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In the last ten years, European economies have been hit by two large waves of instability. The first, inflation, had two peaks, one around the turn of the decade and the other between 1973 and 1975. The second, a long spell of unemployment, began to build slowly at the end of the sixties in a few coun tries, but became really important for all Western European nations after the oil crisis. The effects of these fluctuations are still being felt, and nobody really knows whether new ones are forthcoming. Governments are now behaving in a very cautious way almost everywhere, taking pains not to reflate the economy enough to wipe out unemployment for fear of rekindling inflation and a balance of payments crisis, but also taking pains not to deflate the economy too much for fear of the political repercussions of excessive unemployment. Governments believe this to be the best way in which to find the narrow that will eventually lead industrial societies out of their present problem.2 If such a path does exist, however, it is not only narrow, but also fairly long, and unemploy ment and inflationary pressures will last for the foreseeable future.3 There is nothing uniquely European about this general problem. And eco nomic policy responses are at least as varied among European countries as be tween the European and the non-European members of the OECD. There is something, however, which is both typically European and of more general interest about the question we shall focus on here: that is, how the three main actors of the industrial relations system?unions, employers' associations, and governments?managed first a full-employment economy and, more recently, a less than full employment economy. In many European countries unions are strong, linked by close ties to politi cal parties, usually of the Left.4 Though much of its old meaning?a unified socialist of union and party?has evaporated with time, the term labor movement is still useful to stress this link between union and party, so different from the situation in the United States. In certain European countries the unions are highly centralized; they consult frequently with the govern ment on a wide spectrum of economic policy issues. In most countries, a social democratic, union-supported party is in power, or is part of a coalition govern ment, or has a significant voice in government. Such combinations of political and social forces have their roots deep in history. Some of their features, how ever, have developed since World War II, taking their form from the very low 43
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