The State in European Employment Regulation

Abstract: The aim of the paper is to examine the changing role of the state in employment regulation in an environment that has become more market-driven and Europeanized since the introduction of the European Monetary Union (EMU) and the European Employment Strategy (EES). The point of departure is a general discussion of the role of the state in capitalist development and a review about the recent debate on the spatiality of state regulation. It further suggests different ways in which the state shapes employment relations along the following dimensions: as employer, as legislator, as guarantor of employment rights and procedural regulator, in intermediating neo-corporatist processes, in macro-economic management, and as a welfare state. From this theoretical basis, the paper identifies changes in state strategies within employment regulation by comparing two periods of European integration: the post-war period and the ongoing period after the introduction of the EMU and the EES. In conclusion, the paper asserts that there has been a transition in the ways the state 'intervenes' in the economy and shapes the different dimensions of employment relations from a governing and legislating mode towards a steering and advising one.