GOVERNMENT LEGITIMACY AND THE LABOUR MARKET: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF EMPLOYMENT EXCHANGES

This article addresses the recent claim that cross-national policy variations reflect in part differences in institutional origins and state characteristics. It provides a detailed analysis of how states institutionalized public employment exchanges. The authors argue that public employment exchanges will shape the legitimacy of government intervention in the labour market, and thus affect the environment for subsequent labour market policy. Two measures of legitimacy are used. First, the attitude of employers and trades unionists toward exchanges. Second, the role of exchanges in administering unemployment benefits. Cross-national differences in exchanges' legitimacy contribute to an explanation of why different states have different labour market policies.     

The American State and Social Engineering: Policy Instruments in Affirmative Action

The American state is conventionally depicted as inactive and organizationally weak compared with the state in comparable industrial democracies, and it is sometimes depicted as weak compared with the private sector’s capacities to effect change. This interpretation stems from applying an inappropriate Weberian model of stateness. This article examines the way in which measures to implement affirmative have been employed through the policy instruments of quotas to reengineer the divisions between key groups in American society. Placed in historical context, affirmative action illustrates a powerful activism associated with the American state conceived as an institution engaged in setting and monitoring national standards.