Betwixt and between? The European Union's redistributive management of globalization

Abstract

The European Union's (EU) management of globalization includes redistributing or compensating for distributional consequences of globalization, using policies at different levels of governance (national, regional-European and supra-European). This contribution analyzes the extent and politics of such redistributive management. It emphasizes how redistributive management is meaningful and very popular, though less developed than EU policies setting the level and terms of openness. In addition, it suggests how EU policies that manage globalization through redistribution or other mechanisms and that operate at different levels of governance are causally interconnected. Existing national and EU policies of redistribution have strong but uneven effects for EU protections setting the level of openness. And national-level welfare provisions and EU redistributive policies, like the Structural Funds, sometimes undermine and sometimes reinforce one another. Case examples and analysis of public opinion develop these claims. © 2010 Taylor & Francis.