Introduction: Defining Labour Internationalism0)
Magaly Rodriguez Garcia
Research Assistant of the Fund for Scientific Research - Flanders
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
In defining "politics" for the Enciclopedia de la politica (1998), Rodrigo Borja writes correctly that "those concepts that seem obvious to understand are, paradoxically, the most difficult ones to define"(2). Moreover, one is often confronted with various meanings for the same term. This is certainly the case for internationalism, the central theme of this publication: not only the actors involved in international working-class activities, but also scholars studying this subject, define labour internationalism in different ways. Compared to the considerable amount of empirical studies on labour internationalism published in recent decades(3), there exist few theoretical works on the subject. To my knowledge, one of the first attempts to theorise the (post- World War II) international activism of labour organizations was Ernst Haas' The Uniting of Europe (1958), in which he sought to explain European trade unions' interest in regional integration and in international trade-union co-operation(4). Haas applied a neo-functionalist theory of international relations to industrial relations: integration in one sector of trade union activity (e.g. in the coal mining sector) will spread to other sectors and stimulate further integration. More than a decade later, Robert Cox' work on labour and transnational relations con-
(1) The present publication was made possible thanks to the support of my PhD supervisor Guy Vanthemsche. I would also like to thank all the authors of this volume, as well as Dave Lyddon, Lex Heerma van Voss, Veronica Kelly, Jeroen Roppe and the BTFG-RBPH anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on this publication.
(2) Rodrigo Borja, "Politica", in Rodrigo Borja, ed., Enciclopedia de la politica, Mexico City, Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1998, p. 766.
(3) See for example: Perry Anderson, "Internationalism: A Breviary", in New Left Review, vol. 14, March-April 2002, 14 p., available online at www.newleftreview.net/NLR24801. shtml; Michael Hanagan, ed., "Labor Internationalism", in Social Science History, vol. 27, 2003, nr. 4, p. 485-499; Jürgen Hoffmann, ed., The solidarity dilemma: globalisation, europe- anisation and the trade unions, Brussels, European Trade Union Institute, 2002, 215 p.; Peter Leisink, ed., Globalization and Labour Relations, Cheltenham, Edward Elgar, 1999, 259 p.; Patrick Pasture & Johan Verberckmoes, eds., Working-class internationalism and the appeal of national identity: historical debates and current perspectives, Oxford, Berg, 1998, 263 p.; Marcel van der Linden, Transnational Labour History, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2003, 226 p.; Geert Van Goethem, The Amsterdam International: the world of the International Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), 1913-1945, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2006, 320 p.; Peter Waterman, Understanding Socialist and Proletarian Internationalism. The impossible past and possible
future of emancipation on a world scale, The Hague, Institute of Social Studies, 1991, 66 p.
(4) Ernst B. Haas, The Uniting of Europe. Political, Social and Economic Forces 1950- 1957, London, Stevens & Sons Limited, 1958, 552 p.
