Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The paper explores the relation of different political economic projects and the development of pensions as a social right in three countries: Sweden, Germany and United Kingdom. It comprises three parts. The first part provides the conceptual framework, which combines a Polanyian perspective for the social embeddedness of markets with a three dimensional power theoretical approach in order to analyse modes of governance as practices of socio-economic regulation. The second part identifies the link between the macro-level of analysis i.e. different political economy logics and modes of governance and the meso-level of analysis i.e. the institutional paths that these countries have followed in developing their pensions systems and what used to be and currently is the role of occupational pension funds in them. This type of funds offers a prime example of how institutions that originally developed within a logic of social rights have now become actors in the economy. The decision-making of this new actor is however depended on the power relations between labour and capital in each country. The third part of the paper continues to show how the institutional paths have departed from their national spatio-temporal fix and have been re-embedded in the market-economy rationale of the neo-liberal project. The paper identifies a trend towards the ?equitisation? of pension funds as part of a broader process of marketisation of pensions as social right. The significance of the investment decision for pension occupational funds becomes crucial since funds are becoming major actors in the economic field. Their investment decision depends much on power relations between labour and capital ranging for example from social development (public houses, creation of jobs in the national environment) to the creation of profits through domestic and foreign financial markets. The paper concludes that pension occupational funds are re-embedded in a framework of choices, dominated increasingly more from the market economy rationale and the neo-liberal political project.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: What are the gendered consequences of pension policies the European Union has mandated or strongly encouraged? Conventional wisdom would predict that European pension policies fit better with compound polities (i.e. Germany) than with unitary states (i.e. Britain). We find the opposite: Germany faces high costs of reform while the UK confronts with lower adjustment costs. Despite fundamental differences in the two pension regimes, EU pension policies have the same unintended consequences in both countries: the costs of implementing EU directives tend to discourage employers from offering occupational pension schemes in the first place, leaving women with more rights, but less social protection in old age.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The proposed paper looks at the development of pension investment strategies of American labor unions from the passage of the 1974 Employee Retirement Security Act that extended the possibilities for investing private pensions in corporate stock until the pension reforms following the Enron bankruptcy in 2002. This period roughly covers the ascendancy of the American shareholder society in which stock ownership became widespread among broad classes of working individuals. It not only bridges labor history and business history, but also brings together the disciplines of history and political science. Historically, the paper looks at the role of pension investments in the decline of working class support for post-war liberal social policies culminating in Reagan’s election and extending into Bush’s vision of the Ownership Society. To what extent did American labor participate in the decline of the progressive legacies of the New Deal and the Great Society? Theoretically, the paper responds to scholarly work that fails to question the dichotomy of labor and capital in the shareholder society by either excluding labor altogether from the analysis of corporate ownership and control or by insufficiently recognizing the changed political position of the worker as shareholder in the political economy. The paper will be supported by primary sources from a selection of corporate and labor archives. The paper is part of a larger dissertation project, comparing the politics of pension ownership in the United States and in Germany.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Pension reform has proved to be a persistent policy issue. Faced with demographic changes, a rapid increase in global economic competition, and consequent fiscal constraints, many countries have been seeking for a way to achieve efficient fiscal balances and contributions in old-age pensions, and significant pension reforms have been made in many countries. There are differences in the scope and extent of pension reform, but the pension reform processes are described as ?path-dependent?, arguing that any reforms or any policy choice are resisted by historical legacy, institutional settings and programmatic designs inherited from the past, hence policy reform illustrates continuity rather than radical breaks. This paper examines the policy transformation of welfare regimes, focusing on the post-war pension reforms in the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan as case studies. An attempt is made to sketch out historical trajectories of pension regimes and policy transformation in each country, drawing on recent theories about the role played by ideas in policy development and policy change. The paper argues the relations between the core component of regime and technical justification showing both the common path and divergent patterns of policies.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The experiences of Denmark and the Netherlands suggest that the Swedish route is not the only way to achieve the outcomes associated with the Swedish pension regime. Both countries, like Sweden, provide a universal basic pension, but supplementary pensions are organized in the private sector. Despite the location of supplementary pensions in the private sector, these two public-private pension regimes deliver outcomes not usually associated with such a public-private mix. Old age poverty levels are similar in all three countries, as is income inequality among pensioners. The Dutch and Danish pension regimes also perform well in terms of financial sustainability, the promotion of savings, and minimizing labor market distortions.
Comparison of the Swedish, Dutch and Danish pension regimes systems suggests that there are multiple institutional pathways toward similar outcomes. The paper provides institutional account of how these three countries independently developed pension systems that provide adequate risk coverage, financial sustainability, and minimal labor market distortion. My working hypothesis emphasizes the importance of the political mobilization of the left and its coalitions with other societal groups in accounting for different paths toward similar outcomes. In Sweden, the dominance of the Social Democratic Party in alliance with the trade unions resulted in the emergence of a statist pension system. In the Netherlands and Denmark, the weakness of the political left necessitated cooperation with confessional and liberal groups respectively, and these left their mark primarily in the organization of supplementary pensions. Thus in both countries, a politically weak left settled for collectively regulated but privately organized supplementary pensions that, despite their location within the market rather than the state sphere, produce outcomes similar to those of Sweden. To borrow from Castles, Denmark and the Netherlands have pursued solidarity and redistribution "by other means." (Castles 1985; cf. Schwartz 1998).