THE ECONOMIC CRISIS AND THE EROSION OF SOCIAL PACTS IN SOUTHERN EUROPE: Spain and Portugal in comparison

In most European countries, the reform agenda on socioeconomic issues has been backed on social pacts throughout the last decades. However, the upsurge of the economic crisis has hampered this general orientation towards agreement and consensus. From 2008 and on there has been a transformation "from negotiation to imposition" which has been particularly severe in Southern Europe. In Spain and Portugal, the implementation of unilateral reforms by the governments under the surveillance of the European institutions has provoked the weakening of social pacts. The article evaluates the reconfiguration of the relation between governments and social partners in these two countries as a consequence of the economic crisis. It also analyses the emergence of a new dynamic of corporatist political exchange which combines irregular and short-range dialogue with confrontation.