European integration, power resources and social classes. A proposal for a political economic extension of the Europeanisation approach

Abstract

ABSTRACT Europeanisation research (ER) focuses on the domestic effects of European integration. Despite the importance of capital and labour for the political economy of EU Member States, ER has paid little attention to the impact of Europeanisation on social classes. This article addresses this blind spot and asks how European integration affects the power relations between capital and labour. For this purpose, I propose to augment ER with a power resource perspective. The article analyses the effects of ‘Europeanisation through law’ and ‘Europeanisation through monetary integration’ on the distribution of power resources between employers and wage earners and their organisations. Four lessons can be drawn from the findings for ER: (1) in the selected integration fields, Europeanisation has asymmetric effects on social classes, weakening wage earners’ power resources (2) more attention should be paid to the effects of integration on the relation between state and market; (3) integration through law and monetary integration are more powerful Europeanisation mechanisms than has been acknowledged; (4) the concept of power resources offers a fruitful approach for examining the effects of Europeanisation on social classes. Moreover, adopting a power resource perspective would make it better visible how European integration affects relations of power and domination.