Shedding light on the European social dialogue’s “shadow of hierarchy” – a proposal for a model explaining the shadow of hierarchy’s influence on the content of Commission-initiated and Council-implemented collective agreements concluded by European social partners
(2014) STVM23 20141Department of Political Science
- Abstract
- In scholarly literature, it is widely acknowledged that ‘the shadow of hierarchy’, hence the threat of disadvantageous Community legislation, is an important con-cept in European social dialogue (ESD), where European social partners – that is organised labour and management – are given the chance to negotiate binding agreements on some aspects of European labour and social policy. While the shadow of hierarchy’s role for making social partners enter ESD (“negotiate or we legislate!”) is widely acknowledged, this paper aims at presenting a theoretical model that can explain the hitherto omitted question of how the shadow of hierar-chy influences ESD agreements’ content.
The thesis proceeds in a three-steps-process: firstly, an initial... (More) - In scholarly literature, it is widely acknowledged that ‘the shadow of hierarchy’, hence the threat of disadvantageous Community legislation, is an important con-cept in European social dialogue (ESD), where European social partners – that is organised labour and management – are given the chance to negotiate binding agreements on some aspects of European labour and social policy. While the shadow of hierarchy’s role for making social partners enter ESD (“negotiate or we legislate!”) is widely acknowledged, this paper aims at presenting a theoretical model that can explain the hitherto omitted question of how the shadow of hierar-chy influences ESD agreements’ content.
The thesis proceeds in a three-steps-process: firstly, an initial model is developed deductively, based on theories about European governance, veto games and inte-grative bargaining. Secondly, structured and analysed by these theoretical consid-erations, an analytic narrative is conducted to test the model against the case study of the successful 1998/99 European social dialogue negotiations on fixed-term work contracts. Thirdly, based on the analytic narrative’s findings, the initial model is refined.
This study suggests that there is not the shadow looming over ESD negotiations, but a multitude of different shadows that influence ESD outcomes by promoting the use of specific strategies to change contents in order to suspend the others’ veto power. The shadow of hierarchy forms a reference point against which utility gains from proposals of the other side are measured and thus constitutes an impor-tant reference frame for utility calculations wherein the other shadows can operate. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/4448255
- author
- Krause, Gerrit LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- STVM23 20141
- year
- 2014
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- shadow of hierarchy, shadow of the law, European social dialogue, veto games, consensus strategies
- language
- English
- id
- 4448255
- date added to LUP
- 2014-07-07 14:45:28
- date last changed
- 2014-07-07 14:45:28
@misc{4448255, abstract = {{In scholarly literature, it is widely acknowledged that ‘the shadow of hierarchy’, hence the threat of disadvantageous Community legislation, is an important con-cept in European social dialogue (ESD), where European social partners – that is organised labour and management – are given the chance to negotiate binding agreements on some aspects of European labour and social policy. While the shadow of hierarchy’s role for making social partners enter ESD (“negotiate or we legislate!”) is widely acknowledged, this paper aims at presenting a theoretical model that can explain the hitherto omitted question of how the shadow of hierar-chy influences ESD agreements’ content. The thesis proceeds in a three-steps-process: firstly, an initial model is developed deductively, based on theories about European governance, veto games and inte-grative bargaining. Secondly, structured and analysed by these theoretical consid-erations, an analytic narrative is conducted to test the model against the case study of the successful 1998/99 European social dialogue negotiations on fixed-term work contracts. Thirdly, based on the analytic narrative’s findings, the initial model is refined. This study suggests that there is not the shadow looming over ESD negotiations, but a multitude of different shadows that influence ESD outcomes by promoting the use of specific strategies to change contents in order to suspend the others’ veto power. The shadow of hierarchy forms a reference point against which utility gains from proposals of the other side are measured and thus constitutes an impor-tant reference frame for utility calculations wherein the other shadows can operate.}}, author = {{Krause, Gerrit}}, language = {{eng}}, note = {{Student Paper}}, title = {{Shedding light on the European social dialogue’s “shadow of hierarchy” – a proposal for a model explaining the shadow of hierarchy’s influence on the content of Commission-initiated and Council-implemented collective agreements concluded by European social partners}}, year = {{2014}}, }