Ireland’s Response to Challenges under Globalization: From Growth Model to Crisis

Abstract

By analyzing Ireland’s response to the challenges under globalization, this paper explores an alternative to neoliberalism under globalization. In the discourse of readjustments under globalization, neoliberalism has gained ascendancy. Neoliberals hold that nation-states or democratic decisions within a nation-state have become almost meaningless due to a borderless world or by assuming the universal relevancy of free market, national economies will converge toward a neoliberal market model. However, the Irish route to creating its economic miracle under globalization shows that there are alternatives to the neoliberal views of hyper-globalists as well as to the views of the proponents of the inevitability of convergence. Ireland achieved great success even under the challenges of globalization, not by a neoliberal free market model, but instead through neocorporatist social concertation model. In addition, the current crisis of Ireland does not confirm that a social concertation model is no longer effective under globalization. On the contrary, as seen in the current actions by social partners and the government, social concertation is needed now more than ever. A social concertation model will better serve national integration than a clear-cut winner-take-all or free market model.