Skocpol 1985

Theda Skocpol "Bringing the State Back In: Current Research" 3-37.
in
Evans, Peter B., Dietrich Rueschemeyer, and Theda Skocpol. Bringing the State Back In. Cambridge [Cambridgeshire]: Cambridge University Press, 1985.

• social science had (in 1985) become very society centered, and the state wasn't well understood as an actor with agency
• the Weberian view of the state demands we see the state as structuring state-society relations AND affecting relations within civil society, though it is not totalizing in the sense that other organizations can have similar influence (7-8)
• why do states formulate and purse their own goals? (i.e. why do states go beyond the demands of civil society) (9-10)
• basic needs of manitaining order internally and form external threats
• social inclusion counts as part of this
• corporatist regimes in Peru and Brazil as a way to limit internal social conflict (10)
• state autonomy is not a fixed structural feature in of any governmental system, it can come and go, beause the state tranforms over time, can gain and lose power in relation to societal forces, and can gain or lose autonomy in the same way (14)
• the state can never truly be disinterested (15)
• state capacities should be understood as relational rather than objectively measurable...they are only as powerful as those other organizations over whom they hope to prevail, or influence (19), ESPECIALLY SOCIOECONOMIC OR SOCIOCULTURAL CONTEXT
• the design of a state can also have important implications on the patterns and structure of civil society...that is to say, the way a state is structure can influence the way a society works (21)
• conclusion: (28)
• states can be coneived of as
• organizations with their own goals that they are more or less able to achieve, or
• "configurations of organization" that structure action and influence politics of all classes in society

Cooper, Westcott and Lansbury (2003)

from Cornfield and McCammon 2003

• Australia
• states enacting neoliberal economic policies, rolling back some of the legislative protections unions had historically enjoyed (188-190)
• the results has been more confrontation between employers and unions (190)
• the response is greater organizing

Cornfield and McCammon 2003

Introduction from their edited volume

• they use a union-centered approach that places labor organizations and their actions as the center of a web of constraining and facilitating social reactions (2)
• but they also see three important social relations in revitalization, between unions and 1) workers, 2) employers, and 3) the state (3)
• "the state influences the the amount of political opportunity for the expression of labor actions." (11)
• sees labor as attempting to regain its autonomy from the state in certain parts of the GS (like venezuela and Mexico) (14-16)
• but these are all labor movements themselves pushing away from the state, not teh state pushing labor unions out
• 
  

Molina Romo 2005

Molina Romo, Óscar. (2005) "Political Exchange and Bargaining Reform in Italy and Spain." European Journal of Industrial Relations 11(1): 7–26.

• In the conclusion
• labor reforms in Italy and Spain were crafted by policy concertation between employers, unions, and the government took an active role (sometimes even by forcing reforms) (20)
• but the intervention of the government gave the trade unions political leverage, and allowed for political exchange, to improve the outcomes of reforms (20-21)
• this is a little different, as the government taking an active role in this reform resulted in the government opening itself to feeling the wrath of unions
• earlier reforms in the 1980s had left unions with weakened industrial power but continued political power, this they were able to leverage into protecting their bargaining structures in the 1990s (22)
• THE POINT, here, is that
• the government didn't take a very active role, but did so in careful negotiations with unions and employers, and
• in this case, when faced by a political challenge from unions, the government gave in to demands (22)