This article1 is primarily concerned with the political economy of British trade union policy towards the European Community (EC) in the 1960s and 1970s. Its aim is to reassess union engagement with the EC in this period from a viewpoint informed by the now established perspective of world-order analysis in international political economy (Cox, 1981; Lipietz, 1992; Gamble & Payne, 1996; Payne, 2005). The article is specifically concerned with the re-evaluation in this light of two notable but contrasting and substantially contradictory perspectives on British unions and Europe: Dorfman (1977) and Teague (1985, 1989, later incorporated into Teague & Grahl, 1992). In its concluding section, the article briefly considers the implications of this reassessment for British union policy in relation to the contemporary EU.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Anderson, P. (2000) ‘Editorial: Renewals’, New Left Review, second series, no. 1, pp. 5–24.
2.
van Apeldoorn, B. (2002) Transnational Capitalism and the Struggle over European Integration (Routledge).
3.
Bieler, A. (2005) ‘European integration and the transnational restructuring of social relations: The emergence of labour as a transnational actor?’Journal of Common Market Studies, vol. 43, no. 3, pp. 461–84.
4.
Bieler, A. (2006) The Struggle for a Social Europe: Trade Unions and emu in Times of Global Restructuring (Manchester University Press).
5.
Callaghan, J. (2002) ‘Globalisation and social democracy’, British Journal of Politics and International Relations, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 429–51.
6.
Callaghan, J. (2003) ‘Social democracy's big problem: Economic globalisation or hard times?’European Political Science, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 32–39.
7.
Cerny, P. (1997) ‘Paradoxes of the competition state: The dynamics of political globalisation’, Government and Opposition, vol. 32, no. 1, pp. 251–74.
8.
Coates, D. (1980) Labour in Power? (Longman).
9.
Coates, D. (2000) Models of Capitalism (Polity).
10.
Cox, R. (1981) ‘Social forces, states and world orders: Beyond international relations theory’, Millennium: Journal of international Studies, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 126–55.
11.
Dorfman, G. (1977) ‘From the inside looking out (the Trades Union Congress in the EEC)’, Journal of Common Market Studies, vol. 15, no. 4, pp. 248–271.
12.
Gamble, A. (1981) Britain in Decline, first edition (Macmillan).
13.
Gamble, A. (1990) Britain in Decline, third edition (Macmillan).
14.
Gamble, A. & A. Payne (1996) Regionalism and World Order (Macmillan).
15.
Helleiner, E. (1994) States and the Re-emergence of Global Finance (Cornell University Press).
16.
Hettne, B. (2002) ‘Discourses on Utopianism: Polanyi and the search for world order’, paper delivered at the International Studies Association annual conference, New Orleans, 24–27 March.
17.
Holland, S. (1993a) The European Imperative (Spokesman).
18.
Holland, S. (1993b) Beyond Maastricht: A New Strategy for Jobs and Recovery in Europe (MSF).
19.
Jessop, R. (1990) State Theory: Putting the Capitalist State in its Place (Polity Press).
20.
Labour Research Department (1989) 1992: What it Means to Trade Unionists (LRD Publications Ltd).
21.
Lipietz, A. (1987) Mirages and Miracles (Verso).
22.
Lipietz, A. (1992) Towards a New International Economic Order (Polity).
23.
Milward, A. (1992) The European Rescue of the Nation State (Routledge).
24.
Payne, A. (2005) The Global Politics of Unequal Development (Palgrave Macmillan).
25.
Radice, H. (1999) ‘Taking globalisation seriously’, in L. Panitch & C. Leys (eds.) The Socialist Register 1999: Global Capitalism versus Democracy (Merlin) pp. 1–28.
26.
Rosamond, B. (1992) ‘Beyond nation state socialism? British trade unionism and European integration in the Thatcher years, 1979–1990’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Sheffield.
27.
Rosamond, B. (1993) ‘National labour organisation and European integration: British trade unions and “1992”’, Political Studies, vol. 41, no. 3.
28.
Ruggie, J. G. (1982) ‘International regimes, transactions and change: Embedded liberalism in the postwar economic order’, International Organisation, vol. 36, no. 2, pp. 379–415.
29.
Strange, G. (1995) ‘The role of economic policy in the Europeanisation of the TUC’, Contemporary Politics, vol. 1, no.4, pp. 27–45.
30.
Strange, G. (1997) ‘The British labour movement and economic and monetary union in Europe’, Capital & Class, no. 63, pp. 13–24.
31.
Strange, G. (2002a) ‘British trade unions and European Union integration in the 1990s: Politics versus political economy’, Political Studies, vol. 50, no. 2, pp. 332–53.
32.
Strange, G. (2002b) ‘Globalisation, regionalism and labour interests in the new international political economy’, New Political Economy, vol. 7 no. 3, pp. 343-65.
33.
Strange, G. (2006) ‘The left against Europe? A critical engagement with new constitutionalism and structural dependence theory’, Government and Opposition, vol. 41 no. 2, pp. 197-229.
34.
Strange, G. & O. Worth (2006) ‘World order and regionalism reconsidered: Towards an historicist critical theory approach to open regionalism’, paper for the International Studies Association annual conference, 22–26 March, San Diego.
35.
TUC (1976) General Council's Report (TUC).
36.
TUC (1988) Report on Europe 1992: Maximising the Benefits, Minimising the Costs (TUC).
37.
Teague, P. (1989) ‘The British and the European Community’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, vol. 18no. 1.
38.
Teague, P. & J. Grahl (1992) Industrial Relations and European Integration (Lawrence & Wishart).
