This article examines the role of the state in industrial relations, which
has been highly neglected in the literature. It examines the nature of the
state and proposes a typology of four distinct roles of the state that affect
industrial relations: (1) a third party regulator of labor relations; (2) a
regulator of markets; (3) an establisher of the welfare system; and (4) its
own employer and policy maker. In doing so, the article sheds light on the
importance of the concepts of power and politics in industrial relations that
have been unnoticed by industrial relations orthodoxy; that is, it attempts
to clarify how each of the four roles of the state affects the power relations
between labor and management.This work was supported by the new faculty research fund of Ajou University
