After the wave of independence of the 1940s and 1950s, each country followed a development model that lasted until the 1980s. Oil crises, a collapse of the Soviet Union and a rise of globalization affected then the political vision of social protection. Reforms were initiated under the influence of the Washington Consensus (Williamson, 1990), and development strategies pursued, such as Import substitution industrialization and a planned economy, were at the center of criticism.
Most developing countries have embarked on the path of reform, but the extent and direction vary from country to country, depending on several determinants (economic performance, organizational legacy, etc.).
In this research, I am interested in understanding the reforms of labor laws in Tunisia (reforms of 1994, 1996 and Social Contract of 2013 when the unemployment insurance where introduced) and in Lebanon (reform of 2000). More specifically, this project aims to understand the factors that contributed to the reforms of labor laws' flexicurity. Flexicurity refers to the different configurations of flexibility (introduction of atypical contracts, reduction of redundancy payments, etc.) and job security (redundancy conditions, employment regulations, etc.). The project seeks to identify the role played by key actors (trade unions, employers' associations, bureaucracy, international organizations, etc.) in terms of reforms in the two countries under study.
The divergence between the types of welfare state has been associated with the role played by the labor movement (Esping-Anderson, 1990), non-state providers (Wood and Gough, 2006; Cammett and Maclean, 2014), cultural diversity (Gough and Abu Sharkh, 2010), colonialism and independence (Cammett, 2014), emergency events such as war, crisis or other (Castles, 2010) and religion (Kersbergen, 1995). However, this research is based on a theoretical approach linking the welfare regime and the production regime (Haggard and Kaufman, 2008), which argues that those regimes are integrated into each other and mutually support each other (p.104). The labor market and social policies conform to not create perverse incentives.
Given that flexicurity reforms shapes the labor market, the approach connecting welfare state and production systems is better suited to our research. This approach underlines how this system influences the industrial relations system: national political economy and existing social policies influence the composition of the labor force, the organization of relations between actors and the results of the labor market (Hamann and Kelly, 2008: 135). For example, the welfare state / production nexus examines how industrialization strategies and institutions have shaped patterns of social protection and employment in the two countries under study. Thus, it is possible to explore the link between the welfare state / production nexus and the inclusion of flexicurity in labor legislations.
To guide the analysis, I outline assumptions from three approaches explaining institutional change; an approach explaining the process of change (Pierson, 1996; Thelen, 1999; Ebbenghaus, 2005), an approach explaining the dynamics of change (Evans, 1995; Korpi, 2006), and an approach focusing on the transfer of public policies between countries (Dolowitz and Marsh, 1996; Béland, 2007).
Our study uses both types of methodologies, qualitative and quantitative. The qualitative analysis identifies the position, and analyzes the influence of key actors on the content of the reform. The quantitative methodology attempts to understand the impact on the labor market (on formal and informal employment and unemployment). This mixed methodology allows us to examine existing government policies to draw conclusions and act better in a region that has undergone a period of transition marked by economic liberalization.
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Cammett, M. (2014) "Compassionate Communalism: Welfare and Sectarianism in Lebanon" Cornell University Press.
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