1

Dr. Andreas Bieler, 31 May, 2000

Selwyn College,
Cambridge CB3 9DQ,
E-mail: ab307@cam.ac.uk
Labour and the struggle against neo-liberalism: a conceptualisation of trade
unions possible role in the resistance to globalisation.
(Paper prepared for presentation at the conference Global Capital and Global
Struggles: Strategies, Alliances, Alternatives; London, 1 and 2 J uly, 2000.)
Introduction
In recent years, globalisation has entered debates in social sciences in general and
International Relations/International Political Economy (IR/IPE) in particular.
Nevertheless, the focus has to date very much concentrated on the nature of change,
the role of states and the operations of transnational corporations (TNCs), frequently
considered to be the most important new actors at the international level. Labour, on
the other hand, has almost completely been excluded from the analysis. Less mobile
than capital, it is argued that labour is unlikely ever to play a role at the international
level. Nevertheless, with the beneficial results of globalisation more and more
challenged at the theoretical (e.g. Gills, 1997 and 2000) and practical level (e.g.
mobilisation against the World Trade Organisation in Seattle, November 1999, and
the World Bank and IMF in Washington, April 2000) and an increased emphasis on
the possibilities of resistance to globalisation, labour has regained attention.
This paper is informed by the understanding that the potential for resistance by labour,
and trade unions as its institutional expression, can only be fully grasped, once a
potential theoretical understanding of its possible role at the international level has
been developed. The aim of this paper is, consequently, the conceptualisation of the
role of labour at the international level. The argument has two main parts. The first
part looks at different understandings of globalisation and the reasons of why labour is
omitted from the analysis. It is shown that labour has to be regarded as a fundamental
actor due to its place in the capitalist mode of production as manifested in
globalisation. In the second part, it is demonstrated that while labour has to be
understood at an international level, the national institutional setting continues to be
relevant. In sum, a theoretical conceptualisation of labour needs to be developed,
which allows the analysis of labour at the international level, while incorporating an
investigation of the different national institutional set-ups.
Globalisation and the role of labour at the international level
Globalisation is a complex concept. This section first analysis the two mainstream
definitions by the so-called internationalists and globalists, closely linked to neo-
realist and liberal theories of IR/IPE respectively, and then looks at a Marxist critique
of them. The final sub-section introduces a neo-Gramscian alternative, which takes on
board the Marxist criticism of the established approaches, while at the same time
stressing the international dimension of labours potential role.
2
Internationalists and neo-realism: states are still the main international actors
Neo-realism regards the international system as anarchic, since there is no over-
arching authority to impose order, in which states, being the only significant actors,
pursue rational policies of power maximisation and security enhancement to ensure
their survival. The most important explanatory variable is the distribution of
capabilities between states. Changes in this distribution lead to actions by states to
counter possible losses (Waltz, 1979). Implicitly, this theoretical understanding
informs the so-called internationalists in the globalisation debate. Hirst and
Thompson, for example, argue that the world economy is predominantly international,
not global, and that therefore states, although in a slightly different way, still play a
central role in its governance. Their rejection of more far-reaching definitions of
globalisation, speaking of the emergence of a global economy above the state system
based on the transnationalisation of production and finance and with TNCs operating
through foreign direct investment (FDI) as new main actors (see below), centres
around three main claims. Firstly, they argue that the international economy was more
open in the pre-1914 period than in the period from the 1970s onwards. International
trade and capital flows ... were more important relative to GDP levels before the First
World War than they probably are today (Hirst and Thompson, 1996: 31). Secondly,
they point out that FDI is not globally spread in an equal way, but concentrated on the
Triad of North America, J apan and the European Economic Area in respect of both
the originators and destination for FDI (Hirst and Thompson, 1996: 51-75). Finally,
they stress the fact that there are only few real TNCs without the identification of a
home region/country, an internationalised management and the willingness to invest
in the world, wherever the highest and/or most secure returns are to be expected.
Instead, the international economy is characterised by multinational corporations,
which are still predominantly concentrated on a home region/country with reference
to their assets and sales (Hirst and Thompson, 1996: 76-98). Globalisation, then, is
nothing more than a drastic increase in cross-border flows of goods, services and
capital (Keohane and Milner, 1996). States remain the core international actors and
have lost little of their traditional power over the economy and international markets.
From this perspective, it is clear that labour can be at best understood as operating at
the national level, interacting with other domestic actors and the government in
response to globalisation.
1
An early example of this is Katzensteins (1985) seminal
analysis of small states in world markets, where he outlines labours crucial role in
tripartite relations with government and business in adjusting a countrys economy to
high levels of international competition without causing domestic social unrest.
Garrett's analysis of the power on economic policies by the left and labour in times of
increasing internationalisation is another example. Here, too, labour only responds to

1
In this respect, these analyses go beyond strict neo-realism by incorporating a domestic politics
perspective in their investigation. The national and international levels are connected via a two-level
game, in which governments sit simultaneously at two negotiating tables. They agree at the
international level only to those treaties, for shich they are likely to obtain a majority at the national
level (Putnam, 1988). Importantly, however, states are still considered to be gate-keepers between the
domestic and internationl domains and non-state actors are confined to the domestic level.
3
changes at the international level via increasing or decreasing intervention into the
economy without being part of the international changes itself (Garrett, 1996).
There are, however, theoretical problems with this position. Neo-realists ahistoric
insistence on states being the only significant international actors makes it
theoretically impossible to account for structural change beyond change in the state
system. In other words, whether there is change or not, neo-realism is a priori unable
even to detect it, since its analytical focus is solely concentrated on states and their
position in the international system. The next section looks at liberal IR/IPE
approaches and their related wider understanding of globalisation.
Liberal approaches and the emergence of a global economy
In contrast to neo-realism, liberal approaches look at the individual, or to be more
precise the aggregation of individuals in interest groups, as the most important actors.
The state as a result does not become unimportant, but it is treated as a collective
rather than unitary actor. The national interest is then not the result of a states
position in the international system, but the outcome of domestic politics against the
background of international pressures. Economic issues have become as important as,
if not more important than, military concerns. States continue to play an important
role at the international level, but they are joined by non-state actors such as TNCs
and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) - at the global level now also sometimes
referred to as global social movements (GSMs) (e.g. Scholte, 2000) - but also
international organisations and regimes. Structural change is not limited to change in
the state structure. Instead it is realised that changes beyond the state system may
imply the emergence of new actors. In short, the international system is viewed in a
more complex and open-ended way (Burchill, 1996; Kegley, 1995: 9-14; Zacher and
Matthew, 1995).
When defining globalisation, liberal approaches concentrate on changes in finance
and production. Firstly, the rise of financial offshore markets since the 1960s,
expanding significantly between 1973 and 1984 (Strange, 1994a: 107), in
combination with the deregulation of national financial markets in the late 1970s but
especially in the 1980s (Helleiner, 1994), led to the emergence of an integrated global
financial market. Secondly, the growth of transnational corporations (TNCs), in
numbers and size, has driven the transnational organisation of production. Their
increasing importance is expressed in the rise of FDI. Outflows of FDI rose from $88
billions to $225 billions between 1986 and 1990, which is an annual increase of 26
per cent (UNCTAD, 1992: 14). There was a downturn in FDI in 1991 and 1992,
mainly due to recessions in the biggest economies, but it picked up again from 1993
onwards up to $424 billions in 1997 (UNCTAD, 1998: 2). A study of TNCs by the
UN concluded, in 1992, that the growth of cross-national production networks of
goods and services of some 35,000 transnational corporations and their more than
150,000 foreign affiliates is beginning to give rise to a [transnational] production
system, organised and managed by transnational corporations (UNCTAD, 1992: 5).
These figures further increased to 53,607 parent corporations and 448,917 foreign
affiliates by 1997 (UNCTAD, 1998: 4).
4
In response to Hirst and Thompson, who reject such a definition of globalisation
beyond the state system, it can be argued that FDI flows are not of a similar nature to
trade flows. FDI does not end with the initial transaction. It is an indicator for the
establishment of transnational production units, i.e. longer lasting links between
economic agents across borders. Moreover, even if the transnationalisation of
production has not led to a borderless global economy, a level playing field with truly
global firms as the prime movers as some would have it (e.g. Ohmae 1990, 1995), it is
realised that the growth in size and numbers of TNCs with a regional home base,
indicated by the concentration of FDI in the Triad, is also part of the globalisation
process. As Higgott outlines, regionalisation and globalisation are not necessarily
contradictory phenomena. Rather, regional integration may be an important
dimension of the evolving world order in an era of globalisation (Higgott, 1997: 16).
TNCs are predominantly characterised by a home region/country. Even with
production units in only two countries, however, a TNC gains the ability of moving or
threatening to move production units between countries and, thereby, some degree of
leverage over national regulations. This led Strange and Stopford to argue that states
do no longer bargain only with other states, but that a triangular diplomacy is
emerging, in which states must also negotiate with TNCs (Stopford and Strange,
1991).
To sum up, liberal perspectives argue that since the early 1970s, we have experienced
a structural change called globalisation. The new reality is that the system of states is
overlaid by a highly integrated, incompletely regulated, rapidly growing - but
consequently somewhat unstable - [global] economy (Strange, 1994b: 212). This has
given rise to new, non-state actors at the international level, mainly TNCs but also
NGOs, which compete for authority with states in the global economy (see the
contributions in Higgott et al, 2000). States role and structure has changed and their
influence over the economy weakened, with some speaking about the terminal retreat
of the state (e.g. Strange, 1996). Labour is not overlooked, but it is only regarded as
one interest group at the international level next to others. Elizabeth Smythes (2000)
analysis of the failed OECD negotiations of a Multilateral Agreement on Investment
and the struggle against enhanced capital mobility via further deregulation of national
financial markets and for labour and environmental minimum standards is a good
example. Here, the Trade Union Advisory Committee is treated as one interest
organisation next to its business counterpart and environmental NGOs such as the
World Wide Fund for Nature. Similarly, in Scholte's analysis of the IMF's interaction
with civil society, the labour movement through its various institutional expressions is
only one of a whole range of different NGOs, which has lobbied the international
organisation (Scholte, 2000). In short, a pluralist conceptualisation of policy-making
is simply transferred from the national to the international level.
While the liberal perspectives of globalisation and the related structural changes are a
clear progress in relation to neo-realist accounts, what is still not looked at is the more
fundamental role of labour and trade unions stemming from the capitalist social
relations of production, and thus the very nature of the structural changes related to
globalisation. As Coates makes clear, this is mainly the result of an undue focus on
capital mobility as the core feature of globalisation. Capital is regarded in a fetishised
form as a thing instead of a social relationship. Thereby, it is overlooked that
capital can only realise itself on a global scale to the extent that real production
processes are created on this scale. The enhanced global mobility of capital in the
5
last three decades has social rather than technical roots. Capital is more
geographically mobile than it was in the past because it now has more proletariats on
which to land (Coates, 2000: 255). New strata of workers (e.g. women, rural workers
and immigrants) have been employed in established capitalism and by spreading
production processes to developing countries new proletariats were additionally
created, doubling the world proletariat to 3 billion people within a generation. Hence,
capital . . . as it moves, does more than constrain the policy options of national
governments: it actually alters the balance and character of social classes, and does so
increasingly on a global scale (Coates, 2000: 256). In short, labour is part of global
restructuring processes and it is, therefore, necessary to analyse its position in the
global economy, as well as possibilities and opportunities. The theoretical roots of this
oversight of labour by mainstream IR/IPE perspectives is analysed in the next section.
Open Marxism and its criticism of established IR/IPE approaches
2
Peter Burnham formulates a fundamental criticism of both neo-realist and liberal
approaches in IR/IPE. Most importantly, he criticises them for taking state and
market in the form of two separate entities as their starting-point of investigation.
3
States and markets are treated as self-evident entities and no attempt is made
either to develop or relate to existing theories of the state or to consider the
inner connection (rather than the apparent external relationship) between the
state and the market. Instead the state is fetishised whilst the market is
dehistoricised and viewed as a technical arena in which the external state
intervenes (Burnham, 1995: 136).
As a result of taking state and market, or the political and the economic, as
ahistorical entities, mainstream IR/IPE approaches reify the "state" and "market" and
are, consequently, unable to consider change beyond the capitalist mode of
production.
In contrast to established approaches, open Marxism suggests, following Marx, to
take the social relations of production as starting-point. By rooting his study in the
analysis of the direct relationship of the owners of the conditions of production to the
immediate producers Marx offers a unique theorisation of the entire social edifice and,
of course, its changing political form (Burnham, 1995: 138-9). Instead of fetishising
"state" and "market" as ahistoric things, both are treated as different forms of the
very same social relations of production. Hence, the main question is not to what
extent the state has lost control over the market, but why do state and market

2
Open Marxism is a frequently used label, but refers here only to the work by Burnham, Holloway
and Picciotto.
3
Gilpin provides a well-known example for this, when he states that "the historical relationship of state
and market is a matter of intense scholarly controversy. Whether each developed autonomously, the
market gave rise to the state, or the state to the market are important historical issues whose resolution
is not really relevant to the argument of this book. State and market, whatever their respective origins,
have independent existences, have logics of their own, and interact with one another" (Gilpin, 1987:
10).
6
appear as two separate entities? It has to be asked what it is about the relations of
production under capitalism that makes them assume separate economic and political
forms (Holloway/Picciotto, 1977: 78). The answer is to be found by looking at the
way the social relations of production are organised in capitalism. In contrast to
feudalism, when economic and political authority were overlapping and economic
exploitation was enforced politically, class domination in capitalism is mediated
through commodity exchange. Based on the institution of private property, society is
split in the bourgeoisie, i.e. those who own the means of production, and labour, i.e.
those who only have their labour power to sell. Thus, economic exploitation is not
politically enforced, but the result of the free sale and purchase of labour power.
This abstraction of relations of force from the immediate process of production and
their necessary location (since class domination must ultimately rest on force) in an
instance separated from individual capitals constitutes (historically and logically) the
economic and the political as distinct, particularised forms of capitalist domination
(Holloway/Picciotto, 1977: 79). The apparent separation of state and market in
capitalism does not imply, however, that there is no internal link between the two.
Despite the separation between the moment of coercion and the moment of
appropriation in capitalism, absolute private property, the contractual relation
which binds producer to appropriator and the process of generalised commodity
exchange itself are all maintained through legal and political forms. In this way
in bourgeois civil society, the economic rests firmly on the political despite
their differentiation. Hence the contradictory internal unity of state and market
in capitalism (Burnham, 1995: 145).
Furthermore, open Marxism is opposed to economic deterministic,
base/superstructure explanations. Determinism is avoided through a focus on class
struggle. Class struggle is the daily resistance of the labouring class to the
imposition of work a permanent feature of human society above primitive levels :
struggle by definition is uncertain and outcomes remain open (Burnham, 1994: 225).
It is this focus on class struggle between capital and labour, which suggests that an
open Marxism account of IPE would be better suited for an analysis of labour at the
international level. And indeed the character of accumulation is considered to be
global. The freeing of the worker from a particular exploiter, the freeing of the
exploiter from a particular group of workers, implied the establishment of social
relations in which geographical location was absolutely contingent, in which capital
could, and did, flow all over the world (Holloway, 1994: 30). Although the character
of accumulation is global, the conditions of exploitation are standardised at the
national political level. The latter, however, does not imply that capital could be
conceptualised at the national level.
Sovereign states via the exchange rate mechanism, are interlocked
internationally into a hierarchy of price systems ...; national states therefore
founded on the rule of money and law are at the same time confined within
limits imposed by the accumulation of capital on a world scale the most
obvious and important manifestation of which is their subordination to world
money (Burnham, 1995: 148).
7
In other words, global class relations are nationally processed. It is for this reason
that the struggle of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie is not in substance, but only in
form, a national struggle (Burnham, 1995: 152).
Nevertheless, while this is a clear advance over mainstream approaches, it is also
limited and the last quote is an indicator of this. While class struggle is considered to
be global in substance, the form of this at the global level is state interaction. And
here one is painfully reminded of neo-realist analyses of international relations. For
example, Holloway argues that the competitive struggle between states is to
attract and/or retain a share of world capital (and hence a share of global surplus
value) (Holloway, 1994: 34). This is very similar to neo-realist arguments about
states competing with each other for military and economic resources at the world
level. According to Burnham,
the dilemma facing national states is that, whilst participation in multilateral
trade rounds and financial summits is necessary to enhance the accumulation of
capital on the global level, such participation is also a potential source of
disadvantage which can seriously undermine a particular national states
economic strategy. The history of the modern international system is the history
of the playing out of this tension (Burnham, 1995: 149).
This resembles closely the neo-neo debate about the possibility of co-operation
between states. Whereas neo-realists argue that states are unlikely to co-operate due to
the problem of relative gains even if they gained by co-operating, states would not
do so, because other states may gain more and thus achieve an advantage neo-liberal
institutionalists focus on absolute gains, arguing that states would co-operate as long
as they make some gains regardless of the gains by other states (Grieco, 1988).
Importantly, what open Marxism overlooks is that the transnationalisation of
production and finance since the early 1970s has implied that class struggle is now not
only in substance but also in form of an international character. Burnhams assertion
that the proletariat conducts its daily struggle in local-cum-national settings (1998:
197) is no longer valid. Holloway is right when he states that the nature of capitalism
has always been global and is not the result of globalisation. Nevertheless, the specific
characteristics of this global nature have changed and this has to be taken into account
when thinking about class struggle and labours role at the international level in times
of globalisation. In short, it is not enough to assess the changes since the early 1970s
as the the recomposition of labour/capital relations expressed as the restructuring of
relations of conflict and collaboration between national states (Bonefeld, Brown and
Burnham, 1995: 31). An analysis of the restructuring at the international level needs
to be based on the transnational restructuring of the social relations of production and,
therefore, includes capital and labour. In the next section, a neo-Gramscian alternative
will be introduced. It is based on the core assumptions of open Marxism, but also
goes beyond it comprehending the international form of class struggle in times of
globalisation.
A neo-Gramscian perspective: the role of transnational social forces
8
In two seminal articles in the early 1980s, Robert Cox (1981, 1983) developed a neo-
Gramscian perspective, most importantly based on core concepts of the work by the
Italian Communist Antonio Gramsci. Arguably, this perspective includes the most
important features of open Marxism. Firstly, the social relations of production are
considered to be the starting-point of an investigation. The sphere of production, Cox
argues, creates the material basis for all forms of social existence, and the ways in
which human efforts are combined in productive processes affect all other aspects of
social life, including the polity (Cox, 1987: 1). That is, the relations which organise
material production are considered to be crucial for the wider institutional
reproduction of social orders on both a national and an international level. In other
words, this allows us to perceive entities such as state and market as different
forms of the very same social relations of production. Secondly, a neo-Gramscian
analysis is open-ended through an emphasis on class struggle. It rejects the notion of
objective laws of history and focuses upon class struggle [be they intra-class or inter-
class] as the heuristic model for the understanding of structural change (Cox with
Sinclair, 1996: 57-8). The essence of class struggle is exploitation and the resistance
to it, and this confrontation of opposed social forces in concrete historical situations
implies the potential for alternative forms of development.
By taking the social relations of production as a starting-point, a neo-Gramscian
perspective considers social forces as engendered by the production process as the
most important collective actors. The concept of class is crucial for the definition of
social forces. Classes are regarded as social forces whose cohesion derives from the
role played in a mode of production ... (Holman and van der Pijl, 1996: 55).
Consequently, very similar to open Marxism class is defined as a relation and the
various fractions of labour and capital can be identified by relating them to their place
in the production system. Most importantly, capital, the owners of the means of
production, is opposed by labour, forced to sell its labour-power. There are, however,
further differences within the capitalist mode of accumulation and it is here where a
neo-Gramscian perspective departs from open Marxism. While production was
organised on a national basis in the post-war era, significant parts have been
transnationalised since the early 1970s as part of the globalisation processes (see
above). As a consequence, capitalist accumulation is not necessarily any longer
inscribed in national paths of economic development (Radice, 1997: 5). A basic
distinction can, therefore, be drawn between transnational social forces of capital and
labour, engendered by those production sectors, which are organised on a
transnational scale, and national social forces of capital and labour stemming from
national production sectors. These forces are located in the wider structure of the
social relations of production, which do not determine but shape their interests and
identity.
Overall, the identification of the various fractions of labour and capital by relating
them to their place in the production system makes structural changes such as
globalisation accessible, since the emergence of new social forces engendered by the
transnationalisation of production and finance can be incorporated. Globalisation,
thus, is not only understood as an exogenous structural impact to which actors can
only respond. It is also regarded as enabling with transnational forces playing an
active role, responding to and bringing about global structural change at the same
time. Importantly and in contrast to open Marxism, the fact that there are now
transnational and national fractions of capital and labour implies that class struggle
9
takes place at the international level not only in substance but, in the wake of
globalisation, also in form. This has profound implications for research in IR/IPE.
Class struggle at the international level can no longer be studied as a struggle between
states, but it has to be analysed how different social forces operate at the national and
international level.
The neo-Gramscian concepts of historical bloc and hegemony are crucial for the
understanding of class struggle. Various social forces may attempt to form an
historical bloc to establish preferable forms of governance at the national and/or
international level. "The historic[al] bloc is the term applied to the particular
configuration of social classes and ideology that gives content to a historical state"
(Cox, 1987: 409) and, thus, consists of structure and superstructure. It forms a
complex, politically contestable and dynamic ensemble of social relations which
includes economic, political and cultural aspects. The relationship between structure
and superstructure is reciprocal. Hegemony describes a type of rule, which
predominantly relies on consent, not on coercion. It is based on a coherent
conjunction or fit between a configuration of material power, the prevalent collective
image of world order . . . and a set of institutions which administer the order with a
certain semblance of universality (Cox, 1981: 139). A fundamental class exercises a
hegemonic function when it transcends particular economic-corporate interests and is
capable of binding and cohering diverse aspirations, interests and identities into an
historical bloc. Organic intellectuals, the representatives of a class or class fraction,
play a crucial role in achieving hegemony.
4
They do not simply produce ideas, but it
is their task to organise the social forces they stem from and to develop a hegemonic
project which is able to transcend the particular interests of this group so that other
social forces are able to give their consent. Such a hegemonic project must be based
on organic ideas, which stem from the economic sphere. It must, however, also go
beyond economics into the political and social sphere, incorporating ideas related to
issues such as social reform or moral regeneration, to result in a stable hegemonic
political system. It brings the interests of the leading class into harmony with those
of subordinate classes and incorporates these other interests into an ideology
expressed in universal terms (Cox, 1983: 168).
Applied to globalisation, it is argued that the transnationalisation of production and
finance has engendered new transnational social forces. As a result, Cox has noted
that ... there may be an emerging transnational historic bloc (Gill/Law, 1988: 65), led
by transnational capital. This transnational bloc may become the foundation of a new
international hegemonic order through establishing its neo-liberal ideas of free trade
and a deregulatory economy as generally accepted truths, promoted by institutions
like the World Bank or the OECD. It is the contestation of this transnational neo-
liberal hegemonic project, where labour potentially plays a crucial role. As a result, a
neo-Gramscian research strategy implies first an identification of relevant social
forces by analysing the social relations of production and investigates then these
forces activities at the national and/or international level. In contrast to liberal
approaches, labour is not understood as an interest group, but as a fundamental actor
in class struggle at the national and international level.

4
For a discussion of Gramsci's concept of "organic intellectual", see Gill (1990).
10
Class struggle in different national institutional settings:
Liberal IR/IPE approaches, especially the most extreme globalist variety, tend to think
in terms of a general convergence of national economic policies due to the unifying
pressures of globalisation. In order to attract TNCs and their FDI and to obtain good
credit ratings on the global financial market, states, it is argued, would converge
around so-called policies of best practice, providing TNCs with incentives while at the
same time deregulating and, thus, opening-up national markets, including the financial
and labour markets. What is overlooked, however, are the different national
institutional set-ups and different national modes of economic policy-making due to
states' historically different development of capitalism. Lanes detailed analysis of the
British, French and German industrial orders in times of globalisation suggests that
despite strong unifying pressures of transnational restructuring, there is still a strong
degree of national distinctiveness (Lane, 1995). In short, even if one accepts that the
main tasks of the capitalist state are the maintenance of accumulation and
legitimisation, states will employ different strategies for doing so and will experience
varying degrees of success as a consequence of differences in their socioeconomic
organization (Hall, 1984: 40). For example, states differ according to issues such as
the relation of the finance sector to industrial capital, the organisation of trade unions
and employers organisations, the role of different state institutions and, of course, the
different relations between all institutions within national economic-political systems.
One-sided convergence approaches, be they of a Marxist or a liberal variety fail to
acknowledge the impact of these differences (Lane, 1995: 198). This has sparked a
discussion about different models of capitalism and their continuing importance or
convergence within globalisation (e.g. Coates, 2000; Crouch and Streeck, 1997).
While these approaches have a tendency to over-emphasise the difference between
systems and, being at least implicitly closely linked to neo-realist IR/IPE theories,
deny the fundamental structural changes associated with globalisation, what is
important for this paper here is the crucial role of different national institutional set-
ups. Although it has been accepted that social forces of labour are of a national and
transnational nature and may operate at the national and international level, the
structural environment of these actions has to be kept in mind. This is, firstly, the
structure of the production system, where the core actors are identified. It is, however,
also the different national institutional set-ups, within and through which social forces
operate. In this section of the paper, it is attempted to conceptualise labours actions
within national institutional structures and link it to the neo-Gramscian perspective
outlined above.
In principle, neo-Gramscian perspectives are open for a problematisation of national
institutional set-ups. Through the concept of form of state, state-centric IR/IPE
approaches are amended with a concern for the relationship between civil society and
the state (Cox 1981: 134). Cox speaks about various forms of states and shows that
the raison dtat cannot be separated from society, as it depends on the configuration
of social forces at the state level. Forms of state are defined in terms of the apparatus
of administration and of the historical bloc or class configuration that defines the
raison dtat for that form (Cox 1989: 41). This implies that states cannot be treated as
11
unitary actors, but as structures within and through which social forces operate.
Gramscis concept of the integral state is analytically useful for the conceptualisation
of the relation between state and society (Rupert 1995: 27-8). On the one hand, the
integral state consists of political society, i.e. the coercive apparatus of the state
more narrowly understood including ministries and other state institutions. On the
other, civil society, made up of political parties, unions, employers associations,
churches, etc., represents the realm of cultural institutions and practices in which the
hegemony of a class may be constructed or challenged (Rupert 1995: 27). The
concept of the integral state implies, firstly, that the focus on social forces does not
exclude an analysis of state institutions, i.e. political society. They are institutions
through which these forces operate. Similarly, political parties and interest
associations, i.e. civil society, are also considered to be important. They are regarded
as institutional frameworks within and through which different class fractions of
capital and labour attempt to establish their particular interests and ideas as the
generally accepted, or common sense, view. What is missing, however, is a
conceptualisation of the structural impact these institutions have on social forces. The
task of this section is to tackle this problem.
Regulation theory
Regulation theory can be seen as a reaction to structural Marxism a la Althusser. It
wishes to emphasise, "at one and the same time, the institutional and cultural diversity
of advanced societies and the homogenizing influence of the world capitalist system"
(Lane, 1995: 22). As de Vroey correctly notes, "it would be incorrect to regard
[regulation theory] as one homogenous school of thought " (de Vroey, 1984: 45).
J essop (1990b) alone identifies seven different regulationist schools. This is not the
place to explore all these varieties in detail. Instead, several core concepts are
outlined.
Regulation theory starts from the assumption that capitalism is crisis-ridden and that
periods of crisis alternate with periods of compromise. The latter is characterised by a
relatively stable model or mode of development ensuring economic growth and
capital accumulation. Once this mode of development breaks apart because of inner
contradictions, a period of crisis ensues, during which a new mode of development
has to be developed. The three core elements of a mode of development are, firstly,
the industrial paradigm, which comprises the forces of production including the
development of new technologies, industries and human skills and determines the
process of labour, i.e. the way workers relate to the means of production. Secondly,
the accumulation regime "is a systematic organisation of production, income
distribution, exchange of the social product, and consumption" (Dunford, 1990: 305).
Finally, the mode of regulation is an "institutional ensemble and the complex of
cultural habits and norms which secures capitalist reproduction as such (Nielsen,
1991: 22). It defines the rules of the game in capitalism and allows a dynamic
adaptation of production and social demand, thereby providing guidance and
stabilisation of the process of accumulation. The major institutional arrangements
within the mode of regulation are the monetary system and mechanisms, the
regulation of wage relations, the modes of competition and, as some would argue, the
character and role of the state. Crises related to the general business cycle can be
handled within a mode of development. Structural crises, however, are due to an
12
exhaustion of a mode of development (Dunford, 1990: 309). They may be due to
"declining productivity and profitability; growing integration into an increasingly
unstable global economic system; and, in some accounts, also saturation and
fragmentation of markets" (Lane, 1995: 24). A structural crisis becomes apparent in
an increasing conflict between capital and labour (Lane, 1995: 23; Oberhauser, 1990:
215), which is only resolved once a new fit between an accumulation regime and
mode of regulation is found.
There are a host of studies, criticising regulation theory (for a critical evaluation
providing a summary of criticisms, see Lane, 1995: 25-8). Three main points are
important for the purpose of this paper. Firstly, although some regulation theorists
consider national modes of development to be inserted into a global mode of
development and attempt to conceptualise the link between the two levels (J essop,
1990b: 160-2), "theories of regulation are founded on a division of the world into a
system of states and of multiple sovereignties and an identification of national modes
of regulation" (Dunford, 1990: 310). As a result, the main emphasis is on national
differences, while the international level is only of secondary importance and the
changes associated with globalisation difficult to integrate into the analysis. Secondly,
"it is not clear how the connection between regime of accumulation and mode of
regulation can be conceptualized without falling back on either a determinist Marxism
or positing a functionalist integration" (Lane, 1995: 26). In other words, a specific
mode of regulation is either determined by a particular accumulation regime or it is
the functional counterpart of this regime. In more concrete terms, the fact that
Fordism came to an end in the late 1960, early 1970s is considered to imply that there
has now emerged a new accumulation regime with its specific corresponding mode of
regulation, forming a new mode of development often labelled neo-Fordism or post-
Fordism. Finally the conceptualisation between agency and structure, class struggle
and completed form is problematic. "While theory continuously emphasizes class
struggle, empirical accounts of the current transformation of the accumulation regime
are mainly couched in structural terms" (Lane, 1995: 26). In sum, regulation theory is
not suitable for a combination with the neo-Gramscian perspective outlined above,
due to its lack of focus on class struggle at the empirical level and its difficulties
combining the analysis of national modes of development with structural changes in
global capitalism. What has to be positively kept in mind, however, is regulation
theories' insistence on national institutional differences within the general capitalist
mode of production. There are several alternative logics of capital (J essop, 1990a:
198; 1990b: 187), which result in different forms of the institutional set-up at the
national level, within which accumulation takes place.
Institutionalism
Institutionalism in various different forms is another approach, which has re-gained
prominence in recent years. Here, the work of Peter Hall is considered as an example.
In response to the question of why states respond in systematically different ways to
similar global structural pressures, Hall puts forward the hypothesis that
both the pressures for a particular policy and the possibility of implementing it
are most fundamentally affected by the organization of three basic facets of the
socioeconomic structure of a nation, namely, the organization of labor, the
13
organization of capital and the organization of the state itself. The first refers
primarily to the organization of the working class in the labor market. The
second refers principally to the organization of the relationship between
financial and industrial capital. And the third refers to the internal organization
of the state apparatus as well as to the organization of the electoral arena (Hall,
1984: 24).
Elsewhere, Hall adds two further factors, the position of a state within the global
economy and the organisation of its political system, used "to refer to the electoral
practices and network of organized political parties that dominate the electoral arena"
(Hall, 1986: 232). The way these different institutions are organised and related to
each other has a profound impact on policy-making. "Some interests will be
privileged as a result of the overall organization of interlocking institutional
frameworks, while others will receive less attention no matter how loudly their
spokesmen scream or how many members their formal interest associations mobilize
behind them (Hall, 1986: 264). To conclude, being the result of political actions in the
past, national institutional set-ups, although not closed towards the possibility of
change, clearly structure policy-making in the present.
There are several problems with Hall's version of institutionalism, which make a
combination with a neo-Gramscian perspective problematic. Firstly, while the
emphasis is on the institutional structure, actors are not clearly identified. The
question of who is operating within this structure remains unproblematised. Secondly,
although noted as an additional factor, the international dimension is underdeveloped.
If its impact is considered at all, then it is in the form of pressure by an external
structure to which national actors have to respond within the particular institutional
set-up of the country (e.g. Hall, 1986: 225).
5
This forecloses an analysis of social
forces operating at the national and international level. Finally, Hall makes a clear
distinction between the economic and the political, considering governments to be
engaged in coalition-building in two areas. "On the one hand, a government is often
called upon to construct coalitions with producer groups in order to implement its
economic policies. On the other hand, it needs to maintain an electoral coalition in
order to stay in office" (Hall, 1986: 273). This implies that there are different actors in
the economic area, such as trade unions and employers' associations, and in the
political area, such as political parties. What is not realised is the inner relation
between both areas and that social forces as the main actors may operate in both areas
through, for example, trade unions and political parties. Nevertheless, despite its
drawbacks, what can usefully be employed is the idea that the way national
institutional structures are organised privileges some actors over others. This is taken
up in the next section, when J essop's conceptualisation of the state is analysed.
A strategic-relational approach to the state

5
It is a general problem of institutionalism in its various forms that it can only be analysed how
institutions at the national level mitigate between the changed preferences of domestic policy makers in
response to external international pressures and the eventual political outcomes as far as policies and
institutional change is concerned (e.g. Garrett and Lange, 1986).
14
J essop suggests to regard the state as a social relation. This approach can be called
strategic-relational and its most distinctive feature is its emphasis on analysing the
state as a site of strategic selectivity (J essop, 1990a: 193). In more detail, considering
the state as a social relation means that it can be analysed as the site, the generator and
the product of strategies. With reference to the first point, as an institutional
ensemble the state constitutes a terrain upon which different political forces attempt to
impart a specific strategic direction to the individual or collective activities of its
different branches (J essop, 1990a: 268). Thus, the form of the state is the framework,
within which various different strategies are possible. The state in this sense can
never be considered as neutral. It has a necessary structural selectivity (J essop,
1990a: 268), favouring certain strategies over others. Importantly, "the differential
impact of the state system on the capacity of different class (-relevant) forces to
pursue their interests in different strategies over a given time horizon is not inscribed
in the state system as such but in the relation between state structures and the
strategies which different forces adopt towards it" (J essop, 1990a: 260). Moreover,
being an institutional ensemble, the state does not exercise power. Instead, we should
speak about the various potential structural powers (or state capacities) inscribed in
the state as institutional ensemble (J essop, 1990a: 366). These powers (in the plural)
are activated through the agency of definite political forces in specific conjunctures. It
is not the state which acts: it is always specific sets of politicians and state officials
located in specific parts of the state system. It is they who activate specific powers
and state capacities inscribed in particular institutions and agencies (J essop, 1990a:
366-7). This leads to the second point. The state is a generator of strategies in the
sense that the political forces in the state, i.e. state managers, can develop strategies to
achieve unitary action of the state. Thirdly, the structure and modus operandi of the
state system can be understood in terms of their production in and through past
political strategies and struggles (J essop, 1990a: 261). Hence, we have to see a given
state structure in its historical context and have to acknowledge that this particular
structure constrains present actors, on the one hand, which, however, might be able to
change this structure via new strategies, on the other. In sum, "the form of the state is
the crystallization of past strategies as well as privileging some over other current
strategies. As a strategic terrain the state is located within a complex dialectic of
structures and strategies" (J essop, 1990a: 269).
This approach, so far, allows the incorporation of both positive aspects of regulation
theories and institutionalism, i.e. the acknowledgement of different national
institutional set-ups and the privileging of some forces over others by particular
national institutions. In contrast to the other two approaches, however, it does offer
the possibility to be combined with a neo-Gramscian perspective. J essop distinguishes
between the formal and the substantive aspects of the state. The formal ones have just
been dealt with. It is the substantive aspects, the social basis of the state and the nature
of the hegemonic project, around which the exercise of state power is centred, which
make a combination possible. By the social basis of the state we understand the
specific configuration of social forces, however identified as subjects and (dis-)
organized as political actors, that supports the basic structure of the state system, its
mode of operation and its objectives (J essop, 1990a: 207). The hegemonic project is
the method of establishing this social basis by solving the problem between particular
interests and the general interest. Its goal is to achieve hegemony, which involves the
interpellation and organization of different class relevant (but not necessarily class-
conscious) forces under the political, intellectual and moral leadership of a particular
15
class (or class fraction) or, more precisely, its political, intellectual and moral
spokesmen (J essop, 1990a: 207-8). In order to positively forge what can be called a
historical bloc, the hegemonic project must go beyond economic issues and the sphere
of economic relations into the field of civil society and the state. Thus, hegemonic
projects can be concerned principally with various non-economic objectives (even if
economically conditioned and economically relevant). The latter might include
military success, social reform, political stability or moral regeneration (J essop,
1990a: 208). Organic intellectuals play a crucial role in the formation and promotion
of a hegemonic project. It is their task to mediate between civil society and political
society, the two aspects of Gramsci's definition of the state in its inclusive sense. In
short, the way these concepts are defined and used mirrors the neo-Gramscian
perspective outlined above. While the strategic-relational approach brings with it an
understanding of the different impact of national institutions, the neo-Gramscian
perspective is able of bridging the national-international divide. In other words, a neo-
Gramscian perspective combined with a strategic-relational approach to the state is
able to conceptualise labour's role at the international level without neglecting the
impact of different national institutional environments.
Conclusion
This paper draws too main conclusions in relation to the conceptualisation of labour's
role at the international level. Firstly, according to the neo-Gramscian perspective, the
transnationalisation of finance and production, part of the globalisation processes,
have engendered new transnational social forces. As a result, class struggle takes
place at the international level not only in substance but also in form. Secondly,
transnational restructuring processes do not imply that there is a convergence of forms
of state in capitalist societies. Different national institutional set-ups and ways of
policy-making, resulting from different historical developments of capitalism at the
national level, are likely to persist and have a different impact on social forces of
labour acting within and through them, privileging some forces and strategies over
others. These different national backgrounds need to be taken into account, when
labour's activities at the international level are investigated. It was argued that J essop's
strategic-relational approach provides the best way of combining an emphasis on
national differences with the neo-Gramscian focus on class struggle at the
international level.
By way of conclusion, in the following it will be discussed how these theoretical
considerations could be used for a comparative analysis of trade unions of five
European Union (EU) members, i.e. Britain, France, Germany, Austria and Sweden,
and their position on Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). The focus of this project
is not limited to EMU as a case study. Rather, EMU is regarded as a vehicle to assess
trade unions' options and possibilities to respond to global structural change in general
and to participate in the formation of the future economic-political system of the EU
in particular. Two principal hypotheses can be formulated. Firstly, that a labour
movement's position on EMU depends crucially on its length and degree of exposure
to the competitive pressures of globalisation. Secondly, that those trade unions of
countries with extremely transnationalised production structures and which lost
influence within the national industrial relations system are most in favour of the
establishment of an industrial relations system and social regulations at the European
16
level to counter global pressures. The first hypothesis requires an analysis of trade
unions' perception of globalisation, their position on EMU and the links they make
between the two. Clearly, globalisation has also a theoretical dimension in the form of
a discourse of economic and political knowledge. Regardless whether there is
something happening considered to be globalisation, if actors belief that it does take
place, it acquires a material reality. The first hypothesis and the first part of the second
hypothesis require close attention by the neo-Gramscian perspective outlined in this
paper. The five countries clearly differ according to the degree to which their
production structures are transnationalised. An analysis of their production structures
via the role of TNCs in the countries' economy and the development of inward and
outward FDI helps to assess firstly the degree of exposure to globalisation and
secondly, to identify the relevant social forces, i.e. the strength and configuration of
national and transnational labour. The second part of the second hypothesis requires
the insights of J essop's strategic-relational approach. Clearly, trade unions, even if
they represent transnational labour, are more likely to continue concentrating on the
national level, if the domestic institutional set-up provides them with good
opportunities of impact on decision-making. Austria's corporatist institutional set-up,
which allocates trade unions institutionalised privileged access to decision-making is
an example here. Alternatively, those trade unions which have little guaranteed impact
on policy-making at the national level, such as for example in Sweden after the break-
up of corporatism in the early 1990s, are more likely to shift their focus and attention
to the international level in Brussels. Considering that the EU itself has developed into
a complex institutional decision-making system, a form of state at the international
level it could be even argued, the strategic selectivity of the EU institutions need to be
compared with unions' domestic situation. Only if the former are more advantageous
than the latter, are unions really likely to shift their emphasis. In short, the five
countries' trade unions need to be compared according to their different configuration
of social forces of labour depending on the production systems and the different
strategic situations they face at the national level in comparison with the international,
European level.
17
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