Is Social Dialogue Still Effective in Europe? Ritualisation, Technocratisation and the Vacancy of Collective Agency
Is Social Dialogue Still Effective in Europe? Ritualisation, Technocratisation and the Vacancy of Collective Agency

Summary/Abstract: The paper examines the contemporary condition of social dialogue in the context of structural transformations in labour markets and governance. It argues that social dialogue has not disappeared but has undergone a process of progressive hollowing-out: while its institutional forms persist, their capacity to redistribute power and translate conflict into binding outcomes has significantly weakened. The analysis situates social dialogue within two genealogies: conflict-based and cooperative-ethical and shows how their historical coexistence was sustained by the post-war paradigm of embedded liberalism. Building on this framework, the paper identifies three interrelated processes shaping the current transformation of social dialogue: ritualisation, technocratisation and dis-embedding. It further demonstrates that commonly invoked - alternatives direct democracy instruments, labour law utopias and ethical consumption- fail to generate durable forms of collective agency or institutional leverage. These developments are linked to broader structural shifts, including platformisation and the emergence of techno-feudal economic architectures, which limit the space for meaningful negotiation. The paper concludes by conceptualising the present condition as a vacancy of collective agency and proposes a research agenda focused on emerging micro-dialogical forms fragmented, hybrid and experimental practices that may signal new, though still fragile, configurations of collective action.

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