Competitive and Inclusive Solidarity in Contemporary Labour Markets

This chapter advances a framework to interpret solidaristic labour market reforms. It defines two ideal types – competitive solidarity and inclusive solidarity – and clarifies their distinct policy logics. Competitive solidarity combines tighter regulation of nonpermanent work with liberalisation in other domains and emphasises active labour market policies and skill formation. Inclusive solidarity rests on interdependence among workers and resists market expansion by strengthening protections for all. Drawing on research on dualisation, new social risks, social investment and flexicurity, it builds the competitive solidarity type. Inclusive solidarity is developed from arguments about crossgroup interdependence and reregulation. The chapter proposes a conceptual matrix linking the perceived fault line in labour markets to desegmentation strategies and the selection of regulatory instruments. The framework clarifies when protecting outsiders implies tradeoffs for insiders and when solidaristic gains emerge from policies that lift common floors. It equips readers to classify reforms along a continuum between competitive and inclusive solidarity and prepares the ground for the empirical analyses that follow.