Politicising Commodification

What is it about?

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. In sum, this book - gives scholars and students across all disciplines a clear account of the arcane NEG regime, enabling readers to understand its internal contradictions and change in its policy direction Facilitates future comparative research in the field by establishing a novel, transnational, but also context-specific analytical research design Gives readers a clear understanding of the commodifying policy direction of EU executives' NEG prescriptions after 2008; the countervailing collective actions that they triggered; and the actions' feedback effects on the EU's post-Covid NEG regime, welfare states, and democracy in Europe This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core

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Why is it important?

This book is an essential reference for any industrial relations scholar or sociologist of work concerned with European integration, or where that matters as context.' Greer, I. (2025) 'Book Review: Roland Erne, Sabina Stan, Darragh Golden, Imre Szabó and Vincenzo Maccarrone, Politicising Commodification' , Work, Employment & Society, DOI: 10.1177/09500170251359134. 'Politicising Commodification presents excellent material for university and other teaching purposes.' Hürtgen, S. (2025) 'Europeanisation via multiscalar socio-spatial fragmentation: authoritarianism, glocalisation and fragmented labour processes', Global Political Economy, Early View: 1-4, DOI: 10.1332/26352257Y2025D000000032. 'Politicising Commodification comes highly recommended.' Bruff, I. (2025) 'Politicising Commodification', Capital & Class, 49(1): 160-162. 'Politicising Commodification provides a path-breaking, comprehensive and rigorous analysis of the nature and impact of the European Union's New Economic Governance (NEG) policy regime on employment relations (ER) and public service provision from its ad hoc inception in 2009, under the financial crisis, through to the Covid emergency and its immediate aftermath.' Marginson, P. (2025) 'Politicising Commodification', British Journal of Industrial Relations, 63(3): 538-539. 'Zusammenfassend bietet das Buch eine faszinierende Analyse der tiefgreifenden institutionellen Verschiebungen während der Eurokrise [und] leistet ... einen wichtigen Beitrag zur Debatte über die Zukunft und Demokratisierung der EU.' Syrovatka, F. (2025) 'Politicising Commodification', Politische Vierteljahresschrift, DOI: 10.1007/s11615-025-00593-y. (PVS is the journal of the German Political Science Association.) 'Politicising Commodification stands to be one of the new classics for anyone interested in how the EU economic governance ticks and is contested across time.' Ban, C. (2024) 'Politics and Commodification: Rereading the European Semester', ILR Review, 78(1): 240-243. 'Politicising Commodification makes a major contribution to the understanding of contemporary European economic, social, and political dynamics by brilliantly taking up the challenge of jointly examining the commodification agenda of the new economic governance (NEG) of the EU and the conditions of possibility of transnational protest movements in the post-2008 context.' Béthoux, É. (2024) 'Allies against Commodification', ILR Review, 78(1): 243-245. 'Politicising Commodification adds a great deal to our understanding of EU public policy developments over the past two decades. It will be required reading for all scholars working in this field.' Rhodes, M. (2024) 'The EU Public Policy Dimension', ILR Review, 78(1): 245-248. 'The book brings to the fore a new and engaging way of understanding and rethinking the neoliberal problem and will no doubt be a point of reference in the endeavors to understand the options available to progressive forces in the EU.' Martínez Lucio, M. (2024) 'The "Managerialising" of the European Union', ILR Review, 78(1): 248-251.