Common Pressures, Uneven Trajectories: The Variegated Europeanisation of Wage Regulation Institutions

The debate on whether national industrial relations (IR) are experiencing convergence is a long-standing one. Recently, scholars argue that we are witnessing a neoliberal convergence of national IR, understood as an increase in employers’ discretion. Much of this discussion has focused on countries of the European Union (EU) as empirical test cases. Hence, this debate has intertwined with that on the effects of the process of European integration on national IR. Drawing insights from the economic geography literature and the perspective of ‘variegated neoliberalisation’, this article argues that neoliberalisation and Europeanisation on IR should be seen as intertwined processes, which are, however, constitutively variegated. Through a multi-level research design, the article applies this theoretical framework to one key function of national IR, that is, wage regulation, with a focus on Ireland and Italy.