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Beyond 'political economism': New identities for unions in Western Europe?

Graham Taylor, Andrew Mathers and Martin Upchurch
Capital & Class 2012 36: 17
DOI: 10.1177/0309816811428664

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 Capital & Class

Beyond ‘political
36(1) 17­–34
© The Author(s) 2011
Reprints and permission: sagepub.
economism’: New co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0309816811428664
identities for unions c&c.sagepub.com

in Western Europe?

Graham Taylor
University of the West of England, UK

Andrew Mathers
University of the West of England, UK

Martin Upchurch
Middlesex University, UK

Abstract
This article engages critically with Richard Hyman’s work on union identity and
European integration. It includes a sympathetic review of Hyman’s contribution
to the debate on these topics over the past two decades, alongside a critique
of Hyman’s approach that highlights certain weaknesses and contradictions
resulting from his uncritical use of a range of categories and concepts taken from
regulation theory. The authors question Hyman’s argument that developments in
European unionism can be conceptualised adequately through an analysis of the
development and crisis of ‘political economism’: a dominant union identity that
Hyman aligns with the development and crisis of Fordism. An alternative model
for understanding the reorientation of European unions is presented based on
a critical and dialectical conceptualisation of the relationship between unions
and capitalist development. This is used to construct a model of contemporary
union reorientation along the dimensions of ‘accommodation’ and ‘opposition’
to neoliberalism and to ‘national’ and ‘international’ modes of organisation and
mobilisation.

Corresponding author:
Graham Taylor, University of the West of England, UK
Email: graham.taylor@uwe.ac.uk

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18 Capital & Class 36(1)

Keywords
Union identity, regulation theory, social democracy, neolberalism, European
integration

It is necessary to direct one’s attention violently towards the present as it is, if one wishes
to transform it. Pessimism of the intelligence, optimism of the will.
Antonio Gramsci, The Prison Notebooks (1971: 175)

Introduction
The question of union identity has been a recurrent theme in comparative and historical
labour studies. The concept has allowed the development of union typologies that
differentiate usefully between divergent ideological orientations, membership bases,
organising strategies and institutional forms. The work of Richard Hyman has been
central to the task of exploring how union identities have been impacted by the dynamics
and crises of contemporary capitalist development. Over the past three decades, Hyman
has charted the increasing convergence of British and European unions around an
identity of ‘political economism’ in the context of ‘Keynesianism’ or ‘Fordism’. He has
analysed the crisis and decomposition of this identity in the context of neoliberal
restructuring and the emergence of ‘neo’- or ‘post-Fordism’ and a range of potential new
and alternative union identities made possible by the ‘variable geometry’ of European
integration. It would be wrong to dispute the seminal nature of Hyman’s work on
European unionism, or to deny the agenda-setting status of his contribution to critical
labour studies and industrial relations. From a critical Marxist perspective, however,
there are some tensions, omissions and contradictions in the work of Hyman. Most
notably, Hyman has drawn on the ‘regulation approach’ and, as a consequence, has
seriously underestimated the contradictory and crisis-ridden environment in which
European unionism has developed, and the complex patterns of continuity and change
underpinning contemporary forms of European unionism.
In this article, we engage with the work of Hyman on union identity and European
integration in order to develop a critical assessment of the crisis and decomposition of
‘political economism’ and the potential for alternative forms of union orientation in the
context of European integration. We begin with an appreciative review of Hyman’s work
on union identity and European integration. This work is marked by his critical embrace
of the ‘Social Europe’ agenda and the ways in which this has been underpinned by his
analysis of changing union identities and the potential for union renewal based on the
‘social’ dimension of union strategy. In the subsequent section, we suggest that there are
theoretical problems with Hyman’s model of ‘union identity’ which, linked to his largely
uncritical embrace of the regulation approach and his model of ‘civil society’, tend to
undermine his approach to the politics of contemporary European unionism. In the next
section, we present an alternative conceptual framework for understanding the crisis of
‘political economism’ in the context of European integration. We suggest that a more
nuanced analysis of contemporary European unionism can be developed by charting
the reorientation of European unions along the dimensions of ‘accommodation’ or
‘opposition’ to neoliberalism and the focus on either ‘national’ and ‘international’ modes of
organisation and mobilisation. We conclude with a critical discussion of the conceptual

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Taylor et al. 19

and theoretical problems underpinning Hyman’s model of union identity in contemporary

Europe, and suggest that these can be overcome with the adoption of a more critical
conceptualisation of ‘European civil society’.

The promise of European integration: Unionism in a

warmer climate?
Since the 1980s, there has been increasing interest amongst union activists and com-
mentators in the progressive potential of European institutions. For many union leaders,
‘Social Europe’ has come to symbolise a possible brighter future for British unions in
which unions can achieve the status of social partner and substantive social rights for
their members. This process, it is argued, will serve as a counterweight to neoliberal
globalisation and so produce a civilised and humanised capitalism (see, for example,
TUC, 2006). This ‘European turn’ amongst the upper echelons of British unionism has
been matched by one of the leading figures in British industrial relations, but in contrast
to the ‘Europhilia’ of union leaders, Richard Hyman has seemingly retained a more
balanced perspective on European integration. However, implicit in the work of Hyman
on European integration and the strategic choices facing unions in Europe is the suggestion
that ‘Europe’ is the terrain on which unions are able to operate in order to secure a new
social settlement for labour. The work of Hyman on union identity and European inte-
gration can be traced to the early 1990s. His initial concern was to develop a framework
for understanding union identity that was presented as the (often unrecognised) basis for
union strategy. The basic components of union identity were presented as ‘interest
representation’, ‘democratic structure’, ‘agenda framing’ and ‘power mobilization’ (Hyman,
1994a, 1994b). The range of union identities in a comparative and historical context
included ‘craft’, ‘business’, ‘confessional’, ‘syndicalist’, ‘social democratic’ and ‘communist’.
According to Hyman, the dominant form of union identity in Western Europe during
the post-war period was ‘political economism’. The crisis of contemporary European
unionism needed to be contextualised within a clear understanding of the development
and crisis of this dominant union identity.
Hyman traced the historical development of unionism through a triple polarisation
of union identity between a revolutionary or anti-capitalist orientation, an orientation
focused on social integration or social cohesion and forms of business unionism that
involved a narrow orientation around occupational interests (Hyman, 1996a: 65).
During the first half of the 20th century, there were bitter and prolonged struggles within
and between unions and union confederations on the basis of these rival identities. By
the mid-20th century, the conflict over union identity in Western Europe had been
transcended, although the transformation was obscured by organisational separation and
ideological sloganising (Hyman, 1994a). Unions that had articulated revolutionary or
reformist political demands became increasingly focused on a collective bargaining
agenda that rendered political orientations increasingly rhetorical. Simultaneously, the
terrain of collective bargaining became increasingly politicised as a result of Keynesian
macro-economic management and the legislative regulation of employment relations
and, in this context, business unionism also became increasing untenable. The dominant
union identity became what Hyman (1996a: 66) has termed ‘political economism’,
which combined collective bargaining with employers with a concern to influence the

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20 Capital & Class 36(1)

broader political, legal and economic framework of collective bargaining. The consolidation
of ‘political economism’ involved a complex process of institution-building associated
with ‘political exchange’ or ‘neo-corporatism’. The resulting institutions articulated a
reciprocal relationship between labour, capital and the state and involved the exchange
of union restraint for labour-friendly or labour-neutral government policies. These
developments displayed marked national specificities (Baglioni, 1987; Therborn, 1992;
Crouch, 1993) alongside functional similarities and convergence.
The new environment which has been developing since the 1970s, and which was
proving increasingly inhospitable for ‘political economism’, was presented by Hyman as
being the product of four intersecting processes of change (Hyman, 1994a: 109-119).
These processes of change had undermined the socioeconomic composition, institutional
terrain, ideological legitimacy and socio-cultural relevance of ‘political economism’ as a
union identity. First, the global restructuring of capital associated with globalisation and
the increasing prominence of MNCs had contributed to a shift from manufacturing to
service employment, and this had stripped the labour movement of its core membership
and its heroic central figure in the form of the semi-skilled industrial worker. Hyman
rejected the ‘death of class’ thesis to argue that industrial change had produced a ‘crisis of
a specific, narrowly based type of unionism’ (Hyman, 1994a: 113) alongside the potential
to develop more inclusive types of unionism out of the fragmented workforce generated
by corporate and industrial change. Second, ‘economic stringency’ had undermined the
institutional basis for ‘political economism’. In the Keynesian era, unions were able to
operate effectively as intermediaries between the state and the working class through a
mechanism of ‘political exchange’ that delivered material gains to union members and
relative industrial quiescence to the state and employers. The end of Keynesianism had
placed severe pressures on this exchange as unions came to be recognised by the state
according to their capacity to make policies of retrenchment and restraint palatable to
their members. The corollary of this was that restraint often resulted in loss of member-
ship and/or leadership challenges owing to rank-and-file disenchantment. Third, the
‘erosion of partisan attachments’ associated with the demise of communism and
confessionalism had resulted in the relative absence of an ideologically based alternative
to, and replacement for, ‘political economism’. However, Hyman argued that the retreat
of old ‘ideological obstacles’ offered an opportunity to develop new union projects as an
alternative to forms of apolitical unionism that capitulated to neoliberal globalisation.
Fourth, the ‘decline of collectivism’ (Hyman, 1994a: 117-119) associated with the shift
from industrialism to post-industrialism had resulted in important socio-cultural changes
and these had impacted on established forms and expressions of worker solidarity and
union power. Specifically, Hyman questioned whether union leaders could continue to
mobilise effectively the industrial power of workers through bureaucratic means of
representation, and whether more effective forms of participation and action could be
developed based on the revitalisation of unionism as a ‘social movement’ in ‘civil society’.
The work of Hyman on neoliberal restructuring and union reorientation has
provided an important alternative to accounts of union reorientation that have posited
business unionism and social partnership as the inevitable direction of union reorientation
in the context of neoliberalism. In the next section, we show how Hyman’s alternative
conception of union futures draws explicitly on regulation theory, and why this is a

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Taylor et al. 21

problem when it informs his conceptualisation of union identity and his substantive
work on union reorientation in Europe.

Regulation theory, union identity and the variable

geometry of European unionism
Hyman (1994b: 3) has observed correctly that within the discipline of industrial
relations, explicit theorising is poorly developed and articulated. In contrast, his own
analysis of the relationship between the development and crisis of Fordism and
Keynesianism and changes in national industrial relations regimes develops in a clear and
explicit way the work of leading exponents of the regulation approach (Gordon et al.,
1982; Piore and Sabel, 1984: Lipietz, 1985; Boyer, 1988, quoted by Hyman, 1994b).
Hyman is clear that ‘Fordism’ or ‘regulated capitalism’ underpinned the stability of
capital accumulation in the post-war period, although he is careful not to accept the
regulation approach in toto. Hence, Hyman argued,

It is unnecessary to embrace all elements of ‘regulation theory’ in order to recognize the value
of such an account for making sense of the relative stabilization of mid-20th century industrial
relations … [It is] plausible to interpret large scale industry as the dynamo of many socio-
political developments in the western world, (Hyman, 1994b: 7)

It is, however, unclear which aspects of regulation theory Hyman rejected.

Nevertheless, his analysis of the strategic reorientation of unions is framed clearly by the
shift from Fordism to ‘disorganized capitalism’. This shift had limited the strategic
choices available to unions, although Hyman is clear that this had not produced a single
set of options or trajectories of change. Rather, the space for strategic choice by unions
was opened up by the contradictory nature of historically ‘path dependant’ structures
within the context of ‘disorganized capitalism’ (Lash and Urry, 1987, quoted in Hyman,
1994b: 11). This embrace of the ‘post-Marxist’ paradigm by Hyman marked an
important shift in the way the relationship between the state and organised labour was
presented in his work. In his earlier work, Hyman had traced the close institutional
mediations between the ‘politics of production’ and the ‘politics of politics’ in order to
highlight how the form of the state was determined by the confidence and cohesion of
workers in the ‘politics of production’ (Hyman, 1989: 202-223). This dialectical
approach was later abandoned for a structural functionalist approach according to which
union ‘identity’ is determined by the orientation of unions along the axes between the
institutionally autonomous spheres of ‘politics’, ‘economics’ and ‘society’.
These institutional structures form the basis of the ‘eternal triangle’ of union identities
explored in Understanding European Trade Unionism (Hyman, 2001a). In this book,
Hyman explored the development and crisis of national traditions of industrial relations
within a framework of union ‘geometry’. The alternative orientations within this
geometry were derived from a historical analysis of the ideological battles waged between
business, social integrationist and anti-capitalist unionism. These orientations high-
lighted the collective interests of workers as a commodity (market), as a social group
(society) and as a political force (class), and thus ‘market’, ‘society’ and ‘class’ formed the
three corners of the ‘eternal triangle’ of union identity. Although this ideological battle

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22 Capital & Class 36(1)

was largely abated by the post-war settlement, Hyman argued that it was the enduring
tensions between these orientations that shaped contemporary union identities.
Hyman applied this model to the development of unionism in Britain, Germany and
Italy. In Britain, the union movement occupied the axis between market and class, which
expressed its attachment to voluntarism and its affiliation to the Labour Party. In
Germany, the union movement occupied the axis between market and society, which
reflected its aim of achieving a social market. In Italy, the union movement occupied the
axis between society and class, which generated a highly politicised form of unionism
that engaged the state to regulate the market. Hyman argued that each of these national
movements had adopted a form of ‘political economism’ as its main ideology. However,
the crisis of Keynesianism was generating ‘ideological disorientation’ and an ‘identity
crisis’ in all three cases, and unions were ‘increasingly adrift within a sea of variable
geometry’ (Hyman, 1996b: 86). For Hyman, European integration offered a possible
path out of the crisis. It offered a new terrain on which unions could develop a new
transnational (utopian) vision that could revitalise the ‘movement’ dimension of
unionism and so galvanise and mobilise workers across the continent around a concrete
project of ‘Social Europe’. The development of the ‘movement’ dimension required
unions to redefine their role as ‘actors in civil society’ in order to engage in a struggle ‘to
shape beliefs and values in the wider society’ (Hyman, 1996a: 61).
The rediscovery of the ‘movement’ dimension of unionism was based on Hyman’s
analysis of the crisis of ‘political economism’. In the new environment, unions were oper-
ating with a ‘diminished capacity to mobilize traditional forms of economic and political
pressure’ (Hyman, 2001a: 56) and, as a consequence, civil society was becoming an
increasingly important terrain for union activity and influence. This illustrates how
Hyman conceptualises the power resources available to unions and the ways in which
unions are able to mobilise power in civil society. Hyman does not refer specifically to
the model of power that underpins his analysis, but it mirrors the three-dimensional
model of power developed by Steven Lukes (Lukes, 2004) and, more importantly,
the institutional configuration that Hyman has described as ‘political economism’. The
dimensions of power outlined by Hyman are: first, the ability to achieve union objectives
in the face of resistance; second, winning an institutional or legal framework to enable
their agenda to be realised; and third, the ability to influence attitudes and perceptions
in order to create a favourable ideological climate (Hyman, 1994a: 127). This model is,
however, applied in a rather inconsistent way when Hyman moves his analysis to the
European level. Hyman focuses on the need to create a favourable ideological climate in
order to establish a positive institutional settlement for labour at the European level. This
clearly plays down the importance of the first dimension of power and the question of
how such a settlement can be achieved in the face of employer and governmental
hostility.
Hyman argued that European unions had become integrated into the elitist institu-
tions of EU governance and, as a consequence, levels of union mobilisation and political
contention had become increasingly inhibited (Hyman, 2005: 9). The elite-driven
process of European integration along neoliberal lines was blocking the development of
an effective model of social regulation at the European level and the ultimate goal of a
progressive model of Social Europe. Hyman was particularly critical of the ETUC, whose
Faustian bargain with the institutions of the EU had made it a captive of the ‘elite

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Taylor et al. 23

embrace’ (Hyman, 2005: 24); whilst the practice of social dialogue had resulted in union
leaders accepting the ‘normative order’ constructed by neoliberal elites (Hyman, 2006).
Hyman argued that European civil society was largely a construction of the European
Commission and that, therefore, communitarian regulation amounted to little more
than consultation with officially recognised NGOs based on the neoliberal norms of
competitiveness and flexibility (Hyman, 2005: 35). However, Hyman clearly rejected
the determinist argument that globalisation precluded the development of an effective
system of European regulation. In order to pursue this agenda, European unions needed
to oppose the grain of neoliberal European integration. Hyman concluded that unions
could only mobilise the ‘serious pressure’ required to achieve effective social regulation
by opposing the capitalist logic of competitiveness with a ‘new’ socialist logic of solidar-
ity (Hyman, 2005). Unions needed to engage in an ‘internal social dialogue’ (Hyman,
2001a: 174) through which leaders and members were involved in a meaningful discus-
sion across sections of workers and across national borders that would generate a new
solidarity and a new ‘moral economy’. This could be expressed concretely as a mod-
ernised welfare state that could offer a new vision of citizenship around which unions
could mobilise (Hyman, 2005, 2006).
Hyman’s most recent work suggests that European unions have not really risen to
the challenge of developing an ‘internal social dialogue’. The extensive support for a
‘yes’ vote amongst European unions in the recent referenda on European integration
confirmed the tendency for most unions to support European integration regardless of
its social consequences (Hyman, 2010). Moreover, unions have not been able to go
beyond defensive forms of protest and partnership in response to the effects of the
current financial crisis, during which unions have deployed radical forms of action, but
with the limited aim of mitigating job losses. At the same time, the scope for dialogue to
achieve damage limitation through new social pacts has become even narrower. There
has been little progress by unions in building popular support for a new agenda that
could address the crisis through, for example, developing demands for economic
democracy (Hyman and Gumbrell-McCormick, 2010).
There is, therefore, an increasing gap between the analytical and prescriptive elements
of Hyman’s work on union identity and European integration. Clearly, the ‘optimism
of the will’ has predominated over the ‘pessimism of the intelligence’. An adequate
‘pessimism of the intelligence’ requires a rejection of the illusions and fantasies generated
by the ‘regulation approach’. In the following section, we highlight some of the problems
and limitations associated with the ‘regulation approach’ and the ways in which these
undermine Hyman’s work on union identity and European integration.

‘Pessimism of the intellect….’ social democratic

fantasies and neoliberal realities
In the previous section, we highlighted some of the key theoretical assumptions under-
pinning Hyman’s analysis of the development and crisis of union identities in Europe.
We demonstrated how Hyman has explicitly acknowledged his debt to the ‘regulation
approach’ and the ways in which this is linked to a particular conception of power and
civil society. In this section, we set out the main arguments contained within ‘regulation
theory’ and show how the weaknesses and limitations of this approach have tended to

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24 Capital & Class 36(1)

undermine Hyman’s work on union identity and European integration. The regulation
approach is an attempt to understand the crisis tendencies of capitalist development and
the role played by political and social institutions in mitigating these crisis tendencies.
The work of Aglietta (1979) was the most systematic attempt to trace the development
and crisis of the ‘Fordist’ regime of accumulation, and underpinned the more crude
contributions to the regulation approach which followed. In the work of Aglietta, the
19th century was seen as being dominated by an ‘extensive’ ‘regime of accumulation’
based on a competitive form of regulation. This ‘regime’ became increasingly under-
mined by a generalised crisis of under-consumption and, following the crisis of 1929, an
‘intensive’ or ‘Fordist’ regime of accumulation developed based on mass production and
a Fordist ‘mode of regulation’ that involved the reconciliation of high wages and increas-
ing social welfare with rising productivity and the intensification of labour. During the
1970s, the ‘long wave’ of Fordist growth became undermined by an increasingly serious
crisis of disproportionality as increases in productivity failed to keep pace with the rising
organic composition of capital. The attempt to counter this tendency through Keynesian
demand management and the expansion of credit served only to exacerbate the crisis
through the intensification of inflation. This is the context in which later contributors to
the regulation approach attempted to trace the emergence of a new post-Fordist ‘regime
of accumulation’ based on globalisation, Japanisation and neo-Fordist restructuring of
the public sector. The new ‘regime of accumulation’, it was argued, had changed the
form and focus of class struggle and required labour to forge a new accommodation with
capital in order to facilitate the development of a post-Fordist ‘mode of regulation’ and
the renewal of social democracy for ‘New Times’.
The regulation approach has undoubtedly contributed to a Marxist understanding of
the crisis tendencies of capitalist development and the role of the state in attempting to
regulate the crises and contradictions of capitalist accumulation. The debate on the regu-
lation approach raged within the pages of Capital & Class and beyond during the 1980s
and 1990s, and tended to reflect a set of deeper divisions within the Marxist paradigm
premised on the form and function of the capitalist state and the relationship between
the state and civil society (Bonefeld and Holloway, 1991; Clarke, 1991b). While this
debate was largely unresolved and remains ongoing, we would nevertheless argue that
commentators working from a broad ‘form theoretical’ perspective highlighted a range
of serious problems that tended to undermine the analytical usefulness of regulation
theory from a Marxist perspective (see in particular, Bonefeld, 1991; Clarke, 1991a;
Holloway, 1991; Peláez and Holloway, 1991). The notion that the state and civil society
are autonomous from the dynamics and contradictions of the capitalist economy
underpins the regulation approach and this position was, we would argue, effectively
undermined by a ‘form theoretical’ approach that highlighted the ways in which the
social, political and economic are derived from the totality of the capital relation. We will
now explore the main elements of the critique and the ways in which it problematises
major aspects of Hyman’s work on union identity and reorientation.
Critics of regulation theory highlighted the ways in which its structural functionalist
methodology downplayed the importance of class struggle in the process of historical
development. Regulation theory is focused on the structural imperatives of capital accu-
mulation and the dynamics of structural integration and disintegration underpinning
successive ‘long waves’ of capitalist development. In adopting the methodological

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Taylor et al. 25

assumptions of the regulation approach, therefore, Hyman tends to develop a rather

teleological account of the relationship between union identity and the dynamics of
social and political change. This can be seen in his argument that the ‘political’ and
‘economic’ forms of unionism associated with Fordism are no longer relevant to the
structural imperatives of ‘post-Fordism’. In the work of Hyman, union identities tend to
be examined as part of a closed process of structural development rather than as emergent
categories formed through an open process of contestation and struggle. In his earlier
work, Hyman was sensitive to the dangers of adopting a ‘too mechanical’ approach to the
analysis of union politics. Quoting Gramsci, Hyman (1989: 245) argued that a union
‘becomes a determinate institution, i.e. takes on a definite historical form, to the extent
that the strength and will of the workers … impress a policy and propose an aim that
define it’. Hyman also concurred with the position of Perry Anderson on the class nature
of unions (Anderson, 1967). Anderson argued that unions articulate rather than chal-
lenge the unequal and contradictory relationship between capital and labour. Unions
represent the interests of labour within capitalism and, as a consequence, are unable to
challenge the structural parameters of capitalist society (Anderson, 1967: 264-8). The
notion of ‘union identity’ thus tends to reify and obscure a complex and contradictory
set of relationships underpinning the form of unionism in capitalist society. The interests
represented by unions, the mechanisms of democratic representation, the ideological
framing of issues and interests and the mobilisation of union power are manifestations of
class struggle captured post festum in the institutional form of union identity. The notion
that unions have an ‘identity’ in civil society overstates the autonomy of civil society
from the state and economy, and highlights the weakness of the neo-Gramscian concep-
tualisation of civil society to which Hyman subscribes (Hyman, 2001a: 59). In his earlier
work, Hyman himself highlighted the historically contingent and provisional character-
istics of unions. This resulted from both the internal dynamics of unionism and the
material interests and relations of production which they mediate. Hyman warned
against analysing unions in isolation from the wider social formation of which they are a
key component, particularly when unions are impacted by the crisis tendencies of capital
accumulation (Hyman, 1989: 138). In his earlier work, therefore, Hyman seems to
accept that notions such as ‘union identity’ tend to encourage the forms of functionalist
and teleological analysis that he later seems to embrace alongside his critical acceptance
of the regulation approach.
There are also a number of problems concerning the development and periodisation
of capital accumulation suggested by the regulation approach that have a relevance to
Hyman’s analysis. Hyman’s argument that ‘political economism’ constituted the
dominant form of union identity in the era of Fordism and that this identity is no longer
relevant in the era of ‘disorganized capitalism’ tends to obscure a more complex process
of continuity and change. There are serious problems in the periodisation of capitalism
underpinning regulation theory. There was, for example, nothing inherently inflexible
about Fordist technology, and the inflexibility that existed was a product of worker
resistance and struggle both individually and through unions (Clarke, 1990). This period
of Fordist growth was, moreover, not overwhelmingly ‘organised’ or particularly stable.
The generalisation of Fordist production methods tended to heighten an increasingly
serious crisis of over-accumulation and the social democratic goal of full employment
was constantly abandoned in favour of price stability during the 1960s and 1970s

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26 Capital & Class 36(1)

(Clarke, 1988: 316-22). This suggests that ‘political economism’ was an unstable and
crisis ridden form of unionism that operated in and against the Fordist settlement.
This has important implications with regard to Hyman’s normative agenda around the
development of a new social settlement for labour at the European level.
The central categories of regulation theory were also shown to have played an important
ideological role in legitimising the class compromise that underpinned the post-war
settlement. The strength of ‘Fordism’ was always ideological, and fuelled the social-
democratic fantasy that the levers of the state could be applied in order to overcome the
crises and contradictions of capital accumulation (Clarke, 1991a: 122). In the work of
Hyman, the category of ‘political economism’ is an important part of this ideological mix
and serves to legitimise the ‘pluralist’ industrial relations regimes that developed in the
post-war period. The category tends to obscure the contradictions of the post-war
settlement and the extent to which this form of ‘identity’ highlighted the strength and
obscured the weakness of organised labour. The Keynesian welfare state, which Hyman
is keen to see replicated at the European level, emerged in response to the crisis rather
than the stability of ‘Fordism’. The ‘settlement’ thus served to deepen and politicise the
crisis, and provided the context for the prolonged period of neoliberal restructuring since
the 1970s (Clarke, 1988: 287-51).
These criticisms tend to undermine Hyman’s prognosis for the crisis of European
unionism and his blueprint for union orientation and renewal. Hyman accepts that there
has been a transformation in the social relations of capital and that union renewal needs
to be based on a new social-democratic vision or ‘utopia’ for the ‘new times’. Hyman also
accepts, albeit critically, the post-Fordist fantasy that a new and progressive social
settlement for labour is possible if only organised labour can bend its organisational
form and bargaining agendas in the direction of neoliberal flexibility. Hyman is thus part
of a broader project of social-democratic renewal that aims to resurrect the decaying
institutions of national Keynesianism at the European level. The category of ‘Social
Europe’ is central to this ideological project. ‘Social Europe’ is a central component in an
emerging discourse of ‘cosmopolitan social democracy’, and Hyman has emerged as a
leading exponent of this paradigm within the discipline of industrial relations.
During the 1980s and 1990s, the content of social democracy underwent an
‘ideological leap’ involving the elevation of the market and the devaluation of the
economically active state (Moschonas, 2002: 293). Within the new social-democratic
discourse, the European Union provides a blueprint for a ‘Social Europe’ that will allow
economic dynamism to be developed alongside social protection and well-being
(Giddens, 2007). The notion of ‘Social Europe’ is central to Hyman’s prognosis with
regard to the demise of national union identities based on ‘political economism’. Hyman
has been critical of the extant institutions and practices associated with the EU, and has
been particularly critical of the undeveloped nature of European collective bargaining
and the top-down nature of European ‘social dialogue. In opposition to this, Hyman has
championed a new ‘moral economy’ based on a Durkheimian conception of ‘organic
solidarity’ achieved through an ‘internal social dialogue’ within the European labour
movement. However, Hyman does not specify the contents of ‘Social Europe’ beyond
the need to construct a new embeddedness of market processes at the European level and
a new defence for the status of employees. The project of Social Europe lacks an effective
social base from which to struggle for its implementation, and its ideological appeal rests

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Taylor et al. 27

ultimately on its claim to historical necessity (cf. Clarke, 1991a: 74). This necessity is
based on the notion that social-democratic renewal needs to follow the trajectory of
capitalist development, and expresses an enduring hope that that capitalist development
will once again be the saviour of social democracy.
An exploration of the logic underpinning the process of European integration
highlights the political dangers and analytical problems of Hyman’s strategy for the
renewal of European unions. Hyman’s strategy accepts the argument that the power of
the nation state has been marginalised by the development of transnational institutions
such as the EU, and the notion that European civil society provides an arena in which to
pursue an ethical counter-hegemonic struggle against neoliberalism in Europe. These
two presuppositions are highly problematic. It has become increasingly clear that the
nation state has been neither strengthened nor weakened by neoliberal globalisation, but
transformed from an agency of economic management into a procedural-regulatory
agency that takes an increasingly polymorphous form within transnational and multi-
level networks of other state and non-state actors (Sørensen, 2004). The development of
the EU is ultimately a ‘rescue’ of the liberal state (Milward, 1994). The concept of
European civil society is also deeply problematic. The process of neoliberal restructuring
has unleashed forces in civil society that are hostile to both organised labour and the
forms of citizenship rights associated with the KWS. The struggle for a ‘social movement
identity’, therefore, cannot be achieved in isolation from political and economic engage-
ment with capital and the state. The current struggle for ‘Social Europe’ is thus a struggle
over the form of political relations in Europe and this highlights the normative and
ultimately utopian nature of Hyman’s model of union renewal.
The methodological and conceptual approach Hyman has adopted over the past two
decades reflects an increasingly eclectic mix of regulation theory, Neo-Gramscian state
theory and Durkheimian sociology. These combine to produce an over-emphasis on the
autonomy of unions in civil society, and an over-emphasis on the ‘social movement’
dimension of union renewal in contemporary Europe. As we highlight in the following
section, the crisis of European unionism is more complex and patterns of union renewal
and reorientation are more varied than Hyman suggests. We highlight how a more
critical ‘pessimism of the intelligence’ can indeed generate a greater ‘optimism of the will’
in comparison to the rather narrow perspective developed by Hyman.

‘Optimism of the will’: The crisis of ‘political

economism’ in Western Europe and the search for
alternatives
The conceptual framework developed by Hyman leads to a rather one-sided focus on the
project of institutional re-embedding at the European level and the importance of the
‘social movement’ identity of unionism in achieving this cosmopolitan social-democratic
project. However, as we highlight in this section, ‘cosmopolitan social democracy’ is only
one of four possible outcomes of union reorientation in Europe. The crisis of ‘political
economism’ is necessarily partial, and unions continue to engage with the reconstituted
and increasingly hollowed-out institutions of the nation state. However, the hollowing
out of relatively labour-friendly institutions within the nation state has resulted in new
‘economic’, ‘political’ and ‘social’ orientations that reflect the depleted resources available

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28 Capital & Class 36(1)
NATIONAL

I II
Social Traditional
partnership social democracy

ACCOMMODATION OPPOSITION

III IV
Cosmopolitan social Radicalised political
democracy unionism

INTERNATIONAL

Figure 1.  Alternative union trajectories

to organised labour following three decades of neoliberal restructuring. There are

examples of unions accommodating with capital and the state at the national level or
seeking new forms of accommodation at the transnational level. There are enduring
examples of oppositional unionism at the national level and new forms of radical
oppositional unionism that operate within and beyond the national arena. These involve
unions as ‘social movements’ in civil society in complex patterns of ‘political’ and
‘economic’ accommodation and struggle with capital and the state.
Neoliberal globalisation has generated a new set of circumstances which are framing
the development of alternative union futures. It is possible to map these futures in
relation to two fundamental tensions that are shaping union development. The first is a
tension between accommodation and opposition to neoliberal globalisation. The second is
a tension between national and international responses to globalisation (see Upchurch
et al., 2009 for an elaborated discussion of this model). Mapping union futures onto
these tensions generates four alternative strategic orientations (see Figure 1). Variants I,
II and III represent union futures that are premised upon versions of social democracy,
whereas variant IV marks a break from social democracy and the development of a
political alternative to it.
In segment I, is the ‘Third Way’ which is articulated through the discourse of
individualised and high-consequence risks (Beck, 1992; Giddens, 1998) and which
represents an accommodation to liberalism and a strategy of national competitiveness.
The logic of this approach involves the reconfiguration of unions as ‘social partners’ in
the workplace, society and the state. The partnership agenda has involved unions form-
ing productivity coalitions with employers to improve business efficiency, and social
pacts with governments to ensure that income levels do not hamper competitiveness

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Taylor et al. 29

(Prabhaker, 2003; Upchurch, 2008). The ‘Third Way’ reorientation is evident amongst
sections of the German unions (such as IG BCE – the mining, energy and chemical
workers’ union) (Dribbusch and Schulten, 2008). In Britain, it has been manifested
in developments such as the establishment of the TUC ‘Partnership Institute’ and
New Labour government support for ‘Union Learning Representatives’ and workplace
partnership initiatives (McIlroy, 2008).
In segment II is ‘traditional social democracy’, which is sceptical of the globalisation
thesis (Hirst et al., 2008), and tends to oppose liberalisation and advances an alternative
economic strategy through the nation state (Garrett, 1998, 2003: Wickham-Jones,
2000). This approach has involved an upturn in industrial militancy and an attempt to
revive traditional notions of social democracy on the basis of a reconstituted and positive
relationship between social-democratic parties and unions (Leggett, 2007). There have
been attempts by unions to ‘reclaim’ social-democratic parties in order to reorient social-
democratic policy back towards Keynesian demand management and public ownership.
In Britain, for example, there has been a strategy of ‘internal lobbying’ by ‘left’ union
leaders in an attempt to ‘reclaim’ the Labour Party (Leopold, 2006; McIlroy, 2009). In
Sweden, there are emerging divisions between unions organising in the domestic and
international sectors with regard to the balance between ‘traditional’ and ‘Third Way’
social democracy (Bieler and Lindberg, 2008). The re-emergence of a traditional social-
democratic orientation is also evident in relation to the ‘Keynesianism debate’ within the
SPD in Germany and by the ‘militant’ turn of the FO in France.
In segment III is ‘cosmopolitan social democracy’, which is based on the notion that
‘globalization can be better and more fairly governed, regulated and shaped’ (Held and
McGrew, 2002: 107). This approach articulates an accommodation with neoliberalism,
and its goal is the construction of a social dimension to the global market at the interna-
tional level. This is associated with the ‘regulated capitalism’ project advanced through
the EU and branded as ‘social Europe’ (Hooghe and Marks, 2001). In Europe, the
ETUC has pursued this approach, as is evidenced by its uncritical support for social
dialogue, European Works Councils and the European Employment Strategy. It is
evident that Hyman regards this type of ‘top-down’ cosmopolitan democracy as an
inadequate foundation for the revitalisation of European unionism. The notion of
‘internal social dialogue’ (Hyman, 2001a: 174) is an attempt to combine this approach
with examples of union reorientation that attempt to develop this perspective from
below. Examples of such initiatives include attempts to develop framework agreements
that set minimum labour standards, and the formation of alliances between unions
and NGOs to lobby for improved social standards (Demitrova and Petkov, 2005;
Hammer, 2005).
In segment IV is ‘radicalised political unionism’, which accepts that globalisation is a
real but contradictory and contested process. This orientation highlights the breakdown
of institutionalised alliances between unions and social-democratic political parties, and
involves a rejection of bureaucratic modes of organisation and the mobilisation of ‘net-
worked’ unions (Passy, 2003: 41) in an increasingly transnational civil society (Moody,
1997). Within this approach, unions have emerged as an important component of an
international social movement that poses a systemic challenge to the power of capital and
the state. This challenge is expressed industrially as rising workplace militancy, politically
in the form of anti-capitalist tendencies and parties, and socially in the culture and values

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30 Capital & Class 36(1)

of the anti-capitalist movement or global justice movement (Edwards, 2008). There are
examples of this approach in France in respect of the militant orientation of the SUD
over the pensions issue and public-sector cuts (Damesin and Denis, 2005) and in
Germany in respect of the way left-oriented sections of IG Metall and Ver.di have
engaged with Die Linke and mobilised against the Hartz reforms (Jüncke, 2007). In
Britain, this orientation can be seen in the increased mobilising capacity (and sometimes
membership) of the FBU (Fitzgerald, 2005), CWU (Beale, 2003; Darlington, 2007),
RMT (Darlington, 2009) and PCS (Upchurch et al., 2008). In Greece, where social-
democratic praxis came late on the scene after the period of military dictatorship, we
observe the development of ‘independent’ unions situated to the left of their social-
democratic or ‘clientelist’ counterparts (Zambarloukou, 2006; Kretsos, 2011).
The diversity and complexity of union reorientation in contemporary Europe
highlights both the conceptual limits of Hyman’s analytical framework and the extent to
which the prescriptive elements of Hyman’s work fail to embrace the ‘variable geometry’
of contemporary union politics. As we will demonstrate in the concluding section, this
results from the limitations inherent in the model of ‘civil society’ on which Hyman’s
analysis is based. We will argue that these limitations can be overcome through the
application of a model of ‘civil society’ derived from classical Marxism.

Conclusion: Beyond ‘political economism’,

or beyond mirage and fantasy?
So, what is beyond ‘political economism’? It is clear that Hyman aligns the crisis of
‘political economism’ not only with the existence, but more importantly the vision of
the Keynesian welfare state (Hyman, 2001a: 172). The core components of ‘political
economism’ – free collective bargaining, historic compromise and social market – have
lost purchase within national contexts. Unions have increasingly become the mediators
of transnational forces and have been forced to negotiate the erosion of their previous
achievements (Hyman, 2001a: 173). This has created an ideological impasse and a crisis
of the ideological project of social democracy. The solution for Hyman is the search for
a new vision or utopia that will enable unions to recapture the ideological initiative.
The basis of this reorientation is a Durkheimian project of reorientation based on
‘coordinated diversity’ and achieved through an ‘internal social dialogue’ within and
between European unions (Hyman, 2001a: 174). Hyman is clear that the construction
of a European industrial relations system based on effective forms of European
regulation is likely to remain an elite project unless it is underpinned by popular
support. The basis of support, however, is presented as a European moral economy that
can be forged through ‘civic dialogue’ within the sphere of European civil society
(Hyman, 2001a: 175).
The definition of civil society articulated by Hyman is a sphere of social relations
distinct from both state power and market domination. This constitutes a rejection of
the classical Marxist formulation of civil society in favour of a perspective in which civil
society is presented as a ‘third hand’ of non-market networks (Hyman, 2001a: 58-9).
For Hyman, this sphere is the principal sphere of contestation and struggle and the ter-
rain on which it is possible to build a counter-hegemonic project against neoliberalism.
This implies a model of civil society which is defined, not in a negative opposition to

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Taylor et al. 31

the state and capital, but positively in the context of ideas and practices through which
cooperation and trust are established in social life (Hyman, 2001a: 59). The brave new
world of European unionism is to be forged within this discursive sphere around a
counter-hegemonic project premised on the moral and ethical superiority of European
regulation and the promise of a European welfare state.
The work of Hyman tends to over-privilege the ‘social’ at the expense of the ‘economic’
and ‘political’. His approach correctly identifies the important requirement for European
unions to re-connect with the ‘public’ and to develop a new popular legitimacy by
refocusing on their role as a ‘sword of justice’. However, this refocusing cannot be at the
expense of engagement in workplace organisation and mobilisation. The process of
neoliberal restructuring has resulted in the ‘opening up’ of civil society in a way that
poses both opportunities and threats to unions. During the Keynesian era, the scope of
civil society was delineated by the extensive politicisation and bureaucratisation of
employment relations. The integration of unions in this way was part of a wider phe-
nomenon of the ‘statization of civil society’ (Panitch, 1986: 189), or what Poulantzas
(1978) termed the ‘statization of social life’. The process of neoliberal restructuring has
unleashed forces in civil society that are hostile to both organised labour and the forms
of citizenship rights associated with the KWS. The privileging of the ‘social’ tends to
downplay the threat posed by these hostile forces in favour of a focus on ‘communitarian’
regulation. While Hyman has highlighted the importance of exploiting the variable
geometry of European unionism, his prognosis for the rejuvenation of European union-
ism remains one-sidedly focused on the ‘social movement’ dimension of union identity.
The current financial crisis and the associated politics of austerity clearly show that
European integration does not provide the basis for overcoming the crisis of the capital
relation, but marks out the new terrain on which the crisis of the capital relation is
deepening in its social, political and above all monetary forms. This in turn highlights
the importance of generating a radical form of political unionism that is located firmly
between class, market and society. Returning to the question of union identity, beyond
‘political economism’ is a world of mirage and fantasy, unless the analysis of union
strategy and reorientation is carried out in the context of the enduring and changing
material struggles of organised labour in and against the alienating forms of ‘economic’
and ‘political’ domination associated with neoliberal capitalism.

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Author biographies
Graham Taylor is a reader in sociology at the University of the West of England, Bristol.
His recent publications include The New Political Sociology: Power Ideology and Identity
in an Age of Complexity (2010) and (with M. Upchurch and A. Mathers) The Crisis of
Social Democratic Trade Unionism in Western Europe: The Search for Alternatives (2009).

Andrew Mathers is a senior lecturer in sociology & criminology at UWE Bristol. He is

a co-author of The Crisis of Social Democratic Trade Unionism in Western Europe: The
Search for Alternatives, and the author of Struggling for a Social Europe: Neoliberal
Globalisation and the Birth of a European Social Movement, both of which were published
by Ashgate.

Martin Upchurch is a professor of international employment relations at Middlesex

University, London. His co-authored books include New Unions, New Workplaces
(Routledge, 2003) and The Realities of Partnership at Work (Palgrave/ESRC, 2008). His
current research interests include the impact of international financial institutions on
collective labour, and the transformation of work in post-Communist states.

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