The order of consensus
Social Pacts in Ireland and the Netherlands


1. Problem scope and research question
Due to rising unemployment in many European countries and the far spread view that this is linked to the crisis of the welfare state, recently tripartite co-operations arose between government, unions and employer associations. There is a consensus that unlike the tripartite arrangements of the seventies, which were based on Keynesian demand management, the current co-operations are characterized by a shift to supply side politics. The promotion of international competitiveness, the consolidation of public finances and the reduction of unemployment are the three main political goals.
The current debate is characterized by an interpretation of social pacts as a pragmatic, non-ideological adaptation to changing conditions. This adaptation is considered to be the ‘optimal’ combination of economical necessities and social requirements, which fits to the interest of all the participating actors. While the structural opposition of interests is disbanded, a seemingly objective problem is constructed and connected to a consensual solution. Due to this concept of problem and solution as well as the disbanding of the structural opposition of interests the consensus between the actors concerning the shared interpretation of crisis is the central focus of the current debate.
Whereas the outcomes of social pacts - interpreted as a result of the consensus in terms of content - are heavily discussed in the literature, the process, which proceeds the outcomes, i.e. the creation of consensus and its organisation, is not taken into consideration. It is the conception of social pacts as necessary, self-explaining processes of adaptation, which makes it possible to ignore the complexity and the problems connected to consensus: the interpretation of processes and developments as necessary and pragmatic enables to discount questions of power resources and divergent interests.
There is a lack of a systematic, case specific and empirically founded investigation of the outlined analysis of consensus. Additionally, a theoretical foundation of this question is missing, which refers to approaches concerning the relation of consensus and hegemony (Gramsci), and first of all the connection of truth and power (Foucault).
Emanating from this prevailing interpretation of social pacts it is the object of my project to expound the problems connected to the consensus and its creation on the basis of two case studies. On the basis of three steps, I will ask for the existence and the organisation of the consensus, then for its historical and contextual embeddedness, and thirdly for its function within the country specific policy process.



2. Theoretical background
The project is based on the assumption, that it is impossible to analyse problems or social developments in their ‚natural form‘, but that they are rather constructed within social processes of interpretation. Thus consensual agreements are never determined by objectiv conditions as the currrent discussion often suggests.
Without a doubt there are some conditions which hardly can be ignored by small open economies within a globalized capitalist world (for instance the necessity of competitiveness), but it is obvious that some interpretations of the conditions and the derived so-called necessities are more prominent and influential than others. „[...] the truth is from this world. [...] Every society is structured by its own order of truth [...], some discourses are accepted and work as true discourses.“(Foucault 1978: 51). Certain interpretations form hegemonial discourses which become powerful by the suggestion that these interpretations are true and natural. Thus, the power of the interpretation of the world is an essential factor in the process of consensus creation - and this power is unequally distributed. The analysis of consensus is therefore essentially based on the processual deconstruction of essentialisations, i.e. to question accepted fundamental values and objectives and to analyse which habits made them acceptable.

3. Empirical Working
Selected Cases
Ireland and the Netherlands have been chosen as cases for comparative research, because in both countries there is a co-operation between the social partners and the state, which is referred to as social pacts. The long history of both social pacts (in the Netherlands since 1982 and in Ireland since 1987) gives the opportunity to analyse the creation and reproduction of consensus within the policy cycle with regard to the outcomes. Besides, a comparison of these two countries seems to be profitable, because the socio-economic and institutional conditions of the co-operations are very different. A detailed description of both cases is an elementary part of the project, in order to provide the information for a historically and contextually embedded analysis.

Dimensions of Consensus
Referring to the classical meaning, consensus is defined as the agreement of preferences of different actors. Thus, in case of divergent interests, it is necessary that at least one actor changes its preferences in order to establish a consensus. Consequently, the consensus is to be distinguished distinctly from a compromise with constant and divergent interests which emerged through single acts of exchange. The following analysis is structured by the differentiation of three aspects of consensus: I distinguish the symbolic content, i.e. the debate over the consensus, the material content. i.e. the actual agreements between the actors as well as the processual content. i.e. the creation of the agreement. Every single of these three aspects will be analysed within the historical and contextual setting and can concern three different scopes of consensus.
These scopes are defined following Peter Hall´s three dimensions of political change. In this way it is possible to distinguish first order agreements, i.e. an agreement with regard to the concrete application of an instrument; second order agreements, i.e. an agreement with regard to more profound decisions concerning the choice of the instruments; and third order agreements, i.e. an agreement with regard to the evaluation of political aims. This distinction of scopes is an instrument in order to discover the ambivalence of negotiation processes, i.e. to be able to analyse the co-existence of consensus and conflict.

Empirical data, sources and research methods
The basis for the analysis of the consensus are written sources: Central bipartite and tripartite agreements, publications of unions, employers‘ organisations and governments, evaluations of the agreements, minutes of unions‘ congresses, internal discussion papers of unions, studies and reports of tripartite and bipartite institutions (‚Sociaal-Economische Raad‘ and ‚Stichting van de Arbeid‘ in the Netherlands; ‚National Economic and Social Council‘ and ‚National Economic and Social Forum‘ in Ireland) are the crucial part of the analysed documents. The analysis of the symbolic aspect of consensus, i.e. the debate about the consensus, is based on newspaper articels in the time of selected events as well as scientific literature. Concerning this aspect there are already some studies for the dutch case, so that it is possible to fall back on secondary literature.
The documents are analysed following the qualitativ content analytical method, in which the social construction and the different possible ways to read the document is considered. The processual aspect of the analysis of consensus, that is the conditions of the creation of consensual agreements, is analysed according to a discourse-theoretical perspective. With reference to the discourse analytical methodology of Hajer (1997) I will analyse the discursive regulation of the paradigm change to supply side policies within the context of the co-operations and discuss the consequence for consensual processes and conflicts of first and second order scopes (e.g. the concrete application of an instrument).


Literature
Foucault, Michel (1978): Dispositive der Macht. Über Sexualität, Wissen und Wahrheit, Berlin.
Hajer, Maarten A. (1997): The politics of environmental discourse: ecological modernization and the policy process, Oxford.