Finding the Collective in an Era of Pension Individualization

Many scholars approach pension restructuring in terms of neoliberalism and class conflict, suggesting that pension restructuring is reducible to a linear and one-dimensional process. This article argues that this limits the scope for understanding pension restructuring and thus limits our capacity to understand and uncover new possibilities and collective solutions, albeit capitalized solutions. This article attempts to enrich our understanding of pension restructuring by approaching it through the lens of reflexive modernization, or second modernity, where the institutions of first modernity undergo modernization themselves and where strict boundary demarcations are eroded. The article then theorizes the prospects of a collective resurgence in pension provision utilizing neoinstitutionalist theories of institutional design in conjunction with a case study of a new multiemployer German pension scheme. Ultimately, it is argued that past institutional legacies can be maneuvered to produce a collective response to the liberalized and market-oriented environment of pension provision, suggesting that individualization has limits.