Le Queux, Stephane (2025) An Ontological ‘Radix’ Take on Comparative Industrial Relations. In: [Presented at the 2025 AIRAANZ Annual Conference]. From: 2025 AIRAANZ Annual Conference: Navigating the Nexus: Politics, Profession, and Practice in Industrial Relations, 3-5 February 2025, Wellington, New Zealand.

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Abstract

Comparative political economy is an intellectual domain of profuse complexity. Industrial relations, that can be conceived as a sub-component of which, have been subjected to an array of approaches. The heuristic landscape ranges from historical materialism (structure) to functionalism and systems (and their trajectories, that is convergence versus divergence, regional integration and internationalism), to class (agency) and (counter-hegemonic) social movements (action), to (production) models (including stages of development), typologies even paradigms; with institutionalist perspectives such as the Variety of Capitalism and in extenso a meso-level being arguably the most common ground for comparative analyses.

The presentation will first revisit this landscape, as a background. However, while acknowledging the sophistication and multi-faceted value of this theoretical apparatus, the presentation’s objective is to turn things round: can we make a U-turn from complexity to simplicity? To achieve this, the presentation will switch to an ontological level or say a root-level of analysis. This attempt borrows from structural anthropology and Marcel Mauss’ elementary definition of any economic system as the value of value. Inspiration also stems from Richard Hyman’s geometry of trade unionism articulating a triangulation of three cardinal concepts: Market, Class, and Society. Can we thus identify key or radical (understood as ‘radix’) determinants of what (national) industrial systems are about? We will exercise to do so in examining a mix of countries: USA, UK, Australia, Singapore, and Vietnam. We will further the analysis in relation to Singapore and then expand to the fundamentals of the European context. We will conclude with an open question as to whether such kind of analysis can be useful to address the relative ethnocentrism of our conceptual toolkit.

Item ID:	84890
Item Type:	Conference Item (Presentation)
Keywords:	comparative industrial relations
Related URLs:	https://www.airaanz.org/
Date Deposited:	20 Mar 2025 03:20
FoR Codes:	35 COMMERCE, MANAGEMENT, TOURISM AND SERVICES > 3505 Human resources and industrial relations > 350504 Industrial and employee relations @ 100%
SEO Codes:	15 ECONOMIC FRAMEWORK > 1503 Management and productivity > 150301 Industrial relations @ 100%
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