Bender and Ebbinghaus also discuss the influence of crises such as the financial market crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, energy & inflation crises. The inclusion of unions and employer associations in round table discussions can be seen as a reaction to times of difficulty, constituting greater involvement in crisis management. There was also increased strike action, with workers and unions making strong demands for higher wages to compensate for crisis-induced inflation.
The last section describes social policy reforms and reform coalitions. Despite neo-liberal tendencies during the 90s and early 2000s, there have been areas of expansion within welfare state policy in the last 15 to 20 years, in particular for social investments. The authors also discuss recent research findings demonstrating a stronger consensus between unions and employer associations with regard to social investments.
In addition to this discussion see one of the latest articles published by Benedikt Bender
