The paper examines why, and under what conditions, certain interest groups adopt positive positions on international economic issues. It provides a case study of how UK trade unions formed their preferences on membership of the EMU. Previous explanations of this have tended to emphasise the...

The ‘no' vote in the Irish referendum of June 2008 on the Lisbon Treaty – reversed in October 2009 – threw the European Union into crisis. Yet it reflected a familiar pattern of popular rejection of initiatives on European integration. This article provides an overview of such referendums...

On 24 November 2009 the European Commission published its consultation paper on the EU 2020 strategy. This paper analyses European trade union responses, and contrasts the very limited participation in the exercise with the greater response to the Green Paper Modernising Labour Law three years...