Hans-Jürgen Bieling

EU facing the crisis: social and employment policies in times of tight budgets

Over the past years the centre of the economic crisis has repeatedly shifted. Starting as a subprime crisis in the US, it soon unfolded as a global economic and financial crisis in order then to become a sovereign debt crisis, euro crisis and, eventually, also a social and democratic crisis. Against the background of the general political and economic conditions within the EU, this article traces the shifts of the political terrain. It focuses above all on the transition from a rather costly crisis management (bank rescues, economic stimulus programmes and automatic stabilizers) towards a new agenda of austerity policies. Structurally, this agenda can be seen as the reaction to significant increases in public debt. In addition, it has been promoted politically and institutionalized through successive European economic governance reforms. These reforms have also had a serious impact on domestic social and employment policies. In some countries dependent on external credits this is already evident, while in other countries the deregulatory aspects of the radicalized reform agenda have only just started to unfold.

Shattered expectations: the defeat of European ambitions of global financial reform

ABSTRACT As a consequence of the global financial crisis, many observers expected that the European Union would initiate and spur the reform of global finance. However, it turned out that the European endeavours have only been modest and unassertive so far. This contribution aims to explore this development. It argues that there are various causes of the European defeat, but that it is possible to identify some structural factors which enabled powerful political actors to defend a liberally organized financial market environment: externally, international communication and bargaining processes have been and still are structurally biased towards a liberal global financial order owing to the strong role of global financial centres and the dynamics of competitive deregulation; and internally, the emergence of a new European economy, based on financial market integration and manifold processes of financialization, has brought about fundamental changes of European capitalism as well as of societal and intergovernmental power relations.

European Financial Capitalism and the Politics of (De-)financialization

Over recent decades, the political economy of the European Union has been marked by the emergence of a European financial capitalism and various processes of financialization. This article aims to explore the constitutive role of political strategies, decisions and conflicts in these developments, in particular with regard to ongoing European crises tendencies. For this purpose, it draws on a neo-Gramscian and regulationist conceptual framework which differentiates between three levels of analysis: that of a ‘historic bloc’ or specific societal formation; a ‘hegemonic bloc’ or particular alliance of leading social forces; and ‘political projects’, which are problem- or crisis-induced political initiatives. The article shows that in the course of the crisis the major political projects have been initiated or controlled by a finance-dominated transnational alliance. In this sense, European financial capitalism and financialization have been politically promoted and stabilized, so far. At the same time, however, the article also identifies increasing political contradictions and conflicts which indicate the precarious nature of past stabilization attempts.

EMU, financial integration and global economic governance

ABSTRACT This article regards the EMU as part of a broader strategy to revitalize the European economy by creating a strong European base within the transnational finance-led regime of accumulation. Examining the broader implications of this strategy, the article applies the Coxian conceptual triangle of state–civil society complexes, social relations of production and world order. As far as the reconfiguration of the European state–civil society complex is concerned, the article shows first that the European Union has built up quite remarkable, however, primarily introverted governance capacities in the fields of monetary and financial market policies. Secondly, with respect to the social relations of production, it points out that changes within the European financial environment tend to undermine the particular social conditions and relations which have underpinned innovation and productivity growth so far. Finally, in terms of world order, the article shows that the material and organisational capacities of the EU are still much too weak to challenge the dominant role of the US. Nevertheless, under conditions of global trade imbalances, economic stagnation, and the crises of social reproduction and political legitimacy it is likely that transatlantic cooperation will become more difficult.

Internationalisierung, Integration und politische Regulierung

In den integrationstheoretischen Debatten der achtziger Jahre bestand ein gewisser Konsens uber die „Erschopfung“ der klassischen Leitbilder (Schneider/Werle 1989; Bellers/Hackel 1990). Das Forschungsinteresse verlagerte sich — auch vor dem Hintergrund der neuen Integrationsdynamik seit Mitte der achtziger Jahre — auf die Frage nach dem Charakter des politischen Systems der EG als „korporativer Akteur“ (Schneider/Werle 1989), als „technokratisches Regime“ (Bach 1993), als „Policy Maker“ (Tommel 1992) usw. Die Frage nach der Dynamik des Souveranitatstransfers vom Nationalstaat auf supranationale Institutionen wurde zugunsten der Frage nach der Struktur und Dynamik des politischen Prozesses verschoben, in dem sich — auf der Basis transnationaler Interessensverflechtung — komplexe Netzwerke mit einem — so Keohane und Hoffmann (1990: 227) — „supranationalen Entscheidungsstil“ etablieren. Die Verhandlungssysteme und -prozeduren, bei denen die Interessen europaischer und nationaler, staatlicher und nichtstaatlicher Akteure zu Kompromissen ausgeglichen werden, wurde so als das zentrale Feld politikwissenschaftlicher Integrationsforschung anerkannt.

Finanzmarktintegration und Corporate Governance in der Europäischen Union

Noch vor einiger Zeit schien der Prozess der europaischen Marktund Wahrungsintegration nahezu abgeschlossen. Insbesondere die Initiativen zur Errichtung eines integrierten europaischen Finanzmarktes lassen jedoch erkennen, aass die Okonomische Integration noch langst nicht an ihre Grenzen gelangt ist. Unter den Bedingungen eines integrierten Finanzmarktes beschleunigt sich noch einmal der Wandel der soziookonomischen und politisch-regulativen Reproduktionsmuster, nicht zuletzt im Bereich der Corporate Governance. Diese Entwicklung ist unter integrationstheoretischen Gesichtspunkten insofern interessant, als sich die jungeren Initiativen, ahnlich wie zuvor bereits der EG-Binnenmarkt oder die Wirtschaftsund Wahrungsunion, zu einem neuen politischen Projekt zu verdichten scheinen. Der Ubergang in die »informationsbasierte Shareholder-Okonomie« stutzt sich dabei auf einen relativ breiten Basiskonsens, der durch einen transnationalen koordinierenden Diskurs aktiv gestaltet wird. Ungeachtet der konvergierenden Interessen und ausgehandelten Kompromisse lauft die Finanzmarktintegration jedoch keineswegs immer reibungslos, da die Veranderungen im soziookonomischen und politischregulativen Reproduktionsmodus zumindest punktuell auch intergouvernementale Konflikte und soziale Widerstande erzeugen.

European Constitutionalism and Industrial Relations

European industrial relations have undergone fundamental changes from the early 1980s onwards. This is mainly due to a range of structural shifts in the mode of economic, social and political reproduction. Most important among them are the following: the reorganisation of work and production (involving new technologies, rationalisation and labour shedding, flexible working conditions, changes in the production chain, or new logistic concepts); sluggish economic growth, high rates of unemployment and a highly fragmented workforce; an expanding service sector; and an accelerated transnationalisation of trade, production and finance. Two other significant factors are the increasing influence of banks, investment funds and insurance companies, and a transformation of the ‘Keynesian welfare state’ into a ‘Schumpeterian workfare regime’, which implies restricted opportunities for social and economic intervention. Most scholars agree that the re-launching of European integration since the mid-1980s should be seen as an integral part of all these tendencies of socio-economic restructuring (Ferner and Hyman, 1998; Martin and Ross, 1999). Without doubt, its core economic projects — the European Monetary System (EMS), the Internal Market, and Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) — have had a serious impact on the transformation of industrial relations.

Comparative analysis of capitalism from a regulationist perspective extended by neo-Gramscian IPE

Over time, the comparative analysis of capitalism has moved beyond the strict confines of the narrow varieties of capitalism (VoC) framework. In this sense, it is possible to observe an emergent post-VoC discussion that goes beyond the static design and methodological nationalism that can be found in a strictly comparative and institutionalist account of capitalism. So far, however, the post-VoC discussion has been barely able to address important politico-economic and societal themes and issues. For the most part, assertions about time-diagnostic characterisations of the current state of capitalism, the causes and processes of specific crisis dynamics inherent to this current form of capitalism, and the asymmetrical forms of international networks or formative transnational power relations, remain weak or chaotic. In order to overcome these existing deficiencies, this paper argues from an analytical perspective that situates itself in regulation theory and allows itself to be characterised as an extended neo-Gramscian international political economy (IPE) approach.

Regulation Theory and the Political Economy of the European Union

European integration theory considers to what extent the EU can realize a telos where American pluralism is the template. Not without merits, but considering the financial and eurozone crises fatally, such perspectives elide power relations and attendant contradictions and irrationalities that are constitutive of transatlantic integration itself. Regulation theory, which synthesizes the reformist ethos of Europes postwar statist tradition and Marxism, and which has produced a considerable body of analysis of the EU published at the margins of EU scholarship, offers a compelling alternative that potentially overcomes these shortcomings. This article critically assesses how regulation theory has interpreted the single market, financial liberalization and EMU as a suppression of alternatives to neoliberal post-Fordism, or finance-led accumulation, in Europe. It argues that understanding the EUs current conjuncture of eurozone crisis management requires a neo-Gramscian extension of regulation theory, stressing transnational patterns of capitalist accumulation and power relations.

Das Projekt der Euro-Rettung und die Widersprüche des europäischen Krisenkonstitutionalismus

Die Entwicklung der Europäischen Union, insbesondere der Eurozone, war in den vergangenen Jahren durch krisenkonstitutionalistische Reformprozesse gekennzeichnet. Um zu begreifen, wie sich diese Reformen in den bisherigen Verlauf der europäischen Integration einfügen, wird eine neo-gramscianisch und regulationstheoretisch inspirierte politökonomische Perspektive entwickelt, die die Integrationsgeschichte als einen kriseninduzierten Prozess ausgehandelter Übereinkommen konzeptualisiert. Im Unterschied zu früheren Krisen und hierauf bezogenen politischen Reaktionen stellt sich die aktuelle Konstellation aber spezifisch dar: Zum einen scheint es sich bei der Euround Staatsschuldenkrise nicht um eine Entwicklungs-, sondern durchaus um eine Existenzkrise – zumindest der Eurozone – zu handeln, deren Bewältigung höchst ungewiss ist; und zum anderen generiert der europäische Krisenkonstitutionalismus bedenkliche sozioökonomische, demokratiepolitische und zwischenstaatliche Konsequenzen.