Labour Constitutions and Occupational Communities: Social Norms and Legal Norms at Work

This paper considers the interaction of legal norms and social norms in the regulation of work and working relations, observing that, with the contraction of collective bargaining, this is a matter that no longer attracts the attention that it deserves. Drawing upon two concepts from sociology – Max Weber's ‘labour constitution’ and Seymour Martin Lipset's ‘occupational community’ – it focuses on possibilities for the emergence, within groups of workers, of shared normative beliefs concerning ‘industrial justice’ (Selznick); for collective solidarity and agency; for the transformation of shared beliefs into legally binding norms; and for the enforcement of those norms. If labour law is currently in ‘crisis’, then a promising route out of the crisis, we argue, is for the law to recover its procedural focus, facilitating and encouraging these processes.     

Is government good for Greens? Comparing the electoral effects of government participation in Western and East-Central Europe

Abstract.  Examining the record of Green parties that have been involved in government at national level, two distinct pictures emerge. While the electoral fortunes of Green parties in East-Central Europe sharply declined after their stint in government, Green parties in Western Europe on the whole have not fared badly, with most experiencing gains in support. This article seeks to address the variety of factors that could account for different Green electoral fortunes. Among the approaches considered are economic voting, environmental issue salience, portfolio allocation, policy impact and strategic voting. While economic and environmental background factors clearly were important in the East-Central European cases, they are less useful in explaining variation between the West European experiences. The ability of Greens to improve their perceived policy competence and the profile of their leading politicians has helped them benefit from a period in office. Most crucially, Greens can benefit from strategic voting where a Green vote comes to represent support for the government as a whole. The main conclusion is that there are two paths to post-incumbency success: either Greens try to remain distant from taking full government responsibility, thus deflecting any electoral costs of incumbency, or they embrace government and the chance of demonstrating their competence fully to survive or fall with the government as a whole.     

Potentials and limitations of executive leadership: the Austrian cabinet since 1945

Abstract. This article analyzes the Austrian cabinet along the representation-efficiency and the leadership-collective decision-making dimensions. After outlining the respective traditions of the Austrian cabinet some information about the personal styles of Austrian chancellors and their respective ability for leadership is provided. Some aspects of pre-ministerial careers are analyzed in terms of the representation-efficiency dimension, while a discussion of cabinet life tries to detect indicators for the systematic analysis of the leadership-collective decision-making dimension. The final section links the two dimensions: in the Austrian case high leadership efficiency on the one hand and collective decision-making representation on the other appear to be positively correlated.