Social Movements or State Apparatus?

The collapse of social partnership after the crisis forced Irish and Portuguese trade unions to position themselves as “either social movements or a (increasingly ostracised) state apparatus” (Moore and Engelhardt, in this volume). The cycles of union protest and acquiescence in Ireland and Portugal during the last decade, however, also allow less Manichean conclusions. This chapter therefore makes a case for a different use of typologies. The “social movement vs state apparatus” typology should be used as a heuristic tool to understand the tension between contention and interest intermediation that are present in all unions: and not as a classification devise to put different unions into distinct boxes. Furthermore, the more vertical governance structures of the EU’s new economic governance regime transcend national boundaries, the more one must move beyond a Weberian or Gramscian focus on the nation state. Accordingly, the chapter suggests a new research agenda that aims to go beyond the methodological nationalism that is still dominating much of industrial relations and political economy research.