Partial organization and economic coordination: The gradual re-organization of Finnish corporatism

Abstract

Comparative political economy (CPE) scholarship has drawn various insights from organization theory throughout its existence. Organization theory has made more progress than CPE to explicate the organizational processes behind institutional change. In this paper, we draw on theory of partial organization to describe, interpret, and explain change in the coordination of one Coordinated Market Economy: Finland. We show that Finnish corporatism has become gradually re-organized during the last three decades. We argue that the structural and membership dynamics of partial organization explain some key patterns as well as the shape and timing of institutional change in the face of a changing constellation of economic interests. We argue that theory of partial organization complements the interest-based and institutional explanations of change in economic coordination.