IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/brjirl/v56y2018i3p656-678.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Primordial Attachment to the Nation? French and Irish Workers and Trade Unions in Past EU Referendum Debates

Author

Listed:
  • Élodie Béthoux
  • Roland Erne
  • Darragh Golden

Abstract

We aim to contribute to a better understanding of the dynamics that are driving EU politicization and the rising Euroscepticism of workers and unions in the public sphere. One explanation frames the rise in Euroscepticism in cultural terms, emphasizing workers’ alleged primordial attachment to their nation. A second uses socioeconomic frames, linking growing Euroscepticism to the increasingly neo‐liberal direction of the EU. The weight of these competing frames in the referendum campaigns on the EU Constitution in France and the Lisbon Treaty and the Fiscal Treaty in Ireland cannot be measured easily, as the categorization of a phrase as socioeconomic or cultural is in itself subject to political classification struggles. We therefore presents the findings of an inductive lexical analysis of all Irish Times, all Le Monde and all worker‐ or union‐related articles published in almost all national media outlets during the mentioned referendum debates. This was made possible by the Alceste software package that allowed us to analyse very large corpuses of articles inductively. Our analysis reveals that socioeconomic terms dominated policy debates in both countries. The findings question existing EU politicization studies that were measuring the salience of different frame types by deductive analysis.

Suggested Citation

  • Élodie Béthoux & Roland Erne & Darragh Golden, 2018. "A Primordial Attachment to the Nation? French and Irish Workers and Trade Unions in Past EU Referendum Debates," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 56(3), pages 656-678, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:brjirl:v:56:y:2018:i:3:p:656-678
    DOI: 10.1111/bjir.12303
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12303
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/bjir.12303?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bruno Amable, 2016. "The Political Economy of the Neoliberal Transformation of French Industrial Relations," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 69(3), pages 523-550, May.
    2. Roland Erne & Natalie Imboden, 2015. "Equal pay by gender and by nationality: a comparative analysis of Switzerland’s unequal equal pay policy regimes across time," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 39(2), pages 655-674.
    3. Alison Johnston & Aidan Regan, 2018. "Introduction: Is the European Union Capable of Integrating Diverse Models of Capitalism?," New Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(2), pages 145-159, March.
    4. Neil Fligstein & Alina Polyakova & Wayne Sandholtz, 2012. "European Integration, Nationalism and European Identity," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(S1), pages 106-122, March.
    5. Lucio Baccaro & Jonas Pontusson, 2016. "Rethinking Comparative Political Economy," Politics & Society, , vol. 44(2), pages 175-207, June.
    6. repec:bla:jcmkts:v:45:y:2007:i::p:23-42 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Bob HanckÈ & David Soskice, 2003. "Wage-Setting and Inflation Targets in EMU," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 19(1), pages 149-160.
    8. repec:hal:pseose:hal-01279883 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Richard Hyman, 2010. "Trade Unions and ‘Europe’: Are the Members out of Step?," LEQS – LSE 'Europe in Question' Discussion Paper Series 14, European Institute, LSE.
    10. Guglielmo Meardi, 2012. "Union Immobility? Trade Unions and the Freedoms of Movement in the Enlarged EU," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 50(1), pages 99-120, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Roland Erne & Markus Blaser, 2018. "Direct democracy and trade union action," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 24(2), pages 217-232, May.
    2. Darragh Golden, 2019. "A Fairer Europe for Workers…Or Else? Some observations from the ETUC Congress 2019, Vienna, 21–24 May 2019," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 25(4), pages 489-493, November.
    3. Ian Fitzgerald & Ron Beadle & Kevin Rowan, 2022. "Trade unions and the 2016 UK European Union Referendum," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 43(1), pages 388-409, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nikolaos Antonakakis & Ioannis Chatziantoniou & David Gabauer, 2021. "The impact of Euro through time: Exchange rate dynamics under different regimes," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(1), pages 1375-1408, January.
    2. Ian Fitzgerald & Ron Beadle & Kevin Rowan, 2022. "Trade unions and the 2016 UK European Union Referendum," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 43(1), pages 388-409, February.
    3. Truger, Achim & Hein, Eckhard, 2004. "Macroeconomic co-ordination as an economic policy concept : opportunities and obstacles in the EMU," WSI Working Papers 125, The Institute of Economic and Social Research (WSI), Hans Böckler Foundation.
    4. Reto Bürgisser & Donato Di Carlo, 2023. "Blessing or Curse? The Rise of Tourism‐Led Growth in Europe's Southern Periphery," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(1), pages 236-258, January.
    5. Karsten Kohler & Engelbert Stockhammer, 2022. "Growing differently? Financial cycles, austerity, and competitiveness in growth models since the Global Financial Crisis," Review of International Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(4), pages 1314-1341, July.
    6. Marta Silva & João Carlos Lopes, 2020. "The structural adjustment of the Portuguese economy in the context of the economic reform of the Eurozone," Working Papers REM 2020/0143, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, REM, Universidade de Lisboa.
    7. Soetkin Verhaegen & Marc Hooghe & Ellen Quintelier, 2014. "European Identity and Support for European Integration: A Matter of Perceived Economic Benefits?," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 67(2), pages 295-314, May.
    8. Höpner, Martin, 2019. "The German undervaluation regime under Bretton Woods: How Germany became the nightmare of the world economy," MPIfG Discussion Paper 19/1, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    9. Christoffer Kølvraa, 2016. "European Fantasies: On the EU's Political Myths and the Affective Potential of Utopian Imaginaries for European Identity," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(1), pages 169-184, January.
    10. Maschke, Andreas, 2024. "Talking exports: The representation of Germany's current account in newspaper media," MPIfG Discussion Paper 24/1, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    11. Marzinotto Benedicta, 2008. "Why so much wage restraint in EMU? The role of country size - Integrating trade theory with monetary policy regime accounts," wp.comunite 0035, Department of Communication, University of Teramo.
    12. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/279c1p74ui9kcrejshiub9vspv is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Claudius Gräbner & Philipp Heimberger & Jakob Kapeller & Bernhard Schütz, 2020. "Structural change in times of increasing openness: assessing path dependency in European economic integration," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 30(5), pages 1467-1495, November.
    14. Andrea Bonilla‐Bolaños, 2021. "A step further in the theory of regional integration: A look at the South American integration strategy," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(5), pages 845-873, July.
    15. Izabela Horzela & Sławomir Gromadzki & Jarosław Gryz & Tomasz Kownacki & Aneta Nowakowska-Krystman & Marzena Piotrowska-Trybull & Radosław Wisniewski, 2021. "Energy Portfolio of the Eastern Poland Macroregion in the European Union," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(24), pages 1-28, December.
    16. Kaija E. Schilde, 2014. "Who are the Europeans? European Identity Outside of European Integration," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(3), pages 650-667, May.
    17. Höpner, Martin & Seeliger, Martin, 2017. "Transnationale Lohnkoordination zur Stabilisierung des Euro? Gab es nicht, gibt es nicht, wird es nicht geben," MPIfG Discussion Paper 17/13, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    18. Baccaro, Lucio & Howell, Chris, 2017. "Unhinged: Industrial relations liberalization and capitalist instability," MPIfG Discussion Paper 17/19, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    19. Christopher Allsopp & David Vines, 2005. "The Macroeconomic Role of Fiscal Policy," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 21(4), pages 485-508, Winter.
    20. Gabriel, Ricardo Duque & Pessoa, Ana Sofia, 2024. "Adopting the euro: A synthetic control approach," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    21. Mathias Lund Larsen, 2023. "Bottom-up market-facilitation and top-down market-steering: comparing and conceptualizing green finance approaches in the EU and China," Asia Europe Journal, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 61-80, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:brjirl:v:56:y:2018:i:3:p:656-678. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.