ipsr - lehmbruch - interest inter mediation in capitalist and socialist systems

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ReviewInternational Political Science

DOI: 10.1177/0192512183004002031983; 4; 153International Political Science Review

Gerhard LehmbruchStructural and Functional Perspectives in Comparative ResearchInterest Intermediation in Capitalist and Socialist Systems: Some

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INTEREST INTERMEDIATION

IN CAPITALIST AND

SOCIALIST SYSTEMS

Some Structural and Functional

Perspectives in Comparative ResearchGERHARD LEHMBRUCH

AUTHORS NOTE: Parts of this article were prepared while the author was a Fellow ofthe Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington,D.C.

Because most studies of interest intermediation have not been undertaken comparatively,it is desirable to apply to the study of East European socialist systems a functionalistcomparativetaxonomy, notably by applying the concept of subsystemautonomy. It isargued that limited subsystem autonomy may increase the problem-solvingcapabilitiesofpolitical systems, while high subsystem autonomy may have dysfunctional consequences.Combining a functional with a genetic perspective, the emergence of neo-corporatistinterest intermediation has been in part attributable to the specificcultural characteristicsoriginating in the early industrialization of certain European countries. Capitalist and

socialist systems are facingcomparable functional problems.

The existence of specializedand highly differentiated interest organiza-tions is one of the characteristic elements of all modern, industrializedpolities. Thus the system of interest intermediation (Schmitter, 1979a:93, n. 1) mightbe conceptualized as a subsystemanalogousto the partysystem. As with the latter, it might be subject to systematic cross-national comparison. However, while the comparativestudy of partysystems has produced a rich literature, empirical comparativeresearchin interest intermediation lags far behind. Although an ambitiousresearch program was outlined more than a quarter century ago(Almond, 1958),few attempts have been made since then to describesystematicallythe universe of interest organizations and their relation-ships with political systems from a comparative perspective (e.g.,Ehrlich, 1962; Beyme, 1980). The bulk of the literature consists of


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studies treating the system of interest intermediation within particularcountries (e.g., Kvavik, 1975; Elvander, 1972; Finer, 1966: LaPalom-

bara, 1964) or specific organizations and legislative case studies inparticular national contexts. Apparently, interest organizations lendthemselves much less to systematiccross-national comparison thanpolitical parties and party systems-or elections or parliaments-do.

This lag in the comparativestudy of organized interests seems to bedue primarilyto methodological difficulties. I have argued elsewhere(Lehmbruch, 1982a: 8 ff.) that comparativeresearch in political partiesand elections is in a privilegedpositionbecause of what mightbe termedthe institutional standardization of the

electoral-parliamentarychannel

of politics.The institutionalization of interest intermediation, on the other hand,

is very unevenlydeveloped. Whereas standardized measurements forthe cross-national comparisonof party systems are relatively easy toestablish, systems of interest intermediation constitute complex config-urations subject to cross-cultural and cross-national variability. Thishas many consequences, in particular, for cross-national quantitativeanalysis,e.g., of the importanceof patterns of interest representationforpolicyoutputs and outcomes. To establish operationaldefinitions withcross-cultural and cross-national validity and to arrive at reliable mea-surements is a much more complex and difficult task than in compara-tive party or electoral research.

The problemsarising from this extreme cross-cultural variability ofpatterns of interest intermediation became apparent in discussions overthe applicability of the pluralist paradigmof pressure politics or influ-ence polities, which was developedby the American fathers of the groupapproach. In recent decades, important objectionshave been made tocertain theoretical implicationsof this paradigm (Schattschneider,1960; Olson, 1965).On the other hand, it has been considered at leastpartially valid, in particular for the analysis of American politics(Schmitter, 1979b: 73). But limitations for the study of non-Americanfield situations were soon demonstrated by leadingspecialistsof com-parative research on organized interests (LaPalombara, 1960).

THE INTEREST GROUP APPROACH IN THESTUDY OF SOCIALIST SYSTEMS

These limitations have become conspicuousin the effort, undertakenin spite of such warnings, to adapt the pluralist interest group approachto the study of socialist political systems. Essentially, this effort (Skil-

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ling, 1966;Skillingand Griffiths, 197 1)aimed at amending the totalitar-ianism paradigm(Friedrich and Brzezinski, 1956)by pointing to plural-ist patterns of conflict and articulation and interest aggregation.Remark-ably, however, the reference was to Arthur Bentleysoriginal version ofthe group approach (1908) rather than to the more recent reformulationby David Truman (1951).As Franklyn Griffiths has put it, somewhatmisleadingly,Truman-in contrast to Bentley-tended to treat theinterest group &dquo;asa reified or personifiedaggregate&dquo;(Skilling andGriffiths, 1971: 340).

However, the central obstacle to an interest group interpretation ofSoviet

politicsis

quite clearlyTrumans

emphasison

organizedinterest

groups (Skillingand Griffiths,1971: 341).Whereas the American politi-cal process could be described with some plausibility as structured bythe interplayof interest organizations(of&dquo;associationalinterest groups,the interest group approach to Soviet politicshad to emphasize&dquo;infor-mal subsystems&dquo;or &dquo;opiniongroups&dquo;(Skillingand Griffiths,1971: 342),such as the apparatchiki,the industrial managers, the military, or thewriters.

Even where mass societal organizations do exist, as in the case of theindustrial workers, or the youth, these associations are in the main notable autonomously to express or defend the interest of the social catego-ries concerned. They are designed rather to transmit the partys concep-tion of the real group interest, or more often, the national or party interestto which the group interest is to be subordinated or sacrificed [Skillingand Griffiths, 1971: 37].

This descriptionapparently takes for granted a vector model of Westerninterest politics where the activity of (informal as well as associational)groups can be represented by vectors of influence running from thegroup to government, and where, consequently, the pointsof access forthe former are of crucial importance.

Since in the Soviet Union, organizationsof industrial workers andthe Komsomol clearly do not conform to this vector model, of course,they do not fit the pluralist interpretation of Soviet politics. However,the explicit rejectionof Trumans version of the group approach means

that a central problem of pluralist theory is neglected,namely organiza-tion. The adaptation of the pluralist model in Soviet studies took placeat a moment when-as has been pointed out earlier-this model andsome of its fundamental assumptions wereincreasinglyquestioned. Oneof the central problems raised in this discussion was the importanceoforganization as a crucial variable in the process of interest politics. So



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the critics focused on distortions in the symmetry of access resultingfrom the differential &dquo;organizability&dquo;of social categories(Olson, 1965;

Offe, 1972).Hence the

attempt,in the

pluralistschool of Soviet

studies,to revise David Truman failed to keep up with the state of the discussionin social science.

ANALYTICAL DIFFICULTIES IN THECONCEPT OF SUBSYSTEM AUTONOMY

An innovation that is particularlyinteresting in our context was theintroduction of the

conceptof

&dquo;subsystemautonomy&dquo;as a device for

ranking political systems in a comparative taxonomy (Almond andPowell, 1966: 308 ff.; Almond and Powell, 1978: 72 ff.). Although it isnot employed synonymously with pluralism,it nevertheless appears tohave a strong affinity to the pluralist paradigmas developedby Bentleyand Truman. Thus it is probably not inconsistent with the latter iftotalitarian (or authoritarian)systems are classified as having low sub-system autonomy whereas high subsystem autonomy is attributed todemocratic systems. But the system-subsystemscheme, derived fromsystems theory, appears to have a higherpotential for analyzing com-plex systemic relationshipsthan does the mechanistic vector model ofthe group theorists.

Unfortunately, Almond and Powell appear to have missed theiropportunity to adopt this framework by postulatinga linear relation-shipof subsystem autonomy with politicalsystem capabilities (Almondand Powell, 1966: 255 ff.). This becomes quite clear if we start ourcomparative effort from an analysis of western European politicalsystems.

It is easy to demonstrate that the ranking of these systems in thetypologyof Almond and Powell results in serious distortions of empiri-cal reality. An essential subclass in their taxonomy, as far as someEuropean countries are concerned, is limited subsystemautonomy. Thisrefers to &dquo;systemsin which political parties, interest groups, and themedia of mass communication tend to be dependent one upon theother&dquo;(Almond and Powell, 1966: 259).However, the examplesgiven-&dquo;Franceof the Third and Fourth

Republic, Italyafter World War

II,and Weimar Germany&dquo;-appearto be chosen using a different criterion(namely the &dquo;fragmentationof political culture&dquo;).It is obvious toanyone familiar with the politics of western European countries that thedefinition of &dquo;limitedsubsystemautonomy&dquo;just given applies to mostwestern European countries, to Sweden as well as to Switzerland,



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Denmark, or present-day Austria. Moreover, the subsumptionof Bri-tain under the different class of highsubsystemautonomy in a compara-

tive perspectiveappears to dosome

violenceto

the facts of Britishpolitical reality.

The weak pointof this approach is that it fails to assess the functionalsignificanceof subsystem autonomy for complex politicalsystems. Suchsystems can be analyticallyconceptualized as networks of organizationsserving different functional requisites: On the one hand, they mayundertake social and political coordination of group activities; on theother, they may develop internal mechanisms for copingwith conflictand dissent. The individual organization is characteristicallysubjecttotensions arisingbetween membership goals and systemicneeds, and theeffectiveness and stability of the political system depend on whetherthese tensions can be cusioned to maintain the systemic capability toreact sensitivelyto membership demands and, at the same time, coordi-nate group activities to cope with the changingand complex environ-ment of the system.

I shall argue below that the particular pattern of limited subsystemautonomy described by Almond and Powell may increase the problem-solving capabilities of these political systems, whereas high subsystemautonomy (as in the United States) may have dysfunctional consequen-ces. On the other hand, I shall, with Almond and Powell, stress thenegative consequences of low subsystemautonomy for the problem-solvingcapabilities of socialist systems. There is not-as these authorsimply-a linear relationshipof subsystem autonomy and system capa-bilities. Even when several classificatory schemes are superimposedtoform a sort of matrix (Almond and Powell, 1978: 308), the resultingtaxonomy continues to be characterized by low complexity. Put interms of systems theory, it lacks the requisite variety for modelingthecomplexityof a real modern political system.

NEO-CORPORATIST NETWORKS INWESTERN EUROPE

This reasoning is based on observation of the particular pattern ofinterest intermediation that has emerged in a number of western Euro-pean countries and has been described under labels such as &dquo;societal,&dquo;&dquo;liberal,&dquo;or simply&dquo;neo-corporatist&dquo;(Lehmbruch,1977).Neo-corporatistsystems are characterized, it has been pointed out, by a pattern ofcoordination of the policies of government and interest associations that



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cannot adequately be analyzedwith the &dquo;pluralist&dquo;vector-sum model ofpressure or influence politics. Such coordination, furthermore, appearsto be strongly facilitated by

aclose relationship between the largeinterest organizationsand political parties, on the basis of a continuing

differentiation of functions (Lehmbruch, 1977, 1981).This symbioticrelationship of political parties and organized interests must be takeninto account if one is to explain why neo-corporatistsystems, in cross-national perspective,appear to be characterized by superior&dquo;regimegovernability&dquo;(Schmitter,1981) or a superiorrecord in welfare statepolicies(Schmidt, 1982).

If we translate these hypothesesinto the languageof the developmen-tal approach to comparativepolitics just discussed,we are led to theconclusion that limited subsystemautonomy, as defined by Almond andPowell, is not necessarilydysfunctional.It has, in a number of instances,contributed to masteringsystemic problemswith relative success. Highsubsystemautonomy, on the other hand, may be functionallydeficientsince political coordination will be rendered more difficult by the result-ing relative fragmentation of the structure of political decisionmaking.For example,among the reasons for the failure of cooperative incomes

policies in the United States (Flanagan, 1980),it appears that, even inthe case of a Democratic administration, the linkages of organizedlabor, the Democratic party, and the administration are not sufficientlydevelopedto sustain a coordinated effort of economic policymakingonthe basis of a consensus about policyobjectives.

Another potentially eufunctional aspect of the European politicalsystems is due to the subcultural segmentationhistorically linked tolimited subsystem autonomy. For the integrationof functionallydiffer-

entiated subsystemswithin a subcultural community has been condu-cive to a fundamental consensus on common values and to a basicsolidarity between them. Within the different organizations,this even-tually contributed to higher organizationaldensity, and in the context ofthe ideologicalLager (camp), such solidarity strongly facilitated thecoordination of activities between the subsystems. In periods of civilstrife, as after World War I, this might have contributed to conflict.However, under different conditions, it could contribute to increase the

potentialfor conflict

regulationand

political problem solving.To illustrate these points, I refer to Austria, which repeatedly hasbeen described as a prototype of neo-corporatism, after having been aprototype of ideologicallyfragmented politics. My argument is thatboth aspects are geneticallylinked. The organizational infrastructure ofcontemporary Austrian politics can be traced back to the segmented orpillarized (verzuilde is the Dutch term) structure formed since the nine-



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teenth century, which resembled the segmentationinto subcultures thatcharacterized the Netherlands, Germany, and, to a lesser degree,Swit-

zerland, France, and Italy.Limited

subsystemautonomywas an

impor-tant ingredientof this structure. A typicalaspect has been the existenceof ideologicallysegmented (in particular, socialist and Catholic) laborunions with strong links to the respectivepolitical parties. But evenagrarian and business organizations may have formed part of theseverzuilde organizational networks. The fact that some of these countrieswere severelytorn by internal conflicts after World War I (which, in thecase of Austria, culminated in civil war and the establishment of aclerical-corporatist dictatorshipin 1934)has led many authors (includ-ing, of course, Almond and Powell) to claim that these segmentedstructures are responsible for political instability. However, as somestrongly segmented countries (such as the Netherlands) have been ableto maintain their political cohesion, the causes must be more complex,and limited subsystem autonomy is not inevitablydysfunctional in thesense of a mechanical necessity.

After World War II, a process of organizational concentration tookplace in Austria. In particular, the socialist and Catholic traditions ofunionism merged in a single, unitary labor confederation (in which thesocialists and the conservative Catholics, respectively,have their Frak-tionen analogousto party groups in Parliament). Business organized inthe powerful, strongly centralized Federal Chamber of Business on thebasis of compulsory membership.This simplificationof the segmentedstructures has not, however, resulted in higher subsystemautonomy.The labor federation is dominated by its majoritarian socialist Fraktion,whereas the Chamber of Business, as well as the Chamber of Agricul-

ture, is intimatelylinked to the conservative Austrian PeoplesParty.Cumulation of leadershipfunctions is one extremelyimportant tech-nique for maintaining these linkages as well as those with other massorganizations.Mr. Sekanina, for example,minister of public works inthe socialist government, is at the same time presidentof the union ofmetalworkers, miners, and energy workers and was until 1982 presidentof the Austrian Soccer Federation. Oh the middle level, the powerfulchairmen of the Work Councils in the nationalized industries (whichare

firmlyanchored in the centralized structure of the labor unions) and

their cooperation with the (strongly politicized) management of thesefirms, form an important aspect of this tightly knit organizationalnetwork.

All this does not mean, however, that unions or chambers are simply&dquo;transmissionbelts&dquo;for the political leadership. After all, there arecompetitive elections for leadership in the unions as well as in the



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chambers, with the participation of Communists in the unions and ofrepresentativesof the Liberal Party in the Chamber of Business. Unions

may take divergent positionson problemsof wage policy, and regionalleaders may oppose the central leadership.Moreover, on the parliamen-tary and electoral level, the party system has again become competitivesince the breakup of the broad black-red coalition government in 1966.Even during that period of Proporz, of institutionalization of consocia-tional party cooperation, the system contained important elements ofconflict articulation and competition (Lehmbruch, 1969, 1970; Stief-bold, 1974).Competitivemechanisms for articulating dissent and for

challengingleaders have been reinforced since then and exist

togetherwith the corporatistnetwork. One may even argue that their existence isvital for neo-corporatistcoordination since they contribute to sustaincultural motivations for solidarity between parties and organized inter-ests. It appears that one condition for the viability of neo-corporatism isthe survival of some motivational residues from a period of intensesegmentationand hostility between rival subcultures.

Now, of course-and somewhat paradoxically,it may seem-a net-work has formed on such a basis, which is known (and highlyvalued) associal partnership. It is considered to be of central importance forpolitical coordination in Austria, and there is general agreement that ithas contributed to remarkably successful economic and social policies.These include a consistent anti-inflationarypolicybased on cooperativewage restraint and on the decision of the monetary authorities (with, inparticular, the National Bank, which is strongly controlled by the laborand business organizations)to peg the schilling to the West Germanhard currency policy. They also include a policy of credit and invest-ments oriented toward adapting industrial structures to the challengesof the international economy. Here, again, it is important that financialinstitutions and committees are firmlytied into the Sozialpartnerandparty network.

Somewhat similar structures, although perhaps less distinct than inthe Austrian case, are to be found in other European countries charac-terized as neo-corporatist.This appliesin Scandinavia. In spiteof muchless sub-cultural segmentation, linkagesof organized interests and polit-ical

parties (limited subsystem autonomy)have been an

importantaspect of the political development of countries such as Sweden andNorway and have resulted in a symbiotic relationship facilitating neo-corporatist coordination. This symbiosis includes a continuing differ-ence in mechanisms of internal control and selection of strategic alterna-tives. The party system retains important competitive relationships,



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without prejudiceto social partnershipin the interest group subsystem.Political parties, their cooperativerelationships with interest associa-

tions (in particular, labor unions) notwithstanding, continue autonom-ously to formulate their policies and, eventually, to select differentalternatives. (In Sweden, for example, the Socialist Party has neverreacted to the labor union project of union-controlled funds for collec-tive capital formation by putting forward a different approach to thisobjective.) On the other hand, organized interests have never simplyacted as agenciesto implement governmental policies. Rather, policyformation has been the result of a cooperative relationshipincluding

quitea lot of

bargainingand mutual

adjustment.Thus while neo-corporatistsystems cannot adequately be describedwith the aid of the vector model (underlying the pluralist groupapproach), neither can interest groups in such systems be characterizedas transmission belts. These images are extremely simple,mechanicalanalogies unsuited to model the complex steeringmechanisms of highlyinterlockingneo-corporatistsystems. Their essential elements appear tobe, first, a relatively highcapabilityof the interest group system not onlyto articulate but also aggregate interests. This impliesinternal checks onthe articulation of immediate, short-range, and narrowly sectionalinterests.

Second, there is a functional differentiation of, on the one hand, aparty system retainingcompetitive mechanisms for generating and, atthe same time, confining the exercise of political power-and, on theother hand, an interest group-administration compound concernedwith economic and social policies that cannot be handled by a competi-tive party system (Lehmbruch, 1977).The third element is the coordina-tion of the key actors of the different subsystemsin policyformulationand of the lower-level actors in policy implementation(Lehmbruch,1981).

Reference to the superior problem-solvingcapabilityof such a systemmust take into account some important normative objectionsthat havebeen raised. It has been argued that the dilemma of legitimacyandeffectiveness in (neo-corporatist)industrial relations can best be solvedby &dquo;quasi-participation&dquo;(Weitbrecht, 1969).This leads to the objection,from the viewpointof a normative theory of participatorydemocracy,that neo-corporatist systems are quitedeficient. However, it is doubtfulthat those industrialized societies in Western Europe or North Americathat are not (or much less) neo-corporatist have managed to achievesignificantlyhigher levels of authentic participation, let alone combinethese with effective problem-solving.



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THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OFEUROPEAN NEO-CORPORATISM

The historical originsof neo-corporatist linkagesbetween organizedinterests and the party system in Western Europe can be traced back to arecurringphenomenon in European social history, the workers move-ment (Arbeiterbewegung)-anetwork of organizations united by com-mon cultural value systems, with socialist parties and labor unions as itspoliticalcore elements. The politicalaffinityof social democratic partiesin government and labor unions appears to have been essential to the

emergence of neo-corporatism.Originally,of course, the workers movement was a sort of counter-

culture within a predominantlybourgeois society. What has been de-scribed as the &dquo;negativeintegration&dquo;of the workers movement (Roth,1963) means that, despiteexclusion from the central instances of thepolitical decision-makingprocess, it somehow had to adapt itself to itscapitalist and bourgeois environment. During this stage we observe acharacteristic pattern of differentiation between labor unions andsocialist parties, in short-term strategies, and in emphasison strategicobjectives, notwithstanding the existence of a fundamental politicalsolidarity vis-~-vis the outside world and of a common ideologicalframework for interpretingsocial and political realities.

Even in such controversies,however, the social democratic workersmovement (either explicitly or implicitly)beganto focus on the state andon political action within a liberal constitutional framework as instru-ments of social reform. This fundamental orientation also helped pre-pare the way for the emergence of neo-corporatism. To the degree that

this type of political movement, with its characteristic politicalculture,was peculiar to European countries, it is not surprising that neo-corporatism has largely been a European phenomenon.

This is not, of course, to say that the evolution of a social-democraticworkers movement toward neo-corporatism was the distinctive andexclusive European pattern. There have been important alternatives. Inworkers organizations,there were other trends emphasizingstrongerorganizational autonomy and decentralization. One model of particularinterest in this context is

revolutionary syndicalismas it

prevailedin

Latin Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Itscultural orientations were based on refusingfunctional differentiation.Hence syndicalismoscillated between a multi-functional claim of revo-lutionary transformation of society by undifferentiated but stronglydecentralized and autonomous workers organizations constituted ofthe units of production, and a denial of parliamentary action-and



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socialist-parties that compromised with the dominant bourgeois cul-ture. Hence we find an emphasis on high subsystem autonomy thatmarks

importantdocuments such as the Charte dAmiens of the French

Confdration Gnera/e du Travail ( I90fi). A strong aversion to rolecumulation has been one of the consequences. To this day, Frenchunions such as Force Ouvrire, the CFDT, and the syndicalist wing ofthe CGT refuse the cumulation of office in union and parties andmembership in parliament, an orientation that stands in sharp contrastto neo-corporatistsystems such as Austria. If we take these differenttraditions into account, we have to conclude that the inclusion of theFrench Third Republicand Weimar Germany under the label of limitedsubsystemautonomy is rather misleading.

It appears more misleadingto postulate a developmentaltrend (evenlimited to democatic systems) toward increasingsubsystem autonomy,however. The American Federation of Labor under Samuel Gompers iscertainly a prototype of high subsystemautonomy. If we contrast thiswith the later evolution of American labor unions, it is evident thatsubsystem autonomy has declined and that the AFL/ CIO has estab-lished intimate linkages with the Democratic Party (Greenstone, 1969)that appear to have survived its temporary alienation from Democraticpresidential candidates in 1972 and 1980.

This interesting development leads to a double conclusion. Theemergence of an interventionist welfare state seems to be accompaniedby an intensification of linkagesacross political subsystems-that is, bya decrease in subsystem autonomy. However, this trend appears toresult in neo-corporatist structures only where, in a relatively longhistorical process, such linkages have already emerged as typicalof the

established political culture. The New Deal coalition never became theequivalent of the European workers movement because of its muchgreater social heterogeneity and because of the considerable fragmenta-tion of American political structures (Salisbury, 1979; Wilson, 1982).

In sum, a combined functional and geneticperspectiveindicates thatthis peculiarpattern of neo-corporatist interest intermediation emergedas a response to specific challenges of highlydevelopedcapitalist socie-ties, but this response has been facilitated by a specific,historical politi-cal culture as it has been characteristic, in particular, of a number ofEuropean countries.

EUROPEAN NEfl-CORPORATISM INCOMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

At this point it is appropriate to return to our starting point, namely,the difficulties encountered in cross-national research on patterns of



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interest intermediation. In the literature on corporatistpatterns we finda predominance of single-countrystudies comparable to the pluralist

paradigm that often guidedearlier research. Even ifwe

try to synthesizeour knowledgeabout the handful of countries characterized by strongcorporatism (Lehmbruch, 1982a; 16ff.) and to establish a compositeindex of corporatism(other attempts have been undertaken by Wilensky,1976: 48 ff.; Schmitter, 1981; 294; Schmidt, 1982; 257, n. 8), we riskencountering serious problemswith the cross-national validity of ourmeasures.

Neo-corporatismdemonstrates that even in highly industrializedcountries,where differentiated and specializedformal

organizationsare

active in interest intermediation, to pattern a certain complexityinto anoperationaldefinition based on a limited number of structural attributeswill immediatelyraise the question of whether such an operationaliza-tion can be transferred outside a given, relatively limited cultural andhistorical context. Our dilemma is that to avoid naive generalizations(as in the case of the American pressure politics model), we may betemptedto treat such a pattern as a more or less unique phenomenon.

The crux of the problem appears to be that above a certain level of

complexityit is difficult to postulate an isomorphy of political struc-tures that would permit operationaldefinitions based on the assumptionof the equivalence of structures and on more or less standardizedindicators. The cross-national validity of such measures appears to beinverselyrelated to the degree of structural complexity.We probablyhave to come back to a functional perspective and to ask for functional,not structural, equivalence.

In the case of neo-corporatism, this means that specific functional

problemsof highlyindustrialized societies have resulted in the estab-lishment of tripartite mechanisms of consultation and policycoordina-tion. This is the effect of a historical cleavage structure, namely, thesalience of the conflict between capital and labor and the importance,power, and discipline of the respective interest organizations.(Thisfunctional perspectiveshould not be misunderstood as functionalist inthe sense of an inevitable and self-stabilizingtrend toward corporatistharmony. It is obvious that such structures are highly contingent.)

An

importantillustration is

Japan,which has been described as

&dquo;corporatismwithout labour&dquo;(Pempel and Tsunekawa, 1982). Eco-nomic policymaking(most notably, industrial policy)in Japan is char-acterized by intimate cooperation of government (represented,in par-ticular, by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry), thebanking sector, and big industry. As in Sweden or Austria, there is ahigh degree of concertation to create overarching national policygoals.



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However, on the national or macro level, organized labor is largelyabsent due to its organizational weakness, strong decentralization, and

internal dissensions.This difference from European neo-corporatism seems to be due to

the difference in the macro-societal cleavage structure. In modernEuropean history the class conflict of capital and labor has had such astrong impact on the organizational power structures in society thattripartite concertation was needed to arrive at a cooperative policyofmacroeconomic stability and industrial growth. The Japanesecleavagestructure is different insofar as there is no similar class consciousness ofworkers. Industrial conflict is

mitigated,first, bythe dual structure of

the economy and the labor market, and, second, by the organizationalintegrationof labor at the enterpriselevel of the bigindustrysector. This&dquo;privatecorporatism&dquo;(R. P. Dore) serves as a functional equivalent tothe integration, in Europe, of labors top organizations into neo-corporatist tripartism on the national level.

However, the degree to which such integrationhas been possibleinEurope has depended on the specific cleavage structure as it developedduring the industrialization process. One important element is the his-torical affinity of organized labor for strong social-democratic parties.Another condition was that this interlockinglabor movement (includ-ing parties) has become reformist and co-opted into national politics atthe government level. The participation of socialist parties (and, inFinland, of the Communists) has been an important condition for theestablishment of corporatist policynetworks.

&dquo;STATECORPORATISM&dquo;INSOCIALIST COUNTRIES?

Generally the concept of neo-corporatism (&dquo;liberal,&dquo;&dquo;societalcor-poratism&dquo;)has been employed by authors interested in recent develop-ments in capitalist systems. Their problem is the voluntary coordinationof autonomous actors in markets related to systemicneeds for concertedaction. One may, however, argue that the usefulness of the concept is notlimited to

capitalist systems.It

maybe

heuristicallyuseful for the

analysis of trends in socialist systems toward a limited autonomy ofeconomic actors, since these may provoke comparable problems ofcoordination and concertation. They may result from the introductionof elements of a competitive market and from the emergence of auton-omous bargaining power among interest groups, in particular, laborunions.



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Indeed, the concept of corporatism has recently been adopted bysome authors to describe changesin the Soviet Union and other socialist

countries (Bunce and Echols, 1980; Staniszkis, 1981).In part, corpora-tist interpretationshave been proposedas alternatives to pluralist ones(Hough, 1972).The trend apparently is to describe the Soviet Union asstate corporatistin the sense of Schmitters typology(Bunceand Echols,1980: 18 f.).

It is obvious that the Soviet Union and the socialist countries pat-terned after it differ stronglyfrom neo-corporatist systems in the rigidityof the relationshipsamong subsystemsand the absence of autonomouscriteria for

selectingmechanisms for autonomous articulation of deviat-

ing interests and for sensitivelycopingwith dissent. Rather, if we followSchmitters approach and adopt a structural definition of corporatismand its subtypes, emphasizingorganizationalproperties,we see remark-able morphologicalsimilarities to Schmitters concept of state corporatism.

Suggestive as this may be from an abstract perspectiveof structuralanalysis, it must be puzzling for readers accustomed to placingpoliticalphenomena in a specific historical context. After all, state corporatismas a political doctrine has been conceived as an alternative to anddefense againstsocialism. True, there have been other important strandsin the historyof corporatistideas, socialist (e.g., guildsocialism) as wellas eclectic combinations with liberal ideas. But these have more affinityto either (&dquo;liberal&dquo;)neo-corporatismor perhaps (in the case of certainsocialist varieties) the Yugoslavmodel. State corporatism,on the otherhand, has essentiallybeen a design for the authoritarian stabilization ofcapitalist systems by subjectingworkers organization in particular tostrict controls.

Is it admissible to disregard this very different historical context andto put, say, the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia together with Salaz-ars Portugal in the same class for the reason that the pattern of interestintermediation in all these cases conforms to the structural definition ofstate corporatism? This raises the question,what is to be gained fromsuch a classification? Is it a mere morphologicalanalogy without anytheoretical implications?Or does it open new research perspectivesonempiricalphenomena and/or theoretical problems?

Applyingthe

conceptof state

corporatismto socialist countries

mightlead us into problems similar to those of the use of the concept oftotalitarianism to cover both the Soviet Union under Stalin and NaziGermany. The different historical and social contexts, and the specificfunctions of the structures described tend to be disregarded.Importantfunctional differences may thus be overlooked or functional analogies



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may, without a sufficient empiricalbasis, be drawn by implicationfromthe analytical framework.

It would be premature to decide the question at this moment. For thefunctional-as distinct from the structural-affinities and differencesbetween the two types of corporatism have never been investigatedin asystematic manner. To be sure, they have been the subject of someinsightfuland suggestive speculations(Schmitter, 1979a;40 ff.), but thisline of inquiry has not been pursued. By and large, each type hasremained the domain of a particularcommunity of regionalspecialists(Latin Americanists on the one hand, Europeanists on the other), whichcontinue to have no more than sporadic scientific contacts. It is not yetcertain that the inclusion of socialist countries in the class of state

corporatist systems will contribute to a better understanding of thesecomplex conceptual relationships. No theoretical consensus on func-tional interpretation of the different subtypes of corporatism has yetevolved. Most authors appear to assume that particular structures aresomehow related to specific societal and political functions within agiven genetic context. Adopting the concept of state corporatism todescribe interest organizationsin socialist systems may be premature solong as the functional-geneticdimension is not considered alongside thestructural dimension.

FUNCTIONAL REQUISITES AND PROBLEMSOF INTEREST INTERMEDIATION IN

NEO-CORPORATISM AND SOCIALISM

The heuristic value of the concept of corporatism for the comparative

study of capitalist and socialist systems is not confined to arriving atclassifications (by generic subsumption and establishingthe differentiaspecifica). Rather, it may direct us to ask how specificfunctional requi-sites of highlydeveloped industrial societies are met by different types oforganization structures and inter-organization networks and how theseare able to cope with functional problems that may arise in such systems.

Neo-corporatismis an attempt to solve problems characteristic of theinterventionist welfare state based on a mixed economy. More precisely,we refer to a

stageof

developmentwhen the

inadequaciesof traditional

piecemeal interventionism in imperfect market processes are perceived.To sustain dynamic processes of growth and to avoid disproportionsand disequilibria, a sort of higher-order interventionism is developedand aimed at consciously steeringmacro-societal and macro-economicparameters.



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Such macrosteering, however, has to be found compatible with theautonomous pursuitof partial and sectional interests, since the motiva-tional basis for a

growing economy appearsto be

sufficient leewayto

permit such interests to take advantageof market processes. This is truefor the labor force as well as for the enterpreneur. The practicaldifficul-ties of Keynesianpolicyin particular have led to a growingawarenessthat even the more sophisticatedindirect techniques for achievingthisdelicate balance are defective. Steeringa course of balanced growthappears to require the coordination of government policies and theactivities of the large interest organizations.This, in turn, leads todifficult problemsof intra-organizationalcomplianceand of adjustingautonomous, partial, and sectional definitions of interests to macro-societal goals(as defined in the process of inter-organizationalcoordina-tion).

It has been argued above the western European neo-corporatismhas come relatively close to steering this balanced path, and that oneimportant condition for this has been the linkagesbetween the partysystem and organized interests in the history of the European workersmovement. This historical perspectiveraises interestingquestions.The

European workers movement is also at the root of Soviet and easternEuropean socialism. In the western as well as the eastern part of thecontinent, the particular political culture of the workers movementexisted up to a certain point in history. What were the implicationsof itshistorical rupture after the Bolshevik revolution for the pattern ofinterest intermediation and the networks of organized interests, theparty, and government?

It is evident that the Leninist approach to interest organization

diverged sharply from the pattern of differentiation (withina

solidarymovement) outlined above. The image of labor unions (and other massorganizations) functioning as the partys transmission belt may not beadequate for describingthe relationship of Communist parties andlabor unions in capitalist countries. But this aspect is outside the scopeof the present article, as is the question to what degree and under whatconditions Eurocommunist parties and labor organizationsmightenterneo-corporatist relationshipssimilar to the social-democratic model.

An alternative model, first developed in the Soviet Union, empha-sizes central coordination at the expense of the autonomous pursuit ofindividual and partial interests, and takes advantage of the culturaltradition of the workers movement to establish the hierarchical controlof the Party over interest organizations (in particular labor unions). Butit has become increasinglydifficult to sustain a path of dynamic growthat the stage of higher industrial development.Hence in eastern Europe



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the past two decades have been characterized by the search for mecha-nisms permitting more leewayfor the autonomous pursuitof individualand partial interests to stabilize the motivational basis for further eco-nomic growth. Yet this may lead, in turn, to predicaments comparableto those of the Western European mixed economy. One of the answersmightbe to increase the autonomy of organized subsystemsfor articu-lating deviating definitions of interests, which then might be adjusted tomacro-societal goal definitions.

Developments in Poland in the last two years may be analyzedfruitfully from this comparativeperspective.The failure of establishedlabor unions

(whichsome would characterize as state

corporatist)to

articulate workers unrest and to channel it into a meaningfulprocess ofaggregation indicates that the degree of functional differentiation of theorganizational structure of Polish societywas not adapted to the sys-temic needs of an economy and society subjectto rapid transformationand resulting turbulence. For some time, it seemed as if the emergence ofSolidaritymightlead to a constellation somewhat comparable to that ofwestern European countries governedby Social Democrats with con-siderable, but not unlimited, support from organized labor. Some of theleaders and intellectual advisers of Solidarityapparently had in mindsuch a relationship,as did some of the &dquo;liberal&dquo;government and partyrepresentatives. Speculations about social contractarian relationshipsand a &dquo;democracyof national understanding,&dquo;however vague, couldhave pointed toward further consociational and neo-corporatist devel-opments (Marin, 1982: 14 ff.).

Returningto the neo-corporatistmodel, the success of such a systemof coordinating subsystemswith limited autonomy dependsupon func-tional differentiation and specializationof the latter. Yet this is preciselythe opposite of what the majority of the militants wanted Solidaritytobecome. The initially self-limiting revolution (Staniszkis, 1982)did notturn into a cooperative relationship among differentiated, specialized,and relatively disciplinedorganizations within a flexible but predictableinstitutional framework. Rather, negativism characterized the reac-tions of the party leadershipand produced an identity crisis that led tothe gradual transformation of Solidarity into a broad social movement

(Staniszkis, 1982).The fundamentalist orientation of these militantsbecame incompatible with the very principle of a social partnershipbased on secularized (that is, differentiated and specialized)subsystems,such as a classical labor union would have been.

Labor unions, in neo-corporatist systems, may be importantagenciesfor both articulating and aggregating interests. But they rely on coordi-nation with the party system and on its ability to build consensus and



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generate power in the electoral and parliamentary arena. Where theparty system lacks this capability, the union movement (even if, as forsome

time in Italy, it aimsto

articulatean

overarching consensuson

political reform) may be functionallyoverloaded. It appears that thedevelopmentof Solidarityled to such overloading, as an indirect conse-quence of the rigidities constraining the reactions of the party leaders.Hence the new union movement took a syndicalist-and, in our terms,multifunctional-orientation rather than an orientation equivalent toWestern European neo-corporatism. On the basis of our general conjec-tures, one can speculatethat this mighthave led to political deadlockeven with a different geography. My objectivehere is not to explainrecent, and predict future, history. Rather, I would like to suggest thatorganized interests in Eastern and Western Europe might fruitfully beput into a comparativeanalyticalperspectivethat insists on their inter-dependencewith the party system and with government.

Comparing organized interests in capitalist and in socialist countries,as I have done here, may at first glance appear to be an exercise infocusing on incongruousand incommensurable phenomena. The func-tional context of organizing interests obviously is so different that thisanalytical effort has to be justified in terms of some likely scientificpayoffs.Our subjectis of more than analyticimportance, of course. Thediscussion over the applicability to socialist systems of conceptualframeworks developed in a Western systemic context has always hadimportant substantive implications.The most controversial, probably,have been drawn from modernization approachesto a theory of indus-trial society, in particular, the hypothesis of a trend toward convergenceof mature industrialized societies. We do not need to reopen this famil-

iar discussion. Insofar as I have arrived at the conclusion that capitalistand socialist systems are facingcomparableand to some degree analo-gous functional problems, this convergence is of a different nature andcannot simplybe explained by the functional logicof social moderniza-tion. To a large extent, rather, it seems due to specifichistorical constel-lations that have emerged in the earlystages of the process of industriali-zation in specificcultural contexts. This is the reason why I have focusedon developmentsin European countries. My conjectureis that some

earlycommon patterns of

politicalarticulation of the conflict of inter-

ests in European societies have entered the (verydistinct) repertoiresofconflict management and of governance in different types of politicalsystems that have emerged from the ideologicalsplit in Europe since1917 and, further, since 1945. Therefore, even if we are cautious inassessingthe predictivepower of functionalist theories of the conver-



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gence of mature industrial systems, we may still ask whether thosehistorically received repertoires of the organizational articulation of

conflict do not producesome comparable and, perhaps, common func-tional problemsfor both capitalist and socialist systems.

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ipsr - lehmbruch - interest inter mediation in capitalist and socialist systems

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