Acta Politica, 2004, 39, (31–58) r 2004 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd 0001-6810/04 $25.00 www.palgrave-journals.com/ap
Theory of ‘Soft’ Policy Implementation in Multilevel Systems with an Application to Social Partnership in the Netherlands Rene´ Torenvlieda and Agnes Akkermanb a
Department of Sociology and the Interuniversity Center for Social Science Theory and Methodology (ICS), Utrecht University, Netherlands. E-mail:
[email protected] b Department of Public Administration, University of Nijmegen, Netherlands
This paper develops a theory of policy implementation in a specific category of multilevel policy-making systems. In state centric policy systems, regulatory agencies can drift away from ‘hard’ decisions. In multilevel systems, relatively autonomous levels of decision-making sometimes implement voluntary, nonbinding recommendations and guidelines. In this paper, we adapt the ‘state of the art model’ of policy implementation in order to analyse the implementation of ‘soft’ policies in these multilevel systems. We propose a new dependent variable of policy implementation: cross-level policy coherence. To explain cross-level policy coherence, a ratification hypothesis is derived from the theory of ‘two-level games’, while two hypotheses regarding agenda coordination and outcome coordination are derived from the concept of collective support for policies. We apply the adapted model to the implementation of the 1997 national Dutch social pact ‘Agenda 2002’ in the sectoral collective bargaining agreement in the metal industry in 1998. The empirical evidence rejects the ratification hypothesis and corroborates the two coordination hypotheses, suggesting that the implementation of ‘soft’, nonbinding policies can be coordinated across autonomous levels. Acta Politica (2004) 39, 31–58. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ap.5500046 Keywords: policy implementation; multilevel governance; soft policy; collective bargaining
Introduction Processes of policy implementation are highly relevant to political scientists.1 The implementation of public policies determines whether elected officials deliver the policies they promised to their citizens. Policy implementation is the domain of the executive branch of government but has an important impact on the political survival of elected officials. If the executive drifts away from the democratic decisions of elected officials, this could generate political instability, and ultimately harm democracy.
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Policy implementation can be defined as the transformation of a collective decision in the policy performance(s) of implementation agencies (Torenvlied, 2000). The analysis of policy implementation aims at explaining the ‘drift’ from a public policy (McCubbins et al., 1989; Torenvlied and Thomson, 2003). ‘Policy drift’ refers to the difference between the policy intent of decisionmakers and the actual performance of implementation agencies. Today, the conditions under which policy drift and compliance occur, are well documented. Indeed, a ‘standard model’ has been developed to explain the performance of the executive branch of government. This ‘standard model’ identifies three sets of variables that explain policy drift: first, characteristics of the decision-making process; second, attributes of implementation agencies and the tasks they need to perform; and third, administrative procedures for monitoring, controlling, and sanctioning the implementation agencies. The ‘standard’ model originally was developed to understand better implementation in state-centric policy making systems, including federal and non-federal, presidential and cabinet systems. Consequently, the standard model point of departure is the familiar division between three branches of government in ‘state-centric’ policy systems: lawmakers, the executive, and the judiciary. Recently, however, a different type of policy-making system has received a lot of attention. This is a specific class of multilevel policy making systems, empirically characterized by the existence of relatively autonomous layers of decision-making (Hooghe and Marks, 2003) that often produce nonbinding ‘soft policies’, such as recommendations, information campaigns, and action plans rather than collectively binding decisions. The challenge to implementation theory is to adapt the ‘state-of-the-art model’ in order to be able to analyse implementation in these multilevel policymaking systems. In this contribution, we take up that challenge in four steps. The following section juxtaposes the central assumptions underlying the ‘standard model’ to three key features of ‘soft’ policy-making in multilevel systems. We argue that two adaptations of the ‘standard model’ are required in order to improve our understanding of implementation in multilevel policymaking systems. The first involves the reformulation of the dependent variable of the implementation model (‘compliance’ or ‘policy drift’) in terms of crosslevel policy coherence. Second, we need a reformulation of the causal mechanisms behind implementation in order to be able to incorporate the relative autonomy of multiple layers of collective decision-making. Next, a theoretical elaboration of these two adaptations, followed by the formulation of a number of hypotheses, is offered. Subsequently, the implementation of the national 1997 Dutch social pact ‘Agenda 2002’ in the sectoral 1998 collective bargaining agreement for the metal industry is described as an exemplifying case of soft policy implementation in a multilevel policy-making system. The section thereafter provides a first, preliminary test of the hypotheses for this Acta Politica 2004 39
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case. The final section discusses the results and puts them in a broader perspective.
The Standard Model in a New Policy Context After the resurgence of the study of policy implementation in the 1970s and 1980s, scholars in political economy developed a class of relatively parsimonious implementation models. From ‘neo-classical models’ that predicted an ever-expanding bureaucracy, these models developed into a series of more realistic ‘neo-institutional’ models, capable of explaining variation in the level of agency compliance with substantive political decisions (for an overview, see Moe, 1997; Balla, 1999; Torenvlied, 2000).
Standard model of policy implementation Although many different approaches to the problem of policy implementation exist, the core of all implementation models is a postulated information asymmetry between collective decision-makers and implementers. Theoretically, collective decision-makers never have available the means to monitor fully and control the performances of implementers. Nevertheless, empirically we observe that on the whole implementers comply with collective decisions. In practice, policies are not fully drifting. For this reason, ‘state-of-the-art’ models of policy implementation concentrate on the ‘paradox of compliance’ — the question why politicians who are not fully informed about the behaviour of implementation agencies, nevertheless, succeed in obtaining compliant policy performances. Five variables and causal mechanisms explain the level of policy drift (Weingast, 1984; McCubbins et al., 1989; Balla, 1999; Torenvlied, 2000). In the first place, implementation agencies may have an incentive to deviate from the outcomes of collective decision-making. They do so for varying reasons: for example, budget maximization, the avoidance of unattainable policy goals, or encapsulation by interest groups (Downs, 1967). In the second place, all models are based on some variant of principal-agent theory: the relation between collective decision-makers and agencies is hierarchical, and characterized by information asymmetry. As decision-makers are uncertain about an agency’s performance, and the agency is uncertain about proper rewards and sanctions attached to his (deviant) behaviour, agencies will not automatically comply with each political decision. Therefore, implementation agencies are restricted by administrative procedures for political control. These procedures enable politicians to efficiently monitor, control, and sanction deviant behaviour of implementation agencies (McCubbins et al., 1989). A third variable, the level of Acta Politica 2004 39
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consensus among decision-makers, influences the effectiveness of these administrative procedures (Ferejohn and Weingast, 1992). Administrative procedures positively affect a fourth explanatory variable: the room for manoeuvre. The room for manoeuvre of an implementation agency is a combination of: (a) the capacity of decision-makers to monitor its behaviour and (b) the application of appropriate sanctions if the agency would deviate. The room for manoeuvre depends upon organizational characteristics of the implementation agency and task-specific characteristics. The fifth variable affecting policy deviations is the level of salience the implementation agency attaches to the policy to be implemented. In the model, an agency is willing to take the risk of being sanctioned for an observed deviation, if it attaches a high level of salience to the political decision (Torenvlied, 1996). Basic assumptions of implementation models Implementation models have two points of departure. The first is deductive modelling. Models are parsimonious, and contain explicit mechanisms from which testable hypotheses are derived.2 The second point of departure is the context of ‘state-centric’ systems. These are characterized by the institutional separation of powers between the legislative, the executive, and the judiciary. In such systems, we find well-defined regulatory agencies, institutionally embedded in an elaborated system of administrative procedures for political control. Both points of departure require strong assumptions about the nature of the implementation process. We distinguish between three ranges of assumptions: (1) those defining the ‘policy space’, (2) those defining actors, goals and behavioural options, and (3) those defining the structure of policy implementation. The first range of assumptions concerns the policy issues at stake. These assumptions follow from the core of the ‘spatial theory of voting’ (Enelow and Hinich, 1990). First of all, each policy issue is assumed to correspond to a one, or multi-dimensional policy scale, which represents a range of possible outcomes (policy alternatives) in some meaningful order. The distance between policy alternatives on the scale indicates differences in their substance. Second, crucial to most implementation models is the identical policy space assumption: policy issues are assumed to be equivalent in both decision-making and implementation phases. A function is assumed to exist that perfectly maps the policy alternatives of decision-making to the policy alternatives of implementation. Because of the identical policy space assumption, direct and substantive comparisons can be made between collective decision-making and policy implementation. The second range of assumptions concerns the actors involved: the goals and behavioural options of decision-makers and implementation agencies. These Acta Politica 2004 39
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assumptions follow from the spatial theory of voting, as well as the statecentric notion of policy-making. First, unitary actors rationally strive to realize the substantive policy alternative they prefer most: their policy position. The extent to which the realization of a policy position contributes to the actors’ organizational goals translates into the salience they attach to different policy issues. Actors are fully informed about policy issues, alternatives, positions, salience, and outcomes of collective decision-making. Second, decision-makers and implementation agencies have single-peaked preference-loss functions, defined over the policy scale, monotonically increasing with increasing distance from the policy position. Additionally, implementation agencies have single peaked reputation-loss functions monotonically increasing with increasing distance from the outcome of collective decision-making: the political decision. Third, decision-makers have the following behavioural option: they are involved in influencing, apply coercion or political exchange in order to change the (voting) position of other decision makers more closely towards their own position. Their issue salience determines the level of effort a negotiator will put in this process. The explanatory variable is (in)formal bargaining power. Subsequently, decision-makers vote in order to arrive at a political decision, explained by the formal voting power.3 Theoretically, lobbying activities of implementation agencies could result in a political decision that reflects the opinions of implementation agencies. However, implementation models do not focus on these lobbying processes. Fourth, implementation agencies have the behavioural option to comply with or deviate from the political decision. If the policy position of an implementation agency differs from the political decision, the agency has an incentive to deviate from the outcome. The agency applies its discretion to realize a policy performance, which is as close to their policy position as possible — given their restrictions. Together with the incentive for deviation, agency discretion determines the amount of deviation. The third range of assumptions concerns the structure of the implementation process, and the interaction mechanisms between decision-makers and implementation agencies. These assumptions all follow from the state-centric notion of the policy-making process. First, all models, implicitly or explicitly, assume the existence of an implementation structure, which defines the principal–agent relation between decision-makers and agencies. Second, the outcome of collective decision-making is binding for all actors involved in implementation. This restriction is absent in collective decision-making. Since all actors are assumed to have full information about the outcome of collective decision-making, any policy deviation is a voluntary defection. Many of the above assumptions reflect the traditional ‘state-centric’ policy making system. Below, we describe the features of yet another type of policymaking system — one that has increasingly received attention over the last Acta Politica 2004 39
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decade. For a specific class of multilevel policy-making systems, the empirical features so radically differ from the traditional ‘state-centric’ model, that we need to reconsider the standard implementation model to understand policy implementation in these systems better. Multilevel policy-making systems Research in multilevel governance is concerned with the empirical trend of an increasing fragmentation of collective decision-making authority along functional and territorial boundaries. The tradition has its roots in the study of European Union policy-making, where multilevel governance is defined as ‘a system of continuous negotiation among nested governments at several territorial tiers — supranational, national, regional and local’ (cf. He´ritier, 2003). Many authors point at the complexity and uniqueness of European multilevel policy-making — characterized by a combination of supranational and intergovernmental interactions across different levels of decision-making — as compared with federal policy-making systems, such as in the United States (Marks et al., 1995; Scharpf, 1999). Other scholars apply the notion of multilevel governance to phenomena much more general than European policy-making and include a variety of international and federal systems. For example, Hooghe and Marks (2003, 234) contend that the trend of fragmentation and multilevel governance is also reported in many other fields of political study, including international relations, federalism, local government, and in studies of polycentric public policy-making. Owing to the supposed complexity and uniqueness of multilevel policymaking, research into these systems is very rich and much differentiated. Nevertheless, one could somewhat boldly argue that three distinct features distinguish multilevel systems from more traditional ‘state-centric’ systems. The first feature is the existence of a system of nested cascades, or multiple layers of collective decision-making. The multilevel design enhances flexibility in collective decision-making because decision-making takes place at the appropriate level, where social problems occur. However, the design could also produce a lack of coherence between policies at different levels. This is a problem when the outcomes of decision-making at one level produce spillover effects to other levels. Hooghe and Marks (2003, 239–240) distinguish between two different types of multilevel policy-making systems. The first type is rooted in a communal, often territorial identity. It displays the more rigid characteristics of federalism with a pyramidal structure (non-intersecting memberships, cascading jurisdictional scale, general-purpose jurisdictions, and systemwide hierarchical design). The second type is rooted in a functional identity, which is problem or market related. It displays a more flexible multilevel structure (functional specificity and a problem-oriented focus on a Acta Politica 2004 39
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specific policy). The second type is most different from the traditional ‘statecentric’ system of policy-making, because in this type there is no hierarchical relationship between the levels of collective decision-making. For example, memberships of decision-makers at different levels are sometimes overlapping, (representatives of) organizations meet again at the different levels. This type of multilevel policy-making system concerns us here in the present paper. The second feature of multilevel governance is the relative autonomy of the different levels of collective decision-making. Collective decision-making at one level does not necessarily restrict collective decision-making at another level. For example, different administrative bodies in regional areas often operate autonomously from each other and from the traditional counties or (national) states. This feature clearly distinguishes multilevel policy-making from the more ‘traditional’ state-centric system with its top-down framework of regulatory decision-making. A third feature, increasingly observed in multilevel policy-making systems of the second type, is the presence of ‘soft’ policy instruments: non-binding policy recommendations, guidelines, informational devices, or voluntary agreements. Despite the autonomy of the different levels of decision-making, non-binding soft policies are directed from one level towards another level in the system. The emergence of soft policy instruments could be explained from increasing needs for coordination — for example when ‘policies of one jurisdiction have spillovers (y) for other jurisdictions’ (Hooghe and Marks, 2003, 239). In multilevel policy-making, the costs of coordination are high because of the large number of actors involved and interactions between them (Scharpf, 1997). For this reason, soft instruments may be an efficient means to coordinate policies across different levels. The literature on binding decisions is overwhelming compared with literature on soft policies. Nevertheless, recently an increasing number of examples are reported of ‘soft’ policy instruments to coordinate policies across different autonomous levels of decision-making. A major example is European Union policy-making. In the European Union, we find at one extreme treaty-based, legally binding agreements that carry the threat of sanction, such as directives and regulations. The effect of using these hard policy instruments in European policy-making is to constrain effectively the choices available to policy makers at the implementation phase in member states and at the regional level. At the other end of the continuum, we increasingly observe the use of ‘soft’ instruments, associated with the ‘open method of coordination’ in the European Union (European Commission, 2000a; Ahonen, 2001). This method refers to a variety of instruments and procedures that cannot be enforced in a legal sense and do not carry the threat of sanction. We find these instruments in a variety of EU policy domains: the European Employment Strategy formulates ‘Broad Economic Policy Guidelines’, EU environmental policy Acta Politica 2004 39
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stimulates the use of voluntary agreements between governments and industries and the use of eco-labels (Jordan et al., 2003). EU health-care policy emphasizes cooperative exchange of information and examples of ‘best practice’. In other policy domains, benchmarks are set that stretch from unambiguous to vague. For example, EU research and development policy calls for member states to spend at least three percent of their gross domestic product on R&D activities (De la Porte et al., 2001; De la Porte and Pochet, 2002), while EU internet policy requires member states only to describe their national policies (European Commission, 2000b). Other empirical examples of multilevel policy-making systems that rely upon ‘soft’ policy instruments can be found in international relations and international business. For example, global industries encourage multinational enterprises to formulate policies on workers protection and environmental protection. Broad recommendations and guidelines in that area are reflected in corporate decisions (Haufler, 2001). Another example is the World Bank’s anti-corruption programme, which relies upon ‘core courses’ (informational devices) to train representatives from developing countries to advance a ‘National Action Plan’ for anti-corruption policy in their home country (http:// www.worldbank.org/gac; Klein Haarhuis and Leeuw, 2002). A third example, which will be further elaborated in this paper, concerns the determination of labour conditions in multilevel ‘social partnership’. In the Netherlands, labour conditions are the joint responsibility of employers and employees, while the government creates conditions under which ‘social partnership’ between the two is viable. Labour policies are formulated at two levels. In the central Labour Foundation (Stichting van de Arbeid), soft recommendations are formulated that are aimed towards government, trade unions, employer organizations, and enterprises. The second level is a multitude of decentralized collective bargaining platforms (in industries and enterprises) that produce ‘hard’ collective bargaining agreements. On both levels, representatives from employers and employees meet. Although the two levels are nested by inter-level membership of organizations, the levels operate autonomously: policy recommendations from the Labour Foundation are not binding. The puzzle for implementation theory The sets of assumptions concerning the actors involved, and the structure of the implementation process in the standard model of policy implementation heavily draw from the contextual point of departure of the standard model: the ‘statecentric’ system of policy-making, in which a legislature politically controls regulatory agencies. Since the phenomenon of soft policies in multilevel systems differs so much from ‘state-centric’ policy-making with regulatory Acta Politica 2004 39
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agencies, we need to reconsider the contextual point of departure of the standard model and the corresponding sets of assumptions. The true puzzle for implementation theory is to maintain a deductive modelling approach, and nevertheless adapt assumptions of the standard model to fit the three features of multilevel policy-making. In the first place, the assumption that both decision-outcomes and implementation-performances can be represented in one policy space is at odds with the autonomy of the different levels of collective decision-making. Collective decisions at one level may entail different substantive issue dimensions, may contain different alternatives, and may have different outcomes than collective decisions at another level. If that is the case, the question becomes how to remain able to compare the outcomes of decision-making with the outcomes of implementation? In the second place, the relative autonomy of the different levels of collective decision-making suggests the existence of a radically different coordination arrangement than the implementation structure in the standard model — with its hierarchical principal–agent relations. How could agencies be forced to comply with, or deviate from, a non-binding recommendation, a guideline about the exchange of information and best practices, or a suggestion to enter voluntary agreements? There simply exist no administrative procedures for the exercise of political control in multilevel policy-making systems. In the third place, we saw that the outcome of implementation is not a performance by a single organization, but instead the result of collective decision-making at a different level.
Explaining Policy Coherence in Multilevel Systems In this section, we present a general theory of ‘soft’ policy implementation in multilevel policy-making systems. We first provide a reformulation of the dependent variable of the implementation model. Subsequently, we modify the causal implementation mechanisms in the model.
Cross-level policy coherence in agendas and outcomes The dependent variable of the standard model is ‘level of policy drift’. It is defined as the distance on the policy scale between the outcome of collective decision-making and the performance of an implementation agency. Above, we argued that: (a) the convenient assumption of identical policy space; (b) and the definition of policy drift must be abandoned; (c) the outcome of implementation is not an agency performance but a collective decision at another level. We need a new dependent variable that incorporates those three features of multilevel policy-making. Acta Politica 2004 39
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We propose cross-level policy coherence as a new dependent variable. This variable is defined as the extent to which a soft policy at one level (say, level-I) is reflected by one or more collective decisions at another level (say, level-II). The term policy coherence does not refer to compliance with a prescribed outcome. The substantive content of a soft policy at level-I is mapped to collective decisions at level-II through interpretation rather than distance in a policy space. For this mapping, we must rely on expert judgements and document analysis to connect collective decisions at level-II with specific soft policies at level-I. To assess cross-level policy coherence, we should take into account both agenda setting and collective decision-making at level-II. The distinction is important because the agenda and the outcomes of collective decision-making at level-II are determined by different mechanisms. Policy coherence in the level-II agenda exists if we can connect (elaborated) agenda proposals to a level-I soft policy. Policy coherence in the level-II outcomes of collective decision-making exist if these outcomes reflect a level-I soft policy. During collective decision-making at level-II, agenda proposals may disappear in the negotiations, reducing coherence. Modification of the standard model In this section, we present some preliminary outlines of a modified model of implementation. We must adapt some important assumptions. The assumption about the behavioural options of implementers must be changed from the choice to comply or drift, into producing collective decisions that reflect level-I policies. The explanatory theory has to be changed from assuming a principal– agent model into a model of multilevel collective decision-making. The assumption about the enforcement of binding collective decisions has to be changed from monitoring and control into coordination mechanisms among autonomous levels of collective decision-making. An important contribution is the theory of ‘two-level games’ (Putnam, 1988). The theory builds on theories of interdependent decision-making in the international context (Schelling, 1960) and collective bargaining (Walton and McKersie, 1965) and specifies the mechanisms that produce policy coherence across different autonomous levels of collective decision-making. Putnam (1988) tries to explain the viability and outcomes of international agreements from the interaction between two interdependent processes: international diplomacy (level-I) and domestic ratification (level-II). Putnam takes the viability of an international agreement as the dependent variable. Instead, we take the existence of an agreement for granted. From an implementation perspective, we explore how the horizontal interactions within the group of negotiators, and the vertical interactions between negotiators and their Acta Politica 2004 39
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constituency, have an interdependent effect on policy coherence. While the horizontal interactions are characterized by collective decision-making, the vertical interactions reflect policy implementation.
Logic of ratification Domestic ratification of international treaties is an example of multilevel policy-making. It displays two important features of such systems. First, ratification of a treaty is not a performance by an agency, but a collective decision made at another level in a two-level system with nested cascades of collective decision-making. Second, the levels of diplomacy and domestic ratification are autonomous because domestic constituencies need not necessarily ratify an international treaty, and a non-ratified treaty is nonbinding. The central actor in the theory of ‘two-level games’ is the level-I negotiator, who bargains with other level-I negotiators. The agreement at level-I (as well as its feasibility and attainability) depends upon the relative bargaining strength, the distribution of policy positions of the level-I negotiators, as well as the institutional voting rules.4 The relative bargaining strength and distribution of policy positions of level-I negotiators furthermore depends upon the policy positions of the level-II constituencies of the negotiators, who must ratify the agreement at level-I. The theory of ‘two-level games’ explains cross-level policy coherence through the mechanism of strategic anticipation to the ‘logic of ratification’. Negotiators play at two tables: the level-I table, and the level-II table. Horizontal decision-making processes determine the level-I game with other negotiators. Vertical coordination processes determine the level-II game with the constituency. Dependent upon the interaction between these policies, agreements succeed or fail. Some agreements fail because they will never survive the ratification stage. This happens if the win-set of policy positions of different constituencies is empty. Consequently, the theory of ‘two-level games’ predicts full policy coherence between a level-I agreement and the agenda of level-II collective decision-making. The reason is that level-I negotiations take place in the shadow of subsequent ratification. Negotiators strategically anticipate on the chances of ratification and a projected rejection must be credible in order to put pressure on the negotiations. In the theory of ‘two-level games’, there simply would be no agreement to sign if this agreement is likely to be rejected later. This leads to the ratification hypothesis: Ratification hypothesis: There is full cross-level policy coherence between the level-I agreements and the level-II agenda and the outcomes of level-II collective decision-making. Acta Politica 2004 39
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A logic of multilevel coordination Two important differences between the domestic ratification of international treaties and the features of multilevel policy-making systems should be noted. The first difference is that ratification automatically implies agenda setting at level-II, while in multilevel policy systems actors at level-II are free to set their own agenda: no ‘ratification structure’ is specified. Level-II representatives need not even consider level-I agreements, recommendations, or communications. The second difference regards collective decision-making at level-II. The logic of ratification implies that constituencies of each negotiator separately decide about the level-I agreement. However, in multilevel policy-making systems, the representatives of level-I negotiators often collectively meet in joint decision-making at other levels. From the autonomy in agenda setting and the reiteration of collective decision-making at different levels, it follows that in multilevel policy-making systems there would be no strict ‘logic of ratification.’ Strategic anticipation to collective decision-making at the different levels will not warrant policy coherence, and active coordination would be required. For the simple model of a two-level game, we need to make assumptions about the ability of level-I negotiators and their level-II representatives, first, to coordinate the agenda at level-II, and, second, to affect collective decision-making at level-II. The theoretical question here is how much pressure level-I negotiators and their representatives can put on level-II agenda setting and decision-making, given the autonomy of the levels and the ‘soft’, non-binding character of the level-I agreements. We assume that the answer to this question, that is, the source of this pressure, lies in the collective support that a level-I agreement receives from its negotiators. Level-I agreements vary in the extent to which powerful and salient negotiators at level-I oppose the agreement. An agreement will be feasible when supporters outweigh opponents, or when supporters and opponents are in balance. Not all agreements will be fully supported by all negotiators and it is likely that those agreements, which receive strong support, best serve the common interest of negotiators at level-I. Agreements with weak collective support (likely to benefit specific negotiators and their representatives) will be supported only by their initiators. Now, how does collective support for agreements at level-I affect the level-II the agenda and outcomes of collective decision-making? The multilevel nature of policy-making requires that level-I negotiators and their level-II representatives must base their vertical pressure and coordination upon the anticipation of joint collective decision-making at level-II. Agreements, recommendations, or communications are not ratified by a single constituency, but need to be renegotiated. With respect to level-II agenda setting, it is rational for level-I Acta Politica 2004 39
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negotiators and their level-II representatives to base this agenda upon strong collective support at level-I. The reason is that agreements with weak collective support would require difficult renegotiations at high costs at level-II. Weakly supported agreements would be put on the agenda both by their proponents (who strive for coherent implementation) and adversaries (who seek to renegotiate the agreement). As the relative bargaining power of representatives varies on level-II, it is uncertain to what extent the weakly supported agreement will be reflected in all level-II outcomes. In other words, cross-level policy coherence in the agenda is not guaranteed for agreements with weak collective support. For level-I agreements with strong collective support, the prospects for cross-level policy coherence in the agenda are far better than for agreements with weak support. Unlike the case of the weakly supported agreements, it is rational for only the representatives of supportive negotiators to put the agreement on the level-II agenda. We now formulate the following two hypotheses: Agenda coordination hypotheses: (1) Representatives of the level-I negotiator who initiated an agreement will put the agreements on the level-II agenda; (2) Cross-level policy coherence in the level-II agenda is positively associated with collective support for the level-I recommendation. It makes little sense to put further pressure on level-II and coordinate the process and outcomes of collective decision-making at this level, as, in the context of multilevel policy-making, level-II decision-making is an autonomous process. Consequently, we do not expect level-I negotiators to affect the outcomes of level-II collective decision-making. In absence of ‘vertical’ coordination pressures, outcomes at level-II can only be explained by characteristics of the ‘horizontal’ collective decision-making process. We can apply existing collective decision-making models (Thomson et al., 2003) to explain the level-II outcomes (and consequently cross-level policy coherence in outcomes) from distributions of policy positions, issue salience, and relative bargaining power. We formulate the following hypotheses: Outcome coordination hypotheses: (1) Cross-level policy coherence in the level-II outcomes is not associated with collective support for the level-I recommendation. (2) Cross-level policy coherence in the level-II outcomes is explained by a weighted5 distribution of policy positions of the level-II representatives involved in collective decision-making.
Application to Dutch Social Partnership In this section, we apply our theory to Dutch social partnership, and test the hypotheses on the collective bargaining in the Dutch metal industry in 1998 that took place in the context of the 1997 social pact ‘Agenda 2002’ formulated Acta Politica 2004 39
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by the Dutch Labour Foundation. The Dutch Labour Foundation is a bargaining platform of Dutch peak organizations of employers and trade union confederations. In the last few decades, the Dutch Labour Foundation produced a limited number of ‘social pacts’ that were aimed at collective bargaining in industries and enterprises — with the 1982 ‘Wassenaar Agreement’ as the most famous one. These pacts contain sets of general, non-binding recommendations for collective bargaining in industries and enterprises. Since the Wassenaar Agreement, the Labour Foundation produced three other social pacts ‘Een nieuwe koers’ (1993), ‘Agenda 2002’ (1997), and ‘Er is meer nodig’ (2001).6 Additional to these social pacts, the Labour Foundation produces many recommendations for specific topics on a yearly basis. The metal industry comprises more than 1,200 medium-sized and large companies in the metal, electronics and electrotechnical industry. The sectoral bargaining agreement covers 197,000 employees. Smaller companies in the same industry are covered by a different agreement, that of the ‘metallurgical industry,’ which is not taken into account in the present article (cf. Schilstra, 1998). The combination of central (level-I) social pacts with industrywide, or enterprise-wide (level-II) collective bargaining is an exemplifying case of a multilevel policy-making system in which ‘soft policies’ are formulated. In the earlier section, we argued that social partnership in the Netherlands displays all three main features of such a system. First, at least7 two nested levels of collective decision-making along functional lines exist: a central level and an industry/enterprise level. Second, these two levels operate autonomously: representatives from the level-I negotiators in the Labour Foundation bargain at level-II in industries and enterprises. Third, the Labour Foundation produces ‘soft’, non-binding recommendations rather than binding decisions. A schematic overview of implementation in the Dutch multilevel system of social partnership is presented in Figure 1.8 The figure displays the two types of policy coherence we distinguish: on the one hand the appearance of level-I recommendations from the Labour Foundation at the level-II agenda of collective bargaining; on the other hand, reflection of level-I recommendations in the level-II outcomes of collective bargaining. The implementation of social pacts of the Dutch Labour Foundation is well suited to test our hypotheses regarding soft policy implementation. Conflicts of interest do not exist between labour and capital exclusively, but also within peak organizations of employers and within trade union confederations. For example, trade unions in one industry may demand higher wages than trade unions in another industry, or than the trade union confederation agreed upon in the social pact. Collective bargaining agreements in one industry or enterprise can have spillover effects on other industries. This makes coordination across industries and sectors far from trivial. Because of possible spillover effects, level-I negotiators — that is, the peak organizations involved Acta Politica 2004 39
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Level I Labour Foundation: Negotiations
Central policy recommendation
Level II Agenda setting
On the agenda
Not onthe agenda
Level II Collective bargaining
Coherence in outcomes
No coherence in outcomes
No coherence in agenda
Figure 1 Schematic overview of implementation of central-level soft policy recommendations in industry and enterprise level collective bargaining agreements.
in the Labour Foundation — have important incentives to coordinate their representatives in the industries and enterprises. However, formal procedures for monitoring and control are absent in the multilevel system of social partnership. Moreover, despite the non-binding ‘soft’ policy recommendations of the Labour Foundation, collective bargaining agreements appear to display varying extents of policy coherence at the level of industries and enterprises. Selection of social pact and collective bargaining agreement Further selections were prompted by methodological considerations. From the three social pacts after the ‘Wassenaar Agreement’ we selected ‘Agenda 2002’ (Labour Foundation, 1997) for further analysis because it was the social pact that was recent, yet in force long enough to measure possible effects. Analysing the most recent social pact has the additional advantage of reducing potential Acta Politica 2004 39
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problems of retrospective bias in the data obtained from key informant interviews (Bernard et al., 1984; Torenvlied, 2000). We selected recommendations that were new in the social pact as well as recommendations that resurfaced from previous negotiations. We need to control for the recurrence of recommendations, because previous coordination efforts make it more likely that such recommendations obtain policy coherence. For example, recommendations about ‘employability’ were first introduced in ‘Agenda 2002’. These recommendations relate to training and human development during one’s working career, and were formulated by negotiators in the Labour Foundation in order to obtain leverage in negotiations about wage moderation. Other recommendations recur in all social pacts, with recommendations on wage moderation as a prominent example. We compared the selected recommendations from the 1997 social pact ‘Agenda 2002’ with one collective bargaining agreement: the 1998 metal industry agreement. We selected this agreement from a long list of all collective bargaining agreements that expired within a year after December 1997, when ‘Agenda 2002’ was signed by the peak organizations of employees and employers. The Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment supplied the list. This temporal criterion reduces retrospective bias in the data on collective bargaining, and provides a connection between social pact and collective bargaining agreement. From the long list, we selected a large industry with heterogeneous composition, which makes a potential conflict of interests between peak organizations and affiliated organizations more likely.9 A second criterion was that the agreement is representative for Dutch collective bargaining. An industry agreement rather than an enterprise agreement was selected because 87% of Dutch employees are covered by an industry agreement (Van den Toren, 1996, 73). Data collection In 2000, we retrospectively collected data about the negotiation process in the Labour Foundation in 1997, and about the collective bargaining in the metal industry in 1998. We interviewed the most important negotiators in the Labour Foundation (one informant from employer peak organization VNO-NCW, and the other from the largest trade union confederation FNV) and in the metal industry (one informant from the organization of employers in the Dutch metal industry FME-CWM, and the other from the trade union FNVBondgenoten). The four negotiators provided information about themselves and all other negotiators operating at their bargaining level. The data we obtained from these highly structured interviews were supplemented by a careful study of documents. Additional interviews were taken from officials of the Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment. From the data, we Acta Politica 2004 39
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made a reconstruction of the collective decision-making process at both levels (see Rojer, 1999; Torenvlied, 2000; Achterkamp and Akkerman, 2003). First, we reconstructed the 1997 negotiations in the Dutch Labour Foundation. The informants specified all recommendations in terms of onedimensional scales, using document analysis and the structured interviews (cf. Rojer, 1999; Torenvlied, 2000; Achterkamp and Akkerman, 2003). Next, 11 recommendations were selected: four on wages, four on training and human development (‘employability’), and four recommendations regarding the combination of paid jobs with care. All negotiators in the Labour Foundation were assigned a value on each recommendation corresponding to their policy positions on the scales: ‘1’ if the member opposed the recommendation and ‘ þ 1’ if the member supported the recommendation. The informant also indicated which party initiated which recommendation. Subsequently, using highly structured questionnaires, we asked informants to provide information about the relative salience of all these recommendations for all negotiators. Salience varied between ‘0’ (not important at all) to ‘100’ (extremely important). With respect to bargaining power, the Labour Foundation has a fixed distribution of seats: Trade unions confederations comprise FNV (four seats), CNV (two seats), and MHP (two seats); Employer peak organizations comprise VNO-NCW (four seats), MKB-Nederland (two seats), and LTO (two seats). However, the institutional distribution of seats does not reflect informal bargaining power in the Labour Foundation and does not incorporate fluctuations in bargaining power over time. Differences in competence and personality traits could be more important at the negotiation table and should be included in the measurement of relative bargaining power. For these reasons, the informants made an assessment of the relative bargaining power of all negotiators in the Labour Foundation in 1997. Relative bargaining power varied between ‘0’ (powerless) to ‘1’ (very powerful). For each recommendation, its collective support was calculated as the salience-power weighted sum of the policy positions of all negotiators in the Labour Foundation, where a proponent of an agreement has a position of þ 1 and an opponent of an agreement has a position of 1. Analytically, collective support could vary between 600 (six, very powerful negotiators opposed to an extremely salient recommendation) and þ 600 (six, very powerful negotiators in favour of an extremely salient recommendation). Recommendations with very low values of collective support are not expected because is it highly unlikely that those recommendations will be formulated. The data about the negotiations on ‘Agenda 2002’ in the Labour Foundation, and the calculation of collective support are presented in the appendix. Indeed, we find that for the selected recommendations, the collective support has no extreme values: proponents and opponents in the Labour Foundation are in balance. Acta Politica 2004 39
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Subsequently, interviews were held with the two most important negotiators in the metal industry. These negotiators provided information on the substance of all bargaining issues in their sector in 1998. They indicated that 12 issues lay on the bargaining table: three concerning wages, four regarding training and human development, two on saving time for sabbatical or parental leave, and three about child care. In order to map the policy positions of all the negotiators involved in collective bargaining on one-dimensional issue scales, we used the same highly structured questionnaires as in the previous interviews (Rojer, 1999; Torenvlied, 2000; Achterkamp and Akkerman, 2003). The informants also provided information about which of the issues resulted in what final agreement. Just like during the interviews conducted on decisionmaking within the Dutch Labour Foundation, the informants also estimated the salience, that is, the relative importance of the bargaining issues for the different negotiators. Informal power resources often play a role, not only within the Labour Foundation, but also behind the scenes of industry-wide negotiations. Hence, formal indicators for bargaining power do not adequately reflect the actual distribution of power. Therefore, the negotiators were asked to assess also the informal bargaining power of all the negotiators in the metal industry. Finally, the informants in the metal industry provided the mapping of collective bargaining issues with the recommendations in the Labour Foundation.
Results Degree of cross-level policy coherence To what extent do central policy recommendations in ‘Agenda 2002’ reappear in the agenda of the 1998 collective bargaining in the metal industry? Table 1 provides an answer to this question from the perspective of the two largest organizations involved in the bargaining processes. The first column lists the 11 selected policy recommendations that were subject to negotiations in the Labour Foundation. The second column provides information about the organization that took the initiative in formulating the recommendation. Together, the first two columns provide information about the central negotiations in the Labour Foundation. Five recommendations were initiated by the employers’ peak organization VNO-NCW, while seven were initiated by the trade union confederation FNV. In one case, both negotiators initiated a recommendation (about wage moderation). Coherence in the agenda The third column presents information about the agenda of collective bargaining in the metal industry. It shows that seven out of 11 recommendaActa Politica 2004 39
Table 1 Comparison of the selected policy recommendations from the social pact ‘Agenda 2002’ with the agenda proposals and outcomes in the 1998 collective bargaining agreement in the Dutch metal industry Level I. Labor Foundation: ‘Agenda 2002’ Recommendation in ‘Agenda 2002’ 1. Responsible wage growth
3. Stimulate incentive-driven wage policies 4. Revise juvenile wages 5. Draft enterprise training plans
Collective agreement
Employer organization FME-CWM and FNV trade union ‘Bondgenoten’ No proposal
Arrangement in collective bargaining agreement No settlement
No proposal
No settlement
No proposal Employer organization FME-CWM and FNV trade union ‘Bondgenoten’ FNV trade union ‘Bondgenoten’
No settlement Arrangement in collective bargaining agreement No settlement
FNV trade union ‘Bondgenoten’
No settlement
Employer peak organization VNO-NCW
Employer organization FME-CWM
Trade union confederation FNV Trade union confederation FNV Trade union confederation FNV
No proposal FNV trade union ‘Bondgenoten’ FNV trade union ‘Bondgenoten’
Arrangement in collective bargaining agreement No settlement No settlement Arrangement in collective bargaining agreement
Employer peak organization VNO-NCW Trade union confederation FNV
49
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6. Set up savings programmes for educational leave 7. Stimulate support for career development 8. Differentiate patterns of labour duration and encourage flexible working hours 9. Stimulate part-time labour 10. Encourage parental leave 11. Stimulate provisions for child-care
Employer peak organization VNO-NCW, trade union confederation FNV Employer peak organization VNO-NCW Employer peak organization VNO-NCW Trade union confederation FNV Trade union confederation FNV
Initiator of agenda proposal
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2. Stimulate flexible wage components
Initiator of recommendation
Level II. Collective bargaining in metal industry
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tions reappear in the 1998 metal industry collective bargaining agenda, a score of 64%. That is, more than one-third of the central policy recommendations disappears in the ‘vertical’ process between recommendation and agenda proposal. The third column also lists which of the two key organizations is responsible for the agenda proposal, if any proposal is made: the employers’ organization in the metal industry FME-CWM, or trade union FNVBondgenoten. FNV Bondgenoten puts more recommendations (six) on the agenda of collective bargaining than the employer organization FME-CWM (three). Coherence in the outcomes To what extent do the central policy recommendations in ‘Agenda 2002’ reappear in the 1998 collective bargaining agreement in the metal industry? The fourth column of Table 1 provides an answer to this question. Only four of the 11 policy recommendations reflect a central policy recommendation from the social pact ‘Agenda 2002’. The collective bargaining process accounts for a drop of the score of 64% of recommendations on the agenda to only 36% in the final agreement. This reduction is caused by the disappearance of three collective bargaining proposals in the final agreement. These ‘lost’ proposals were all put on the agenda in the metal industry by trade union FNV Bondgenoten (the proposals on a savings programme for educational leave, support for career development, and parental leave). Test of hypotheses We formulated two sets of hypotheses, each reflecting a different mechanism behind cross-level policy coherence in multilevel policy-making systems: (1) the ratification hypothesis and (2) the multilevel coordination hypotheses. The ratification hypothesis states that full cross-level policy coherence can be expected between the level-II agenda and the level-II outcomes of collective decision-making. Table 1 demonstrates that hypothesis 1 must be rejected for the data in our case study. Neither the agenda of collective bargaining (64%), nor the final agreement (36%) in the metal industry displays full coherence with the recommendations from the Labour Foundation. The agenda coordination hypothesis consists of two parts: (1) representatives of the level-I negotiator who initiated an agreement put the agreements on the level-II agenda; and (2) cross-level policy coherence in the level-II agenda is positively associated with collective support for the level-I recommendation. Table 1 provides the necessary data for a test of the first part of the agenda coordination hypothesis. It only partly corroborates the first part of the agenda coordination hypothesis. It shows that from the three recommendations that Acta Politica 2004 39
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Collective Support (S)
reached the agenda of collective bargaining and were initiated by employers’ peak organization VNO-NCW, two are put on the agenda by the employers’ organization in the metal industry, FME-CWM (66%). The trade union in the metal industry, FNV Bondgenoten, put six recommendations from ‘Agenda 2002’ on the agenda of collective bargaining, five of which were initiated by their confederation FNV (83%). The larger number of recommendations put on the agenda by the trade union might explain this stronger relationship for the trade union than for the employer organization. Figure 2 allows for a test of the second part of the agenda coordination hypothesis. It shows the association between collective support of a recommendation in ‘Agenda 2002’ and the elaboration of related bargaining proposals on the level-II agenda in the metal industry. In Figure 2, the horizontal axis represents the elaboration of these recommendations in proposal(s) for the agenda of collective bargaining in the metal industry. The vertical axis represents the level of collective support. Figure 2 shows a positive association between collective support and elaboration on the agenda of collective bargaining. A one-tailed test shows that the association is on the brink of significance (Kendall’s t ¼ 0.38; P ¼ 0.067). Recommendations with weak collective support did not appear on the agenda of collective bargaining in the metal industry — with one exception: the recommendation about wage moderation. This recommendation was only weakly supported, but was nevertheless included in the agenda of collective bargaining. Another exception is the recommendation about juvenile wages, which received strong collective
60 50 40 30 20 10 0 −10 −20 −30 0
1
2
Elaboration on Agenda Note. 0 = No proposal; 1 = Simple proposal; 2 = Elaborate proposal. Figure 2 Association between collective support of policy recommendations in ‘Agenda 2002’ and their elaboration on the agenda in the Dutch metal industry. Note: 0 ¼ No proposal; 1 ¼ Simple proposal; 2 ¼ Elaborate proposal. Acta Politica 2004 39
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support in the Labour Foundation, but did not appear on the agenda of collective bargaining in the metal industry. Table 2 provides further clues. It shows the average level of collective support for three different ‘categories’ of recommendations: first all recommendations in ‘Agenda 2002’; second, those on the agenda in the metal industry, and those that were left out of it; third, those reflected in the final agreement, and those that were lost in collective bargaining in the metal industry. Table 2 makes clear that the level of collective support for recommendations that disappeared from the agenda of bargaining in the metal industry were the recommendations with on average weakest collective support. A t-test is the standard test to compare differences in average between two groups. However, because we have only few cases that have not been selected on the basis of a random sample, a nonparametric Mann–Whitney U-test is more appropriate. This test compares rank orders rather than interval scores. The one-tailed test reveals that the difference is not significant (Z ¼ 0.945; P ¼ 0.12), and that we must reject the second part of the agenda coordination hypothesis on the basis of this, rougher comparison. The outcome coordination hypothesis states that cross-level policy coherence in the level-II outcomes is not associated with collective support for level-I recommendation and that, alternatively, the distribution of policy positions, issue salience, and relative bargaining power of the level-II representatives better explain the outcomes. Table 2 shows no difference in average collective support between the recommendations that were lost during bargaining and those that reached the final agreement. The average collective support for recommendations reflected in the bargaining agreement of the metal industry is 23.5 (SD ¼ 24.9). We can compare this average with the average collective support for recommendations that were not reflected in the agreement (either not put on the agenda or disappeared during bargaining). The collective support for these recommendations is 15.7 (SD ¼ 27.9). A one-tailed nonparametric Mann–Whitney U-test shows that no significant differences exist in
Table 2 Average collective support for recommendations in different stages of implementation (standard deviation between brackets) Central recommendations (n ¼ 11)
18.6
(25.8)
Disappeared in agenda setting (n ¼ 4) On collective bargaining agenda (n ¼ 7)
6.3 25.7
(29.8) (22.4)
Disappeared during collective bargaining (n ¼ 3) In collective bargaining agreement (n ¼ 4)
28.5 23.5
(23.9) (24.9)
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collective support between these two groups (Z ¼ 0.189; P ¼ 0.43). We therefore cannot reject the outcome coordination hypothesis. Alternatively, the outcome coordination hypothesis states that cross-level policy coherence in the level-II outcomes is better explained by the distribution of policy positions, issue salience, and relative bargaining power of the level-II representatives involved in collective decision-making, that is, the horizontal process of collective bargaining. To test this expectation, we applied a simple exchange model of collective decision-making (Van Assen et al., 2003). These models were earlier introduced under assumption 3 of the standard implementation model. A discussion at length or a test of these models is beyond the scope of the present paper.10 An exchange model of collective decision-making correctly predicts nine out of 12 outcomes of collective bargaining on the basis of the distribution of policy positions, salience, and relative bargaining power of negotiators in the metal industry (a score of 75% correct predictions is the usual score for these models, see: Thomson et al., 2003). The exchange model correctly predicted that savings programmes for educational leave and parental leave would not appear in the final agreement. The exchange model incorrectly predicted that support for career development would be part of the final agreement.
‘Soft’ policy recommendations: only a paper matter? The subject of this paper was the puzzle for implementation theory that arises when empirically the policy-making context is characterized by multilevel, autonomous decision-making and ‘soft,’ non-binding policies — rather than the ‘traditional’ state-centric context of policy-making. In the present paper, we offered two solutions. First, we modified the independent variable ‘policy drift by agencies’ from the standard model into two new dependent variables: crosslevel policy coherence in the level-II agenda, and cross-level policy coherence in the outcomes of level-II decision-making. Second, we suggested a number of alternative mechanisms to explain policy coherence across autonomous levels of decision-making. Our analysis shows that these modifications of model assumptions generate informative and alternative hypotheses about implementation in multilevel policy-making systems. One mechanism is the ‘logic of ratification’. The ‘logic of ratification’ assumes that decision-makers at level-I anticipate on the subsequent implementation of their policies at level-II. In equilibrium, a level-I agreement is finalized if its subsequent ratification is expected. Conditional upon the existence of a level-I agreement, we would expect full cross-level policy coherence in the agenda and outcomes of level-II decisions. An alternative mechanism is the logic of ‘multilevel coordination.’ We changed core assumptions in the standard model about the hierarchical Acta Politica 2004 39
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relation between ‘principals and agents,’ characterized by information asymmetry, into new assumptions about the coordination of the level-II decision-making agenda. In the logic of multilevel coordination, the relation between negotiators at level-I and their level-II representatives is characterized by a joint responsibility to reduce spillover effects between level-II policies. This requires negotiators and their representatives to be responsive to ‘soft’ policies at level-I: for example, recommendations or communications. Consequently, we expect limited policy coherence in the agenda — level-I agreements with strong collective support reach the agenda. To explain policy coherence in the outcomes of level-II decision-making, variables of collective decision-making are the best candidate. For matters of available space and expositional clarity, we focused on one, exemplifying application: a comparison of the 1997 social pact ‘Agenda 2002’ with the 1998 collective bargaining agreement in the metal industry. The comparison shows that measurement of cross-level policy coherence in agenda and outcomes is feasible and informative. The rejection of the ratification hypothesis suggests that recommendations in the Labour Foundation are not based upon a rational anticipation to cross-level policy coherence. Rather, policy coherence in the agenda of collective bargaining in the metal industry is explained by multilevel coordination. Primacy lies with the recommendations from ‘Agenda 2002’ with strongest collective support in the Labour Foundation arrived at the bargaining agenda in the metal industry. This supports the view that level-I negotiators and level-II representatives in this industry have taken their joint responsibility to contribute to a successful implementation of ‘Agenda 2002’. The study has two additional theoretical implications. First, a lack of ‘hard’ policy instruments and the use of ‘soft’ recommendations do not automatically imply that the system of collective bargaining lacks cross-level policy coherence. Second, the use of ‘soft’ recommendations in a policy system with autonomous levels of decisionmaking does not preclude an active coordination of the agenda of level-II decision-making. This is only a preliminary test of the adapted implementation model. The adapted implementation model is only a first step towards a tool for a systematic, comparative analysis of substantively differing multilevel policy systems. The design we used is limited for some obvious reasons. First, more data are needed for further refinement and testing. These data can be found in the examples suggested above, for example, international affairs or European Union policy. Moreover, we must explain variance policy coherence across different social pacts and collective bargaining agreements in different industries or enterprises. Second, we could refine the study design to also include effects of previous level-II decision-making on level-I negotiations. This effect is analogous to lobbying by implementation Acta Politica 2004 39
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agencies in the ‘traditional’ state-centric approach (although not studied with implementation models but with models of collective decision-making). Such a refinement would require longitudinal data, which are very difficult to obtain, further theoretical elaboration, and the application a new research design. References Achterkamp, M. and Akkerman, A. (2003) ‘Identifying latent conflict in collective bargaining’, Rationality and Society 15(1): 15–43. Ahonen, P. (2001) Soft Governance, Agile Union? Analysis of Extension of Open Coordination in 2001, Maastricht: EIPA. Balla, S.J. (1999) ‘Administrative procedures and control of the bureaucracy’, American Political Science Review 92(3): 663–674. Bernard, H.R., Killworth, P., Kronenfeld, D. and Sailer, L. (1984) ‘The problem of informant accuracy: the validity of retrospective data’, Annual Review of Anthropology 13: 495–517. De la Porte, C. and Pochet, P. (2002) Building Social Europe through the Open Method of Coordination, Brussels: P.I.E.-Peter Lang. De la Porte, C., Pochet, P. and Room, G. (2001) ‘Social benchmarking, policy-making and the instruments of new governance’, Journal of European Social Policy 11(3): 291–307. Downs, A. (1967) Inside Bureaucracy, Boston, MA: Little, Brown & Company. Enelow, J.M. and Hinich, M.J. (1990) Advances in the spatial theory of voting, New York/ Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. European Commission (2000a) White Paper on European Governance, Brussels: European Commission. European Commission (2000b) eEurope 2002. An Information Society for All, Brussels: European Commission. Ferejohn, J.A. and Weingast, B.R. (1992) ‘A positive theory of statutory interpretation’, International Review of Law and Economics 12(2): 263–279. Friman, H.R. (1993) ‘Side-payments versus security cards: domestic bargaining tactics in international economic negotiations’, International Organization 47(3): 387–410. Green, D.P. and Shapiro, I. (1994) Pathologies of Rational Choice Theory. A Critique of Applications in Political Science, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Haufler, V. (2001) A Public Role for the Private Sector. Industry Self-regulation in a Global Economy, Washington. DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He´ritier, A. (2003) ‘New Modes of Governance in Europe: Increasing Political Efficiency and Political Effectiveness’, in T. Bo¨rzel and R.A. Chichowski (eds.) State of the European Union. Volume 6. Law, Politics, and Society, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hooghe, L. and Marks, G. (2003) ‘Unraveling the central state, but how? Types of multi-level governance’, American Political Science Review 97(2): 233–243. Jordan, A., Wurzel, R., Zito, A.R. and Bru¨ckner, L. (2003) ‘European governance and the transfer of ’new’ environmental policy instruments (NEPIs) in the European Union’, Public Administration 81(3): 555–574. Klein Haarhuis, C. and Leeuw, F. (2002) ‘Corruptiebestrijding. Een evaluatie van bottom-up en top-down benaderingen’, Bestuurskunde 11(4): 177–186. Labour Foundation (1997) Agenda 2002. Agenda voor het Cao-overleg voor de Komende Jaren, Den Haag: Stichting van de Arbeid. Acta Politica 2004 39
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56 Marks, G., Hooghe, L. and Blank, K. (1995) ‘European integration since the 1980s. State centric versus multilevel governance’, Journal of Common Market Studies 33(3): 341–378. Mayer, F.W. (1992) ‘Managing domestic differences in internbational negotiations: the strategic use of internal side-payments’, International Organization 46(4): 793–818. McCubbins, M., Noll, R. and Weingast, B.R. (1989) ‘Structure an process as solution to the politician’s principal agent problem’, Virginia Law Review 75(2): 431–482. Mo, J. (1995) ‘Domestic institutions and international bargaining: the role of Agent Veto in twolevel games’, The American Political Science Review 89(4): 914–924. Moe, T. (1997) ‘The Positive Theory of Public Bureaucracy’, in D.C. Mueller (ed.) Perspectives on Public Choice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 455–480. Putnam, R. (1988) ‘Diplomacy and domestic politics: the logic of two-level games’, International Organization 42(3): 427–460. Rojer, M.F.P. (1999) ‘Collective decision-making models applied to labor negotiations in The Netherlands: a comparison between an exchange model and a conflict model’, Rationality and Society 11(2): 207–236. Scharpf, F. (1997) Games Real Actors Play. Actor-centered Institutionalism in Policy Research, Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Scharpf, F. (1999) Governing in Europe. Effective and Democratic, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Schelling, T.C. (1960) The Strategy of Conflict, New York: Oxford University Press. Schilstra, K. (1998) ‘Industrial relations and human resource management’, Ph.D. dissertation, Tinbergen Institute, Erasmus University Rotterdam. Thomson, R., Stokman, F.N. and Torenvlied, R. (2003) ‘Models of collective decision-making: introduction’, Rationality and Society 15(1): 5–14. Torenvlied, R. (1996) ‘Political control of implementation agencies’, Rationality and Society 8(1): 25–56. Torenvlied, R. (2000) Political Decisions and Agency Performance, Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Torenvlied, R. and Thomson, R. (2003) ‘Is implementation distinct from political bargaining? A micro-level test’, Rationality and Society 15(1): 64–84. Van Assen, M., Stokman, F. and Van Oosten, R. (2003) ‘Conflict measures in cooperative exchange models of collective decision-making’, Rationality and Society 15(1): 85–112. Van den Toren, J.P. (1996) Achter Gesloten Deuren? CAO Overleg in de Jaren Negentig, Amsterdam: Welboom. Walton, R.E. and McKersie, R.B. (1965) A Behavioral Theory of Labor Negotiations, New York: McGraw-Hill. Weingast, B.R. (1984) ‘The congressional bureaucratic system: a principal agent perspective (with applications to the SEC)’, Public Choice 44: 147–191.
Appendix A The data on negotiations in the Labour Foundation are summarized in Table A1.
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57 Table A1 ‘Agenda 2002’: data on negotiations in the Labour Foundation Employer peak organization
Trade union confederation
Negotiator Bargaining power
VNO 0.70
MKB 0.30
LTO 0.05
FNV 1.00
CNV 0.20
MHP 0.10
S
Recommendations 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
50 100 100 60 80 80 80 100 80 100 60
50 100 100 80 100 80 50 100 80 100 60
50 100 100 80 100 80 50 100 80 100 60
50 100 100 100 100 40 100 50 80 80 70
50 100 100 60 100 40 80 50 60 100 70
50 100 70 20 100 40 80 50 60 80 70
13 25 8 44 39 32 50.5 40 14 3 28
Salience-weighted positions, relative bargaining power of the six negotiating peak organizations, and collective support (S).
Notes 1 We benefited from discussions with several Dutch policy makers and negotiators in industrial relations. We thank two anonymous reviewers for their detailed comments on an earlier draft. Torenvlied acknowledges the Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment for financial support. 2 We will not reiterate the discussion about relative strengths and weaknesses of a rational choice approach here. We refer to the debate Green and Shapiro (1994) evoked in the American political science community. 3 The outcome of collective decision-making on each policy issue is a weight of the (shifted) policy positions — for example, the median or average position (cf. Thomson et al., 2003). The weighting procedure and the shifts in positions reflect different modes of decision-making, such as conflict, logrolling, or social influence. Differences in opinion among decision-makers (their distance in positions on the policy scale) are assumed to affect positively agency discretion, and consequently trigger policy deviations. The presumed mechanism is that a difference in opinion reduces the collective support for a political decision, which results in a political decision open to a broader interpretation. In such situations, decision-makers have less capacity for monitoring and sanctioning. 4 A series of further extensions of the model were proposed, for example focusing on effects of side payments (Mayer, 1992; Friman, 1993) or effects of incomplete information (Mo, 1995). 5 Where the weights refer to issue salience, and relative bargaining power. 6 During the time that lapsed between these social pacts, the Labour Foundation produced a few ‘affirmations’ of existing social pacts, sometimes because a new social pact appeared to be unattainable. 7 More levels in the system can be observed. From bottom to the top-level of negotiations we distinguish: (a) meetings between trade union members and their representatives, or between Acta Politica 2004 39
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58 managers and their interest organization, (b) collective bargaining between employer and employee representatives in industries and enterprises, (c) national platforms for negotiation: the ‘Labour Foundation’ comprises representatives of the peak organizations of employers and employees, the ‘Socio-Economic Council’ comprises negotiators in the Labour Foundation and representatives from government, during spring and fall there is consultation with the Dutch cabinet. Negotiations are diverse, fragmented, sometimes general and sometimes very specific. 8 The figure is quite simplified. For example, policy-making within peak organizations is not conceived of as a sub-process of the process of implementation of central recommendations of the Labour Foundation. This does not deny the importance of co-ordination and decisionmaking within peak organizations. 9 The selection of a large industry makes it also more likely that the social pact is built upon previous collective bargaining in the large industry, thus resulting in policy coherence. Mechanisms of previous negotiations or previous lobbying are strictly kept outside the implementation models, and are not the subject of the present study. However, effects of these mechanisms can be tested in a more elaborated, longitudinal design. Such a design would require more data that are difficult to obtain. 10 For details, we refer to Rojer (1999), who reports an average model accuracy of 65% of the outcomes of a large number of collective bargaining agreements (for a more general introduction, see Thomson et al., 2003; Van Assen et al., 2003).
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