The Left's Dirty Job

As today's headlines make clear, corporate restructuring is only one aspect of a global transformation that is challenging businesses and governments alike. W. Rand Smith examines a central question in this process: what choices exist for governments of industrialized democracies as they seek to help older, core industries adjust to changes in demand, technology and new sources of competition? This question is especially important for governments dominated by leftist political parties, which are torn between their commitment to social solidarity and the capitalist imperative of efficiency. Pledged to defend workers' interests (including their jobs), leftist governments also face market pressures often requiring huge job cuts. Given this conflict, can leftist governments forge a distinctive restructuring strategy? "The Left's Dirty Job" addresses this question by comparing the experiences of recent socialist governments in France and Spain. Because of their longevity and initial reform aspirations, the governments of Francois Mitterand (1981-1995) and Felipe Gonzalez (1982-1996) provide a key test of whether a leftist approach to industrial restructuring is possible.
This study argues that, in fact, both governments' policies generally resembled those of other European governments in their emphasis on market-adapting measures that eliminated thousands of jobs while providing income support for displaced workers. The study also argues that despite broadly similar policies, the restructuring process in France and Spain differed in three important aspects: trajectory, dynamics and impact. W. Rand Smith develops these conclusions through comparisons of French and Spanish macroeconomic policy, public-sector management and restructuring in the steel and automobile industries. Building an explanation rooted in a resource-mobilization perspective, he focuses on the internal politics of the governing coalitions of Socialist parties and their labour union allies, arguing that these coalitions strongly affected their governments' restructuring strategies. Featuring extensive field work and interviews with over one hundred political, labour and business leaders, this study is the first systematic comparison of these important Socialist governments.