Roads to Post-Fordism Labour Markets and Social Structures in Europe

In this book Max Koch develops a theoretical model to understand the restructuring of labour markets and social structures of advanced capitalist countries on the basis of the 'regulation approach'. This approach is then applied to comparative analysis of the national trajectories of the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden. Against the background of the classical sociological theories of Marx and Weber, he examines whether there are general links between inclusion, exclusion and capitalism. This is followed by an outline of key concepts of the regulation approach and a discussion of the transition from Fordism to Post-Fordism which leads to empirically verifiable hypotheses about long-term trends in labour markets and social structures in Western Europe. These hypotheses serve as the theoretical basis for the subsequent country studies that are founded on an evaluation of international labour statistics.

Contents: Preface; Introduction; Inclusion, exclusion, and capitalism; The Regulation Approach; New directions in comparative research into labour markets and social structures; The country studies; Summary of empirical results from a comparative perspective; Concluding remarks; References; Index.

Max Koch is a lecturer in Sociology in the School of Sociology and Applied Social Studies at the University of Ulster, where he is also a member of the European Studies Unit within the Research Institute of the Academy for Irish Cultural Heritages. He received both his PhD in Sociology and his Habilitation (second 'doctoral degree', prerequisite for German professorship) from the Freie Universität Berlin. As a postdoctoral researcher he worked, among other places, in Santiago de Chile, Lund, Madrid, and Rotterdam. He is involved in several research networks both at European and international level. He has published widely (including three single-authored books in German and numerous articles) in the areas of social theory, the sociology of development, labor market regulation, stratification and social exclusion.