Publications
- The Politics of Common Knowledge: Ideas and Institutional Change in Wage Bargaining
- Download: PDF 528.12 KB
- by Culpepper, Pepper
- Domestic economic institutions change through processes of conflict
and bargaining+ Why do the strongest groups in such conflicts ever change their minds
about the acceptability of institutional arrangements they once opposed? Drawing
on the cases of Ireland in 1986–87 and Italy in 1989–93, this article demonstrates
how the process of common knowledge creation between employers and unions
changed the course of negotiations over national wage bargaining institutions+ Common
knowledge creation happens when existing institutions are in crisis+ The institutional
experimentation that follows such crises, characterized by deep uncertainty,
places a premium on persuasive argument+ The ideas most likely to serve as the basis
for newly common knowledge will have analytical and distributive appeal to both
unions and employers, and they must be ratified in public agreements, which I call
common knowledge events. Common knowledge events establish new social facts,
which can change the payoffs associated with different institutional outcomes. This
can lead even powerful actors to accept institutions they had previously opposed.
- Publication Type: Published Paper
- Published Date: January 2008
- Field of Interest: Political Economy
- Culpepper, Pepper. "The Politics of Common Knowledge: Ideas and Institutional Change in Wage Bargaining." International Organization 62 (Winter 2008): 1–33.
