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Neoliberal reform for greater competitiveness: labour market deregulation in J apan and I taly
Author(s) -
Watanabe Hiroaki Richard
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
industrial relations journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.525
H-Index - 3
eISSN - 1468-2338
pISSN - 0019-8692
DOI - 10.1111/irj.12084
Subject(s) - deregulation , economics , market economy , flexibility (engineering) , globalization , capitalism , market share , government (linguistics) , political science , politics , linguistics , philosophy , management , finance , law
According to ‘varieties of capitalism’ ( VoC ) perspective, coordinated market economies ( CMEs ) attain comparative advantages by coordinating industrial relations and maintaining regulation to a greater extent than liberal market economies and mixed market economies ( MMEs ). Yet, J apan, a typical CME in the VoC literature, introduced greater labour market flexibility than I taly, an MME . This article analyses why this is the case and claims that the institutional complementarities that had functioned well previously in J apan have been unraveling since the early 1990s and neoliberal deregulation of the labour market ensued. This comparative study of J apan and I taly shows that economic stagnation and the globalisation of finance and production exerted neoliberal pressures on the state and employers to increase competitiveness by introducing market‐oriented policies and business strategies. However, the power resources of labour unions and the partisan composition of the government affected the characteristics of neoliberal changes in labour market policy.