Scandinavian Corporatism in a Trans-Atlantic Comparative Perspective

Although the concept of 'neo-corporatism' has been around for 30 years, it has many different meanings. Nonetheless, evaluations of the level of corporatism in different countries turn out to be remarkably similar despite differences in the theoretical meaning of 'corporatism'. That the Scandinavian countries are among the most corporatist countries and the United States the least is thus shared conventional wisdom among different corporatist schools. The conventional wisdom and its underlying conceptual pragmatism are challenged in this research. Empirically, it is demonstrated that the level of corporatism in the United States comes close to the level in Denmark if the Scandinavian 'boards and commissions' variant of the concept of 'corporatism' is applied. It can even be argued that the pattern of interest groups' participation in boards and commissions in the United States is more in line with the corporatist idea that interest group involvement varies with the saliency of issues of the boards and commissions to interest group than it is the case in Denmark. The empirical findings of the study conflict with deeply rooted perceptions of the presence of corporatism in the United States and Scandinavia. How to make sense of similar levels of 'Scandinavian' corporatism in the United States and Denmark is discussed in the conclusion of the article.