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ABSTRACT
This introduction outlines the possibilities and perspectives of an intertwining between European integration history and the history of capitalism. Although debates on capitalism have been making a comeback since the 2008 crisis, to date the concept of capitalism remains almost completely avoided by historians of European integration. This introduction thus conceptualizes ‘capitalism’ as a useful analytical tool that should be used by historians of European integration and proposes three major approaches for them to do so: first, by bringing the question of social conflict, integral to the concept of capitalism, into European integration history; second, by better conceptualizing the link between European governance, Europeanization and the globalization of capitalism; and thirdly by investigating the economic, political and ideological models or doctrines that underlie European cooperation, integration, policies and institutions. Finally, the introduction addresses the question of the analytical benefits of an encounter between capitalism and European integration history, focusing on the case of the 1970s. This allows us to qualify the idea of a clear-cut rupture, and better highlight how the shift of these years resulted from a complex bargaining that took place in part at the European level.
Acknowledgements
We owe special thanks to everyone who took part in the conference ‘Crisis, Capitalism and European Integration History: From 1945 to the Present’ at the European University Institute in 2016 and who offered valuable feedback during two workshops hosted by the Centre for Modern European Studies (CEMES) at the Saxo Institute, University of Copenhagen in 2017 and 2018, as well as to the reviewers of this special issue. Special thanks to Niklas Olsen, Jesper Vestermark Køber and Emil Seidenfaden for the Møn Workshop in January 2018, to Andrea Talaber and Agne Rimkute for their editing support, and to Claudia Fanti for her administrative help.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. Jennifer Schuessler, “In History Departments, It’s Up with Capitalism,” New York Times, April 6, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/education/in-history-departments-its-up-with-capitalism.html. See, for instance, Sklansky, “The Elusive Sovereign.” Notable illustrations of this new popularity include Mueller, The Oxford Handbook of Capitalism; Neal and Williamson, The Cambridge History of Capitalism; and Gindin and Panitch, The Making of Global Capitalism; Appleby, The Relentless Revolution.
2. Rare exceptions include Fioretos, Creative Reconstructions; and Anderson, The New Old World.
3. Jürgen Kocka, “Introduction,” in Kocka and Linden, Capitalism, 1.
4. For useful overviews of European integration historiography, see Gilbert, “Narrating the Process”; Kaiser and Varsori, European Union History. Regarding the emergence of European integration history as an autonomous field of research see Varsori, “From Normative Impetus to Professionalization.”
5. Rollings, British Business in the Formative Years of European Integration, 1945–1973, 262–3. Petrini argues that the international history bias led historians studying business circles and European integration to an interpretation of business’ motives and actions focused on the competition and dialectic between national or continental business interests, applying in a way the ‘primacy of foreign politics’ to business spheres themselves, whereas the question of the relation between business and labour is left over; Petrini, “Bringing Social Conflict Back In.”
6. Milward, The European Rescue, xi.
7. Petrini, “Bringing Social Conflict Back In,” 19. For a critique of Milward’s theses, see also Kaiser, “Bringing People and Ideas Back In”; and Rasmussen, “European Rescue of the Nation-State?”
8. On the developments in European integration history see, for instance, Gilbert, “A Polity Constructed’; Ludlow, “History Aplenty”; and Warlouzet, “European Integration History.”
9. It is important, however, to note that capitalism as an analytical category was side-lined in the discipline as well as in the field of European integration history, but continued to be used in a marginal (or perhaps marginalized) strand of the historiography written by left-wing critical historians, sometimes for a wider audience. Perry Anderson’s contributions collected and published in 2009 in The New Old World are a case in point.
10. Hobsbawm, Age of Extremes.
11. A term coined at the end of the 1970s by Jean Fourastié. See Fourastié, Les Trente Glorieuses Ou La Révolution Invisible de 1946 à 1975.
12. Aside from the already mentioned Hobsbawm, Age of Extremes, the same periodization can be found in Eichengreen, The European Economy Since 1945; James, Europe Reborn; Eichengreen, The European Economy Since 1945; Streeck, Buying Time; Frieden, Global Capitalism; Maier, “Consigning the Twentieth Century to History”; Judt, Postwar. See also the recent best-selling Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Piketty’s book showed among other things that the 1950s–1970s represented an era of exceptional growth and low inequalities in the history of capitalism, a trend that was radically reversed from the 1980s onward. Note however that although historians widely agree that the 1970s represented a caesura in the history of the twentieth century, not all of them present it as a shift towards a period of decline. Some, like Philippe Chassaigne, Niall Ferguson and Samuel P. Huntington have understood that epochal shift as a moment of modernization with social, political and technological advancements. Ferguson, “Introduction: Crisis, What Crisis? The 1970s and the Shock of the Global”; and Chassaigne, Les Années 1970; Huntington, The Third Wave.
13. Ken Loach’s 2013 documentary The Spirit of ’45 is one of many recent examples that conveys such stereotypical understanding of this evolution.
14. On the evolution of economic thinking, see Abdelal, Capital Rules; Mirowski and Plehwe, The Road from Mont Pèlerin; Schmelzer, Freiheit Für Wechselkurse Und Kapital; Burgin, The Great Persuasion; Jones, Masters of the Universe. These works sometimes depict a clear-cut and inevitable shift from a managed economy to a neoliberal system, highlighting the role of institutions, networks and ideas in the process. For a useful working definition and historical reconstruction of ‘neoliberalsm’, see Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism.
15. For instance Hoffmann, “The European Community and 1992,” here p. 29; and Dinan, Ever Closer Union.
16. On the institutional change, see in particular Mourlon-Druol and Romero, International Summitry and Global Governance; Mourlon-Druol, “Steering Europe”; Laursen, The Institutions and Dynamics of the European Community, 1973–83. On the EC’s role as a global actor, see Garavini, After Empires; Romano, From Détente in Europe to European Détente; Găinar, Aux Origines de La Diplomatie Européenne; Ferrari, Sometimes Speaking with a Single Voice. On the efforts to assert a European identity, see Gfeller, Building a European Identity; and De Angelis and Karamouzi, “Enlargement and the Historical Origins of the European Community’s Democratic Identity, 1961–1978.”
17. Varsori and Migani, Europe in the International Arena during the 1970s. See also Ludlow, Roy Jenkins and the European Commission Presidency, 1976–1980; and Hiepel, Europe in a Globalising World.
18. But see some exceptions, including Varsori, Alle Origini Del Presente.
19. Schmelzer, The Hegemony of Growth; and Chwieroth, Capital Ideas.
20. Slobodian, Globalists.
21. For useful historical overviews of the emergence and evolution of the concept, see Kocka, “Capitalism: The History of the Concept”; Merrill, “How Capitalism Got Its Name”; Jürgen Kocka, “Introduction,” in Kocka and van der Linden, Capitalism; and Kocka, Capitalism.
22. Pirenne, “The Stages in the Social History of Capitalism”; and Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism.
23. Arrighi, The Long Twentieth Century; Wallerstein, The Modern World-System; and Silver, Forces of Labor.
24. Marks, “The Word ‘Capitalism’.”
25. The reasons listed here are developed in Kocka, “Introduction” . Kocka notes that a positive or neutral usage of the term always existed, but has gained ground since the 1990s. A good example of the positive use is Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom. For a notable example of a neutral use, see Hall and Soskice, Varieties of Capitalism; and Elsner and Hanappi, Varieties of Capitalism and New Institutional Deals.
26. For instance Pryor, Capitalism Reassessed.
27. See for instance Beckert, Empire of Cotton; Linden, Workers of the World; Baptist, The Half Has Never Been Told; and Ogle, “Archipelago Capitalism.”
28. Kocka, “Capitalism: The History of the Concept,” 4–5. For a detailed discussion of its definition, see Kocka, Capitalism, 16–24.
29. Kocka, “Introduction,” 5.
30. Arrighi, The Long Twentieth Century.
31. As has been already called for by Petrini in “Bringing Social Conflict Back In,” 18–20 and by Aurélie Andry in “‘Social Europe’ in the Long 1970s.”
32. An expression coined by Gilpin, The Political Economy of International Relations, 355.
33. Petrini analysed the interests of business circles in the early stages of European integration for the case of Italy. Petrini, “Grande Mercato, Bassi Salari: La Confindustria e l’integrazione Europea, 1947–1964.”
34. On the need to go beyond the fiction of ‘national interest’, see Rosenau, The Study of World Politics, 246–54.
35. See Arrighi, Adam Smith in Beijing, chap. 4 and 5.
36. Andry, “‘Social Europe,’ in the Long 1970s.”
37. An (in)famous expression often used by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, ‘There Is No Alternative’ – usually abbreviated TINA –, has become emblematic of the hegemonization of neoliberal thought since the 1980s.
38. Some examples regarding business circles include Sophie Chauveau and Jean-Christophe Defraigne’s contributions in Bussière, Dumoulin, and Schirmann, Milieux Économiques Et Intégration Européenne Au XXe Siècle; see also Wolfram Kaiser, “Transnational Networks in European Governance,” in Kaiser, Leucht, and Rasmussen, The History of the European Union, 12–33. Regarding trade unions, see, for instance, Gobin, “Consultation et Concertation Sociales à l’échelle de La Communauté Economique Européenne”; and Del Biondo, “L’Europa Della CGIL. La Politica Della CGIL e Il Contrasto Con La CGT Sul Processo Di Integrazione Europea”; Fetzer, “The Late Birth of Transnational Labour Cooperation.” On the intensification of transnational cooperation in socialist spheres during the 1970s, see Salm, Transnational Socialist Networks in the 1970s.
39. The ERT included the leaders of some of the major European companies. See Cowles, “Setting the Agenda for a New Europe.” See also Apeldoorn, Transnational Capitalism and the Struggle Over European Integration; and Balanyá, Europe Inc.
40. Several works noted the tensions and difficulties regarding the establishment of ‘social dialogue’ at European level during the long 1970s. See, for instance, the recent Jouan, “L’européanisation Des Syndicats Belges et Allemands,“ 207–22.
41. See for instance Silver, Forces of Labor; and Arrighi, The Long Twentieth Century.
42. Schmelzer, The Hegemony of Growth, 313–35.
43. As emphasised by Petrini, “Bringing Social Conflict Back In,” 20–2. See also Ikonomou, Andry, and Byberg, European Enlargement across Rounds and beyond Borders.
44. Warlouzet, Governing Europe in a Globalizing World; and Del Biondo, Mechi, and Petrini, Fra Mercato Comune e Globalizzazione.
45. Warlouzet, Governing Europe in a Globalizing World, chap. 3; Andry, “‘Social Europe,’ in the Long 1970s,” chap. 6; Francesco Petrini, “Demanding Democracy in the Workplace: The European Trade Union Confederation and the Struggle to Regulate Multinationals”; Kaiser and Meyer, Societal Actors in European Integration, 151–72.
46. Bussière, “Les Milieux Économiques Face à l’Europe Au XXe Siècle”; Bussière, Dumoulin, and Schirmann, Europe Organisée, Europe Du Libre-Échange?
47. Ramirez Perez has discussed the dichotomy between market and organized Europe and proposed alternative models in Ramirez Perez, “Antitrust Ou Anti US? L’industrie Automobile Européenne et Les Origines de La Politique de La Concurrence de La CEE.”
48. Warlouzet, Governing Europe in a Globalizing World.
49. Petrini, “Bringing Social Conflict Back In,” 18.
50. Sven Beckert in Kocka and Linden, Capitalism, 235–6.
51. For an insightful discussion of the usefulness of the concept in history in general, see Kocka and Marcel Van der Linden’s contributions in Kocka and Linden, Capitalism.
52. The medical definition of crisis, which Koselleck saw as constitutive of the modern concept, is instructive: the turning point of a disease is when an important change takes place, indicating either recovery or death. Koselleck and Richter, “Crisis.”
53. Rodgers, Age of Fracture, 75.
54. Giannone, “Suspending Democracy” 109. The quote is from Dyson, “Economic and Monetary Union in Europe,” 101.
55. Blyth, Great Transformations, 147.
56. This is a fundamental challenge with the concept of crisis, explored by David Runciman in his chapter Runciman, “What Time Frame Makes Sense for Thinking about Crises?”
57. First versions of most papers were presented and discussed during a three-day conference entitled ‘Capitalism, Crises and European Integration from 1945 to the Present’ in Florence, Italy in May 2016. This conference was part of the project ‘Rethinking European Integration History in Times of Crisis’ (REIHTC) which was co-funded by the European Commission’s Erasmus + programme.
58. For instance Gilbert, “Narrating the Process”; Patel, “Provincialising European Union”; Warlouzet, “Dépasser La Crise de l’histoire de l’intégration Européenne”; and Ikonomou, Andry, and Byberg, European Enlargement across Rounds and beyond Borders.
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Notes on contributors
Aurélie Andry
Aurélie Andry is a Research Associate in International Economic History at the University of Glasgow. She holds a PhD from the European University Institute, Florence, and is a former Junior Lecturer in post-war European history at the Université Paris-Sorbonne. She edited, with Haakon A. Ikonomou and Rebekka Byberg, European Enlargement: Across Rounds and Beyond Borders (Routledge, 2017). Her main research interests include European integration history and the history of European socialism and trade unionism, the history of ‘social Europe’, EU social policy and the involvement of social actors in European governance and policy-making.
Emmanuel Mourlon-Druol
Emmanuel Mourlon-Druol is an economic historian and Senior Lecturer at the University of Glasgow. He is the author of A Europe Made of Money: the Emergence of the European Monetary System (Cornell University Press, 2012), has edited with Federico Romero International Summitry and Global Governance: the Rise of the G7 and the European Council (Routledge, 2014), and has published various articles in journals such as Business History, Cold War History, JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies and West European Politics. Emmanuel is currently PI of the ‘EURECON: The Making of a Lopsided Union, Economic Integration in the European Economic Community 1957–1992ʹ project funded by a Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC).
Haakon A. Ikonomou
Haakon A. Ikonomou is a historian and Associate Professor at the University of Copenhagen. Ikonomou holds a PhD from the European University Institute, Florence. He is co-director of the Rethinking European Integration research group and centre co-ordinator at the Centre for Modern European Studies (CEMES) at the Saxo Institute, University of Copenhagen. He is also the review editor of Diplomatica: A Journal of Diplomacy and Society (Brill).
Quentin Jouan
Quentin Jouan holds a PhD in contemporary history (Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium) and is currently working as a consultant at Deloitte, focusing on the strategic and operational challenges in government organizations. From an academic point of view, he is a guest lecturer at the University of Namur (Belgium) and a scientific collaborator at the Université catholique de Louvain. Jouan’s main research interests relate to the study of the impact of European integration on national polities.