Study On Theories Of Contemporary Corporatism

Contemporary Corporatism Theory is a theoretical paradigm re-emerged in1970sto research the relationship between state and society. The reason to call it as are-emergence is because mature Corporatism ideology began to form in the mid-19th.The ideology desires for social solidarity opposing Liberalism which overemphasizesindividual and advocates social harmony opposing Marxism class conflicts. Thus, as anideology, Corporatism won many followers so that was put into practice by manycountries during World War I and II and set off a wave of climax. However, due to itsclose ties with Corporatism and Italian Fascist, German Nazi and many authoritarianregimes, Corporatism lost ground and unpopular in the subsequent30years. Until themid-1970s, on the basis of observation of remnants of Corporatism, a large number oftheorists including Philippe C. Schmitter re-used Corporatism to describe thesephenomena and tried to develop a general theoretical model regarding the relationshipbetween state and society. This paper is to explore the emergence and development ofcontemporary Corporatism and analyze and evaluate core arguments of the theory.The paper is divided into four parts. The first part is about the background ofcontemporary Corporatism. The second part is about the rise of Corporatism and itsprincipal representatives. The third part is to deeply elaborate core issues ofcontemporary Corporatism and to respond to questions to the theory. The last part is tointroduce the developments of contemporary Corporatism. The first part mainly analyzes the social and historical background of the risecontemporary Corporatism theory. Under the social-historical context, this paperfocuses on the political practices of Corporatism after World War II, to discuss reasonsabout its reemergence as new forms in Europe and resurrection of authoritarian formsof Corporatism in Latin America, to compare the two kinds of practices, and discussthe differences and contacts between them, noting that both corporatism in postwarEurope and the counterpart in Latin America can be called as Corporatism because ofthe common characteristics such as functional organizations in the society, interestgroups admitted or licensed by the state, and the inclusion into national institutions ordecision-making processes. However, their differences are also important. Theyrespectively associate with various regimes and play different political functions, andso on. The distinctions show that there are at least two kinds of Corporatism, whichrequires further interpretations by the reemerging Corporatism. As for the risingbackground of contemporary Corporatism theory, this paper will introduce and analyzethe Corporatism ideology which can be regarded as the intellectual resource ofcontemporary Corporatism and the American normative ideology which needs to beresponded by contemporary Corporatism from the perspectives of Use and Response,especially Pluralism contained in the latter.The second part introduces three characters and their core ideas who restarted theconcept of corporatism. Philippe C.Schmitter and Gerhard Lehmbruch were therepresentatives of new corporatism in the research of contemporary corporatism andHarward Wiarda was the representative of “historical continuity” school. They haddifferent opinions on the concept of corporatism, Schmitter claimed that corporatismwas the system for interest represent, Gerhard Lehmbruch regarded corporatism as adecision-making process, Harward Wiarda treated corporatism as another doctrinewhich paralleled with liberalism-pluralism and Marxism.However, they laid the framework of core problems for the research of contemporary corporation theoryThe third part introduces the deep discussion on the core problems involved incorporatism, and other researchers’ criticism to the core problems in corporatism.These core problems included the corporatism’s concept, the reason of birth, therelationship with pluralism. The theorists of corporatism have already discussed deeplyon these issues, but critics also pointed out the remaining questions. The theorists ofcorporatism developed rich resource of conception, and hoped to establish more usefulanalysis instrument which led to the chaos in the core of corporatism and criticism. Thetheorists of corporatism tried to establish a model for organized interests aiming atpluralism at first, however, the critics held that the difference between corporatism andpluralism was not so clear. Based on the controversy in these core problems, thecritics claimed that corporatism was enlightening at most but it was not theory. Thesecriticisms were unbiased to some extent, and received the reply by researchers incorporatism partly.The fourth part introduces the research of corporatism in the late of1990s.Thepractice of corporatism declined in1980s and returned in1990s, furthermore, thisreturn of corporatism’s practice manifested some differences with the practice in1960sand1970s.Some theorists found that the theory and model established in1970s and1980s were not enough to explain the phenomenon in1990s,thus they tried to reset theconcept of corporatism. Theorists worked in two ways, one was to slim the concept ofcorporatism, i.e., removing the structural character and keeping the processingcharacter; another was to impose new core contents on corporatism,for example,theintroduction of political exchange and integration.