Politicising Commodification

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). The new regime 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 the 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.

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 the 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.

Sabina Stan is the author of L’agriculture roumaine en mutation: La construction sociale du marché (CNRS Éditions, 2005; Open Edition Books, 2020) and co-editor of Labour and Transnational Action in Times of Crisis (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015) and Life in Post-Communist Eastern Europe after EU Membership (Routledge, 2012). Her research in economic anthropology, European health policy, patient mobility, labour migration, and corruption has appeared in Social Science and Medicine, Journal of European Social Policy, Labor History, European Journal of Industrial Relations, Transfer, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Medical Anthropology, Dialectical Anthropology, Anthropologica, Anthropologie et Sociétés, and Material Culture Review.

Darragh Golden is the author of Labour Euroscepticism: Italian and Irish Unions’ Changing Preferences towards the EU (ECPR Press, Reference Golden2024) and co-editor of Labour and Transnational Action in Times of Crisis (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015). His research in comparative political economy, comparative employment relations, transnational labour activism, and EU transport policy has appeared in the British Journal of Industrial Relations, European Journal of Industrial Relations, Global Labour Journal, Journal of Common Market Studies, Labor History, Rivista Giuridica del Lavoro, and Transfer.

Imre Szabó is the author of The New Face of Labour Protest (Routledge, under contract). His research in comparative political economy, labour politics, social movements, and EU water policy has appeared in Economic and Industrial Democracy, European Journal of Industrial Relations, European Policy Analysis, Journal of Common Market Studies, and Transfer.

Vincenzo Maccarrone is the author of several articles on the international political economy, workers in the platform economy, comparative employment relations, and transnational governance appearing in the British Journal of Industrial Relations, Economic and Industrial Democracy, European Journal of Industrial Relations, Global Labour Journal, Global Political Economy, Quaderni di Rassegna Sindacale, Rivista Giuridica del Lavoro, Transfer, and Work, Employment and Society.