How are ALMPs governed? Within European welfare states governance varies between the primacy of politics and the strong involvement of social partners. In this paper I present an analytical framework and empirical application to understand this variety. I argue that existing perspectives that account for social partners involvement, blame sharing and avoidance, puzzling and learning, electoral position of the government and strength of organized interests cannot adequately account for social partner involvement in the governance of ALMP. Instead I propose an analytical framework whereby social partner involvement is conceived as the outcome of strategic choices made by key actors in the labour market. I hypothesize that these choices are less determined by institutional constraints and fixed power resources then is commonly argued in the literature and more by seizing up political momentum, pursuing short term political agendas and elite decision making. To understand how strategic choices shape ALMP governance arrangements, I analyze two contrasting cases of labour market governance; Belgium (Flanders) and Denmark. In both countries actors are embedded in similar institutions and endowed with comparable power resources that theoretically impinge on the strategic choices of actors; a Ghent unemployment system, high trade union density, moderate to strong corporatist policy making (Siraoff, 1999) and a history of social partner involvement in ALMPs. Yet, the two countries follow divergent reform trajectories. In Belgium the position of social partners became under debate in the 1990s but did not fundamentally changed. In Denmark the governance of ALMPs have underwent frequent reform, leading eventually to the exclusion of social partners. What other factors do actors incorporate in their strategic choices that may explain these contrasting outcomes?
