Sabina Stan - Böcker

This book examines how membership of the European Union has affected life in the ten former communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe that are now members of the European Union. It attempts to answer some fundamental questions: Was the reward of EU membership worth the sacrifices made? How have the new member states fared? Has the promise of EU membership, on which so many expectations were based, been realised? Or have the new member states traded a Socialist Commonwealth with Moscow pulling the strings for an over-centralised Brussels bureaucracy that lacks transparency and accountability? How has a shared communist past influenced the countries’ post-socialist and post-accession trajectory? How have the populations of post-communist Europe fared? Have some done better than others? Are these divergences confined to the political, economic or social spheres, or to more than one? If there have been disappointments, how have the populations reacted to these?By taking stock of debates within domestic elites, popular opinion, non-governmental organisations, civil society, and external actors, this book seeks to answer these crucial questions.

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.

This book examines how membership of the European Union has affected life in the ten former communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe that are now members of the European Union. It attempts to answer some fundamental questions: Was the reward of EU membership worth the sacrifices made? How have the new member states fared? Has the promise of EU membership, on which so many expectations were based, been realised? Or have the new member states traded a Socialist Commonwealth with Moscow pulling the strings for an over-centralised Brussels bureaucracy that lacks transparency and accountability? How has a shared communist past influenced the countries’ post-socialist and post-accession trajectory? How have the populations of post-communist Europe fared? Have some done better than others? Are these divergences confined to the political, economic or social spheres, or to more than one? If there have been disappointments, how have the populations reacted to these?By taking stock of debates within domestic elites, popular opinion, non-governmental organisations, civil society, and external actors, this book seeks to answer these crucial questions.

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.

Processes of neoliberal globalization have put national trade unions under pressure as the transnational organization of production puts these labour movements in competition with each other. The global economic crisis has intensified these pressures further. And yet, economic and political integration processes have also provided workers with new possibilities to organize resistance.Emphasizing the importance of agency, this book analyzes transnational labour action in times of crisis, historically and now. It draws on a variety of fascinating cases, across formal and informal collectives, in order to clarify which factors facilitate or block the formation of solidarity. Moving beyond empirical description of cases to an informed understanding of collective action across borders, the volume provides an insightful theorization of transnational action.