Flexicurity: What Can We Learn from the Scandinavian Experience?

Abstract

This article criticises the multiplicity of meanings that have been attached to the term ‘flexicurity’ and the largely rhetorical, depoliticising uses to which it has been put by EU-level policy makers and analysts. It then proceeds to examine the two cases in which the underlying idea of flexicurity – that social protection and economic performance can be mutually reinforcing – has been most unambiguously pursued: the Swedish ‘Rehn-Meidner’ plan and the Danish ‘Golden Triangle’. This analysis suggests that a major factor in the relative success of these policies in these two Scandinavian countries has been the presence of ‘encompassing organisations’ (Olson 1982) on both sides of the bargaining table. The article ends with some considerations of the implications of this analysis for the much-discussed transferability of the Scandinavian experience to other national settings.