Industrial Crisis and the Left: Adjustment Strategies in Socialist France and Spain

What choices do Left governments have as they confront basic shifts in industrial technology and production? When recent Socialist governments in France and Spain responded to adjustment crises in core industries like steel and automobiles that faced declining markets and international competition, they surprisingly adopted measures that eliminated the jobs of thousands of workers who formed an important base of Socialist support. Industrial adjustment poses a central dilemma for Left governments, and French and Spanish Socialist adjustment strategies since the early 1980s are illuminating cases. An explanation of their strategies derives from two central debates in comparative political economy around the relative influence of international versus domestic and social versus state variables.