Social Dialogue in the Framework of Transformation of European Social Model and Turkey’s Situation

European Social Model includes commitments of developed countries of Continental Europe and Scandinavia in the scope of market economy, participatory democratic government which provide for opportunities to interest representation and social protection. The consensus among social partners establish main axis of Social Model and social dialogue emerges as one of the most important instrument of this compromise. The goal of this study is to define European Social Model and social dialogue in the context of their distinctive features, to examine the reform pressures of recent period on the European Social Model with their reasons and to bring up the importance of social dialogue in the reform process. Turkey has lived a great transformation in her development paradigm towards an export oriented growth model since 1980?s. In this period, owing to the effects of economic crises and political choices, there have been reform initiatives for social state. This process, unlike Social Model, had stayed far from being subject to a compromise of social partners. In this study, situation of Turkey will be handled comparatively in the context of the distinctive features of European Social Model and the importance of social dialogue in the reform process of social state.