Description: This book examines the new economic governance (NEG) regime that the EU adopted after 2008. Its novel research design captures the supranational formulation of NEG prescriptions and their uneven deployment across countries (Germany, Italy, Ireland, Romania), policy areas (employment relations, public services), and sectors (transport, water, healthcare). NEG led to a much more vertical mode of EU integration, and its commodification agenda unleashed a plethora of union and social-movement protests, including transnationally. The book presents findings that are crucial for the prospects of European democracy, as labour politics is essential in framing the struggles about the direction of NEG along a commodification-decommodification axis rather than a national-EU axis. To shed light on corresponding processes at EU level, it upscales insights on the historical role that labour movements have played in the development of democracy and welfare states. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Brief description: Roland Erne is the author of European Unions: Labor's Quest for a Transnational Democracy (Cornell University Press, 2008), co-author of New Structures, Forms and Processes of Governance in European Industrial Relations (Eurofound, 2007), and co-editor of Labour and Transnational Action in Times of Crisis (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015) and Transnationale Demokratie (Realotopia, 1995). His research has appeared in publications such as British Journal of Industrial Relations, Cambridge Journal of Economics, European Journal of Industrial Relations, European Political Science, Labor History, Labor Studies Journal, Industrial Relations Journal, Journal of Common Market Studies, Journal of European Social Policy, Socio-Economic Review, and Transfer.
Review Quotes: 'An enduring legacy of the financial crisis is the EU's embrace of a new economic governance regime, which imitates that of private sector multinational corporations. In this path-breaking, multi-dimensional comparative analysis, Erne and colleagues compellingly draw out the consequences for: the changed character of European integration; the (im)balance between the EU's economic and social dimensions; the EU's underdeveloped democratic polity; and counter interventions by social movements and organised labour.' Paul Marginson, Emeritus Professor of Industrial Relations, University of Warwick