Social Partnership and Local Development in Ireland: The Limits to Deliberation
| Date | 01 September 2006 |
| Published date | 01 September 2006 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.2006.00507.x |
| Author | Paul Teague |
British Journal of Industrial Relations
44:3 September 2006 0007– 1080 pp. 421– 443
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2006. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd,
9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
Blackwell Publishing Ltd.Oxford, UKBJIRBritish Journal of Industrial Relations0007-1080Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2006September 2006443421443Articles
Social Partnership and Local Development in IrelandBritish Journal of International Relations
Paul Teague is at The Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Social Partnership and Local Development
in Ireland: The Limits to Deliberation
Paul Teague
Abstract
The Irish model of social partnership is considered distinctive as it is based
on the principles of deliberative democracy more than adversarial bargaining.
The deliberative features of the model are considered to be threefold. First, the
negotiations to conclude national social agreements are not confined to the
government, trade unions and employers, but also include a wide range of civil
associations. Second, agreements are not simply concerned with wage determi-
nation, but cover a wide range of matters designed to promote social inclusion.
Third, there is an effort to avoid agreements being overly centralized by promot-
ing programmes at the local, territorial level. This paper examines the validity
of this argument by assessing efforts to forge a local dimension to the social
partnership model. The conclusions suggest that while the model has improved
the delivery of public services, it is premature to claim that Irish social partner-
ship represents a new model of labour market governance based on deliberative
democracy.
1. Introduction
Traditionally, corporatist agreements have centred on trade unions making
moderate wage demands in return for government commitments on tax and
public expenditure. The ability of centralized trade unions and employer
associations to police these agreements was widely seen as crucial to their
sustainability. Outwardly, the Irish model of national wage agreements, which
has been running since 1987, appears to conform to this established pattern
of corporatist industrial relations. But one view, which enjoys considerable
support, is that the Irish system of social partnership stands apart from
corporatist deals of the past as it is based on the principles of deliberative
democracy (O’Donnell and Thomas 2002). Proponents of deliberative
democracy argue that parties interact with one another in a reasonable
422
British Journal of Industrial Relations
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2006.
manner and use evidence-based arguments to reach agreements (Bohman
1996). The emphasis is on using persuasion to achieve consensus among
competing parties.
Deliberative democracy is seen to have had an impact on the objectives
and the institutional structure of Irish social partnership. The objective of the
process is considered to be social inclusion rather than wage regulation. This
broader objective is considered to impact on the institutional structure of
social partnership in three ways. One is that the parties involved in negotiat-
ing the national social agreements are not only trade unions and employer
associations, but also a wide range of civic associations. Another is that the
social agreements have led to a new approach to policy making. A feature of
many corporatist
quid pro quo
deals has been governments devising, imple-
menting and monitoring agreed pubic initiatives on their own. Social part-
nership in Ireland, it is argued, has resulted in more open forms of policy
making, which involve all relevant stakeholders at every stage of the policy
process (O’Donnell and Thomas 1998). A final distinguishing institutional
feature of the social agreements is that they have a strong decentralized
orientation which encourages the inclusion of local civic and community
associations in the formation and delivery of policies designed for their
respective areas.
This assessment of Irish social partnership is interesting. If it is valid, it
may have considerable implications for not only how we should view
other social pacts in Europe, but also wider attempts to revitalize trade
unions in different countries by encouraging them to link up with other
civic associations in broad-based economic and social initiatives. But this
assessment has a big weakness in that it has yet to be tested in any sys-
tematic manner. The absence of supporting evidence creates a question
mark about the robustness of this view. The purpose of this paper is to
examine the strength of the claim that Irish social partnership is an ex-
periment in deliberative democracy by assessing the extent to which it
has developed a local dimension based on a more open, inclusive form of
policy making. In particular, it focuses on the Area Development Man-
agement (ADM) initiative, which created a wide number of area-based
social partnerships.
The paper is organized in three parts. Section 2 describes the main institu-
tional characteristics of the Irish model of social partnership. It also outlines
the meaning of deliberative democracy and its implications for local gover-
nance in the context of social partnership. Section 3 focuses on the ADM
Programme. Local partnerships have been used to implement the various
projects initiated by the programme. The activities of local partnerships in
two contrasting settings, Limerick and Dundalk, are examined to gain an
insight into what they do and how they perform. Section 4 discusses the
benefits and limits to these local partnerships. We particularly address the
question: Has the opening up of a local dimension to social partnership led
to the introduction of a form of ‘empowered local democracy’? Section 5
concludes that while local partnership arrangements have produced benefits,
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