Institutionalism and Bargaining Power in Comparative IR

Abstract

The paper argues for an extension of both institutionalist as well as interest-based approaches to the study of comparative industrial relations. Taking concessionary bargaining in Germany and the United States as a comparative test case, it can be shown that a purely institutionalist analysis that stresses the persistent structural differences and predicts divergent IR outcomes is not sufficient to explain the high degree of similarities as well as the processes of convergence. The paper therefore proposes an extension of the institutionalist framework by explicitly incorporating bargaining power as a central variable in explaining international differences in IR policies and practices.