1987). A major reason for this rather revolutionary development at the time was the insight of the Prussian kings, in particular Frederick the Great (1740–86), that the greatest threat to their enlightened absolutism 1 lay in the opposition of the aristocratic estates which were ruining the French monarchy at the time. 2 A next step in the development of a modern humanistic education system took place at the turn of the nineteenth century when the Prussian state began to actively support the attempts of Idealist scholars and bureaucrats to revolutionize the content of the university education: the model focused on education as ‘self-enhancement’, praising the acquisition of pure knowledge and personal growth as an end in itself, which conferred a sort of quasi-aristocratic quality (the German proverb ‘Geist adelt’—your mind/spirit makes you noble—comes from this period). Scientific research was pursued as an end it itself. Both ideals are interlinked and were nurtured by the humanistic notion of ‘Bildung’ (education) of the Idealist philosophy. For the civil servants this 1 Frederick the Great famously modernized the relationship between monarchy and society by presenting himself as the ‘first servant of the state’ which was in strong contrast to the absolutist monarchy of Louis XIV and his followers. 2 Creating an independent bureaucracy helped to secure the Prussian monarchy. The employed commoners in the civil service were dependent upon the monarchy and became reliable allies against the regional aristocratic powers.

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meant that they were now supposed to obtain philosophical–philological studies that conferred ‘Bildung’ as well as their specialized training in the cameral and legal disciplines. Thus, the new objective of higher education was not just to provide practical knowledge for the state bureaucracy but to form ‘cultivated personalities’. Partly this reform must be seen as an attempt to recreate and reinvigorate German national culture after the traumas of the Prussian defeat and occupation in the encounter with Napoleonic France (Wittrock 1993: 317). It should, as the Prussian monarch Friedrich Wilhelm II argued, ‘regain for the State in the realm of intellectual activities what it had lost in the physical realm’ (quoted in Wittrock 1993: 317). Thus, in contrast to Britain or the U.S., German universities became outspoken state institutions already at the end of the eighteenth century.

Humanistic Education The neo-humanist idea of education not only served to enhance the cultural and social identity of the civil servants but was in line with the growing cultural and philosophical paradigm at the time, German Idealism and Romanticism. Behind this new paradigm stood a coalition of aristocrats, such as Hardenberg, Humboldt, and Stein, and Idealist philosophers of a more or less pronounced pro-revolutionary (republican) bent in the 1790s such as Fichte, Hegel, and Kant, but also Protestant theologians under the influence of the Pietist doctrine who opposed the formalism of the traditional Scholastic education and supported the notion of education as furthering the fullest possible development of the soul (Ringer 1969: 18; Tuchman 1997). The conviction was that he best serves humanity who cultivates his own spirit to the fullest possible extent. Humanity was the goal of education and was defined as the development of all abilities of a human being to reach his/her highest consciousness (Schelsky 1971: 55). Fichte (1794) argued that scholars needed to be the ethically and morally best citizens of their time. Idealism developed as a critique of French Enlightenment and Positivism. The ascendance of natural science in the eighteenth century was experienced in part as a threat to human inwardness and moral self-determination. The central concern of German Enlightenment and thus Idealism was to reconcile a rationalist search for simple, universal truths with the spirituality and the personalized character of Protestant pietism which emphasized inner conviction, the value and sanctity of the individual soul (Bruford 1975). 3 3 But see Peter Gay who argues against a correlation between Protestant pietism and Enlightenment philosophy in the German context (Wittrock 1993: 310).

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Kant (1726–1804) first created an ethic on the distinctive properties of the human subject. Human phenomena to him could best be understood by grasping the meaning with which actors imbued their actions. This entails a method of understanding that in principle diverges from methods used for the natural sciences (Levine 1995: 187). For example, for Kant the method was ‘Vernunft’ (practical reason), for Dilthey (1833–1911) and subsequently Max Weber and other followers it was ‘Verstehen’ (understanding). Moreover, Idealism also incorporated the German Enlightenment idea of the state as the encompassing community that realizes the morality of its members, epitomized in Kant’s notion of the juridical order, and the idea of what came to be known as the German Historical School, with its discovery of the common spirit (Geist) of a community. Humboldt’s goal was to implement these ideas into education. He wanted to create elite state universities which were different to the traditional school universities where you learnt practical knowledge (especially for the state bureaucracy). Humboldt wanted moral education, ‘pure’ science, and universal knowledge which defined itself as contrary to practical, instrumental, and professional knowledge. He was against narrowing and instrumentalizing humans into practical knowledge carriers (Schelsky 1971: 66). This implied a criticism of Anglo-French rationalism and empiricism, in particular of a utilitarian attitude towards knowledge. 4 Kant proposed that only an education which was beyond the practical necessities of life could lift people to be better human beings (‘Versittlichung’)—which was the main aim of university education. Moreover, Friedrich Schiller argued that only the turning away from practical issues in education could create an aesthetic foundation on which to create moral human beings. According to Ringer (1969: 85), ‘they felt that many English and French intellectuals from the seventeenth century onwards associated science and learning almost exclusively with the idea of practical manipulation, of rational technique and environmental control’. In the following, I briefly discuss the Humanistic education model in practice by exploring the university structures and epistemology of the social sciences.

University Structure: Professorial Chairs The Humboldt reforms entailed a decisive break with the former medieval university organization. With regard to the medieval organization, which was and is still prevalent in countries where professors’ guilds have a major share in the governance of the university (e.g. Britain), the reforms aimed at achieving 4 Which does not mean, however, that Idealism was anti-rationalist. Kant was a rationalist and so were the philosophers of German Idealism.

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a delicate balance of power which was intended to secure the intellectual freedom of teaching and learning, the ‘Lehrfreiheit’ and ‘Lernfreiheit’, by safeguarding it not only from political incursions and violations but equally from narrow guild-like interests within academia itself. The aim of these reforms was to place a greater weight on the pursuit of knowledge and the cultivation of talent than on the mere acquisition of information (Tuchman 1997). For that reason Humboldt determined that professors of the new University of Berlin should be appointed by the state and not by the university, with the aim of making them more independent and meritocratic. This induced a university structure around faculties which incorporated a number of individual chairs rather than departments, as in the U.S. or Britain. Most teaching faculty fell under the official control of the chaired professors. Chairs also organize and control research institutes, which usually do not cover the broad areas of U.S.-style academic disciplines but areas of particular interests to the chair involved. This makes the system rather flexible though dependent on individual research interests. A chair could pursue his or her research area independent of whether it fitted into a certain discipline. One could be a professor of sociology and pursue studies of political science or employment. As a result, the German system produced intense research dedication but this depended entirely on the activity and personality of individual chairs. Thus, it avoided the American disciplinary division of turf (Abbott 2001: 124), but was entirely controlled by individual chairs. Moreover, throughout history the local division of academic labour reflected therefore relatively arbitrary differences among the interests of the chairs. There was also no national comparability, either in research or teaching: studying sociology for example could mean quite different things at different universities. As a consequence, as Wagner (1990: 483) shows, German professors for a long time resisted the segmentation of science into disciplines and subsequently academic departments. There were even tendencies to develop a universal approach which would encompass all social sciences and humanities (‘Geisteswissenschaften’), such as Max Weber’s attempt to formulate an encompassing ‘historical social science’. There was also strong resistance against new specialities and interdisciplinary attempts which explains the lack of institutionalization of employment relations as an interdisciplinary field of study at the time.

Social Science Methodologies: Hermeneutics and Marxism Second, in terms of the social science development, the emphasis on holistic thinking in broad historical cultural categories and being informed by a philosophy which rejected narrow-minded specialization provided a challenge

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to mechanistic and compositional thinking prevalent in Europe at the time. As a consequence, when social sciences were slowly established at the end of the nineteenth century in Germany they became mostly concerned with elaborating a coherent theoretical framework for societal analysis based on philosophical foundations. In short, two major social science traditions were established during the nineteenth century in Germany: Hermeneutics and Marxism. Hermeneutics developed out of a humanistic criticism on French- and British-style empiricism and goes back to Kant (see Ringer 1969: 90). As outlined before, one outcome of the scepticism of many German scholars towards the French Enlightenment and its evolving empiricism was the development of the humanistic disciplines as the opposite of natural sciences, which drew on new historical methodologies. For German scholars, the greatest fault of traditional historians was to treat the past as a collection of individual examples to be used to glorify men and progress and to construct generalizations about statesmanship. The famous remark of the historian Ranke was that on the contrary historians needed to find out ‘how it actually was’ (Ringer 1969: 98). Judgement and interpretation were supposed to be as little as possible and based on efforts to ‘put oneself in the place of the people and time one writes about’: the principle of empathy. This insight lead to the concept of Hermeneutics which stands for the subordination of explanation and description to interpretation, which cannot be reduced to mere empirical observation. It argues that the structure of social reality, which consists of objectifications of human meaning, is too complex for observation to provide us with a realistic representation. Therefore, the scientist must interpret in order to reach a deeper level of reality and aim at the hidden meanings embedded in the texts (see Delanty 1997: 40). Marxism is the second major scientific tradition which profoundly shaped the German social science discourse. As Levine (1995) outlines, Marxism incorporated various German, French, and British philosophical traditions, but there cannot be any doubt that Marx had a more lasting impact on German than on British or U.S. social sciences. Marxist social sciences have been amply reviewed elsewhere (see Levine 1995). Let me just outline two points of relevance for our topic. First, Marxism rejects the common presupposition of both Hermeneutics and Positivism, value freedom in science. Marxism is against scientism as well as interpretation and instead elevates ‘critique’ to the centre of the aims of social sciences. Thus, science does not aim to explain or understand society for its own sake. Knowledge is inherently critical of the prevailing order and seeks to change society by revealing the system of power and domination. Moreover, the normative foundation of critique cannot be derived from science but from the political commitment

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to emancipation and social change (Delanty 1997: 61). Thus, in opposition to Hermeneutics which aims at a mere understanding of social phenomena and is supposed to be value free, Marxism is more explanatory than interpretative. In contrast to Positivism, Marxism sees science not as standing outside of society (as an objective observer) but as an integral part of society. Marxism, which is deeply embedded in the German Idealist philosophy (Hegel in particular), encouraged German social sciences to develop a critical stance to the existing societal conditions. Thus, in contrast to the U.S. social sciences, for example, which were seen as helping to improve social problems and thereby stabilizing the young democratic society, German social sciences were more likely to radically question the societal status quo (which clearly was much less democratic than in the U.S. during the nineteenth century).

Britain In contrast to Germany, the British state was much less interested in higher education and research during the eighteenth and first part of nineteenth centuries. For most of its history, British universities were private rather than public institutions with close attachments to the Anglican Church and thereby presenting an exceptional case in Europe. For example, in 1920 all British universities together received only about a third of their total income from government subsidies (Trow 1993: 285). ‘English universities in the early nineteenth century were no state institutions and professors no civil servants. In particular, Britain’s oldest institutions, Oxford and Cambridge, which dominated higher education for much of the eighteenth and nineteenth century in Britain, and were copied by the newer universities to come, were self-regulating communities, jealous of their elitist status and autonomy of state control’ (Fourcade-Gourinchas 2000: 193). They relied extensively on local private financial resources and were managed in a highly decentralized manner. As Fourcade-Gourinchas (p. 164) points out, the historical reluctance of the English state to get involved in educational affairs further contributed to the persistence of such patterns. Moreover, in contrast to Germany, the state did not use universities to train their civil servants. Part of the reason was that the monarchy relied much less on bureaucracy than in Continental Europe and therefore their bureaucracy was strongly underdeveloped. At the turn of the nineteenth century England possessed only 116,000 state employees compared to 400,000 in France as well as in Prussia (Fourcade-Gourinchas 2000: 172). Until the end of the nineteenth century when Britain introduced competitive examinations for recruitment, Britain had no professional civil service to speak of. Thus, in

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contrast to Germany, the British civil service was a fairly unitary and homogeneous institution (usually consisting of recruits from the upper classes) and those received little formal administrative training. Much of their skills were accumulated on the job (Fourcade-Gourinchas 2000: 174). Subsequently, one of the distinctive traits of the British civil service throughout history was its ‘amateurish’ and also a-political character. Moreover, the emergence of state-sponsored education was delayed until the first half of the twentieth century, and a commitment to ‘mass education’ did not materialize in Britain until well after WWII (Fourcade-Gourinchas 2000; Rothblatt and Wittrock 1993). The British university system remained selective and elitist until the 1960s, not only academically but also socially. ‘The principal purpose of the universities as social class institutions in the nineteenth century was to educate the society’s gentleman, socialise future members of the elite, and form their character—much less to produce and diffuse “useful” knowledge’ (Fourcade-Gourinchas 2000: 164). The focus lay on the importance of a liberal education for the upper classes free from narrow considerations of utility and vocational interests. John Stuart Mill in 1867 made the famous statement that ‘universities are not intended to teach the knowledge required to fit men for some special mode of gaining their livelihood. Their objective is . . . to make . . . capable and cultivated human beings’ (quoted in Wittrock 1993: 324). The British liberal ideal was similar to the German humanistic emphasis on ‘Bildung’ in that they were against a utilitarian and vocational education, yet there were also fine differences. As mentioned above, Germany followed an emphasis on ‘culture’ (i.e. the pursuit of humanistic knowledge) whereas Britain fostered the shaping of the individual, civilized character as the core of liberal education (Rothblatt 1979: 45). In other words, the focus in Britain, according to Wittrock (1993), was to form the characters and minds of the young students rather than to expand the domain of knowledge beyond their present boundaries, which was more prevalent in the German model. In simple terms, the British approach focused on the civilization of individual students whereas the German focus was on the cultural knowledge expansion of the community (Ringer 1969: 88; Rothblatt 1979: 18). Note that the ‘provincial’ universities outside the Oxbridge circle, which were founded during the nineteenth century (e.g. Manchester 1880 or Liverpool 1881) by local notables and interests to provide trained graduates for local needs, were more concerned with vocational education rather than following the traditional liberal ideal of Oxbridge (Trow 1993: 284). Trow (1993) concludes that the idea of a university as an agency for the creation of knowledge came late to Britain and, it can be argued, never achieved full equality with the teaching function until after WWII. Even then it was restricted

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to just a handful of universities, whereas the polytechnics (new universities) focused and still focus mainly on teaching. The liberal education ideal had implications for the university structure and social sciences.

University Structure: Colleges Britain was characterized by the fact that a class of learned men preceded the creation of the colleges and universities—their coming together in fact created Oxford and Cambridge, and over time they came to elect their own institutional leaders. Thus, the academic guilds preceded the modern university and this tradition still has enormous power in the current university structures and scientific contents. With regard to the university structures, the academic guilds have retained a notion of egalitarian democracy (within their own elite membership) of medieval guilds of masters, thus professors, and have therefore little room for the hierarchical and authoritarian rule of professors of the Continental European universities (Trow 1993: 292). It comes as no surprise that Britain has had a long tradition of personal networks (‘who knows whom’), not only in political but also in academic life (Smith 1991: 131) Chair-holding professors never had the status and power as those in Continental European universities. Their power within the ancient universities was constrained by the corporate body of academics, the fellows, who were the governing bodies of the Oxbridge colleges. Academic careers in the past generally developed within the patronage structure of a particular college and did not require formal credentialing until recently (Abbott 2001: 125). The professions traditionally felt little need for formal training and supported a certain amateurism (Rothblatt 1976: 183). In fact, hardly would a college fellow in Oxbridge at the same time aspire to become a scholar or a scientist. The highest achievements for a person with a university education lay outside the institutions. It was clearly more prestigious to become the headmaster of a great public school than to be a don (Rothblatt 1976: 174). This changed in the late nineteenth century when fellows were less regulated by the church and turned towards secular teaching and learning. However, the notion of a university career as being separate from professions was long lasting. It was entirely possible throughout much of the twentieth century, for example, for a practising barrister to be qualified as a professor of law. And even today, there are multiple examples of faculty members at British universities without a Ph.D.—unthinkable in Continental Europe or the U.S. Moreover, the division of labour with respect to knowledge was dictated less by disciplines but by undergraduate examinations and honour degrees which were mostly pedagogical units unconnected with a specific research area

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(e.g. the famous Oxbridge PPE degree, politics, philosophy, and economics). Also, being almost exclusively focused on undergraduate education, British universities developed graduate or professional schools much later (during the twentieth century) than their U.S. or German counterparts (Fourcade-Gourinchas 2000: 165). Abbott (2001: 124) concludes that British universities in the nineteenth century were strongly anti-professional, and more often than not, anti-research. Professional education in Britain was dominated by practitioners and their associations rather than, as in Germany, by the state or, as in the U.S., by universities (Burrage 1993: 155). Finally, with regard to the social sciences, it should be first noted that the British system has for a long time emphasized the classical subjects rather than natural or social sciences. However, social research began early (some thirty years earlier than in Germany) in response to the need to engage with increasing social problems of industrialization. But it generated research institutions which were independent from the universities such as the famous Manchester Statistical Society (1833) (Manicas 1987: 196). Thus, British social sciences (as well as natural sciences) were primarily practised outside the university system until late in the nineteenth century (Manicas 1987: 195). For example, sociology as an academic subject began only in 1907 (at the LSE). Part of the reason was that British universities developed as relatively insular, elitist institutions, exhibiting little responsiveness to their social environment such as the industrial revolution or the social question (FourcadeGourinchas 2000). Scholarly work focused mainly around the reading of the Classics. Only after the first university reforms in the 1850s did more critical, society-oriented academic discussions develop (Muhs 1988: 241; also Harvie 1976). Also, business long remained suspicious of university graduates and somewhat reluctant to employ them. The system changed from the 1850s to 1870s onwards and the building of new universities (such as the LSE in 1895) put pressure on the ancient universities to slowly open their academic agendas to the sciences and social sciences. In sum, as corporate bodies, universities were nearly powerless, being dominated by the colleges within them. Even today Oxbridge has a peculiar matrix of colleges and departments. Students are usually affiliated to the colleges, whereas faculty is elected by and affiliated to departments and often in addition to colleges which are multidisciplinary. All other British universities are based on the U.S. departmental model, though it is less rigid than in the U.S. Scholars are known for changing disciplinary affiliations throughout their career. For example, one can receive a Ph.D. in sociology but end up in a political science department which is rarely heard of in the U.S. In this climate, interdisciplinary initiatives are structurally easier to foster.

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Social Science Methodologies: Positivism Finally, the concept of liberal education and research can be closely linked to the philosophical traditions of Positivism. In France, Britain, and subsequently the U.S., attempts were made in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to recast the philosophical bases of medieval ethics through positions aligned with the assumptions of natural philosophy and positivist notions of knowledge and science. Positivism, which originates from the French Enlightenment and relates to empiricism and pragmatism, became the dominant institutionalized form that science took on in the three countries (Delanty 1997: 44). The classic proponent of Positivism was Auguste Comte who argued that ‘positive’ science was useful and certain knowledge, in contrast to imaginary knowledge in its reliance on empirical methodology (Delanty 1997: 25). Thus, human knowledge evolves from speculative notions about occult causes to empirically grounded laws about relationships of cooccurrence and succession—similar to the natural sciences (Levine 1995: 13). Knowledge must submit itself to methodological investigation: there can be no truth without observation. Thus, Positivism inherited the traditions of empiricism and rationalism and transformed them from pure epistemology to the actual practice of empirical methodology. In Britain Positivism was reflected in the writings of J. S. Mill and other Victorian authors in their pursuit of utilitarian individualism and in the rise of social evolutionism as represented in the thought of Spencer (Delanty 1997: 26). The U.S. version of European Positivism was ‘Pragmatism’, which exemplified a tradition of social science that was characterized by the priority of empirical research with theory serving an applied role. As a consequence, with regard to the content of British social sciences, Delanty (1997: 26) has argued that they were caught in the bind between the positivistic heritage of moralistic reformism and administrative (empirical) knowledge. British social sciences essentially go back to Hobbes (1588– 1679) who is frequently seen as the central figure not just for British social sciences but for modern social science as such (Levine 1995: 121). Hobbes is the founder of the utilitarian tradition and methodological individualism which have marked British social sciences since then. Hobbes’s aim was to construct a purely secular ethic on the basis of what is natural, in other words on the natural propensities of individual human beings. Their laws of morality were laws of nature (Levine 1995: 124). Thus, natural individual propensities provided principles by which social phenomena could be explained, but they also served as the basis of human morality and defined the social good. Hobbes heavily influenced subsequent British thinkers such as Adam Smith, J. S. Mill, Bentham, and Spencer. The utilitarian doctrine eventually developed into a universal philosophy in Britain (Halevy 1966: 153). British social

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sciences became characterized by the quest for a humane secular ethic based on maximizing individual satisfaction. Moreover, the backbone of British social science stemmed from efforts to imitate the metric precision and logical rigour of physics (Levine 1995: 148). Mill, for example, was very critical of the idea of scientific politics and stood for a model of ‘useful’ knowledge. Empiricism was praised as an inductive science of general causal laws. The idea was to introduce natural science methods into the social sciences. Spencer was instrumental in popularizing the word ‘sociology’ in Britain as a new science of society based on the methods of the natural sciences (Delanty 1997: 26). He developed a functionalist-evolutionary social science, which had considerable impact on the subsequent history of the social sciences in Britain (Delanty 1997: 26). The basic idea was that social structures are explained in terms of the functions they perform and social change is the result of functional adaptation. Spencer also linked theory construction to empirical analysis, compiling vast quantities of data for the building of general theory. On the other side, British social sciences were characterized by a moral focus. Science was linked to the idea of moral improvement (Delanty 1997: 26). As Manicas (1987: 197) highlights, the social problem of the nineteenth century was interpreted by the British academic elite as a moral problem and was, accordingly, a problem of how to restore the morals of the individuals. This perception did not only serve the interests of government and industry but also reinforced the methodological individualism deeply rooted in British thought, a coincidence of epistemological and political individualism. In other words, compared to the U.S. British social sciences started as a fusion of analysis and (moral) prescription, whereas in the U.S. researchers who tried to fuse social science and ethics were eclipsed by those who favoured a more scientific, detached approach to social questions modelled on the natural sciences. In Britain, these tendencies were not apparent for a long time. Moreover, social sciences were only really institutionalized in British universities after 1945 and social investigation flourished outside the universities (Bulmer 1991: 152). This may have caused the more evaluative tone of social science debates in Britain compared to the U.S. Bulmer (1991: 160) argues that as a consequence Britain showed less emphasis on empirical methodology compared to the U.S. British research is frequently descriptive in letting the facts stand on their own whereas the U.S. generally tends to be more analytical. This can also be found in my journal comparison (Chapter 3). One explanation for these differences may be the stronger British commitment to humanistic canons (as in Germany) which prevents a stronger interest in quantitative empirical analysis. Another explanation maybe that U.S. society accords a more central place to the social sciences, and these are longer

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established. Their contribution to rational decision-making is acknowledged and not questioned, whereas in Britain greater weight tends to be given to practical experiences (Sharpe 1975: 11) Finally, British social sciences are usually characterized as being less interested in general theory. Bulmer (1991: 163), for example, argues that in Britain theoretical interests and applied interests seem to be antithetical. Hyman (2001a: 67) underlines this by quoting Tawney (1921: 9) who criticizes rather bluntly that ideologies have more often been implicit than explicit in Britain: ‘against a background of anti-intellectualism, the English are incurious as to theory, take fundamentals for granted, and are more interested in the state of the roads than in their place on the map.’

U.S. In the U.S., in Louis Hartz’s vivid phrase (1955), the market preceded the society and its institutions of higher education, which shows in the great presence of the market at the heart of universities from their very beginnings (Trow 1993: 284). One obvious example is the land speculation which has been a significant motive in the creation of colleges and universities in the U.S. Early universities were relatively modest establishments, usually controlled by local churches, who combined classical education with moral and religious training similar to Britain. This changed from the 1860s with the land grant legislation (1862 Morrill Act) signed by Lincoln which allocated federal funds to the different states for the purpose of setting up public institutions of higher education, originally as agricultural and technical schools. Since colonial times, basic education has been a central tenant of U.S. democratic thought. By the 1860s, politicians and educators increasingly wanted to offer all young Americans the chance to receive some sort of education, independent of their income. The emphasis was on practical (job-oriented) knowledge. As Rothblatt (1993: 51) argues, from its very beginning the U.S. had an ideology of education in the service of society; knowledge for the benefit of society was encouraged. A quote of the author of the bill, Justin Morrill, illuminates this point: The land-grant colleges were founded on the ideal that a higher and broader education should be placed in every State within the reach of those whose destiny assigned them to, or may have the courage to choose industrial vocations where the wealth of nations is produced; where advanced civilization unfolds its comforts and where a much larger number of its people need wider educational advantages and impatiently await their possession. The design was to open the door to a liberal education for this large class at a cheaper cost from being close at hand and to tempt them by offering not only sound

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literary instruction but something more applicable to the productive employments of life. It would be a mistake to suppose it was intended that every student should become either a farmer or a mechanic, when the design comprehended not only instruction for those who hold the plow or follow a trade, but such instruction as any person might need—with ‘the world before them where to choose’—and without the exclusion of those who might prefer to adhere to the classics. (1887, quoted from Alfred Charles True, in A History of Agricultural Education in the United States)

At the same time, a philanthropic movement among wealthy industrialists (e.g. Rockefeller, Leland Stanford, and Ezra Cornell) supported the creation of private institutions, the first one being Johns Hopkins University (established in 1876). The reasons for this private initiative were the inability of the state colleges to fulfill the rising demand for higher education as well as the philanthropists’ specific interest in elite moral education and the advancement of technological and economic progress. Thus, for many of these industrialists their cultural worldview based on Christian beliefs was equally important as their economic and political perspective grounded in the marketplace (Richardson 1999: 38). Moreover, the notoriously weak U.S. state and its federalist structure, the lack of a significant state bureaucracy, and a strong conservative middle class which de-emphasized politics added its bit to the creation of a private university sector established by capitalists rather than by the state. The new breed of educational managers reconstituted higher education and emphasized its societal usefulness in providing expert knowledge for the improvement (performance) and stability of the new society and thus fulfilling a role as a ‘guide on the path to modernity’ (Ross 2001: 11). Finally, the private universities drew inspiration from the German researchbased universities and promoted research as the centre of the academic vocation, turning it into a full-time occupation, and making it the basis of inter-institutional competition (Fourcade-Gourinchas 2000: 42).

University Structure: Departments The U.S. market-oriented approach to higher education, in state as well as private institutions, fostered the early institutionalization of specialism within universities. This was reinforced by the recognition of all subjects as being equal (elective system of undergraduates); at the same time, the determination of its leaders to let the system be governed by the demands of the society fostered the professional orientation of U.S. higher education. Bledstein (1976) describes this as the early institutionalization of a ‘consumer’ orientation, highly responsive to the clients’ interests, combined with a rather precocious existence of a class of specialized university administrators, which are both

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characteristic of the U.S. academic system (quoted in Fourcade-Gourinchas 2000: 42). The U.S. was leading in developing new teaching structures and programmes such as departments and departmental majors or electives, and created a constant influx of new interdisciplinary majors, for example gender or ethnic, studies. The growing specialization shattered the idea of the unity of knowledge that was popular in Germany at the time. The expansion of educational programmes has been criticized as turning education into an item of consumption whose value fluctuates according to supply and demand cycles (Rothblatt 1993: 56). Rothblatt (p. 49) criticizes that what emerged in twentieth-century U.S. was not a liberal education but a ‘liberal education sampler’. Moreover, this vocational, specialized approach to education went handin-hand with the development of a unique departmental university structure. Academic disciplines in the U.S. sense—groups of professors with exchangeable credentials collected in strong associations—did not appear outside of the U.S. until well after WWII (Abbott 2001: 123). According to Abbott (p. 125), a peculiar conjuncture fostered the growth of academic disciplines as social structures in the U.S. Basically, U.S. universities were expected to provide undergraduate, morally induced education similar to the British model (but on a much larger scale), but at the same time they were trying to be research institutions, as the German model. The dual function and the rapid growth of universities throughout the U.S. made some internal structuring necessary. The internal hierarchy of the German universities with strong, quasiindependent chairs was unacceptable to the democratic U.S. and so they compromised by creating departments ‘as equals’ (Abbott 2001: 125). In addition, U.S. colleges and universities replaced the former British colonial educational system with a strong presidential leadership which has independent power from the academic faculty (different to Britain) as well as ideally from the state. The disciplinary structure potentially allowed democratic governance of the university system as well as career mobility and competition between institutions, which was more difficult to achieve under the British patronage system. In sum, the different structures of the university systems in the U.S. and Europe had a major impact on the disciplinary formation. With no traditional European-style faculty bodies standing between professors and the university president, the new U.S. universities moved to a departmental organization, solidifying disciplinary distinctions, in contrast to the chair system in Germany or the professorial ‘guilds’ in Britain. This setting invited interdisciplinary projects but at the same time made it difficult to compete with well-established departments.

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Moreover, ‘whereas German social scientists disposed of state-endowed rank by their very position as chair holders in state universities, their American counterparts had to create a professional identity in terms of their access to specific knowledge and by developing universities into non-state locations of knowledge production’ (Ross 2001: 7). Since professional guilds were rather weak in the U.S. (compared to Britain), universities were in charge of professional education (Trow 1993: 283). This explains the strong position of professional schools within U.S. universities, whereas professional education in Britain was largely excluded from universities. Finally, academic careers remain within the discipline rather than within the university and foster the external academic job market and inter-university competition. One of the outcomes was that the general Ph.D. degree, borrowed from Germany, became a specialized Ph.D. in a specific field. The importance of disciplines is mirrored in the reproduction of departments which recruit faculty only from within their own discipline. It is hard, for example, to move into a department of sociology with a Ph.D. in political science. Disciplines also fulfill certain cultural functions (Abbott 2001: 130). Disciplines rather than universities provide the core identity for U.S. academics. They also prevent knowledge from become too abstract. Disciplines legitimize our necessarily partial, specialized knowledge and are more responsive to service provisions to certain clients or the broader society than other university structures. Ross (2001: 6) suggests that ‘the disciplines were linked to professional careers, because university appointments were not a traditional ‘profession’ nor one that carried civic status and thus professional career lines and expertise were more important concerns than in Europe’. However, disciplines can face the danger of becoming introverted. Ross (2001: 7) criticizes that the ‘disciplinary bodies [in the U.S.] became eventually something of a subculture in its own right and like a professional guild, provided recruits with norms of behaviour, patterns of preferment, and hierarchically ordered career tracks that somewhat insulated members not only from outside judgement but also from outside inspiration’.

Social Science Methodologies: Empiricism and Pragmatism Social sciences developed more quickly in the U.S. than in Europe, where they struggled for recognition against the traditional faculty bodies of humanities and natural sciences. Another reason for the pioneering role of the U.S. was that the explosive capitalist development at the time created devastating social problems for the new U.S. society (immigration, urbanization, and

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industrialization) and social sciences were soon perceived as tools to combat these societal deficiencies. Originally, U.S. social sciences were influenced by their colonial motherland Britain as well as by German science. As Manicas (1987: 213) notes, ‘the founding of institutionalised social science in America was in its first stage fully under the dominance of scholars who had been trained in Germany and had returned to the blossoming American university scene’. However, the distinctively German historical and holistic conception of society, which these scholars brought back, could not take root in America. 5 There were the abovementioned institutional and political pressures and competing ideas from the British individualistic heritage which had profound effects on early U.S. thinking and which ultimately led to an ‘Americanization’ of social sciences (Manicas 1987: 214). The German-influenced social science of the first generation of American professionals insisted that empirical outcomes had complex underlying causal determinants. Yet, given the ‘exigencies of competitive academic expertise in the U.S., with businessmen as executives of the new universities, there was little choice but to domesticate and de-fang this style of holistic social science’ (Veblen 1957: 136). Accordingly, the putative leaders of science put aside questions of causes in favour of questions of use, on what ought to be done to improve conditions and to conserve those habits and conventions that had become imbedded in the received scheme of use and wont, and so had been found to be good and right. Moreover, as Smith (1970: 68) argues, many of the founding fathers of U.S. social sciences were not members of the political ‘left’ but rather ideological protagonists for corporate capitalism. They were in favour of structural societal changes but rejected socialism, Marxism, and anarchism, the intellectual traditions established in Europe. Similar observations can be made for the founding fathers of the field of employment research (see Chapter 2). WWI was decisive in the victory of Positivism. U.S. scientists enthusiastically encouraged the U.S. to enter the war and cooperated with the government in realizing America’s self-defined mission ‘to make the world safe for democracy’. For Americans, the defeat of Germany also meant the defeat of metaphysical, statist, historical, holistic German social science (Maniacs 1987: 51). ‘Long suspicious of it in any case, the war proved to them that the older British and French empirical philosophies, continuously represented in the “old” political economy and in British utilitarian theories of government, had 5 The early struggle between these ‘Germanic’ scholars and their U.S. counterparts can be witnessed in all social sciences and also in the humanities (see Danzinger 1990 for psychology; Lindblom 1997 for political science; Putnam 1997 for philosophy; Shaskolsky 1970 for sociology; Solow 1997 for economics).

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been right all along’ (Manicas 1987: 51). By the 1930s, U.S. social sciences had achieved both academic respectability as an independent discipline (earlier than in Europe) and public approval as a study devoted to correcting the imperfections of society (Willhelm 1970: 131). It had shorn itself of the last vestiges of ideological involvement that was so much part of European social sciences. Also, the war experience made historical progress uncertain and strengthened a sense of historical discontinuity and U.S. exceptionalism (Ross 1991). Thenceforth, Americans would set the style in social science, and after WWII European scholars were strongly influenced by this model (Weyer 1984). A most dominating difference between Continental European and early U.S. thinking was the intense belief in the U.S. in both the inevitability and the value of progress. In particular, Darwin’s theories were believed to be most apt for the vibrant and developing society that was America at the end of the nineteenth century (Shaskolsky 1970: 10). The U.S. social science was quickly characterized by psychological realism and individualism, thus the assumption that the structure of all social groups is the consequence of the aggregate of its separate, component individuals and that social phenomena ultimately derive from the motivations of these individuals (Wolff 1970: 46). Thus, U.S. sociology has almost from its beginning been more deeply involved with (social) psychology (interests, social forces, instincts, needs, attitudes, etc.) than with society or history, whereas the opposite rather describes Continental European social science. This emphasis went hand-in-hand with an ‘anti-metaphysical empiricist philosophy of science’ (Mach 1883), evolving from the expansion of natural sciences at the turn of the twentieth century (Manicas 1991: 50). Coleman (1986: 1313) argues that ‘the main body of empirical research was abandoning analysis of the functioning of collectivities to concentrate on the analysis of the behaviour of individuals. Empirical research was lacking a theory of action, replacing “action” with “behaviour” and eliminating any recourse to purpose or intention in its causal explanations’. In particular, the problem of classical theorizing, the relation between society and the individual, was circumvented methodologically by emphasizing statistical, quantitative methods and objectivist, natural-science type reasoning. In the theoretically more ambitious approaches, this latter reasoning was couched in structural functionalist, structuralist, or rational-individualist terms (Wagner and Wittrock 1991b: 351). It comes as no surprise that the most well-known U.S. employment theorist, the economist Dunlop, based his work on Parsons’s functionalist theory which has been widely characterized as conservative and methodologically individualistic (Mills 1959: 49). This empiricism was partly induced by the necessity for social science disciplines to legitimize their existence in a competitive university environment

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and this led them to increasingly rely on sophisticated statistics, imitating the leading natural sciences (Camic and Xie 1994). It was also induced by the lack of a rigid class structure, which made U.S. social sciences much less political. There was a conviction in the U.S. that social sciences were devoted to correcting the imperfections of society without presenting a challenge to society. The idea of practicality, of not being utopian, operated in conjunction with other factors as a polemic against the ‘philosophy of history’ brought in by scholars trained in Germany. This polemic also implemented a drive to lower levels of abstraction. In sum, Willhelm (1970: 131) suggests that ‘a view of isolated and immediate problems as the “real” problems may well be characteristic of a new society rapidly growing, as America was in the nineteenth century’. Historians and sociologists of knowledge have pointed to the detrimental effects of empiricism such as their a-theoretical, a-historical, and a-political tendencies (see Ross 1991). For example, Bulmer (1991: 164) states, U.S. social scientists insisted that first and foremost social science was science, not philosophy, or social reform, or history. Manicas (1987: 281) concludes that ‘the divorce of history from social science was in some ways the most devastating development in the Americanization of social sciences’. And that meant providing positivist and a-historical social sciences which adopted an unabashed technocratic stance. In a similar vein, Wagner and Wittrock (1991b) argue that the expansion of empirical social and economic research was often devoid of any explicit theoretical interest at all. Merton (1957: 449) concludes that U.S. sociology seeks scientific truth, whereas European sociology seeks existential truth. Merton (1957) notes that ‘in American sociology reliability has been won by surrendering theoretical relevance’. According to Mills (1970), the conservative nature of positivistic empirical research is hidden by its claims to scientific objectivity.

CONCLUSION This chapter discussed the history of knowledge institutions in the three countries as a second trajectory of my framework explaining cross-country variations of employment research. I provided a brief history of university reforms and developments of the social sciences during the nineteenth century which were shaped by different degrees of state involvement in the three countries. In a nutshell, the German state became proactive in reforming the education system mainly for ideational reasons (humanistic ideals) and political reasons (stabilizing state bureaucracy), but also for economic reasons (updating German industry). In Britain, education was for the longest

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part liberal, character-forming education for the upper classes independent of the state. Education and research became primarily a private matter of professional guilds and college fellows. In the U.S., education developed as a particular mixture of enhancing the democratic ideals of a new society as well as fostering economic progress and certain religious/moral values of predominantly private investors. Differences are also evident in the degrees of formalized access that social scientists had over public policymaking and this in return influenced the character of social sciences (Wittrock and Wagner 1996: 106). In Germany, the close interaction between state and research allowed social scientists to have a formal, institutionalized voice in public policymaking. In the British case, the access was on the one hand relatively unproblematic due to the intertwined, informal nature of political and scientific elites (in particular in Oxbridge) with the similar class background providing futile ground for an ‘elite culture of rational societal reforms’ (Wittrock and Wagner 1996: 106). On the other hand, there was no institutionalized access and intellectuals and academics did traditionally not have a high social status and therefore had a limited public presence. In the U.S., which underwent rapid societal changes, elites were less stable and as an outcome universities created more formal ways to influence the public sphere by a disciplinary professionalization of their discourse (Wittrock and Wagner 1996: 106). By formalizing rules in the scientific institutions such as the establishment of social science disciplines, they attempted to increase their political credibility through scientific authority. In sum, following Wittrock and Wagner (1996), one can broadly distinguish between statist and non-statist knowledge production systems, the former being exemplified mostly by Continental European countries, the latter by the U.S. and Britain. The authors (p. 126) note that the Anglophone countries experienced different forms of ‘statelessness’: ‘Britain is characterized by a relative statelessness, which derived from a gradual development of rather nonformalised state institutions bound together by an elite culture, which was reproduced and modified in the academic institutions. These long-established elites were hostile to formalisation, central control and state rule. In the U.S. the statelessness dates back to the community-oriented social life of the early democratic federation, but was always interrelated with a strong tendency to produce major policy changes to proceed through formal establishment of institutions and codifications of rules.’ A basic distinction between statist and non-statist societies helps identify the presence or absence of the state in the development of the modern education and research system. Thus, whereas the state was clearly the leading actor in the development of German universities and modern sciences, the

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driving forces in Britain or the U.S. were a combination of private and public actors. A well-known argument is that the long-standing dominance of the state in German knowledge production has created a tradition of research in the social sciences which is potentially less instrumental and pragmatically related to the solution of societal problems and more focused on exploring fundamental characteristics of societal phenomena (Delanty 1997). On a negative side, this also entails the risk of research being dominated by state interests. However, one should be aware that the dichotomy in statist and nonstatist knowledge systems can only be a rough guide and does not embrace all complexities. States differ in their interests in knowledge production and this may change over time; ‘statelessness’ can have different forms, as we have seen in the cases of Britain and the U.S.; and private actors do not necessarily form a coherent group. For example, some U.S. philanthropists were eager to encourage Christian values in their universities to improve society’s morale while others were primarily interested in economic progress and market rules. And British university fellows may have been primarily interested in providing an elite classical education to shape the students’ personalities. How then can we define the resulting knowledge systems in each country? The development of knowledge systems in nineteenth-century Germany can be characterized by a humanistic ideal of education and of ‘pure’ science. Moreover, the two major social science traditions (Hermeneutics and Marxism) facilitated a more political and critical awareness of social conditions and problems. In contrast, the U.S. developed a model of ‘professional education’ and Britain was characterized by ‘liberal education’. Social sciences in both countries were shaped by a positivist and empiricist ideology. The ideal was to produce instrumental knowledge for the benefit of society and individual progress but, as many scholars have pointed out, without overt political significance (e.g. Delanty 1997: 13). In Britain, social sciences were characterized by a strong positivist-utilitarian tradition, methodological individualism, and a naturalistic morality. The U.S. developed in similar ways to Britain but with a more scientific, pragmatic approach to the sciences, in particular social sciences which were seen as a tool to improve the social conditions of modern society.

Social Science Traditions and Employment Research There are apparent similarities with employment research characteristics, as found in my survey (Chapter 3). It confirms my hypothesis that despite the growing internationalization of academia employment research is still

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embedded in national social science traditions. There can be no doubt that cross-national differences in methodological and epistemological characteristics of employment research are not only shaped by the authors’ disciplinary background and their topics of research but also by their social science traditions (indicated in the survey by authors’ nationality). For example, a U.S. sociologist and a German sociologist working on labour issues may use different research patterns, in particular different methodologies, despite their shared profession. And a British labour economist and a British sociologist have something in common despite their different professions. In other words, national social science traditions help explain why, as in our survey, employment research in the U.S. is leaning towards quantitative empirical research, whereas German employment research is characterized by descriptive, qualitative, or theoretical essayistic research and Britain yields traces of both; or why the U.S. and Britain tend to produce more intermediate, middle-range theories which can be empirically tested, whereas Germany is leaning towards more abstract social science theories. Moreover, the different epistemological traditions also shaped the purposes of social science research. Thus, the increase of empiricism in the Anglophone countries correlates with a lesser emphasis on public policy research (more in the U.S. than in Britain). In Germany, the hermeneutic and Marxist traditions allowed employment research to develop a more critical agenda of changing power relations at work but also had the purpose of understanding societal phenomena at work, to find ‘truth’ without pragmatic implications. Finally, social science traditions contribute to the institutionalization of employment relations as an independent field of study in Anglophone academia but not in Continental Europe (see Chapter 2). As we have seen, a major explanation for the development of an interdisciplinary field in the Anglophone world was country-specific employment institutions and labour movement histories which induced a different diagnosis and solution of labour problems (see Chapter 5). As a result, in the U.S. work and employment is perceived less as an outcome of state policies than of the free labour market in contrast to Germany. The current chapter explores an additional, more structural explanation and points to the national scientific traditions and university systems which encouraged or discouraged the establishment of interdisciplinary fields. Thus, the different developments of higher education and university structures during the nineteenth century provide some explanation for the countries’ relative openness to interdisciplinary projects. The departmental structure in the U.S. and later in Britain facilitated the creation of interdisciplinary fields such as employment relations, whereas in Germany the university structure around faculties and chairs enabled a broader research

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agenda for the individual professors but at the same time discouraged the institutionalization of interdisciplinary fields. In more detail, the strict classification of disciplines in the U.S., which is more dominant than in Europe (Wagner 1990: 236), made it more difficult for individual scholars to integrate employment relations into their own discipline while giving the opportunity to create specific interdisciplinary programmes. U.S. disciplines tend to follow a strict canon and are more likely to discriminate alternative views. In Ross’s words (1991), ‘the importance of disciplines and disciplinary professions to stabilise academic positions in the U.S. system lead frequently to an ontological purification of disciplinary discourses by excluding outside factors to strengthen disciplinary identification whereas in Europe disciplines were less inhibited to use theoretical concepts from other disciplines’. The fact that in the U.S. employment relations institutes were first created by institutional economists who felt increasingly left out in their own discipline substantiates this point. In Germany, the organizational structure around chairs traditionally allowed a slightly less rigid definition of the discipline, and individual professors were more able to follow their own interests independent from the mainstream. Thus, a sociology or law professor interested in labour could follow this research topic even if it did not quite fit within the disciplinary boundaries. The downside is that employment research is potentially at the mercy of individual professors’ interests. Another reason is that interdisciplinary, specialized, or vocational fields had less chances to be accepted because of the traditional German emphasis on general, pure knowledge. Finally, in Britain, specialized fields were structurally easier to establish than in the U.S. because of the less rigid disciplinary structure, given that the majority of the academic guild approved. However, the establishment of employment relations as an interdisciplinary field was delayed for a long time because of the dominance of the classical disciplines.

7 Industrial Democracy Discourse INTRODUCTION In the western intellectual tradition, reflections on employment and work have from their very beginning been closely linked with reflections on politics. Aristotle already declared that a free man should not work for a living but spend his core time as a political being, actively participating in the polis whereas slaves and women were meant to work and were not allowed to act in the political sphere (Arendt 2001: 22). The rise of Christianity in medieval Europe significantly changed the meaning of ‘vita activa’ and ‘vita contemplativa’, upgrading work as being a worthy and necessary constitution for spiritual salvation. Max Weber linked the rise of Protestantism with the rise of capitalism in Europe during the sixteenth century. The nineteenth century, with its growing industrialization and democratization, attracted scholars to reinvestigate the relationship between the two spheres. Karl Marx highlighted the political dimension of work and employment: The right to work was not just a spiritual necessity but became a human right, and hence work was understood in political terms, in relation to the political economy of capitalism and democracy. This chapter focuses on the third and last path dependency in the analysis of the variety of employment research, the industrial democracy discourse. In broad terms, the chapter outlines how the relationship between politics, democracy, and the economy developed at a conceptual level in Germany, Britain, and the U.S. My assumption is that the discourse on political economy 1 in the nineteenth century had a major impact on how scholars approached work and employment at the time and how a conceptual understanding of industrial democracy was developed. It comes as no surprise that the nineteenth century, the century of industrialization, was decisive for establishing paradigms to think about work and labour— long before employment relations was developed as an academic discipline. Neither is it surprising that the way industrial democracy was defined and 1 Defined as the study of the interaction between political and economic processes within societies, see Chapter 5.

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interpreted derived from broader definitions of political democracy and liberal thoughts of the nineteenth century. This was also the century of democratization, though clearly in very different ways in the three countries at stake. This chapter shows how employment research, in particular research paradigms, are embedded in these intellectual traditions of each country. Thus, the different ways in which industrial democracy became conceptualized in Germany, Britain, and the U.S. were heavily dependent on their understanding of political democracy and is linked to their different state traditions. Or, to take the argument upside down, in line with Orren (1991), the way countries practice industrial democracy indicates their different interpretations of political democracy.

DEFINING INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY The concept of industrial democracy is defined very loosely in much of the literature though it has been a widely researched topic, particularly in the 1960s and 1970s (e.g. Maley et al. 1979; Pettman 1978; Ramsay 1977). It often generates as much confusion as illumination, not least because different sets of people who employ these concepts mean very different things by them, but also, as I want to explore in this chapter, because the concept generates different meanings in different national contexts. Similarly, the terms ‘participation’, ‘social partnership’, or ‘social dialogue’ tend to be vague and are subject to a host of interpretations. First of all, countries use different terms to refer to industrial democracy. Whereas the U.S. and Britain use ‘industrial democracy’ (or workplace democracy), the German literature refers to various terms, mainly ‘Mitbestimmung’ (co-determination)—which according to some authors is not translatable (Lasserre 1996)—but also ‘Partizipation’ (participation), ‘Partnerschaft’ (partnership), and ‘Wirtschaftsdemokratie’ (economic democracy). 2 The German literature distinguishes between industrial democracy, for example, co-determination which is focused on the industry and firm level, and economic democracy which looks at workers’ influence on the economic policymaking of the state (e.g. corporatism). In contrast Anglophone literature tends to use industrial democracy as an all-embracing term, as will be done in the following. 2 For example Umbreit (1920), though usually the term ‘Wirtschaftsdemokratie’ is used to refer to a radical democratization (nationalization) of the economy (especially in the 1970s).

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Industrial democracy is broadly interpreted in the employment literature 3 as focusing on the intersection between capitalism and democracy (in other words, how much democracy and in what manner it is needed in a capitalist economy) and thus covering a wide range of propositions from reforming to overthrowing capitalism. Within the debate on how to shape capitalism in order to make it more democratic, one assumption is that capitalist property rights are not necessarily of higher democratic value than employees’ interests in control over their working lives. A major question is how different countries have defined the nature of this control. Scholars distinguished various forms and levels of employee participation and ownership practised across countries (Blasi and Kruse 2004; Gunn 1984; Schurman and Eaton 1996). Most important here is the question of how much control over managerial decision-making workers eventually gain through these devices. Industrial democracy is then defined as comprising a variety of participatory forms which give workers some form of control over managerial decision-making, be it workers’ direct participation at shop-floor level (where managers retain final control to workers’ participation in the managerial decision-making process), be it workers’ institutions such as works councils or union-led collective bargaining, or be it the most radical form of workers’ self-governance (self-management; cooperatives). This chapter’s primary task is to describe alternative discourses of industrial democracy as they developed historically in the three countries. Germany with its highly legalistic, extensive system of co-determination is usually regarded as the prototype of legalistic industrial democracy, having achieved workers’ participation in managerial decision-making through legal rights for works councils and workers’ representatives at companies’ supervisory boards, as well as free collective bargaining. In contrast, the U.S. is known for its highly voluntarist approach to industrial democracy comprising free collective bargaining and voluntarist forms of firm-specific direct employee participation. Britain is conceived as standing in-between the two models with a long tradition of voluntarist definitions of industrial democracy, such as collective bargaining, and a history of (failed) governmental attempts to introduce mandatory industrial democracy institutions (e.g. Bullock Committee in the 1970s). Moreover, Britain has recently been incorporating European industrial democracy practices such as the European works council or the latest E.U. directive on information and consultation. 3 Note that different disciplines approach industrial democracy differently (see Pateman 1970 for a political scientific perspective or Witte 1980 and Zwerdling 1978 for a managerial perspective).

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In contrast to institutional practices, which can be fairly easily described and compared across countries, a comparative history of intellectual thought faces certain difficulties. As noted before, ideas are expressed in language and it is not always easy to find fitting equivalents in other languages (Breuilly 1992: 93). More importantly, however, ideas are generated in a particular intellectual and political context which makes cross-country comparisons as difficult as causal explanations. The following discussion on industrial democracy discourses is therefore inevitably a preliminary attempt to highlight major relative national differences.

THE POLITICAL EMBEDDEDNESS OF THE DISCOURSE ON INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY As outlined above, the concept of industrial democracy was settled on during the nineteenth century and was significantly shaped by the national political discourses on democracy at the time. Much of these discourses focused on two core questions: how should one regard the fundamental economic, social, and political changes at work, and how should one conceive of the form and purposes of a state that was to be able to meet the challenges posed by these changes (Dyson 1980: 159). It was a time of political experimentation and the question was how to give institutional expression to the new ideas of individual liberty, equality, and a modern democratic state. A major distinction can be drawn between liberal or mechanic theories of the state, which primarily developed in Anglophone countries, and organic state theories, prevalent in Germany and other countries in Continental Europe. Thinkers in Britain and the U.S. were generally influenced by liberal concepts of society and state which emerged throughout the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and were rooted in Anglophone positivist philosophy (see Chapter 6) (Delanty 1997: 12). Compared to Continental Europe, Anglophone intellectuals gave little attention to the concept of ‘state’ and exhibited a greater faith and interest in the creative nature, vitality, and resilience of civil society and in civic humanism, rooted in practice of civility, as the source of standards in public life. They emphasized the importance of the state– society distinction, with society being superior to the state, and distrusted all forms of institutional power. The core assumption of liberal state theories was therefore an optimistic concept of man as well as viewing the state as a legal phenomenon and personality. In other words, the modern state represented a depersonalization of power and became a subject of rights and duties. This led to a conceptualization of the state as a means or instrument of society rather

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than as a higher, ideational good. Even on the radical left side of the intellectual spectrum (such as the socialist left in Britain, in particular from the Webbs onwards), most thinkers associated themselves with an instrumental mechanic view of the state. It comes as no surprise that Hobbes’s Leviathan (1651) and its view of the politic as an ‘artificial person in the law’ that enjoyed sovereignty and acted as an authorized representative stimulated more response in Continental Europe than in Anglophone countries. In Contrast, Locke’s ‘trust conception’ of government, which rejected the notion of government as an independent party confronting and contracting with the community, was rooted in the English law of equity and became more popular in the Anglophone world (Dyson 1980: 189). As Dyson (1980: 189) convincingly shows, a mechanic view of the state goes hand in hand with an individualistic, positivist conception of society. Society came to be perceived as a composition of a multitude of autonomous individuals who possess and express their free will. A high value was placed on individual freedom which was defined as being free from any superior power such as the state. The source of all law and state action was the individual, who was the only real, free, and responsible being. The rights of the individual were prior and superior to the state, whose only absolute value was the liberty of the individual. Societal order depended on the assumption of rational conduct on the part of the individuals: it was a premise that they would not give up their liberties, that they would respect the rights of others, and indeed, that they would value public order (Dyson 1980: 141). In contrast, German thinkers were crucial in developing what is usually referred to as organic theories of the state. Whereas French thinkers during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries became fascinated with the Roman (Catholic) model of the state (centralized power), Germans began to look at the Greek model of the ‘polis’ instead, which Hegel referred to as the ‘paradise of the human spirit’. Turning to Greek culture as the key to true ‘Germanness’ was seen as an alternative to the French, and therefore Latin, influence in German courts of the eighteenth century. In response to the Napoleonic vision of a universal empire, the fragmented German states started to develop an increasing sense of a common national and cultural identity. The combination of the French Revolution and Enlightenment with a fragmented political, social, and religious structure encouraged intellectuals to look for new ideals far removed from contemporary realities. The Greek ideal of the whole man was juxtaposed with the fragmented individual personality of modernity. Idealist thinkers, such as Herder and Hegel, were concerned with restoring harmony to personal experience, with recreating the whole man in an integrated, cohesive political community (Dyson 1980: 172). Their state theory was therefore a theory of social relations in a

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broad sense and created a German concern for the state as a cultural and moral authority in contrast to the Anglophone positivist tradition which was leaning towards the state as a rational, mechanic, morally neutral organization. According to Hegel, the state was able, through its institutions, to provide individuals with universal ends. People reconciled their particular subjective will and the universal will by finding rational values within their own community through engagement in practical activity. In other words, Hegel conceived the state as an integrated system of institutions, rather than, as Hobbes and the tradition which followed him had seen it, as an aggregation of individuals acting in consort to satisfy individual interests (Manicas 1987: 94). Moral principles were not to be discovered through a process of self-reflection on the part of the individual but in the concrete, continuing life within the community (Dyson 1980: 144). There was also a concern about the enervating effects of social fragmentation on the individual, caused by the capitalist economy, and technical rationality models of state and society. This led to a new appreciation of the state as counteracting the threats to ‘Kultur’ (culture/civilization) that were posed by the ‘materialistic’, ‘machine’ technology and mass democracy based on the politics of interests (Dyson 1980: 151). According to Dyson (1980: 151), ‘German “Kultur” was opposed both to French civilisation, with its rationalism and democratic and egalitarian spirit, and to the “trader’s spirit” and political economy of the U.S. and Britain, with its potential egoism and acquisitiveness’. The following section explores how the two state theories interacted with different national responses on how much democracy and in what form it was desirable for the industrializing political economies of Germany, Britain, and the U.S. One can distinguish three major conceptual streams of industrial democracy which developed in all countries at the time but in different patterns: a socio-ethical, a communitarian-economic, and a statist-constitutional approach.

Germany In Germany the desire to conceptualize industrial democracy in terms of codetermination rights for workers to provide a certain legally based degree of control over managerial decision-making in factories and in the larger economy is as old as its industrialization itself. Its basic origins lay in the period between 1815 (Second Paris Peace) and 1848 (March Revolution), called ‘Vormärz’ (Pre-March). This was a time of great political uncertainty when the relationship between individual citizens and traditional state institutions

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of the monarchy and the new economic institutions were questioned by many and when the Enlightenment gave people a new sense of being and an incentive to rebel against the old power structures of the authoritarian state. Using the above classification, one might argue that the socio-ethical approach in Germany developed under the influence of utopian socialists such as the Briton Robert Owen (1771–1858) but was also linked to the German Idealist philosophy, its striving for the wholeness of the human being, its fight against materialism, and its emphasis on culture and education as a necessary vehicle for becoming a better person. The labour question came to be regarded as a pedagogical-moral problem. German reformers were convinced that one needed to educate the workers and that they would rise to a new moral consciousness under the benevolent patriarchy of enlightened factory owners, and would develop a greater feeling of responsibility and humanism. Moreover, the increase in the moral standard of the worker was seen as one of these irrational facets of human life which could not be reached by modern technology. This philanthropic argument was intertwined with a specifically German critique of modern technology and the Industrial Revolution (this critique did not exist in Britain or the U.S.). The second, communitarian-economic approach built on thoughts of a new order of the industrializing economy to reinstall certain organizing mechanisms characteristic of the Middle Ages. A keyword was ‘association’ (Verein), a widely used term at the time. The idea of the association belonged to the core paradigms of the ‘Vormärz’ and was the core piece of the demands for a free society. It implied the search for a new organization of society, economy, and corporations, and in particular an incorporation of the growing proletariat within society. Its protagonists did not propagate the unlimited power of the stronger (Socio-Darwinism) which would lead to a disorganization of society. On the other hand, neither did they want to return to the medieval guild system, but favoured a more flexible, craft-related cooperative system to establish an intermediary base between individual citizens and the state, which to them was the best solution to prevent social unrest/revolution. These political scholars of the Vormärz were the first opponents of economic ‘Manchester liberalism’ in Germany. They were against the individualization of society, against decentralization of society in isolated sub-units, and demanded a corporatist economic order which would fit with their vision of an encompassing state and society. The third and most important trajectory was developed by political and legal scholars who took a state-oriented, constitutional approach to industrial democracy. It was based on two traditions within German organic state

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philosophy which had a lasting impact on the discourse on industrial democracy and shaped the first legal foundations of co-determination as developed during the Weimar Republic. On the one hand, there was German Romantic liberalism going back to Rousseau and Kant which in constitutional law meant the rejection of the construction of the state as an outcome of a ‘rational contract’. The state was seen as an abstract unity, standing above the individual, with its own identity and dignity. As outlined above, this is related to Hegel’s philosophy of law (1821) which conceptualized the state as the ‘reality of the ethical idea’. Or, as the lawyer Adam Müller (1809) declared, states are not artificial constructs but ‘the totality of all human concerns, they are a living whole’. On the other hand, there were the ‘rationalist’ liberals (e.g. Karl von Rotteck and Robert von Mohl), who followed a more reason-based constitutional law. They were more democratically oriented, in favour of Enlightenment and created the notion of the ‘Rechtsstaat’ (legal state). The ‘Rechtsstaat’ is governed by the law of reason, a state that realises, in and for human coexistence, the principles of reason, and is in accordance with the sensible collective will (Aretin 1824: 163). Both traditions should not be seen as mutually exclusive. In terms of their influence on industrial democracy, what matters most is their joint concept of the state as something larger than the individual and which would guarantee certain liberties and democratic rights for the working citizens. As v. Hayek (1979: 15) argued, German liberalism was essentially a constitutional movement. The idea was to use the state to achieve power that would guarantee freedom for the citizens whereas the Anglophone notion of liberalism was more of a political theory based on the principle of constraining state power in order to provide freedom for citizens. One should note that the humanistic, communitarian, or constitutional ideas had no immediate impact on the actual practice of German employment relations at the time. There were a few exceptions of enlightened employers who installed voluntary worker committees and grew convinced that a work constitution was necessary. The entrepreneur Roesler (1895: 255), for example, stated: ‘I would like to organise my factory as a constitutional state. The owner is the first among equals who has taken on the leadership and a certain power and thus has most duties. The managers and department heads are ministers’, and, ‘The time of absolute monarchs is over in political, state life. It should be also over in the economic life. What works for the kings and lords should also be fine for the small factory monarchs.’ The philosophical ideas, in particular those on associations and the constitution, continued to shape the political reform debates throughout the

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century. One can broadly distinguish two time periods, pre-1848 and 1848 Revolution and the second half of the nineteenth century.

Pre-1848 and 1848 Revolution Bureaucratic reformers (such as Lorenz von Stein in Prussia) took some of these ideas, in particular the associative economic order, further and proposed a whole network of associations at local, regional, and state level to support the poor. The idea was that active participation of workers in these economic associations would make them ready for political democracy. In practice, there were indeed a growing number of associations supported by the Prussian state. One example is the ‘Berliner Centralverein’, founded in 1844 by well-known industrialists and Prussian bureaucrats, which became the core institution of social reform ideas during the Vormärz period. Its idea was to combine economic liberalism with a social network for the poor. Arguably, these were early attempts of the German ‘social market economy’ as developed after WWII. The Centralverein declared that each industry in each town should have a ‘factory committee’. These should create saving banks for people, organize arbitration of workplace conflicts (esp. wages, working time), take care of subsidized flats and food for workers and of the education of workers, control child labour, organize care for widows etc. These factory committees were supposed to have equal proportions of employer and worker members and should also influence internal workplace relations in order to ‘determine the “factory order/constitution”; organize the working contracts if workers or employers want it and to control whether the rights and duties are kept; control the quota/relationship between adult workers and trainees; guard the continuously high quality of production; and arbitrate in possible conflicts at any level of the factory’ (Centralverein 1849). The factory committees were also to have a voice in the local communities in order to represent the interests of the industry. The broader principle was to have self-managed associations organizing the entire economy. An underlying idea was to distance oneself from the patriarchal, Christian notion of ‘helping the poor’ and the communitarian principle of selfhelp—which the utopian socialists pursued—and to favour instead equality and co-determination rights of workers within the economy and society (Schmidt 1845). The ideas on co-determination were also supported by the workers and craftsmen’s congresses which were established in 1848 to protest against the growing capitalist factory system and to debate about economic alternatives (Gesellenkongress, Frankfurt 1848 and Arbeiterkongress, Berlin 1848). A core demand concerned a constitutional right of co-determination,

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a transfer of rights from the political sphere to the economic sphere, and a new economic order combining the old Zunftwesen (guild system) and state socialist ideas. For example, the worker congress under the leadership of Stephan Born demanded co-determination for fixing the minimum wage, the maximum working time, and for regulating dismissals through a joint committee (with equal numbers of representatives on the side of workers and owners). They also requested a voice for workers in determining the number of apprentices per ‘master’. These congresses were not per se anticapitalist but pleaded class compromise, implemented in a socially responsible economy. The reform ideas of the Centralverein and other scholars as well as those of the worker congresses circulated in public and influenced the political events of the 1848 democratic revolution and the subsequent debates on the constitution of the ‘Frankfurter Paulskirche’, the first, failed attempt of a democratic parliament in Germany. These debates influenced the white paper of the factory constitution of the Paulskirche (Minoritaetenentwurf der Nationalversammlung), the first major document in the history of German co-determination. The aim was to have a new economic order on macro, industrial, and firm level which included national chambers of crafts where worker representatives participated, industrial worker committees, and joint committees at workplace level through which workers had certain legal participation rights at factory level. This legislation was the most progressive concept of industrial democracy in Europe at the time, but never materialized because the parliament was dissolved and the monarchy regained control. However, it had an enduring impact on future thinkers.

Second Half of the Nineteenth Century The ideas of the Vormärz and of 1848 were rediscovered by the ‘Kathedersozialisten’ (socialist academics) in the second half of the nineteenth century. These were prominent political economists of the historical school and scientists organized in the ‘Verein fuer Socialpolitik’ (1873). In contrast to the advocates of ‘Manchester liberalism’ they saw the economy and politics not as two separate subsystems but as interrelated. These scholars also drew on the earlier Idealist ideas of the state as a living organism. For example, Gustav Schmoller, one of the leading economists of the German Kaiserreich, argued that from a particular size onwards a firm was to be treated like a quasi-public institution and not simply a private matter. The state to him had the right to intervene in workplace relations for the benefit of the whole

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society. This approach differed significantly from the traditional Anglophone approach in that it supported state intervention in the economic sphere and in its conviction that capitalist enterprises were not only a private property issue. Scholars also promoted worker committees: ‘The importance of the worker committees is that they transform the old patriarchal order in the firms in a new public order which has a mixed constitution. The worker committees make our economic institutions compatible with our political system’ (Bitzer 1871: 268). Worker committees were seen as essential institutions to legally guarantee workers’ rights and their freedom. Unsurprisingly, the Kathedersocialists were heavily criticized by employers’ associations and other conservative forces. Not did the Social Democratic Party approve of the worker committees. During the 1890s the SPD was characterized by its hopes in the dawn of a socialist state. Kautsky, the main theorist of the labour movement at the time, dismissed worker committees for ideological reasons. Workers and employers should not have friendly agreements with each other. There should be no common interest between the two. The SPD also feared that employers would constantly sabotage an institution which was against the core tenets of the capitalist system. Although Marx strongly supported democratic collective rights at workplace level, he and his followers were more concerned with the larger transformation of capitalism and politics than with concrete workplace improvements. Some social democrats, in particular Eduard Bernstein and his followers, were in favour of worker committees. They believed that the capitalist system was not on the verge of destruction but that, on the contrary, it was stabilizing itself; hence their goal was to increase public control of the economy. Bernstein was in favour of an institutionalization of democratic rights at workplace level. For him, socialism meant political and economic democratization. Until the start of WWI German social democracy consisted of these two opposed standpoints on this question, but eventually the Bernstein wing won and the SPD took a reformist route. A similar debate existed among unions. Unionists were afraid that worker committees would compromise their position which was weak already with respect to the SPD. But from 1890 onwards the Free Union (the major union at the time, see Chapter 5) grew more and more interested in social politics and the improvement of the material position of workers within the existing system. Its leader, Carl Legien, was the first spokesman in the labour movement to draw a distinction between ‘the political activities of the SPD which aims for a transformation of the existing order and the functions of the

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union which—because there are legal restrictions—are based in the existing economic order’ (Correspondenzblatt 1891: 9). This approach culminated in the work of the union theorist Fritz Naphtali (1928: 16) who introduced the concept of ‘evolutionary democratization of factory, firm and economy’. For him socialism was not practicable without a democratization of the economic governance. To him, industrial democracy did not mean betraying socialism but instead he saw it as a necessary part thereof.

Britain Britain is a difficult case to review given the virtual absence of literature on industrial democracy in the nineteenth century, though there is a vast library on specific thinkers such as the Webbs, Robert Owen, or G. D. H. Cole. Beatrice and Sidney Webb’s book Industrial Democracy (1897) and the works of the Fabian Society (British social reformers’ group of the early twentieth century) are usually considered to be the starting point of the British discourse on industrial democracy. However, the intellectual roots are much older and go back to the utopian socialist Robert Owen. Therefore, the British discourse on industrial democracy relies on two main notions: the idea of the egalitarian workplace community (cooperative societies) which goes back to the utopian socialists, and the conviction that industrial democracy was made up of free trade unions and collective bargaining which the Fabians, in particular the Webbs, conceptualized for the first time. There are two further traditions, guild socialism and syndicalism, which were rather shortlived but reinforced the emphasis on shop-floor unionism. In terms of our earlier classification into socio-ethical, communitarian-economic, and statistconstitutional approaches, Owen and his followers fit into the first category, the guild socialism and syndicalism into the second, and the Webbs fall into the constitutional category.

Utopian Socialists: Owenism The industrialist Robert Owen (1771–1858) was influenced by the philanthropic thinking of the Enlightenment. His theory was based on his belief that humans had no influence on their personal characteristics (intellectual capabilities, morals) or their environment and that hence people who had grown up in fortunate circumstances should feel sorry for those less lucky. Owen realized that capitalism created inequalities, but rather than wanting

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to abandon capitalism (as e.g. the utopian socialist Fourier), he asked for a partial redistribution of wealth and favoured state intervention such as poverty laws, work safety laws, and social welfare laws. Attempts to convince the government and industrialists of his reformist ideas failed, which made him conclude that reforms were only possible through private, voluntary initiatives. His practical experiments of creating worker cooperatives (including the abolition of private property) in Britain and the U.S. were shortlived. The heyday of his cooperative movement was during 1830 to 1834, after which the movement slowly disintegrated (Pollard 1983). Nevertheless, he was the first to organize his knitting plant in a cooperative order and to significantly improve the working and living conditions of his workers; abolished child work and introduced an educational system. Owen had an influence on French and German social reformers in the first half of the nineteenth century (worker cooperatives and joint profit sharing) as well as among British intellectuals. Owen wrote at a time when in Britain labour was increasingly seen as a commodity to be hired and dispensed with according to the convenience of the hirer, who had no responsibility beyond the strict discharge of his wage-contractual obligations. As Fox (1974: 9) outlined, by the end of the eighteenth century a doctrine asserting the repudiation by the rich of any responsibility for the condition of the poor was growing into an orthodoxy among many of the powerful. However, by the 1830s and 1840s some intellectual observers, in particular Owen, increasingly regarded the separation of the economy and ethics à la Adam Smith and the cash nexus policy as ‘an abandonment of leadership, responsibility and guidance of the ruling class’ (Carlyle 1840: 188). This was supported by some utilitarians such as John Stuart Mill (1806–73) who analysed the social situation in Britain and warned that due to the lack of care for the poor ‘the working classes have taken their interests into their own hands, and are perpetually showing that they think the interests of their employers are not identical with their own, but opposite to them’ (Mill 1848/1878: 337). Mill also argued that in order to overcome labour poverty an association between workers and capitalists was needed. 4 Both Owen and Mill were basically interested in workers’ profit sharing and in class compromise, not in revolution. In the ideal case, workers should own all capital and management should be elected by the workforce. Furthermore, solutions to the labour questions were debated in the wider public but had no real practical impact on politics. An exception was Benjamin Disraeli (1804–82), the later conservative prime minister, who 4 As Tomlinson (1986) reminds us, it was not uncommon for neoclassical theorists at the time to believe in cooperatives.

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published a book in 1845 (Sybil or two nations) describing the existence of two estranged groups within society and criticizing the arrogance of the aristocracy who avoided facing this problem. But, on the whole, the British parliament did not take these discussions very seriously. In 1867 there was an attempt to legally implement ‘arbitration boards’ but they failed and arbitration continued on a voluntary basis. There were a few attempts in the mining industry for worker-elected consultation bodies but they were exceptions. Finally, although Owen’s work is sometimes cited as an anticipation of modern methods of labour management, at a time when most employers were treating their workers as impersonally as all other factors of production, his ideas were widely criticized. As Bendix (1956: 48) points out, Owen’s personnel practices in the organizations of his factories were developed in keeping with a painstakingly elaborated model of the traditional relationship between master and servant. Owen regarded his workers with ‘affectionate tutelage’ and he thought of himself as their trustee. Moreover, Derivaux and Ruhstrat (1987: 102) argue that Owen understood the contradictions between capital and labour within capitalism, but reduced it wrongly to distribution questions and neglected power imbalances. Furthermore, Owen arguably legitimized the societal status quo with his theory of people’s incapability to change their fate and position in society. Neither capital nor labour could solve their conflicts of interest and hence he recommended workers to be passive in social conflicts and capitalists to be philanthropic. In his paper ‘An Adress to the Working Classes’ Owen notes that because of their unfavourable condition in which they are placed from birth on, workers are unable to develop means to overcome and improve their position. Owen did not articulate the differences between capital and labour as class differences, as Marx did, but saw them as inevitable outcomes of differences in environmental conditions. Owen dismissed workers’ emancipation through class conflict and therefore has been accused of remaining a capitalist entrepreneur and of being a social utopian isolated from the workers (Deriveaux and Ruhstrat 1987: 111). Owen was less enthusiastic about democratic rights for workers which he saw as not sufficient to improve the situation of the working class He wanted to work scientifically on the laws of human behaviour to find the proper rules of society. He also thought that only the educated middle class would be able to create such a ‘rational societal system’. Marx and Engels heavily criticized Owen’s paternalistic, anti-democratic ideas. They argued that the main reason for labourer’s poverty and exploitation were the non-existing democratic rights of workers (Manifest, 4, 481). Marx (1847: 138) argued that contemplating social reform without considering the

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implications of the capitalist mode of production was both ‘reactionary and utopian’. 5

Syndicalism and Guild Socialism Syndicalist ideas were largely imported from France and the U.S. in the nineteenth century and later diffused by means of the journal The Industrial Syndicalist launched by Tom Mann in 1910. The central core of syndicalist thinking was that social relations at the point of production were the determining factor in the social structure. The workplace and workplace unionism were to be the main agents of social change and the central feature of a reconstructed society (Brannen 1983: 83). The syndicalist idea of workers’ control of the economy as a force in its own right was short-lived and never became a mainstream force, but its indirect effects in promoting workshop leaders and fertilizing the embryonic shop stewards’ movement were much longer lasting and re-enforced the shop-floor dominance in British employment relations (Brannen: 1983). Thus, the most important feature of syndicalism was not its doctrine but the impetus it gave to the demands for shop-floor control. Britain experienced a growing shop stewards’ movement at the turn of the century and during WWI. The syndicalists did not demand the nationalization of industry but workers’ control which basically meant that stewards were given the informal right to bargain wages and other working conditions. Shop stewards were focused on pragmatic problems and were different from the radical worker councils of the Continent in that they did not, for example, follow the communist demand for nationalization of the industry or nationalization of private property (Teuteberg 1996: 114). A related tradition was that of the so-called guild socialists of the late nineteenth/early twentieth centuries in Britain (e.g. Joseph Penty, G. D. H. Cole) who favoured a pre-industrial craft-based economy similar to their counterparts in Germany (though without the emphasis on associations and more concentrated on nationalizing the economy). Guild socialism grew out of a synthesis between the production-oriented goals of the syndicalists and the concentration on the state as the main means of achieving socialist goals which had been articulated within more orthodox socialist traditions. Whilst producers, organized in guilds, were to manage and control individual industries, the state would own the means of production and direct overall 5 Engels (1974: 208) argued that the social utopians criticized the existing capitalist system and its consequences but could not explain it and hence could only reject it as bad rather than change it.

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economic policy to community needs (Cole 1920: 5). Later on, the guild socialists propagated the idea of ‘grass roots democracy’ which would give each employee control over management. During the times of social unrest in 1910–12 they demanded worker committees’ governance over firms as a means to combat class struggle. However, the strong influence of the state in the post-war years increased their dislike of giving the state influence on the democratization of the economy and they consequently refocused on shopfloor control (Teuteberg 1996: 115). According to Brannen (1983: 30), the guild socialists leant more towards syndicalist than collectivist ideas. In Cole’s words (1920: 52), ‘syndicalism is the infirmity of noble minds, collectivism is at best only the sordid dream of a business man with a conscience’. More importantly, guild socialists saw national guilds developing out of the activities of unions, which would increasingly challenge managerial prerogatives and through encroaching control would gradually take over management of the industry. The capitalist owner would then be obliged by the squeeze on his profits to look for state help. Industry would be increasingly nationalized. Both syndicalism and guild socialism had in common a stress on selfgovernance in industry and militant unionism as a way towards this (Brannen 1983: 39). They both reflected and stimulated the growth in the organized power of trade unionism at shop-floor and industrial level. Yet the guild movement was rather short-lived and a niche movement 6 compared to the Fabian Society (Webbs et al.) which presented a larger intellectual voice in Britain in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. However, these traditions had a lasting impact on several government attempts during the twentieth century to install some form of industrial democracy outside of the sphere of collective bargaining such as the Whitley commission during WWI or nationalization of firms, joint consultation councils, and worker directors in the 1970s.

Fabianism and the Webbs The Fabians propagated state socialism within a welfare state. They wanted a nationalized industry and placed great importance on the unions but disliked local worker committees (worker control), as did the guild socialists. This idea exploded before WWI and took on a new force in the great debate on the principles of nationalization of the industry which divided the Labour Party in the 1930s (Roberts 1981: 13–25). 6 In 1917 the guild socialists split into two groups, one merged into the communist party, the other kept a more evolutionary-reformist path (Teuteberg 1996: 115).

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In particular, Beatrice and Sidney Webb’s Industrial Democracy (1897) established the concept of industrial democracy which still largely determines the Anglophone discourse today. Industrial democracy was seen as the institution of free trade unionism per se. In addition, they embarked on the social reformist Fabian Society’s ideal in which industry would be governed on a functional basis: consumers determined what products industry should produce, managers determined how these products were to be produced, and unions determined the conditions of production (Webb and Webb 1897/1926: 822). The basic idea was to nationalize the British economy from above and unions were seen as the main vehicle. Thus, the Fabians had a collectivist understanding of society: the individual’s self-determination depended on his integration into society. The Fabians, however, were also elitist in that they were mainly interested in skilled workers and academics (Teuteberg 1996: 114). Lacking education and leisure time were seen as the main sources of people’s dependency on their work. Industrial democracy in terms of worker control at shop-floor level did not fit into their theory. The Webbs’s notion of free unions and free collective bargaining was ultimately successful in shaping the mainstream British discourse on industrial democracy because it complemented the dominant liberalist tradition of British unionism which was based on economic rather than political power. This was reinforced by the dominant force of craft unions during the later part of the nineteenth century and their emphasis on entry and exit from jobs rather than on control at the workplace (see Hobsbawn 1964). Flanders and Clegg’s classic edition (1954: 362–3) provides an excellent example of how the economic nature of the British union movement shaped the perception of industrial democracy: ‘In Germany and France the advance of industrial democracy has been seen as an attack on the entrenched positions of the employers. It is a measure of the weakness of the German and French unions, as well as of the strength of class antagonism in those countries, that the unions have had to rely on the law to attain their objectives. . . . The British approach to joint consultation is peculiarly British. Employers and unions have preferred to rely on their own strength and the good relations and understanding which exists between them rather than upon the law.’ Though written in the 1950s, it adequately shows the long-standing distrust of constitutional forms of industrial democracy in Britain which can be traced back in history to the origins of British political democracy and to the Anglophone liberal state theory. As Wedderburn (1986: 16–47) outlined, ‘the reluctance of organised labour to support the use of legal means to underpin labour relations, and the resulting preference for “voluntarist” solutions outside the law, principally in the

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form of collective bargaining, owed much to a deep-rooted belief that the law was an instrument of the employer class which goes back to the long tradition of master–servant relations in industrialising Britain’ (quoted in Deakin 2005: 10). As Deakin (2005: 11) shows the master–servant model of pre-industrial times (and its penal sanctions substituting for effective management) had lasting impacts in Britain ‘where the first phase of industrial revolution preceded the advent of the corporate form by several decades and therefore limited how far firms could grow through investment and merger’. Most production took place in relatively small-scale and fragmented industrial units, much different to the U.S. or Germany where industry consolidated and rationalized production at a much larger scale. Consequently, ‘long after the development of integrated modern management techniques reduced the need for penal enforcement of employment contracts, the legacy of the master–servant model was still discernible within the contractual form of the modern employment relationships as they developed in all common law jurisdictions such as Britain or the U.S.’ (Deakin 2005: 10). Another explanation for the British distrust of judicial solutions in collective as well as individual labour conflicts is its being a reaction to the uncertainty of customs and common law doctrines, thus the lack of positive and enforceable statutory rights and therefore the insecurity of outcomes (Steinmetz 2000: 312). Breuilly (1992: 126) added that working-class liberalism also arose out of certain labour intellectual traditions. The suspicion of government intervention and paternalism which characterizes the British labour movement is an integral part of the radical tradition of the craft trades from which much of the early labour movement sprang. In sum, various socio-economic, legal, and labour movement traditions contributed to the prominence of free unions and free bargaining in the dominant British industrial democracy discourse, although syndicalism had some impact on the Labour Party’s attempts for more worker control of industry during the twentieth century.

U.S. The U.S. is another difficult case to reconstruct because it did not develop coherent groups of thinkers such as the Kathedersocialists in Germany or the Fabians in Britain. Ideas were scattered around by individual public figures who are difficult to cluster. Note that I exclude discussions of the U.S. managerial literature on personnel management and workplace organization. The nineteenth century is usually described as the core period when the ideology of individualism and free enterprise, thus the right of individuals

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to acquire and use wealth in accordance with their abilities and with minimal interference from the government, ultimately succeeded to become the dominant paradigm in the U.S. As outlined above, the individualist ideology complements a mechanic state philosophy. Initially fostered by the Protestant ethic, the ethos of the American Revolution, and the spirit of the pioneers, this individualistic ideology was strongly reinforced by the Social Darwinism of Herbert Spencer and William G. Sumner. The individualistic paradigm did not, however, happen automatically, it was not inevitable and without resistance. There were alternative streams of thought which resembled humanitarian and communitarian European ideas. Yet they remained at the margin of the mainstream public discourse. Thus, contrary to earlier academic beliefs, U.S. labour was not voluntarist from its very beginning, but rather quite actively engaged in party politics and alternative ideas of employment relations and industrial democracy (Hattam 1993: 8). The ‘new labour history’ of the past three decades (see Chapter 5) has uncovered a rich heritage of workers’ protests in the U.S. and has shown that American workers were not always staunch advocates of non-political business unionism. It was not until the last decade of the nineteenth century that American labour turned away from alternative reforms of capitalism and adopted instead a strategy of business unionism. Thus, during the second part of the nineteenth century, the Gilded Age or post-bellum period, the industrial democracy discourse very soon was dominated by the labour movement, respectively the largest union, AFL (American Federation of Labor), which narrowed industrial democracy to trade unions and voluntary collective bargaining. Thus, although the term ‘industrial democracy’ itself was first mentioned in 1887, the broad concept was already used throughout the nineteenth century but attached to various meanings (Derber 1970: 7). One can crudely distinguish yet again two time periods, the pre-bellum (pre-Civil War) period, when industrial democracy was discussed among a heterogeneous group which I call ‘early reformers’ (e.g. utopian socialists, socialists, radical republicans, and liberals) all sharing a moralistic view of the economy; and the second half of the nineteenth century which was dominated by pluralistic visions with a focus on collective bargaining.

Early Reformers There was an increasing number of liberal thinkers from the emerging middle classes in the mid-nineteenth century who were committed to supporting an egalitarian societal order despite rapid industrialization (e.g. Fourierists, Jacksonian radical democrats) (Merrill 1996: 37). Similar to Britain’s utopian

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socialists they were engaged with ideas of producer cooperatives, communitarian societies emphasizing the virtues of cooperation and harmony rather than class struggle and conflict. As mentioned in Chapter 5, small producers (skilled artisans) in the U.S. were against monopoly power and speculation and were interested in a decentralized economy. ‘Productivity and industry were held in the highest esteem and were considered to be the only source of wealth. Accumulation by savings and exchange were seen as artificial and dangerous’ (Hattam 1993: 100). These producers did not advocate a programme of egalitarian reform, however, but their interest lay in anti-monopolistic legislation. There were also a few radical programmes such as the planned societies of Bellamy or a few Marxists and Lassalleans but most were moderate local reformers (Derber 1970: 34). The rage for cooperatives continued throughout the 1880s, during the heyday of the Knights of Labor. The Knights of Labor (established in 1869 as a secret society), the most famous radical U.S. labour movement at the time, favoured a cooperative organization of the economy and had as its primary goal the abolishment of the wage system of labour. One should note, however, that it rejected the idea of class conflict or strikes and instead proclaimed the harmony of all productive classes (McWilliams 2002: 142). Radical liberal economists such as Henry D. Lloyd and Richard T. Ely helped introduce the concept of industrial democracy as producers’ cooperatives and a social welfare state to the wider U.S. public in the 1880s and 1890s. Ely (1889: 236) defined industrial democracy as ‘self-rule, self-control, the self-direction of the masses in their efforts to gain a livelihood’, and as ‘industrial government’ which he found in ‘pure’ or ‘productive’ cooperation. Lloyd favoured political action to secure collective ownership of the means of production and managed to bring industrial democracy to the agenda of the AFL 1893 convention. His vision, however, remained somewhat vague (1909: 91): ‘It is by [the workers] the captains of the industry are to be chosen, and chosen to be servants, not masters. It is for the welfare of all that coordinated labour of all must be directed. Industry like government, exists only by the cooperation of all, and like government, it must guarantee equal protection to all. This is democracy.’ In sum, by the mid-1890s, the pioneer industrial democrats had elaborated their egalitarian, ambiguously collectivist critique of American capitalism. They recognized the growing disparity between working men’s political rights at the polls and the increasing inequalities at their workplaces and focused on philanthropic management tools and cooperative economic systems. As Harris (1996: 45) convincingly argues, ‘the progressive industrial democrats hoped to build a new society in the interests of underprivileged groups on

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the basis of an expansive interpretation of the members of those groups’ individual civil rights; and they assumed that standards of the public political sphere should also apply to employment relations, thus the logic that since the U.S. is a democracy, its economy must be democratic also.’ Yet these reformers were far from being socialist. For example, Ely’s cooperative society was supposed to discourage strikes and ‘support arbitration as the most suitable procedure for a morally based cooperative society’, and, ‘employers should be welcomed in the workers’ organisations’ (DeBrizzi 1983: 42). They did not have a lasting impact on the main public discourse, because they did not have a chance against the dominant U.S. liberal reading which centred around the ‘belief in the explicit separation of the “private” economic and “public” political spheres, and that groups’ rights are of lesser value than individuals’ rights, and an interpretation of liberal democracy in terms of the protection of the right of all to pursue individual interests according to the rules of economic competition and free exchange’ (Kiloh 1986: 17). Thus, an individual’s political rights and his rights at the marketplace as producer and consumer and proprietor of his labour power and other goods were seen as logically and necessarily separable. The voice of radicals within the labour movement such as the Knights diminished rapidly after the defeat of the radical political activists within the AFL against Samuel Gompers who supported a liberal notion of industrial democracy coherent with the dominant liberal discourse (as will be further outlined below). Thus, in the mainstream nineteenth-century U.S. discourse, employment relations came to be interpreted within a liberal mindset as a contractual relationship between two ‘free’ individuals—the seller and buyer of labour. This ‘free’ relationship ‘at will’ was seen in contrast to unfree slave labour (voluntary servitude). The democratic state’s task was to secure free contracts. Democracy was focused on the notion of ‘free labour’ having exit options rather than a voice, and control was seen to be entirely in the hands of the proprietor, the capitalist. The notion of ‘employment at-will’ is one of the founding principles of U.S. labour law, allowing both parties to terminate their contract ‘without furnishing notice or cause’, and derived from that time (Finkin 2005: 283). This discourse was very much shaped by the U.S. experience of slavery and reinforced by the courts and thus differed dramatically from the European experience. As Henry Williams of Taunton put it in 1853, ‘In a free government like ours, employment is simply a contract between parties having equal rights. The operative agrees to perform a certain amount of work in consideration of receiving a certain amount of money. The relationship, when

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properly entered into, is one of mutual benefit. The employed is under no greater obligation to the employer than the employer is to the employed. In the eye of the law they are both free men—citizens having equal rights, and brethren having one common destiny.’

Industrial Democracy as Collective Bargaining It comes as no surprise then that Derber’s classic history of industrial democracy in the U.S. (1970) is almost exclusively a history of trade unionism in the U.S. The internal struggle of the union movement in the second half of the nineteenth century and the victory of the increasingly pragmatic, labourmarket-oriented AFL determined to a large extent this conceptualization of industrial democracy. In other words, it was the U.S. labour movement framed in particular restrictive legal and political circumstances at the time which shaped the industrial democracy discourse rather than political reformers or intellectuals, as was the case in Continental Europe and also, to a certain extent, in Britain. In the early twentieth century the debate about industrial democracy moved away from the moralism and analogies from an idealistic account of American political development of Ely and Lloyd towards a much greater concern with the quality of working life and problems of industrial conflict and distributive justice in a corporate capitalist economy with a partly organized labour force (Harris 1996: 51). In other words, in the 1900s industrial democracy came to mean one thing only: the self-organization of workers into independent unions, the recognition of those unions by employers for purposes of collective bargaining, and the constitutionalization of industry by joint development of agreed rules and means for their quasi-judicial, peaceful enforcement. The idea was not the imposition of a formal governmental structure from ‘outside’ (e.g. by legislation) but rather the gradual, piecemeal, and above all peaceful development of rules jointly agreed on and adaptable by the parties themselves (Harris 1996). This intellectual development was supported by the leadership of the AFL. As has been widely analysed, after some initial vacillation, the AFL rejected the arguments in favour of independent labour politics and an alliance with the agrarian-based populist movement at its conference in 1894 and opted instead for AFL president Gompers’ vision of non-political ‘pure and simple’ unionism (Archer 1997: 56). Gompers was convinced that the labour movement should avoid grand social projects and revolutionary challenges to capitalism and advocated ‘trade unions pure and simple’ (Gompers 1984: 115) (see Chapter 5). There is little doubt that, although the AFL at times used the language of class struggle, their principle objective was to improve their members’ conditions in the existing

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private enterprise wage-earner system (Derber 1970: 49). They had lost faith in producer cooperatives or publicly owned and managed enterprises. Moreover, although the AFL recognized the need for political action to protect unorganized workers, to prevent unfair competition, and as a defence against hostile courts, they placed major reliance upon their economic strength within industries (Derber 1970: 50). In sum, after the turn of the century the AFL both accepted and promoted a marked separation of work and politics: workplace concerns were to be addressed through collective bargaining and industrial conflict, leaving politics for citizens’ concerns (Hattam 1993: 4). Whereas unions in Continental Europe and to a certain extent in Britain advocated workers’ interests in the political arena and advanced state-sponsored social reforms, in the late nineteenth century U.S. unions focused instead on workplace concerns achieved through collective bargaining and strikes on the shop-floor (Hattam 1993). The general fusion of industrial democracy with unionism and collective bargaining was nearly completed by the turn of the century. It culminated in the statement of the U.S. Industrial Commission’s report (1902): ‘by the organisation of labour, and by no other means, it is possible to introduce an element of democracy in the government of industry.’ There has been a large amount of literature on why the U.S. labour movement, and the AFL in particular, turned to business unionism, thus privileging economic interests over political reforms (see Chapter 5). The question is to what degree this was forced upon the union by anti-union political and legal forces. The literature usually highlights the U.S. state’s weak and decentralized structure, the restrictive legal system and its conservative court decisions against collective organizations (Hattam 1993; Tomlins 1993). Tomlins (1993: 61), for example, highlights that organized labour faced increasing conflicts with the individualistic spirit of the law in the 1890s and early 1900s, which mostly led to defeats of the unions. Political activity by unions to capture the state as well as militant syndicalism were both canvassed as possible strategies of response. But in the main, the effect of the reverses of these years was to accelerate and generalize the adoption of defensive strategies which abandoned all but the immediate economic struggle and which concentrated on protecting the power of the leading national unions. According to Tomlins, by WWI the AFL had accepted reality and the inevitability of the new corporate political economy. Intellectually, these developments were underpinned by an academic discussion which was heavily influenced by the classic British work of Sidney and Beatrice Webb, Industrial Democracy (1897). According to Derber (1970: 9), this was the most influential writing in the American debate

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on industrial democracy. In particular, the employment research community, starting with John Commons and other institutional economists of the Wisconsin School, associated without questioning industrial or workplace democracy with trade unions and collective bargaining (Dickman 1987). A good illustration is, as McCartin (1997: 29) points out, Commons’s criticism of the progressive Walsh’s report (1915) of the ‘U.S. Commission on Industrial Relations’ on industrial democracy. This report caused a sensation in the midst of a decade of labour upheaval by condemning the misdistribution of wealth, calling for measures to stem unemployment, and arguing that the only hope for the solution of labour conflict lay in the rapid extension of the principles of democracy to industry. Commons (1915) responded that democratizing the industry would end up ‘throwing the labour movement into politics’ and he therefore favoured impartial mediation boards instead (see Chapter 2). In other words, the anti-statist conception of the union’s role developed by the AFL leadership provided the basis on which reformers like those of the National Civic Federation and the Wisconsin School of institutional economics erected their own image of industrial democracy as collective bargaining. According to Harris (1996: 54), the Wisconsin School expressed the view of most sceptical American liberals who favoured unions as a vehicle to solve industrial conflict and as an alternative to statism or socialism. Harris argues that the liberals approved of unions and industrial democracy in abstract but that this did not prevent them from suspecting union power in practice. In a paradox sense, the labour movement’s continuing marginality for another generation, the fact that the basic questions of union recognition and collective bargaining remained unfinished business from the 1900s to the mid-1930s, fixed the understanding and support of industrial democracy within the mainstream of independent liberalism (Harris 1996: 55). Yet whereas in Britain liberal reformers could take for granted the organization of labour and its recognition by employers and the state, in the U.S. a legally secure labour movement, at least tolerated by employers, remained an unfulfilled hope (Harris 1996). Partly due to the absence of better alternatives, collective bargaining became the necessary instrument for the realization of liberal schemes during the first half of the twentieth century. Finally, one should add that the conservative stream of public policy and their protagonists, the managerialists, soon came to define industrial democracy primarily in psychological terms only, thus outside the union realm, and developed the managerial-dominated personnel profession in the early twentieth century (Kimmel 2000: 8). Their idea was to create workplaces in which workers enjoyed respect for their individuality, opportunities for

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self-expression, and the possibility of personal development without taking into account broader social, political, or class issues (see Chapter 2).

CONCLUSION This chapter did not focus on the history of institutions and practices of industrial democracy but on their intellectual discourse, in other words on the ideas and concepts of industrial democracy. In all three countries, the discourse and practice of industrial democracy emerged out of a reformist political conviction that the capitalist system could and should be reformed rather than overthrown. Although utopian socialists and Marxists played a role in all three countries, industrial democracy did not primarily evolve out of a socialist heritage, as is often assumed, but out of liberal traditions (both in Europe and in the U.S.) to integrate workers into the developing capitalist economy and democratic state. However, the three countries developed rather different liberal traditions on the relationship between state, society, and economy during the nineteenth century, which eventually shaped two different streams of interpretation of industrial democracy: an Anglophone and a German (or Continental European) stream. Thus, although major differences do exist in the development of industrial democracy practices in the U.S. and Britain, their underlying discourse developed in a very similar manner. Table 7.1 summarizes the national differences of industrial democracy discourse. All three countries shared a similar heritage of ideas on humanitarian and communitarian forms of work and the economy. However, there were slight differences especially in the humanitarian approach, which revealed a growing divergence in the national interpretation of the relationship between firm and society. In the British and U.S. humanitarian tradition, the firm was conceptualized as a family where the Christian, philanthropic employer was benevolent and acted like a father towards his employees. In the German tradition, in contrast, the firm was perceived as a moral institution, and the assumption was that workers needed to be morally educated and that the firm was able to play a significant role and was therefore—among other things—seen as an instrument of society to integrate and civilize workers. These differences became more prevalent in the ‘constitutional’ approach: a legalistic, state-oriented approach developed in Germany (co-determination) and a free collective bargaining approach in Britain and the U.S. (and eventually voluntary, employer-led direct participation schemes). Both constitutional traditions are based on two distinct ideational patterns of industrial democracy which I will call contractual and communal. The U.S. and Britain

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Table 7.1. Discourse on industrial democracy during the nineteenth century: crosscountry difference Industrial democracy approach Humanitarian

Germany

Britain

Human dignity of workers Human dignity through Human dignity through through moral philanthropic philanthropic education in the firms; employers; Christian employers; Christian notion of helping the notion of helping poor; the poor; Firm = moral institution Firm = family Firm = family

Communitarian Economy as a network of Nationalization of associations and guilds economy with cooperative firms Constitutional

U.S.

Nationalization of economy with cooperative firms

Firm as quasi-public Firm as private affair; Firm as private affair; affair; Workers should rely on Workers should Firm as a community collective strength in primarily rely on where workers should the labour market; collective strength in have legal rights to the labour market, but emphasis on legal participate in the protection of some attempts for decision-making of the individual more state-led firm employment rights; workers control in voluntary firm-led industry; voluntary employee firm-led employee participation participation

came to regard the capitalist enterprise essentially as a private affair (firm as private property) and the economy as an assembly of free individuals joining in contractual relationships. Private contracts rule. Private entrepreneurship and the capitalist revolution were perceived as the motor of progress. See, for example, the classic work on the modern corporation by Berle and Means (1932) which claims managerial rationality to be the pacemaker of modern society (Shenhav 2000: 2). Industrial democracy is, therefore, focused on free bargaining between employers and employees. Moreover, the law privileges individual rather than collective employment rights. One should note the differences between Britain and the U.S. If we assume a social democratic and a liberal divide on industrial democracy, the U.S. emerge virtually exclusively on the liberal side of the line (Katznelson 1996: 40). Britain has been slightly more infatuated with markets and has experienced times, in particular after WWI and WWII, of socialist attempts to nationalize important industries and

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is in general more committed to state intervention than the U.S. (Jacoby 2003: 49). In Germany, the main view was to perceive the firm as a quasi-public affair, as a social community, a state within the state, a constitutional monarchy, where workers would receive certain democratic rights and the monarch/ owner would not have absolute power as in a constitutional monarchy. ‘The employment relationship is not seen as one of free subordination but of democratization.’ This was the declaration of the famous Weimar labour law scholar, Hugo Sinzheimer (quoted in Finkin 2002: 621). One could also say that the U.S. and Britain focused on ‘private contracts’ whereas Germany focused on a ‘social contract’ within the firm, to paraphrase Rousseau. The distinction between a private and public view of the firm has a clear reminiscence to the mechanic and organic state theories, as outlined above. In the Anglophone tradition the enterprise is the property of the entrepreneur with workers relegated to contractual claims, at best, on the surplus from production (Deakin 2005: 12). According to Landes (2005: 191), the Continental (or German) entrepreneurs were seen as members of the enterprise community and had a conception of their role different from the British. Thus, in societies with strong feudal traditions, factory owners saw themselves as patriarchs as well as employers, with the duties as well as privileges that such a position entailed. And when the employers forgot their obligations the state was prepared to remind them of them. As the prominent German labour lawyer von Gierke argued (1895), the employment contract stipulates ‘Fuersorgepflichten’ (employer’s duty of care for the employees) and asks a ‘Treuepflicht’ (duty of loyality) from employees (Deakin 2005: 13). Gierke realigned the emerging employment law in Germany with the law of persons and with the notion of the enterprise as an employing community (Deakin 2005). For Gierke (1874) the individual could not be conceptualized outside a community. The source of each law could not be the individual will nor the will of the state but only the will of the community (Gemeinschaftsbewusstsein). These different national interpretations of the firm and the role of the entrepreneur are also related to the broad distinction of individual versus collective rights and ‘exit’ versus ‘voice’ options in comparative labour law (whereby the U.S., e.g. stands for individual and exit rights and Germany favours collective and voice rights). It also relates to different legal approaches to personal rights in both countries. For example, as Finkin (2002) points out, the German idea of employment relations as being a quasi-public affair led to strong personal laws securing the human dignity and privacy of individual workers at work, whereas in the U.S. and Britain state responsibility ends in the securing of private property, freedom of contract, and

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individual anti-discrimination protection (against race, gender, sexual orientation, and age discrimination) (see also Whitman 2004). Thus, the quasipublic nature of the firm and workplace relations requires the German state to guarantee not just collective but also individual rights at work whereas in the U.S. and Britain the quasi-private nature of the firm limits the state’s intervention. In sum, democracy in the U.S. and to a lesser extent in Britain was conceptualized mainly at a political level and never established a real place in economic life where private property rights rule and where democracy became interpreted as certain individual rights and a minimum of collective rights (e.g. free labour contracts and collective bargaining). The main individual right was being in a free contractual relationship and, therefore, being able to leave the contract. Therefore, the current focus of the Anglophone labour law on individual rights has a long tradition. Today, this is even more emphasized in the decline of collective labour law and the increase of identity-based rights, in particular in the U.S. (Piore and Safford 2004). In contrast, in Germany industrial democracy has been more linked to the development of political democracy and has been defined as legally restraining managerial discretion. The focus of German labour law has, therefore, traditionally been on collective rights. Accordingly, these alternative conceptions of the firm and industrial democracy are mirrored in the employment research paradigms, thus perceiving employment more as a socio-political process or as a labour-market outcome. They also influence authors’ affiliations (social scientists vs. labour economists). This chapter attempted to show how employment research patterns are not only embedded in the labour movement histories and social science traditions but are also embedded in a historical discourse on democracy at work. The discussion revealed that the different state traditions (mechanic or organic), as they developed in Germany, Britain, and the U.S. during the nineteenth century, shaped the perception of the capitalist firm in these developing democracies and subsequently the concept of industrial democracy.

8 Conclusion: Varieties, State Traditions, and the Future of Employment Research The final chapter summarizes the main findings of this analysis, both the cross-country and longitudinal dimensions, and relates them to the theoretical debates on knowledge production systems and to the future of the academic field of Employment Relations. The key point is that the historical analysis of the observed variations of employment research across the three countries has emphasized the continuing importance of state traditions as path dependencies of social scientific research.

VARIETIES OF EMPLOYMENT RESEARCH One of the major lessons of this book is that studying work and employment today still entails different institutional and intellectual realities across countries. These realities, as I have shown, originated in the nineteenth century, at a time of growing industrialization, democratization, scientific progress, and the development of social sciences. Despite the changes that affected them over time, they were identified as long-term, relatively coherent knowledge patterns. Cross-national variations existed not only in the organization of the academic field (inter- or multidisciplinary) but also in authors’ national affiliations, their professions, research topics, methodologies, theories, aims of research, and paradigms (Chapter 3). For example, the large majority of research published in U.S. journals was characterized by U.S.-based labour economists who practised empirical research mostly on labour-market and human-resource topics. Their methodology was mostly large-scale quantitative statistical research over one-time period and based on the micro, individual employee level. Theories used were mainly mid-range, thus hypotheses-testing of socio-psychological/behaviourist or economic theories. Employment was widely perceived as primarily a labour-market outcome,

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which was accompanied by a paradigm of contractual laissez-faire framed by legal regulations on private property and individual rights. The majority of British publications were primarily written by employment/business scholars, mostly based in Britain but there was a larger share of other Anglophone scholars. The main area of research was industrial relations with the traditional topics of trade unions, collective bargaining but also human resources; over time, novel topics increased. Most research was empirical but less quantitative than in the U.S.; data were more small-scale, one-time period rather than longitudinal (like in the U.S. and Germany) and based on the firm rather than on the individual employee level. However, similar to the U.S., British empirical publications were founded on mid-range theories and hypotheses-testing of mostly socio-psychological/behaviourist and economic theories. Employment was primarily perceived as a labour-market outcome but from a more collective perspective than in the U.S. The traditional research paradigm could be characterized as collective laissez-faire. German employment research was multidisciplinary and dominated by other social scientists, in particular sociologists, who were responsible for most of the surveyed journal publications. Most authors were German, but there was a sizeable share of Anglophone scholars. The main topic of research was related to industrial relations with a strong emphasis on labour process issues, comparative issues, and industrial democracy. Most articles were non-empirical think pieces; empirical work was mostly qualitative, one-time period, firm-level based. German publications were more likely to be based on larger social science theories than mid-range hypothesis testing; institutional or action theories were particularly popular. Research was less instrumental (problem solving) and more holistic in its approach. Employment was more likely to be seen as a socio-political process, and the dominant underlying paradigm was social partnership and co-determination. In short, the presented survey of journal publications highlighted that national research characteristics were not random variables bundled together arbitrarily and in constant flux but were interdependent and formed somewhat cohesive patterns which seemed relatively stable over time when analysed from a cross-country perspective. There was also no reason to assume that these research varieties were deviations from a standard, or delays in reaching that standard (Wagner and Wittrock 1991a: 6). On the contrary, the variety and persistence of national intellectual profiles over time seemed to undermine assumptions of a universal, linear evolution of the social sciences and instead highlighted their national historical embeddedness. The small case number of three countries is a potential limitation, as is the cultural proximity of Britain and the U.S., sharing both a language and similar intellectual traditions. However, my survey revealed that between these two

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countries the differences were particularly significant and did not seem to have diminished over the two investigated time periods—the 1970s and the 1990– 2000s. This additionally supports my finding that the majority of research on work and employment, as published in the main academic journals, is still conducted differently in the various countries and remains embedded in country-specific historical legacies. I, therefore, conclude that despite the intensifying internationalization of academic research and the globalization of employment institutions the processes of internationalization in the world of research are at this stage far from converging. As outlined in the introduction of this book, I do not wish to underevaluate the ongoing pressures on European social sciences to adapt to U.S.-style knowledge production systems. However, the findings presented in this book suggest that this process is more complex and uncertain than convergence protagonists generally advocate, and they in fact challenge predictions of globalization and convergence theories concerning the diminishing significance of the nation-state. Instead, this study suggests the nation-state’s enduring importance for the field of knowledge creation (see Wittrock and Wagner 1996). This conforms with the wider literature on the varieties of capitalism, emphasizing the role of nation-states within the global economy (Hall and Soskice 2001). The fact that scientific knowledge production is still embedded in national or cultural categories may be astonishing to some readers. There is a widespread, implicit conviction among scholars that the academic world is increasingly dictated by universal (if not U.S.-driven) norms and rules. Science is perceived as a set of objective rules and appears to exist outside any particular societal system; therefore, it is seen as free of historical or cultural contingencies. In contrast, there is a growing agreement among scholars that simplistic globalization and convergence theories do not do justice to the complex societal realities and that national divergences still prevail (e.g. Hall and Soskice 2001). It is, therefore, somewhat puzzling to exclude the field of scientific knowledge production from such a perspective. The present study challenges this scientific realism. The observed cross-country variation of employment research reminds us that scientific knowledge production in the social sciences continues to be a social process embedded in time and space. This observation is also supported by similar findings of other social science disciplines: Philip Schmitter (1999) for political science or Donald Levine (1995) for sociology. And even in the case of the rather homogeneous field of economics, Marion Fourcade-Gourinchas’s forthcoming book emphasizes national differences of the economic profession. Certainly, my findings do not deny that there is a growing number of international scholars and international research collaboration which increasingly

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mark the field of employment research. Prominent scholars such as Colin Crouch, Sanford Jacoby, David Soskice, Wolfgang Streeck, or Kathleen Thelen, to mention only a few, are truly international, and it would, in fact, be difficult to trace their national identities from their works. But more importantly, these international scholars are not yet the norm in our field. If they were we would see a much higher percentage of foreign authors and/or international and comparative topics published in the surveyed journals, or indeed in books.

PATH DEPENDENCIES OF EMPLOYMENT RESEARCH: STATE TRADITIONS Given the enduring scientific variations, this book proceeded to explore their embeddedness in specific national legacies in more detail. It contributed a specific case study to the sociological debates on knowledge production based on a comparative historical analysis of the path dependencies of research variations (Chapter 4). In particular, I adopted Wittrock and Wagner’s ‘constellational approach’ (1996) focusing on specific state traditions in a given historical context and taking these differences in such historical constellations as a starting point for explaining variations in scientific developments between countries. The present study emphasized, therefore, the continuing relevance of state traditions in today’s scientific research environment. National state traditions were seen as pivotal for understanding the different paths employment research has taken in Britain, Germany, and the U.S. The book at hand pointed out that the origins of employment research were linked to the formation of the modern state in developing democracies of the nineteenth century. The creation of social sciences not only in Europe but also in the U.S. took place in the period of constituting national states after the bourgeois revolution and the advent of Enlightenment in Europe. Different state traditions, that is, in the extent to which modern states intervened in the development of civil society and the market, were seen as crucial in shaping the development of social sciences, in particular in the case of Employment Relations. As a consequence, the different state traditions were broadly classified on the basis of the development of more or less statist types of societies, with Germany exemplifying the more state-oriented and the U.S. the less stateoriented type and with Britain seen in the middle (Wittrock and Wagner 1996: 90).

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The book identified three trajectories (substantial, institutional, and ideational) of how employment research was shaped by the evolving state traditions: the labour movement and its national histories were investigated as an example of the first trajectory; social science traditions in each country as exemplifying the second trajectory; and the industrial democracy discourse from a comparative perspective as the third trajectory. The aim was to go beyond the widespread functionalist understanding which links research variations to the variations of the research subject across countries. In other words, research has commonly been seen as mirroring the national characteristics of its subject matter, that is employment regulations and practices. My study introduced instead a historically founded, multilayered perspective recognizing that research patterns are also shaped by institutional as well as ideational trajectories.

Labour Movement Histories The German state became a dominant focus of the developing nation during the late nineteenth century which originated in the fact that Germany was an economic late developer and built a modern nation-state only in the 1860s and 1870s. Germany relied heavily on centralized legal structures to organize its economic sphere as well as its developing civil society. It is no surprise, therefore, that its labour movement became more involved in the state arena than the Anglophone counterparts. On the contrary, Britain and the U.S. have often been labelled ‘stateless’ societies. Their historical paths, however, were slightly different. ‘Whereas this “relative statelessness” in the U.S. dates back to the community orientation and aversion against centralisation of the Federalists, in the British case it rather reflected the well-entrenched position of a landed aristocracy, hostile towards efforts at formalised, central control and rule’ (Wagner and Wittrock 1991a: 343). In more detail, the U.S. state, in particular because of its weak centralizing power, did not strongly intervene in the sphere of the developing labour market and employment except to protect private property and individual rights, and the union movement essentially ended up as a labourmarket rather than state-oriented actor. The British labour movement developed as a strong labour-market actor while also creating their own political wing, the Labour Party (rather than the other way around, as in Germany). However, unions were also a social actor representing the working class and its class identity in the attempt to rebalance power relations in the labour market and class-based society. Unions were, therefore, more torn between the economic, social, and political arena

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than their U.S. counterparts. The state, however, essentially played a laissezfaire role. In short, the different labour movement histories in Germany and the Anglophone countries, in particular the varying degrees of state-orientedness of the unions (higher in Germany than in Britain or the U.S.), had an impact on authors’ affiliations and the choice of research topics as well as, to a lesser extent, on research paradigms. This fact helps explain why in Germany sociologists or legal scholars became interested in employment issues, whereas in the U.S. scholars tended to approach employment predominantly as a labourmarket problem, from which arose the dominance of labour economists in the field. It also helps explain the more diverse set of British professions interested in either the economic or the social sides of employment.

Social Science Traditions During the nineteenth century, the German state became the dominant figure in the reform of its higher education and university system as well as in the development of the social sciences. The system was characterized by a Humboldtian vision of research universities dedicated to a holistic approach to research and education. Social sciences were supposed to ‘understand’ the truth (Weber’s concept of ‘verstehen’) rather than being preoccupied with instrumental (problem-oriented) research and professional training of students. In contrast, the U.S. state was less dominant in shaping higher education and research and rather encouraged private initiatives. Moreover, both private as well as state universities soon embarked on a common goal of supported scientific knowledge in the pursuit of improving the young society. Finally, the British state only got involved at the turn of the nineteenth century and liberalized the educational sector which was long dominated by colleges providing liberal education for the elite. Scientific research was strongly shaped by the Enlightenment and ideas of utilitarianism and empiricism. As a consequence, the humanistic, Humboldtian-style German university system was strongly oriented towards science for its own sake (‘truth finding’) rather than being an instrument for larger societal purposes (e.g. improving social conditions), as it became the norm in the U.S. and later on in Britain, or for an elite education bent on character forming, as was originally the case in Britain. This may have induced the strong presence of heuristic methodologies in German social sciences and of more empirical approaches in the U.S. and in Britain. What is more, the German university structure of professorial

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chairs with individual discretion on topics of research reduced the incentives to create interdisciplinary departments such as Employment Relations. The departmental system in the U.S. and later in Britain, on the other hand, tended to facilitate such interdisciplinary experiments.

Industrial Democracy Discourse The dominant position of the state in German society also had implications for the evolving political economic discourse. The political and economic sphere was conceptualized as closely interlinked, with the state’s active role in the industrialization of the unified nation and the liberal intellectual traditions of 1848 leading to the perception of interdependence rather than separation of both spheres. The result was a concept allowing a close relationship between political and industrial democracy. The U.S. developed mainly mechanic theories of the state in line with their liberal concepts of society and gave the state little conceptual attention compared to Europe. The political economic discourse was founded on a stricter division between the political and economic spheres than in Germany and the main underlying intention of industrial democracy concepts was to secure individual constitutional rather than collective, political rights. In Britain, the developing political economic discourse was dominated by Liberalism and mechanic state theories, as in the U.S. However, although the discourse was based on a stricter division between the political and economic spheres than in Germany, it did not separate both spheres to such a strong degree as in the U.S. The main underlying intention of industrial democracy concepts was to secure individual constitutional and private property rights, but also to allow for more collective worker control and voice at the workplace. As a consequence, the cross-cultural traditions of democracy discourses shaped the development of different research paradigms (social partnership in Germany, contractual laissez-faire in the U.S., and collective laissez-faire in Britain). They also influenced authors’ affiliations, theories, and research topics. For example, the fact that German scholars have traditionally been interested in topics related to worker participation may not just be due to their employment law promoting democracy at work, but also due to a longstanding intellectual tradition in German social sciences of interpreting industrial democracy as an important attribution to political democracy and hence as a value in itself. This also helps to explain the interest of German political scientists and lawyers in employment research. In contrast, industrial democracy in the U.S. and Britain has not generally been perceived as a precondition or attribute of political democracy (as an exception, see Pateman 1970) and

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has been traditionally perceived as individual and property rights and, in the case of the U.S., no forced labour. Overall, the three path dependencies exemplified the enduring importance of state traditions in the understanding of research variation across countries. The diversity of employment research was particularly shaped by how the state became interventionist in the shaping of the political economy and the labour movement (Chapter 5), in the organization of research and education (Chapter 6), and in the discourse on political and industrial democracy (Chapter 7). These path dependencies have implications on how we organize research and what we teach our students. National variations seem to persist despite growing academic internationalization and the increasing dominance of U.S. social sciences. What then, are the implications for the future of this field of research?

FUTURE OF EMPLOYMENT RESEARCH This book highlighted the cultural embeddedness of social scientific research. But, as North (1990: 98) rightly emphasized, embeddedness or path dependency is ‘not a story of inevitability in which the past neatly predicts the future’. In fact, by providing a sense of the deeper layers on which employment research is based, these path dependencies inevitably include a foundation for change (Weir 1992). Thus, path dependencies do not stand for a simplistic historical determinism. As said before, scholars may have had good reasons for choosing their scientific path which was subsequently institutionalized, but these reasons were consistently shaped and re-shaped by specific historical and cultural intentions. In hindsight, we may find that there are opportunities to learn from each other and to choose differently in the future, in particular in the context of the increasing crisis of the academic field of Employment Relations. Nevertheless, my analysis concludes that change is, of course, not automatic. Major events or processes may be needed to induce a systematic paradigm shift in employment research. One could expect that opportunities of change occur, for example, when new research conditions disrupt or overwhelm the specific mechanisms that had previously installed and reproduced the existing paths in each country. Such junctures are frequently attributed, usually in retrospect, to ‘exogeneous shocks’ (Pierson 2004: 52). The current crisis of Employment Relations may well produce such a shock. In other words, the institutional crisis could provide a much needed opportunity for scholars to provoke a paradigm shift and transform their historically

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embedded research conventions. The goal should be for the field to stay independent and continue to be an invigorating subject to engage in for future researchers—a field which endorses and embodies cross-fertilizations between various social sciences. A major question is, of course, how much change is needed and in what way this could be brought about. The current problems of Employment Relations as an academic field have been widely connected to the global decline of traditional employment actors such as trade unions and the deregulation of employment systems. A widespread conviction in the literature was that the field needed to adapt to new realities by incorporating different research topics, and in particular by adopting a more managerial-oriented human resources perspective (see Chapter 2). This study has challenged this perspective as short-sighted. A mere expansion or change of research topics is not sufficient to modernize the field. As the discussion presented in this book has revealed, the crisis sits much deeper. After all, U.S. journals have achieved a nearly balanced distribution of human resource, industrial relations, and labour-market topics, but this has (as yet) not led to a revival of the field. On the contrary, the U.S. is currently facing more institutional problems of their academic field than any other country. Moreover, one should not forget that besides opening up to the human resources field there are many other subject new areas of potential interest (such as migrant labour, diversity at work, or new actors in employment relations). The reduction to a battle between human resources and industrial relations is, therefore, simply misleading and unhelpful. Finally, my survey has revealed that research topics were not the only research characteristics which differed across countries. In other words, expanding research topics while keeping the traditional national profile of authors’ nationalities, affiliations, methodologies, theories, and paradigms is simply not sufficient for a comprehensive paradigm shift. In the following I draw out possible mechanisms of change, suggesting how a transformation of our field could be fostered: procedurally by an increasing dialogue between national knowledge systems, and substantially by acknowledging the intrinsic political nature of employment research, exemplified in the national state traditions.

Dialogue and Awareness A necessary condition for an encompassing change must entail, first of all, an increasing awareness of the alternatives and options scholars have when they choose topics, methods, theories, and paradigms. As said in the Introduction, one aim of this book was to encourage communication and mutual learning

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between different national research traditions. Becoming aware of national approaches, and thus of different research options, is a first step. What should follow is a dialogue between the research practices; how one could benefit from each other to ensure the long-term viability of the research field. Levine (1995: 328) argues that ‘such a dialogical approach can take something of value from each of these other narratives without insisting that it is the only valid mode of telling the story. . . . The mission is to display connections . . . without enforcing uniformity (as originally advocated by Martin Buber’s famous concept “the acceptance of otherness”).’ Since the employment research community is riven by contentions among members holding different narratives from the past, adopting Levine’s approach could enhance contact with each of the other narratives (research patterns) and bring them into fruitful conversation. In other words, the variety of knowledge production indicates that different national trajectories have emphasized different aspects and dimensions (see Eisenstadt 2004: 21). The dialogue should, therefore, be held about the conditions (why and when) under which certain research characteristics are emphasized in certain contexts and how these can be evaluated and possibly translated into other contexts. Although this may sound naive, given the undeniable leadership of the U.S. occupying the largest market in the field of Employment Relations, in the current climate a serious dialogue would already be a big step forwards. It would have to include critical reflections of journal editors, conference organizers, or book publishers to open themselves more proactively to foreign authors, different disciplines, topics, and methodologies—even if this means taking risks. It would also require teaching faculty to alert students of the cultural embeddedness of their theoretical and methodological preferences and encourage them to explore alternative approaches. In a nutshell, the dialogue may render the field less ethnocentric, more open to foreign authors and international/comparative topics, more interdisciplinary with an emphasis on the classic topics of industrial relations and human resources as well as encouraging alternative issues of interest, more methodologically pluralistic, and more theoretically innovative. And, finally, this may raise the awareness of academics that ‘features of one’s native environment which one had thought to be distinctive and had attributed to rather specific, local causes are in fact more general or in turn that features or relationships between variables which one thought to be of universal meaning are in fact locally embedded and not transferable to other countries’ (Crouch 2004: 208). Ideally, this dialogue would then lead to neither national competition and takeover nor convergence or merger but to an ideal ‘New York City’ of the social sciences, a tolerant co-existence of different traditions facilitating and endorsing cross-fertilizations.

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Policy-Oriented Employment Research These cross-fertilizations should be accompanied, as I argue in the following, by an underlying epistemological shift, reviving the political nature of employment research. There is an increasing conviction among scholars that the political and economic arenas of modern societies are currently becoming more interrelated and that there is pressure on the traditional disciplines of economics, political science, and sociology to reflect these interdependencies (Crouch 2004: 210). Employment Relations could be at the forefront of these attempts, being naturally at the intersection of politics and the economy and able to offer a unique interdisciplinary approach to modern political economies. After all, employment was a child of the capitalist revolution and closely intertwined with the formation of democracy, the social question, and the welfare state. As a consequence, the discourse on work and employment became genuinely embedded in the political economy of each country. Thus, independent of how different state traditions shaped national employment research and made it more or less dependent on the actual state, work and employment have always been an economic as well as a political issue and therefore open to moral judgement. As you will recall from Chapter 2, employment research was from early on a strongly practice-oriented field where ideologies and political or normative assumptions influenced research directions. Remember the early clashes in the development of U.S. Employment Relations between labour-focused and management-focused scholars. However, as we have seen over time, these ideologies became less dominant and were taken over by an increasingly empiricist attempt to objectify employment research. It was strongest in the U.S. where social sciences increasingly produced instrumentalized knowledge focused on specific questions defined by policymakers (see Chapter 6). Ross (1991) even speaks of an increasing link between neoliberal ideology and U.S. social sciences which enforces pragmatic, empirical hypothesis-testing research based on a market-driven paradigm which is ultimately systemstabilizing rather than encouraging a critical, innovative perspective on society. Scholars, such as Capelli, Godard, or Hyman, have pointed to the increase of empiricist research and the absence of theory-building as a major deficiency of current employment research. For example, Hyman (2004: 266) observes damaging consequences in that ‘the field detaches analysis from broader social science traditions, trivialises its conceptual apparatus and privileges pragmatism over theoretical imagination’. This was also supported in my survey revealing an increasingly empiricist character of Anglophone research. The

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danger for the field lies in turning into a purely empiricist, econometric, a-theoretical exercise isolated from the real concerns of the world of work. The proposal is for future employment research to re-focus analysis on the dynamic relationships between the economy, politics, and society, in particular on the changing boundaries of civil society, democracy, and the market in the twenty-first century. This asks for a revival of a broader research paradigm incorporating the political economic dimensions of work and employment (Godard 1994). It also asks for re-emphasizing the political, normative nature of employment research, in other words for a public-policy orientation which would confront the increasing empiricist tendencies of employment research and would highlight its continuing relevance for society at large.

Towards a Normative Turn Proposing a renewed public policy orientation for employment research is not an entirely new idea. Mitchell (2001), for example, asks for a stronger emphasis on policy research for Employment Relations but wishes it to be removed from ideological or normative preconceptions. I propose a slightly different concept of policy-oriented research and argue instead that normative assumptions are a necessary precondition for a public-policy approach. This line of thinking goes back to Lerner and Lasswell’s original definition (1951) of policy-oriented social sciences which they distinguish from applied, more instrumental social sciences: ‘The basic aim of policy-oriented social sciences ought to be the fundamental problems of man in society, rather than the topical issues of the moment’ (p. 8). Policy-oriented sciences were supposed to address large relevant issues such as full employment, peace, or equality. Lerner and Lasswell opposed social sciences that would devote their attention to small, immediate, ad hoc questions defined by bureaucrats or interested parties and asked aspiring social scientists not to become mere technicians to the bureaucratic state (Wagner et al. 1991: 17). Policy-driven research, therefore, should not be confused with instrumental objective knowledge which in its extreme becomes ‘a customer-bureaucrat driven clientelistic form of social engineering’ (Weiss and Wittrock 1991: 367). It should also not be confused with the German tendency to provide political criticisms which are too metaphysical to have any practical implications (see Chapter 3). Policy research, in contrast, ought to provide essentially ‘enlightenment’. Its influence lies less in being of direct utility than in providing a general perspective upon problems and issues with which particular policymakers are concerned (Bulmer 1983: 376). As a consequence, it ought to be interdisciplinary, international, and normative, recognizing that values are centrally involved in a policy

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orientation. The task is to pursue a ‘considerable clarification of the value goals involved in policy’ (Lerner and Lasswell 1951: 9). Lerner and Lasswell assume a normative stance in policy-oriented research which has been increasingly neglected in the evolution of social sciences during the twentieth century (see a review in Wagner, Wittrock, and Whitley 1991). My proposal is, therefore, to return to a more normatively explicit research enterprise. Policy-oriented research needs to be independent, critical, theoretically founded, and, above all, open about its normative assumptions. To be clear, this approach does not propose implicit or hidden ideologies but the open declaration of the scholars’ value assumptions. Only then can it remain relevant for society and avoid becoming an isolated esoteric scientific exercise which is ultimately system-stabilizing. More specifically, Employment Relations, at least in the Anglophone countries, has over the past decade become increasingly methodologically selfaware and sophisticated. The aim should, therefore, be for the field to also become more normatively self-aware, and to overcome the increasing segregation of empirical study and normative claims which is disadvantageous in the long run. In fact, as Gerring and Yesnowitz (2006: 108) claim, such a segregation of empirical research and normative theory is ultimately dishonest, since both ventures rest on an implicit understanding of the other’s territory. Already the selection of topics presumes, to some extent, a judgement of moral importance. Which topics are seen as relevant in employment research in Britain, for example, and which are not and why? Deciding on their relevance intrinsically assumes a normative evaluation. For example, research on the survival or revival of trade unions generally assumes that this is in the best interest for employees and democracy at large, but this is usually neither made explicit nor tested. Moreover, it is evident that the benefits of a particular employment policy or institution can be conceived differently. One’s normative choice is therefore highly consequential. An institution such as collective bargaining or minimum wage might be justified from one perspective but not from another. We are all aware of these dilemmas. At the very least, these choices should be made explicit. In other words, if the societal impact of one’s findings hinges on one’s basic moral commitments, then this should be featured prominently, at least in the introduction and conclusion of a study (Gerring and Yesnowitz 2006: 107). There is nothing to be gained by smuggling normative assumptions through the back door. There must be some open logic to the normative assumptions that are used to develop an empirical or theoretical investigation. Overall, emphasizing the normative nature of employment research means nothing more than acknowledging that the scholarly significance of empirical studies or theory-building cannot be conceptualized without understanding

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its potential relevance to society. In order to re-create a practical or societal relevance for our field we need to engage in normative, that is political discussions of what is ‘good’ for society at large or for employees and employers in a specific context. These discussions will be shaped by different state traditions. This approach inevitably leads to a re-politicization of the discourse on work: not in the name of party politics or political ideologies but in the sense of normative philosophy. It allows and requires us to acknowledge that the ‘goodness’ of a particular policy or institution can be interpreted differently and judged by considering preferences or interests, public goods, rent-seeking, and pareto-optimality, to name a few (Gerring and Yesnowitz 2006: 107). These may be shaped by different path dependencies. They need to be made explicit. The purpose of social sciences, as has been commonly defined, is to help citizens and policymakers to better understand the world with an eye to changing the given situation (Gerring and Yesnowitz 2006: 110). Pure empiricist exercises which focus primarily on high methodological sophistication without providing a discussion on their normative assumptions cannot reach a broader audience neither in neighbouring disciplines nor in the interested public sphere. Gerring and Yesnowitz (2006: 133) bring it to the point: ‘empirical study in the social sciences is meaningless if it has no normative import’. In conclusion, the crisis of the field of Employment Relations creates opportunities as well as dangers. Investigating the historical trajectories of employment research has revealed its continuing embeddedness in the state traditions and political economies of the investigated countries. I have argued that a meaningful modernization of employment research needs to entail a broader political economic paradigm of the study of work and employment, an awareness of employment being embedded in the political economies of countries. Above all, however, it asks for a revival of a more policy-oriented research programme which reassures the continuing relevance of employment research for academia and society. Analysing the political economic dynamics of modern employment structures requests methodological as well as normative sophistication. This requires employment researchers from various national and disciplinary backgrounds, each with different preconceptions, norms, and limitations, to collectively construct a rich and complex discourse of the world of work. No single frame for such interactions will be able to capture this wide variety, but this book provides an effort to encourage such forms of interaction within a more encompassing understanding of their evolution and path dependencies over time and nations.

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Index Abbott, A. 125, 129, 135–6 academic disciplines, reference to history of educational systems in each country 90–1 academic jobs, U.S. and Britain are in area of human resource management 24 academic transformation, knowledge production systems and path dependencies of research patterns 34 Ackers, P. 2, 16, 27–8 ADAV party (Allgemeiner Deutscher Arbeterverein), founded social democratic worker associations 97 AFL, courts and deliberate anti-union decisions decisive role in conclusion of 111 developed concept of ‘business unionism’ 107, 109, 110 eschewed organization of less-skilled workers 110 far from homogeneous 117 industrial democracy and 163–5 and Knights of Labour 109 major reliance upon their economic strength within industries 166 narrowed industrial democracy to trade unions and voluntary collective bargaining 162 recognized the double-jointedness of the U.S. state 116 AFL-CIO, not involved in party politics 112 AMA, campaigned for the open shop and against organized labour 13 American Federation of Labour see AFL American management Association see AMA Anglophone countries 1, 72, 154 comparing two with Germany 33 crisis since heyday (1950s–60s) 2, 2 n4, 9, 20 empiricism in correlates with lesser emphasis on public policy research 142 Employment Relations increasingly methodologically self-aware and sophisticated 184 employment research 10

enterprise is property of entrepreneur with workers relegated to contractual claims 170 experienced different forms of ‘statelessness’ 140, 176 first created Employment Relations as academic field of study 3 institutional decline 21 labour law on individual rights has long tradition 171 liberal or mechanic theories of the state of industrial democracy 147 major cause of current crisis may be deep-rooted 21 popularity of game theory 40 produce more interdisciplinary research than other countries 68 research refers to three problem areas 22–3 scholars question their discipline 21 Anglophone employment research, three potential problem areas 30 Anglophone hemisphere, U.S. versus Britain 4 Anglophone liberal approach, notion of free interrelations between the actors 118 Anglophone notion of liberalism, political theory for constraining state power 151 Anglophone publications, dominated by market forces 66 Anglophone research 64, 67, 89, 89 n5, 182 Anglophone scholars, pragmatists from commercial or lower middle class 78 Anglophone social sciences 63, 71, 147 Anglophone them-and-us ideologies 31 approaches to scientific knowledge production 74–6 social science disciplines and national variations 76–8 Archer, P. 107, 165 article subject 41 Australia 1n, 21, 40 authors affiliations, in all countries 45 in all journals 46 Authors disciplinary affiliation 41

Index Bendix, R. 61, 157 ‘Berliner Centralverein’ (1844), Vormärz period 152–3 Bernstein, E. 98 n5, 99, 154 Beyme, K 96, 105, 117 Bismarck, Otto von 98–9 BJIR 17, 24, 35–6, 38 n7, 39, 44, 59, 60 data from 70 n13 example of authors and articles in 62, 67, 71 more economic publications than IRJ 47, 54, 55 more quantitative than IRJ 71 opinion survey by Hanson and Rathkey 64 politics in articles 67 Blackwell publisher’s data, Britain supported by 71 Blair government, labour law reforms and presence of IR topics in Britain 70 Born, Stephen, worker congress under 153 Bourdieu, P. 32, 34 Boyer, G. 14, 32 Braczyk, H. 18, 68, 77 Brannen, P. 158–9 Brentano, Lujo, employment studies 17 Breuilly, J. 77, 93, 102, 104, 147, 161 Briefs, Goetz, ‘Betriebssoziologie’ (sociology of the firm) 19 employment studies 17 essay on ‘Unions and union Politics’ 118 Britain, Cambridge University website and publications in ‘business and management’ 38 characterized by relevant statelessness 140 craft unions remained alive in labour movement 100 n7 did not use universities to train their civil servants 127 distribution of author affiliation 46–7 distrust of judicial solutions in collective and individual labour conflicts 161 dominated by employment/business scholars 68 education, part liberal, character-forming and for upper classes 139–40 Employment Act (1982) 64 employment departments now part of business schools 21 employment relations ‘collective laissez-faire’ 65, 72, 114

209 employment research 3, 7, 10 employment research more interdisciplinary than in U.S. 16, 20 first industrial nation, gave birth to first national union movement in the world 101 fostered shaping of the individual, civilized character as core of liberal education 128 free collective bargaining approach 168 Friendly Societies Act (1855) 104 history of unions regarded as equivalent to that of the labour movement 119 industrial democracy shaped by political reformers and intellectuals 165 institutional decline 21 joint graduate degrees 27 labourism 112 Liberalism and Positivism 91 market-governed 83, 169–70 market-oriented unionism 95 n2 ‘mass education’ did not materialize till after WWII 128 more international than U.S. through European Union 71 political economic discourse, Liberalism and mechanic state theories 178 preference for “voluntarist” solutions outside the law in form of collective bargaining 160–1 professional education largely excluded from universities 136 professors’ guilds and governance of the university 124, 135 quasi-private nature of firm limits state’s intervention 171 rationalization of economy before rationalization of law in nineteenth century 85 reformers could take for granted organization of labour and recognition by employers and the state 167 relations between unions and state shaped by early development of political democracy 115 shop stewards’ movement at turn of the century and during WWI 158 specialized fields easier to establish than in U.S. if guild approved 143 strong critical human resource research tradition 27

210

Index

Britain (cont.) struggle for personal liberties and with Calvinist strains in Scotland and England 86 voluntarist definitions of industrial democracy 146 Webbs in 11 see Webb Britain and Germany, preferred self-collected small-scale data 72 Britain and U.S., significant differences in employment research 174 British academics, view human resource management as new management ideology 27 British brick makers of Oldham, observed by Taine (1870) 106 n11 British civil service, unitary and homogeneous institution 128 British electoral law (1867), male heads given the right to vote 115 British employment, most extensive interdisciplinary approach 119 British employment paradigm, ‘liberal-pluralistic orientation’ 66, 117 British Employment Relations 20, 27 British employment research, descriptive inductive and less analytical deductive 71–2 British industrial democracy discourse 155, 169 Fabianism and the Webbs 159–61 free unions and free bargaining 161 syndicalism and guild socialism 158–9 utopian socialists: Owenism 155–8, 163 British Journal of Industrial Relations see BJIR British knowledge institutions 127–9 new university (LSE 1895) 130 relied on its hereditary elite 122 social science methodologies: positivism 131–3 university structure: colleges 129–30 British labour movement 101–3 centred on their craft-based unions between (1850 and 1914) 102 from 1870 membership recruitment extended outside ranks of the skilled 102 towards the creation of the labour Party 103–5, 113–14, 176 labourism 106–7 British publications 53, 173

British social sciences 131–2, 140–1 British unions 114, 116–17, 132 Communist union CPBG launched in (1924) 117 British universities, chair-holding professors in never had status and power of Continental European universities 129 emphasized the classical subjects 130 faculty members without a Ph.D. 129 income from government subsidies 127 system selective and elitist until 1960s 128, 141, 177 British Universities Industrial Relations Association see BUIRA British universities and modern science, public and private actors in development of 141 British working class, strong class-consciousness of 106 Brown, J. D. (industrial relations section at Princeton) 13–14 Buber, Martin, “the acceptance of otherness” 181 BUIRA 15, 17, 22 Bullock Committee (1970s) 146 Bulmer, M. 63–4, 71, 132–3, 183 ‘Cambridge capital controversy’ 3 Cambridge School in U.S. labour economics 14 Camic, C. 6, 75, 139 Canada 1n, 21, 40 Capitalism 155–6, 168, 174 capitalist development, created social problem for the new U.S. society 136 capitalist economy, effects of social fragmentation on individual caused by 149 Cappelli, P. 2, 4, 29 on British employment research 72 how shifts in employment research occur 89 pointed out increase of empiricist research and absence of theory-building 182 socio-psychological approaches on employment research 60–1 U.S. publications and 63 Chadwick, C. 60–1 Chandler, T. D. 21–2 Chartist movement (1838–52) 101, 101 n8, 102–4, 115

Index Christianity, meaning of ‘vita activa’ and ‘vita contemplativa’ 144 ‘civil society’, definitions in Anglophone and Continental Europe 95 n3 ‘class’, surpassed by race, ethnic, religious or gender diversities in postmodern world 23 ‘class consciousness’ 96 ‘class’ human resources and industrial relations ideologies, vague resemblances with 31 Clegg, H. A. 16–17, 65, 160 Cole, G. D. H. (founder of ‘Labour Studies’ in Oxford) 15, 155, 158–9 Coleman, J. 121, 138 collective bargaining 2, 14, 30 decline in U.S. 70 European countries and 114 Industrial democracy as 165–8 Issue of concern 23 Kaufman on replacement of 25 unions and principles of 102 the Webbs and 160–1 ‘collective contract, does not exist in Britain 114 Commons, John (founder of Wisconsin School) 11–12, 15, 25, 32, 115–16, 167 comparative historical analysis 80–3 Comparative Labor Law and Policy Journal 36, 37 comparative research project, employment scholars engaged in international 71 comparative studies, neglect of in social sciences 77 Comte, A. 74, 131 conceptualizing state traditions: three path dependencies 87–9 social science traditions 90–1 subject field: labour movement histories 89–90 traditions of industrial democracy discourse 9 Conspiracy and Protection of Property and Employers and Workmen Act (1875), TUC and 114 Constantine, J. 60–1 ‘constellation approach’, study of knowledge and research patterns 87, 175 contemporary employment, shift from male unionized manufacturing to female non-union services 28

211

Continental Europe, alliances between aristocracy and bourgeoisie to limit king’s power 85 industrial democracy shaped by political reformers and intellectuals 165 organic state theories of industrial democracy 147 research on work and employment remained multidisciplinary 1–2, 10 social science disciplines 3 state and society perceived as separate entities 84 Continental European research, rooted in general theories of economy and society 66 Continental European scholars, attracted by a ‘political economic’ paradigm 65 Continental Europe and Germany, employment research still popular topic 20 Continental labour tradition, coordinated nature which allows political system to intervene 95 country specific institutional and intellectual traditions, different research styles and 33 critique of ideology’ 62 cross-country book comparisons, subjective judgement 37–8, 38 n5 Crouch, C. 1 n1, 82–3, 115, 175, 181–2 Danzinger, K. 76, 137 n5 Darwin’s theories, believed apt for America at end of nineteenth century 138 Deakin, S. 161, 170 deBrizzi, J. 11, 79, 164 Delaney, J. 2, 23–7, 30 Delanty, P. 3 emancipation and social change 127 German research which is more theoretical 71 Germany and exploration of societal phenomenon 141 on national differences in social science disciplines 59 positivism in the three countries 131 researchers and scientific research 63 scientist and meaning in texts 126 socially constructed knowledge 75n thinkers in Britain and U.S. rooted in Anglophone philosophy 147 democratization 6, 172

212

Index

Derber, M. 89, 162–3, 165–6 dialogue and awareness 180–1 discourse on industrial democracy, development of national scientific systems 92 Disraeli, Benjamin 156 Sybil or two nations 157 Dunlop, J. 28, 64–6, 89, 138 Dyson, K. 147–9 EBSCO data base 63 economic globalization and deregulation, erosion of orthodox employment regulations 4 Ely, Richard 11, 32, 163–5 empirical research, segregation of and normative theory is ultimately dishonest 184 empiricism, broader country-specific social science traditions 31 employee involvement schemes 41 employment, shaped by economic rather than political forces 67 Employment Relations 1, 1 n1, 1 n2 academic crisis in 23 Anglophone, empiricist a-theoretical pluralistic tradition of 29 change in legal rights in U.S. 12 could be attempts to make modern societies become more interrelated 182 crisis in Anglophone countries since heyday (1950s–60s) 2, 2 n4, 9 crisis in creates opportunities as well as dangers 185 current crisis may produce ‘exogeneous shock’ 179–80 defined as separate unit of analysis in Anglophone countries 66 departments at LSE, Manchester and Oxford (1950s) 15 doubts about extent of practice as interdisciplinary field 28 downsizing of departments and programmes 21 embedded in specific cultural or national traditions 35 how explain ongoing diversity and persistence of national research patterns 73 idea to provide reliable characterization of research patterns 40–1

may be determined on other than the internal logical structure of the argument 79 needs to broaden its agenda 8 problem-oriented field of study 88–9 re-enters management studies through human resources approach 26 resistant to universalization or modernization 5 scholars argue for redefiniton which abandons ideology of recognizing interests between employees and employers 25 sociology gave way to economics in Britain (1980s) 16 structural changes 23 study of employment institutions and regulations and human resources 24 under-theorized 59 in U.S., Britain and Germany 5 U.S. occupies largest market in field of, needs serious dialogue 181 views on whether it is taking over field of human resource management 30 Employment Relations departments, elimination, downsizing or merger of 2 Employment Relations research, cross-national differences 7 employment research, become too empiricist, quantitative, econometric and less interdisciplinary 31 dominant U.S., British and German patterns 68, 70 embedded in country-specific institutional and intellectual traditions 4, 73, 142, 185 future of 179–80 international research collaboration 37 methodological and theoretical deficiencies of 28–9 path dependencies of 78–80, 88, 175–6 policy-oriented 182–3 towards a normative turn 183–5 ‘political embeddedness’ of 7 practice-oriented field where ideologies and political assumptions influenced directions 182 scientific subject related to the ‘social question’ 121 U.S, Britain and Germany 30

Index varieties of 172–5 worrying tendencies most visible in U.S. 8 Engels, Friedrich 103, 106 n11, 158 n5 England, 116,000 state employees at turn of nineteenth-century 127 ESOPS (employee share ownership plans) 41 European Journal of Industrial Relations (EJIR) 35–6, 36 n1 European Master’s and Ph.D. degrees, joint collaboration with European universities 35 European social sciences, pressures to adapt to U.S.-style knowledge production systems 174 exceptionalism theory, U.S. labour movement 76, 107–8, 118 external environment in employment research 22–3 Fabian Society 155, 159, 161 Faulk, L. 21–2 Feuille, P. 2 n4, 14, 61, 68, 89 Finkin, M. 111, 164, 170 Flanders, A. 16, 65, 94–5, 160 Fourcade-Gourinchas, M. 79, 84, 89–91, 127–8, 130, 134–5, 174 Fourier (utopian socialist) 156 Fox, A. 15, 156 Beyond Contract: Work, Power and Trust Relations (1974) 16 France 40, 83, 113–14, 127, 156, 160 ‘Frankfurter Paulskirche’ 153 Frankfurt School 62 Frederick the Great (Prussian king 1740–86) 122, 122 n1–2, 123 Free unions (‘Freie Gewerkschaften’) 97–101 Frege, C. M. 23, 60, 118 French ‘regulation theory’, did not expand internationally 40 French thinkers, in eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Roman Catholic model of the state 148 functionalist theory, conservative and methodologically individualistic 138 Galtung, J., Saxon, Teutonic, Gallic and Nippon traditions 77–8 game theory, origins in Central European thought (von Neumann and Morgenstern) 40 Geary, D. 93, 113 gender discrimination, classified as part of IR 42

213

German academics, interested in the labour process 90 German and Anglophone literature, workplace relations 67 German employment regulation, legal scholars and political scientists and 93 German employment relations 71, 119 German employment studies 17–20 German Historical School, common spirit (Geist) of a community 124 German human resource scholars, avoid IB and publish in human resource journals 70 German idealism, grew out of Lutheranism and particularly Pietism 87, 123 German industrial democracy 149–52, 169 linked to development of political democracy 171 pre-1848 and 1848 revolution 152–3 second half of nineteenth century 153–5 German industrial Relations Association see GIRA German knowledge institutions, humanistic education 123–4 social science methodologies: hermeneutics and Marxism 125–7, 141–2 specialized research-oriented ideal 122 university structure: professorial chairs 124–5 ‘German “Kultur”, opposed to French civilisation and “trader spirit” of U.S. and Britain 149 German labour movement 96, 111, 113, 118 German liberalism, essentially a constitutional movement 151 German publications, employment issues shaped by socio-political as well as market forces 66 German research, social partnership and co-determination 89, 118–19, 149, 152–3, 168, 178 theoretical 71 German scholars 65, 78, 118, 150, 154 German social sciences traditions 126–7, 142 German social scientists, disposed of state-endowed rank by position as chair holders 136 formal institutionalized voice in public policymaking 140 publications 38, 38 n6, 173

214

Index

German Sociological Congress (Berliner Soziologentag 1979), Employment Relations (Industrielle Arbeitsbeziehungen) 20 German sociologists, focused on worker consciousness and beliefs 19, 142 German thinkers, crucial in developing organic theories of the state 148 German unions 95, 97–8, 100, 100 n7, 116 German universities and modern sciences 140, 177–8 Germany, affiliation of authors 47 after WWII sociology reestablished 19 argument industrial sociology has not modernized its Marxist assumptions 21 n3 attempt to affiliate with ‘grand social science theories’ 60 civil society unionism 95 n2 craft trade unions reappeared during 1960s 97 employment research 3, 3 n6, 7, 10, 72, 173 firm perceived as quasi-public affair 170–1 focused on a ‘social contract’ within a firm 170 historians paid more attention to political activities of unions 118 humanistic notion of ‘Bildung’ (education) of the Idealist philosophy 122–3 Idealism in 91 industrial democracy seen as attack on entrenched positions of employers 160 industrial sociologists in clear majority 18 influence on early U.S. social sciences 77 intellectual (Marxist and liberal) tradition of researching employment issues 20 law in as discipline of the ‘Arts’ (Geisteswissenschaft) not social sciences 18 n2 left becoming more pragmatic in its political aims 99 legalistic extensive system of co-determination 146, 149, 152–3, 168 not receptive to strategy-driven human resource management paradigm 70 organic state theories of industrial democracy 147 organized 83 principle of co-determination goes back to mid-nineteenth century 81, 81 n3, 168

proactive in developing the economy and civil society in nineteenth century 116–17 proactive in reforming education system for ideational, political and economic reasons 139 project on trade unions 20 publications theoretical and interpretive 53 rationalization of the law before rationalization of economic production 84–5 research theories usually of sociological nature 72 scholars do not publish more books than those in U.S. and Britain 38 socialism 112, 114 social scientists in 68 university structure, enabled broader research agenda for individual professors 143 Germany and Britain, publications qualitative in the nineties 71 Gerring, J. 184–5 Gewerkschaftlich Monatshefte 36 n2 Giddens, T. 83, 85, 121 Gierke, O. 170 GIRA 17, 60 globalization 35, 41 Godard, J. 2, 4, 11, 67, 182–3 British academics view of human resource management 27 Employment Relations as sub-field of human resource management 24–6 increase in empirical research and absence of theory-building 182 on managerial ideologies and explanatory theories 60 ‘new generation’ of employment scholars in U.S. 29 should be broader research on work and employment 183 social-psychological studies of employment research 61 survey of articles on employment research 67 U.S. shifted to non-unionized workplaces and HR topics 30 Gompers, S. (AFL) 107, 164–5 Gospel, H. 15, 20 Gross, N. 6, 75 guild socialists, nineteenth/twentieth centuries in Britain 158–9, 159 n6

Index Hall, P. 78, 94, 174 Harris, H. J. 15 n1, 163, 165 Hartz, Louis, in U.S. the market preceded society and institutions of higher education 133 Harvard (1923), Employment Research 11 Hattam, V. 95, 108–11, 116, 162–3, 166 Hawthorne experiments 14 Hayek, F. von 94, 151 Heery, Edmund (former BUIRA president) 22 n4, 95 n3 Hegel, F. 123, 127, 148–9, 151 hermeunetics, subordination of explanation and description to interpretation 126 Hicks, John, LSE lectures ‘economic problems of industrial relations’ (1930s) 15 Hirsch, P. M., liberal party (Fortschrittspartei) founded Hirsch-Dunckerische unions 97, 97 n4 Hobbes, Thomas 131, 148–9 Hobsbawm, E. 103, 160 Hodgson, G. 11, 78 ‘home economics, has become ‘family economics’ 2 HR 12, 41–2, 47–8, 51–2, 64, 70 ‘human research management’ controversy 23 Humboldt, W. von 123–5 Hyman, R. 11 ‘Anglophone individualism’ and ‘European social model’ 64 Britain and first national union movement in the world 101 British unions with socialist agendas during WWI 118 class interests and 100 n7 different national employment systems, different research topics 89 editorial statement of IB editors when journal launched 66 on employment articles 29 on employment research in Germany 20 English incurious as to theory and take fundamentals for granted 133 increase of empiricist research and absence of theory-building 182 Industrial Relations: A Marxist Introduction (1975) 16 labour movement in Britain 115 on Labour Party 105 the Liberal Party and 104 New Unionism in Britain and 102–3 politically active unions in Germany 117

215 sees Employment Relations in disarray 23 trade unions and 94, 95 n2 U.S. research parochial and ethnocentric 71 voluntarist employment system in Britain 114

IB 17, 36, 38, 45, 60, 66–7, 70 Idealism 123–4, 124 n4 ideational state traditions, impact on what scholars study in various countries 6, 86 ideology 24–6 ILRR 36, 38 n7, 61, 63 authors and 43, 59 economics and 46 search on politics in 67–8 small-scale empirical articles in 70s 55–6 topics 48–9, 49 n11, 51–2, 54, 57–8 industrial democracy 145, 146 n3, 147–9, 168 industrial democracy discourse 144–5, 169, 178–9 industrialization 6, 10, 119, 130, 172 Industrial and Labor Relations Review see ILRR Industrial or Labour Relations, developed in early twentieth century 10 industrial psychology, during WWI and regarded as solution to labour problem 13 Industrial Relations Association of America see IRAA industrial relations or human resource management 24–7 Industrial Relations (IndR) 24, 36, 38 n7, 46, 48, 51–8, 60 industrial relations (IR) 41–2, 47–9, 52, 68–70 Industrial Relations Journal see IRJ industrial revolution, social sciences and 83 Industrielle Beziehungen see IB Institute for Social Research (Frankfurt), project on employment after WWII (1970s) 20 institutional decline, U.S. 21 institutional economics, taken over by neoclassical economics 32 institutional, topical and methodological characteristics, author’s afiliations 45–7 cross-sectional-longitudinal-one-time period studies 56–8 empirical/theoretical research 53–4

216

Index

institutional, . . . (cont.) macro/sector/firm micro level 58–9 methodology of articles 52–3 nationality of authors 43–5 qualitative/quantitative methods 54–5 research topics 47–52 small/large data-set 55–6 interdisciplinarity 14, 28, 142 interdisciplinary research 39, 68, 142 interdisciplinary fields, employment relations U.S. and later in Britain 142 internal environment in employment research 23 International Association of Machinists 117 Internationalization 35, 70, 70 n13, 179 international scholars, international research collaboration and 174–5 Introduction to Collective Bargaining and Industrial Relations 61 IRAA 11, 15, 22 IRJ 36, 38 n7, 43–4, 46–8, 51, 54–9 ISI index data for (2005), BJIR authors and 71 Italy 40, 95 n2, 113 IWW (industrial Workers of the World), anarcho-syndicalist 111 Jacoby, S. M. 2, 11, 14, 32, 93, 113, 170, 175 Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, anti-statist, anti-authoritarianism in U.S. 111 John Hopkins University (1876) 134 Jones, Stedman 105–6 journal articles 29, 42–3, 62–3, 52–6, 67, 71 Journal of Labor Research 36 journal publications, empirical evidence of comparative study 88 ‘Kameralistik’, practical secular knowledge in Prussia 122 Kant, I. 123–4, 124 n4, 126, 151 Kathedersocialists, criticized by employers’ associations 153–4, 161 Katz, H. 21, 61 Katznelson, I. 10, 15–16, 107, 169 Kaufman, B. 2, 4 criticism of U.S. 29 diminishing number of LERA members of behavioural sciences 24–5 employment as interdisciplinary study 13–14 Employment Relations ideology has become too pluralistic and antagonistic 26

Employment Relations in U.S. 12–13 employment research has not adapted 30 on employment scholars in U.S. 21–2 human resource management and 27 LERA/IRAA and 15 observes growth of theory-building 30n policy-oriented field of research devoted to problem solving 11 reintegration of human resource management within employment research 32 writings on Employment Relations 76–7 Keller, B. 17–18 Kelly, J. 23, 26, 29, 118 Kendall, W. 93, 106, 112 Kern, H. 18, 62 Kimmel, J. 11–14, 27, 76, 167 Klönne, A. 98–9, 113 Knesebeck, J. von dem 18, 68, 77 Knights of Labour 109–10, 163–4 knowledge creation, core paradigm of the sociology of knowledge 74 knowledge-producing institutions, universities and 121 knowledge production 8, 80–1 knowledge production systems 34, 91, 140 knowledge society 67 knowledge systems or research patterns, explored using institutional characteristics 39 Kochan, T. 2, 27–8, 31, 60–1 Kuehl, St. 21, 60, 62 Kuhn, T. ‘The Structure of Scientific Revolution’ (1962) 75 Labor History 36 labour economists 14 Labour and Employment Relations Association see LERA Labour law, influential in Germany 18 labour market issues (LM) 41–2, 47, 48–9, 52 labour movement, relation to employment research 93 labour movement histories 93–4, 176–7 labour movements 92, 94, 96 labour movements and the state, Germany 96–8 after the socialist laws 99–101 Labour Party 104–5, 114–15 ‘labour problem’, unrest related to industrialization 10 ‘Labour Process’ school (Chris Smith or Anna Pollert) 16

Index ‘labour process theory’, popular in Britain and the U.S. 40 Labour Representation Committee (1900), renamed the Labour Party (1906) 103, 105 n9 Lasswell, H. 183–4 lean management 60 Legien, Carl (Social Democrat) 97–8, 98 n6, 99–100, 154–5 Lengfeld, H. 60–1 LERA 11, 13–14, 17, 22–4 Lerner, D. 183–4 Levine, D., British preoccupation with properties, rights and utilities of individuals 86 British social science, logical rigour of physics and 132 dialogical approach 181 on Hobbes and social sciences 131 human subject diverges from natural sciences 124 ideational traditions and 85, 85 n4 on Marxism 126 observations on sociology 174 research differences for sociology 1, 37, 39 social science shaped by national cultures and philosophies 120 sociology on theoretical traditions during nineteenth century 82 Lewin, D. 61, 68 Liberalism in Britain, unions identified with 103 Liberal Party 103–4, 114 Lipset, S. M. 61, 107, 111 Lloyd, Henry D. 163, 165 Locke, R. 67, 148 Lösche, P. 95, 98, 100, 113 LSE 21, 27, 35, 130 Luhmann, N. systems theory in Germany 40, 94 Luxemburg, Rosa 98 McCarthy, W. 15, 64 Mach, ‘anti-metaphysical empiricist philosophy of science’ 138 McKibbin, classic study of the Labour Party (1974) 106 macro/sector/firm/micro level, all countries and journals 58 McWilliams, W. C. 110, 163 Managerialists 12–13 ‘Manchester liberalism, scholars of Vormärz were opponents of economic 150, 153 Manchester Statistical Society 130

217

Manicas, P. 77, 86, 130, 137–8, 149 Mannheim, K. 8, 74 Mann, T. The Industrial Syndicate (1910) 158 marginalization of institutionalists 14 Marks, A. 67, 93, 104 n9, 111–12, 113 n12, 118 ‘labourism’ 106 legality of unions and 116–17 Marsden, R. 21, 26, 28 Marx and Engels, criticized Owen’s paternalistic anti-democratic ideas 157–8 Marxism 26, 127, 168 Marx, Karl 17, 74, 106 n11, 126, 144, 154, 157 Maurer, A. 1, 19, 21, 60 methodology, classified as empirical descriptive 42 militancy, term unthinkable in Germany or continental European countries 105 Mill, John Stuart 128, 131–2, 156, 156 n4 Mitbestimmung 36 n2 Mitchell, D., Anglophone social sciences more empirically and pragmatically oriented 71 articles and books 36, 38–9, 39n, 66 challenge to on U.S. micro-level data 72 criticizes Employment Relations as being too descriptive 28–9 employment research in U.S. dominated by labour economic paradigms 14 on the Labour Party 105 stronger emphasis on policy research for Employment Relations 183 study comparing U.S. employment journals 41–2 U.S. research largely applied research with emphasis on mid-range hypotheses 59–61 MNCs ( multinational corporations) 41 modern state, depersonalization of power, subject of rights and duties 147 modern university, emergence a phenomenon of late nineteenth century 121 Mommsen, W. 93, 112, 118 Morrill, Justin, on land-grant colleges 133–4 Moses, J. A. 98, 98n Müller, A. 18, 122, 151 Müller-Jentsch, W. 17, 19–20, 60–1 Sociology of Employment Relations 20 multidisciplinary employment research, Germany and 20

218

Index

Naphtali, Fritz (union theorist), ‘evolutionary democratization of factory, firm and economy’ 155 national affiliation of authors 40–1, 43 British 44 German 44–5 U.S. 85 per cent of articles published by U.S. authors 43 national employment actors, relationship to the state in shaping research outcomes 92 nationalization, Fabians and Labour Party in the 1930s 159 national labour movements, emergence during nineteenth century 93 National progressive Union, U.S. miners and 113 n12 Nazi regime in German, interrupted independent scholarly work 81 Nelken, D. 34, 82 New Deal system of collective labour relations 14, 110 ‘new political economy’, ascendancy of laissez-faire perspective within economics 11 ‘New unionism’ in Britain 102–3 comparison with Knights of Labour in U.S. 110 New Zealand 1n, 21, 40 Nietzsche and Heidegger, originators of postmodernism 40 nineteenth century, century of democratization 145 ideology of individualism and free enterprise in U.S. 161–2 intellectuals first studied aspects of work and employment 81, 89 scientific knowledge institutions and social science traditions 90

Parsons, T. conception of systems theory in U.S. 40, 66, 138 Pateman, C. 146 n3, 178 path dependencies of employment research 78–80 comparative historical analysis 80–3 state traditions 83–7 Perlman, S. 98, 113 ‘Personnel’ (publication of IRAA) 11 Phillips, G. 101–4, 106 n11, 107 philosophy of science, determinants and processes of knowledge production 74 Piore, Michael 2, 2 n5, 171 Platt, J. 42, 63, 73 policy-oriented research, public-policy approach 183 political economic dynamics of modern employment, methodological and normative sophistication 185 political and economic embeddedness of national labour movements 94–6 ‘political economy’ 94, 94 n1 political economy, discourse on 144, 144 n1 Pollard, S. 103, 156 Positivism 91, 123, 127, 131–3 postmodernism or discourse theory, developed by French scholars 40 Princeton (1922), Employment Research 11 private entrepreneurship and capitalist revolution, perceived as motor of progress 169 property rights, in U.S. 179 Provis, C. 60, 62 Prussia 97, 122, 127 Prussian-German state, interventionist industrial policies 112 public policy, U.S. and Britain 11

Olson, R. 6, 61 outlined cross-national variations of employment paradigms, empirical support 67 ‘ouvrierism, British labour movement as 106, 115 Owen, Robert 150, 156–7 ‘An address to the Working Classes’ 157 Oxbridge, PPE degree of politics, philosophy and economics 130 Oxford and Cambridge, self-regulating communities 127, 129 ‘Oxford School of Industrial Relations’ 15, 59, 66

qualitative vs. quantitative methodology, all countries and journals 54–5 quality circles 41 RAE panel (government-led research assessment of Universities), employment scholars in Britain 27 Ramsay, H. 68, 145 rational choice theorists 78 n2 ‘rationalization’, reorganization of work 67, 67 n12 ‘Rechtsstaat’ (legal state), governed by law of reason in accordance of collective will 151

Index reformists, adopted liberal values and progressive ideas of capitalist reform 12 reform-oriented HR, marginalized in management profession 12 research, ‘cultural embeddedness’ of 6, 6 n7 research patterns 81–2, 89, 176 research theories, aim of research and paradigms 59 purpose of research 62–4 research paradigms 64–8 theories 59–62 research theories, aims and paradigms, difficult to analyse 42 research on work and employment, multidisciplinary 2 Ringer, F. 87, 90, 120–4, 126, 128 Rosenberg, Ludwig (leader of DGB 1962–9) 96 Ross, D., absence of Marxist social sciences 16 borders of disciplines that resulted in beginnings of twentieth century 120 characteristics of U.S. social sciences linked to American exceptionalism 76 disciplines in U.S. 136, 143 empiricism and employment research 31 Employment Relations and 9 employment research in U.S. in late seventies 45 increasing links between neoliberal ideology and U.S. social sciences 182 new breed of educational managers 134 U.S. social sciences quantitatively biased 71 view that employment research should resolve policy issues 29 Rothblatt, S. 3, 91, 120, 128–9, 133, 135 SAD 97–9 Schelsky, H. 123–4 Schmidt, A. W. 18, 77, 152 Schmitter, P. C. 34, 59, 60, 71, 90, 174 Schumann, M. 18, 62 ‘science’, personnel management and 13 scientific certainty, may be product of central activities 76 scientific discourses, impact on world they study 89 scientific knowledge creation, national state’s enduring importance 91–2

219

scientific knowledge institutions 6 scientific knowledge production in social sciences, social process embedded in time and space 174 scientific research, influenced by scientific organizations or concepts of knowledge 90 SDAP, merged into German Socialist party (SAD, Sozialististiche Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands) 9 Shaskolsky, L. 1, 77, 137 n5, 138 Shenhav, Y. 12–13, 26, 82, 169 Shepard, J. 68, 71 Shils, E. 89, 121, 134 shoemaker society (1792), Thomas Hardy and 101 Sinzheimer, Hugo (Weimar labour law scholar) 170 Sisson, Keith, BUIRA’s website 6 small/large data-sets 42, 42 n9, 56 all countries 55–6 all journals 56 Smith, Adam 131, 156 Smith, R. 14, 32, 59 Socialist Laws (Bismarck (1878)), interrupted early success of socialist labour movement 98 socially constructed knowledge, questions about 75 n1 social movement unions, civil society outside state spheres 95, 95 n3 social science field, knowledge of its intellectual history 78, 78 n2 social science research, embedded in historically shaped path dependencies 5 social sciences 1, 10 ‘Americanization’ of 137 basic aim of policy-oriented should be fundamental problems of man in society 183 computerization in U.S. 71 continuously reinvented by strategic (academic) actors 6, 76 developed more quickly in U.S. than in Europe 136 engage in analysis of mechanics of capitalism 10 form distinctive patterns 73 intellectual response to ‘social question’ of nineteenth century 88, 172 observation that national intellectual traditions exist 77

220

Index

social sciences (cont.) pressure to internationalize 34 related to state and societal developments 83 social sciences and state traditions 120–1 social science traditions 6, 141–3, 177–8 social scientists 8, 73–4, 82, 86 societal order, depended on assumption of rational conduct on part of individuals 148 sociological studies of knowledge, state of politics for practice of social sciences 84 sociology as academic subject, began at LSE (1907) 130 sociology of knowledge 74–6 Soskice, D. 94, 174–5 Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands see SAD SPD 97, 99–100, 154 specific research topics, all countries 49–50 all journals 49, 51 Spencer, Herbert (Social Darwinism) 131, 162 ‘statelessness’ 140–1, 176 state-orientedness, unions’ desire for economic and social change 96 state traditions 87, 175 Stearns, P. 104, 112 Steinberg, H. J. 98–9 Steinmetz, W. 85 n4, 161 Strauss, G. 2, 2 n4, 14, 23, 36, 71, 89 Streeck, W. 38 n6, 60, 175 student revolts (1968), effect on employment scholars 16 study on work and employment 81, 83 syndicalist ideas, imported from France and the U.S. in nineteenth century 158 systems in a Luhmannian sense, share specific inner logic 34 Taff Vale case 104–5 Taylor, Frederick W. (Principles of Scientific Management) 12 Technical University Berlin, industrial sociology introduced (1928) 17 Tenfelde, K. 100 n7, 112 Teuteberg, H. J. 158–9, 159 n6, 160 Thatcher and the New Right, sceptical empiricism 17 Thelen, K. 80–2, 175 Theory of Labor Negotiations 61

Thompson, E. P. 93, 106 Tomlins, C. L. 111, 116–17, 166 Towers, B. 21, 23 TQM (total quality management) 41–2 Trade union Act (1871), TUC and 114 trade unions, British torn between economic, social and political arena 176 complex mixture of social movements 94 decline in 2, 30, 88 declining importance in U.S. labour market 14 seen as comprising U.S. capitalism 111 worldwide decline 23 traditions of industrial democracy discourse 91 Transformation of American Industrial Relations 61 Trow, M. 127–9, 133 truth, seen as product of its social location 75, 75 n1 Tuchman, A. M. 78, 123 TUC (Trade Union Confederation), established in Britain (1868) 102–4, 114 Tueteberg, H. J. 158–9 unitarist model, U.S. and Britain 65 United Mine Workers of America 117 University of Pennsylvania (Wharton Business School, 1921) 11 university structures during nineteenth century, provide explanation for interdisciplinary projects 142 University of Wisconsin (1920), Employment Relations course 10 U.S., belief in explicit separation of “private” economic and “public” political spheres 164 bourgeois society never had to fight the state for its rights 86 business unionism 112 Cambridge school of mathematically oriented economics (1960s) 3 capitalism created problems for (immigration, urbanization and industrialization) 136–7 declining relevance of unions and collective bargaining since 1980s 70 dominated by labour economists 68, 119 employment programmes disbanded in Chicago, Columbia and Madison 21

Index Employment Relations arose as pragmatic and socially progressive reform movement 11 Employment Relations clashed between labour-focused and management-focused scholars 182 employment research 3, 7, 10, 71–2 employment scholars felt (1960s) their discipline had lost its intellectual bearings 21 focus on ‘private contracts’ 170 ‘government by civil society 84 historians and debates on Sombartian question (1906) 107 human resource issues reaction to numbers of non-union workplaces and 90 human resource/organizational behaviour and industrial relations scholars have little contact 27 influence on German post-war social sciences 77 legally secure labour movement tolerated by employers remained unfulfilled hope 167 Liberalism and Positivism 91 mechanic theories of the state 178 model of professional education 141 ‘new generation of employment scholars, empiricist philosophy of science and 29 new teaching structures and programmes such as departments and interdisciplinary majors 135 Oxford University Press website and sociology publications 38 paradigm as ‘contractual laissez-faire’ 65, 178 publications empirical 53 publications quantitative 71 quasi-private nature of firm limits state’s intervention 171 relatively free of state interference 116 relative statelessness 176 research 60, 71–2 shift from pluralism to unitarism 65 strong interest on human resource policy 90 textbooks titles Collective Bargaining rather than Labour of Employment relations 65 two contradictory views on industrial relations or HR management 24

221

unions developed as part of the economic arena and only accepted in New Deal era 115, 115 n13 unions interpreted as a practical ‘labour problem’ 119 universities, progressive in establishing new fields of employment relations 8 voluntaristic approach to industrial democracy 146 workers not always staunch advocates of non-political business unionism 162 U.S. industrial democracy discourse 161–2, 169 as collective bargaining 165–8 early reformers 162–5 ‘employment at-will’ 164 U.S. journals 172–3, 180 U.S. knowledge institutions, Morrill Act (1862) 133–4 social science methodologies: empiricism and pragmatism 136–9 university structure: departments 134–6 wealthy industrialists supported creation of private institutions 134 U.S. Labour, engaged in party politics and alternative ideas of employment relations 162 U.S. labour movement 93, 107–9 attracted economists 93 post-civil war 109–12 skilled workers united with small manufacturers to oppose bankers, lawyers and land speculators 108 U.S. social sciences 127, 132, 141 U.S. universities 133, 134–5, 177 U.S. universities and modern science, private and public actors driving force in development 141 U.S. workers’ organizations, advocated producers’ interpretation of economic development 108 ‘variety of capitalism’ 94 ‘Verein fuer Socialpolitik’ (1872) 18–19, 153 ‘Vormärz’ (Pre-march) 149–50 ideas of rediscovered by the ‘Kathedersozialisten’ (socialist academies) 153 Voss, K. 108, 110–11, 118 Wagner, P. 1, 8 access of social scientists to policymaking and character of social science 140

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Index

Wagner, P. (cont.) British case of well-entrenched position of landed aristocracy in labour movement 176 ‘constellation approach’ to study of knowledge and research patterns 87, 175 empirical research lacking a theory of action 138 Europe and America shaped by democratization and welfare state 121 German professors resisted segmentation of science into disciplines 125 historical developments of social scientists and state traditions 84 institutionalization of social sciences 80 intellectual traditions sometimes stifled development of social science 85 knowledge production systems and social sciences 34 national intellectual traditions 77 nation-state’s importance for knowledge creation 174 neglect of normative stance in policy-oriented research in twentieth century 183–4 notion of intellectual discourses 89 path dependencies and 76 social sciences and political changes in Continental Europe 83 social sciences seen as mirror of social and political processes 88 societal analysis based on philosophical normative foundations 62 strict classification of disciplines in U.S. and 140 U.S. and social sciences as cognitive instrument 86 variety and persistence of national intellectual profiles 173 Walsh’s report (1915) of ‘U.S. Commission on Industrial Relations’ 167 Warwick university, industrial relations research funding cut (1990s) 21 Webb, Beatrice and Sidney 11, 65, 102, 148, 155 History of Trade Unionism (1920) 15 Industrial Democracy (1897) 15, 155, 160, 166 Weber, Max, an encompassing ‘historical social science’ 125 employment studies 17, 74

liberal, laissez-faire tradition of U.S. politics and its religious tradition 111 linked Protestantism with rise of capitalism 144 sociological research under patronage of the ‘Verein fuer Socialpolitik’ 18 ‘Verstehen’ (understanding) 124, 177 Weimar Republic, co-determination developed during 151 Weir, M. 82, 121, 179 Weiss, M. 18, 81, 183 Whitfield, K. 2, 23, 36, 71 Whitley commission, during WWI 159 Whitman, J. Q. 82, 171 Wilkinson, A. 2, 16, 27–8 Williams, Henry 164–5 Winter, 96, 106 ‘Wirschaftsdemokratie’ 145, 145 n2 Wisconsin School 59, 167 Wittrock, B. 183–4 access of social scientists to policymaking and character of social science 140 British case of well-entrenched landed aristocracy and labour movement 176 ‘constellation approach’ to study of knowledge and research patterns 87, 175 diminishing significance of nation states 91 dominance of state within society 84 empirical theory lacking a theory of action 138 European and American societies shaped by democratization and welfare state 121 intellectual traditions and development of social science 85 knowledge production and social science 34 ‘mass education’ in Britain after WWII 128 nation-state’s importance for knowledge creation 174 patterns 79 policy-driven research 183–4 Prussian higher education 123, 123 n3 social sciences and national intellectual traditions 77 social sciences seen as mirror of social and political process 88

Index social science traditions 89 societal analysis based on philosophical foundations 62 U.S. university system in early twentieth century 122 variety and persistence of national intellectual profiles over time and 173 Wolff, K. H. 77, 138 Wollman, H. 62, 85, 89 Wood, St. 16, 21, 66, 68 Work, Employment and Society (sociological journal) 17, 37, 37 n4 worker cooperatives and joint profit sharing 156

223

workers in U.S., unable to build broad-based labour movement or powerful socialist party 110 Work and Occupations (journal) 37, 37 n4 Workplace industrial Relations Surveys, new empiricism and 17 WSI-Mitteilungen 36 n2 WWI, after personnel management split into ‘reformists’ and ‘managerialists’ 12 Yesnowitz, J. 184–5 Zeitschrift fuer Perdonalforschung 36 n3 Zunftwesen (guild system), new economic order combining old 153