Political Negotiation Systems
and the Bargaining Process

In this research project which started in April 1997 and which will end in October 1999, the industrial relations in four industries of the Swiss economy will be analyzed.
The main question is: Have the industrial relations in Switzerland changed in the eighties and nineties with the ongoing globalization process? Are there changes in the traditionally corporatist arrangements between the interests groups of capital and labor and does the state take a new role in trying to solve the conflicts between these interests?

The Swiss National Science Foundation, the Institute for Political Science of the University of Berne together with the private research institute Dr. Adrian Vatter "Politikforschung & -beratung" choose this project in regards to the findings about the future bargaining structure of industrial relations.
Within the struggle to reach a competitive position in the world market, the Swiss industries have traditionally reached good results. This was in part due to the friendly relations between business interests and trade unions. In the public area there is - now - a discussion going on about deregulation and breaking up the collective bargaining system.
Is this only a media event or is there a real process going on? What will be the outcomes of this new bargaining system, if there is one?

Research plan

In the short period of 30 month, Michael Meyrat will analyze the bargaining process in four industries (construction, machine building, banking and chemical industry) in the period of 1986 to 1997.

In a first step a document analysis will allow to make a chronology of events.
In a second step there will be interviews with the private as well as the public actors and...
...in a third step the researcher will attend to the bargaining process itself.

The level of analysis will be at the individual, the intra- and interorganizational and the industry-wide level. A network analysis will be made at the structural (whole network) and at the individual (ego-centered) level.

Contact

Michael Meyrat, Institute for Political Science, University of Berne,
Unitobler, Lerchenweg 36, CH-3000 Bern 9, Tel.: + 41 31 631.37.87, Fax.: +41 31 631.85.90
email: michael.meyrat-at-ipw.unibe.ch.

To the research group's homepage.
To the project "Civil Communities: New Forms of Organized Solidarity".
To the project "Virtual Communities: The Social World of the Internet".
To the project "'Traditional' Communities: Agriculture in the Swiss Jura Region".
To the Linkpage (not yet implemented...)

last updated 20.12.97 by Christoph Müller

Political Negotiation Systems and the Bargaining Process

Political Negotiation Systems
and the Bargaining Process