PONSACS - From Strike to Eurostrike Working Paper

From Strike to Eurostrike:
The Europeanization of Social Movements and the Development of a Euro-Polity
By Doug Imig and Sidney Tarrow

WCFIA Working Paper No. 97-1

An earlier version of this paper was presented before the panel "Towards a European Civil Society: Protest and the Emergence of a Unified Europe," at the 1997 European Community Studies Association Meeting, Seattle Washington, May 29-June 1. This research is supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation (#SBR-961819). We thank Pete Simi for his assistance.

Eurostrike!

On February 27th, 1997, the President of the ailing Renault auto firm announced the imminent closure of the company's plant in Vilvoorde, Belgium. Louis Schweitzer, a former aide to Socialist prime minister Laurent Fabius, would soon have to announce massive financial losses and job cuts in France itself for Europe's sixth largest carmaker. Closing Vilvoorde was but a prelude to these politically more risky cuts, for Renault's largest shareholder is the French state.

Prelude it might be, but the mainly Flemish and heavily-unionized Vilvoorde workforce would not go quietly, nor would the outraged Belgian government, whose Prime Minister, Jean-Luc Dehaene, has his political base in the Brussels suburb (Reuters, March 7, 1997). As local, federal and regional policymakers expressed their outrage (the city council of Vilvoorde called to a halt the use of French in the public market!), the Vilvoorde workers occupied the plant and began a series of public protests that would make Vilvoorde synonymous with a new term in the European political lexicon – "the Eurostrike".

Not only Dehaene – but also European Union officials – expressed outrage at the plant closure and its unexpected announcement. The EU's outrage was double:

First, it soon emerged that Renault was hoping to use EU structural funds to expand its plant in Valladolid, Spain, just as it was closing its Vilvoorde facility. European Competition Commissioner Karel Van Miert quickly announced that he would soon submit a document proposing ways to stop companies from "aid shopping" from the EU (Reuters, March 7, 1997).

Responding to Brussels' anger, and its own embarrassment at what seemed like an attempt to steal jobs from a fellow EU member state, the Spanish government quickly withdrew its plan to subsidize the Vallodolid expansion.

Second, Renault had ignored EU regulations that it must inform and consult its workers – presumably through its newly-formed European Works Council – of a plant closure decision, and negotiate measures of "accompaniment and reconversion" for closed plants. Not only the Commission, but also the European Parliament expressed shock and outrage at this "Anglo-Saxon" restructuring. Echoing the concerns of trade unionists from Belgium, France, and Spain, the assembly urged the EU to penalize Renault for its failure to consult and inform its workers of the decision, as EU regulations require, and said the automaker had shown "arrogance and disdain for the most fundamental rules of social consultation" (Reuters, March 12, 1997; Le Monde, March 13, 1997, p. 14). Even European Commission President Jacques Santer said the French government should have intervened to prevent Renault from laying off some 3,100 workers (Reuters, March 9, 1997).

As for the French government, it was clearly embarrassed. Reeling from a series of work disputes that began in the fall of 1995, coupled with difficult contract negotiations with the medical unions, the last thing that President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Alain Juppe needed was a 'brouille' with France's closest EU neighbor and trading partner, Belgium. While Chirac criticized Schweitzer's lack of tact, and Juppe called Schweitzer in for consultations, their apparent shock was neutralized by reports that the French government knew of Renault's decision as early as January. Indeed, French Industry Minister Franck Borotra backed the company. "You talk about a strategy of job-cutting," he said. "The strategy at stake here is the strategy of survival for the company" (Reuters, March 11, 1997).

But other French politicians were less than happy. On television, CFDT general secretary Nicole Notat discarded her usual moderation to chide the company for failing to consult the workers, as required by EU regulations. In Parliament, deputies of both the majority and the opposition were up in arms about Renault's decision (Le Monde, March 9-10, 1997, p. 5), and created an information mission to keep track of Renault and its workers (Le Monde, March 13, 1997, p. 14). Both Philippe Seguin and Charles Pasqua, Gaullist stalwarts who had clashed with Chirac before, used the Vilvoorde case to reinforce their skepticism about European Union.

But if government and EU officials were ruffled by Renault's move, their response was nothing compared to the reactions of the unions. Union actions took two complementary forms – "guerrilla actions" involving small number of participants intended for maximum media impact, and mass demonstrations designed to show the workers’ power in numbers. Both forms of action took "European" forms.

On March 2nd, a small contingent of Vilvoorde workers crossed the French border to Warin, near Lille, where they occupied a parking lot filled with new Renault vehicles ready for shipment (Le Monde, March 2nd). On March 7th, strikes were called across the sprawling Renault empire, bringing out about half its workforce in France and Spain.

The stoppage was most complete in Vilvoorde, where the workers had been on strike since the announcement on February 27th. But it extended into Spain (in Seville, about two-thirds turned out (Reuters, March 7, 1997); and into France (some 48 percent of workers in the Orleans facility participated (Le Monde, March 9, p. 24). Symbolically, the center of the action was in Brussels, where the Vilvoorde workers hurled a Renault chassis across police barricades protecting the French embassy (Reuters, March 9, 1997).

This was no one-shot protest action. If nothing else, the Belgian workers were unwilling to let their colleagues in other countries off the hook. When it was announced that Schweitzer would meet with the European Works Council in Paris on March 11, a convoy of 80 buses left Vilvoorde before dawn to transport 3,000 workers in their red and green union jackets to Paris (Reuters, March 11, 1997; Le Monde, March 13, 1997, p. 14). At the EWC meeting, French unionists backed the Belgian unions' call to reverse the Vilvoorde closure and demanded a reduction of working hours throughout the company to prevent further job losses (Reuters, March 11, 1997; Le Monde, March 12, 1997, p. 21).

Schweitzer refused to budge on both counts, and the Vilvoorde workers followed up with a surprise "commando action" on the 13th across the border at the Renault plant in Douai. As they marched through the factory, about 600 French workers joined them, and production ground slowly to a halt (Le Monde, March 15, 1997, p. 19). But these actions were small potatoes compared what came next on Sunday, March 16th.

For several months, European unionists and leftwing groups had been planning a "European march against unemployment" (Le Monde, Feb. 1997). Beginning with a planning conference in Brussels in February, the "march" was to be mounted in stages in every EU country on different dates, culminating in a European Union wide demonstration in Amsterdam on June 14 (The Dutch hold the current Presidency of the European Council of Ministers). The Vilvoorde crisis led the Belgian unions to move up the date of their demonstration by two months, and to call for participation from across the EU (Le Monde, March 16-17, 1997, p. 13).

Given the politically charged atmosphere around the Renault case, and the growing tension over the "Euro" and its consequences for jobs and social benefits, the turnout in Brussels on March 16th was extraordinary. Despite the rapidity with which the march was scheduled, and a number of scheduling conflicts (Turner 1996; Le Monde, March 18, 1997, p. 18), between 70,000 and 100,000 workers turned up in Brussels to march from the Gare du Nord to the Gare du Midi (Le Monde, March 18, 1997: 18.). While only 60 Spanish unionists made the long trip, and the British and Dutch unions were lightly represented, the French left and its leaders were massively and visibly present -- from CFDT leader Nicole Notat to CGT Secretary Louis Viannet, and from Communist General Secretary Robert Hue to Socialist leader Lionel Jospin and SOS-Racisme founder Harlem Desir (Le Monde, March 18, 1997, p. 18). As Schweitzer was hung in effigy, and a giant wickerwork figure carried by demonstrators made nazi salutes, the Vilvoorde workers dumped a yellow car body in front of the Brussels Bourse. "This is a signal of anger and indignation," Belgium's Christian Democratic union leader, Willy Peirens, told the crowd. "It is a signal of solidarity against brutality" (Reuters, March 17, 1997). Michel Nollet, head of Belgium’s Communist FGTB union, called attention to the transnational character of the protest: "Today’s demonstration is not the end…Together united we will continue our struggle for a social Europe, for a Europe of solidarity" (Reuters, March 16, 1997).

The joint pressure on the French government from the union demonstrations, from the EU, and from the Belgian government was too much for Prime Minister Juppe. On March 20th he appeared on French television to announce that 800,000 francs per worker would be disbursed for the measures of reconversion and accompaniment (Le Monde, March 26, p. 18). These figures turned out to combine both "social measures" and the loss of value due to the abandonment of Renault's investment in the plant. But Juppe's tactic was enough to disarm the unionists, "If a minority wants to struggle to the end," Le Monde observed, "the silent majority of the workers – "illusioned" by the sum of money pronounced by Alain Juppe – are pushing for negotiations" (Le Monde, March 26, p. 18).

The Renault crisis appears to have come to an uneasy conclusion. After the EU Trade Confederation demanded that Renault restart its negotiations with labor, workers ended their five week occupation of the Vilvoorde plant and released the billions of francs in finished cars they had held as ransom (Reuters April 14, 1997). In the end, Renault would still close the Vilvoorde plant, but with a more extensive social plan for the redundant workers.

In Brussels, the courts have taken the necessary first steps to bring Renault before the European Court of Justice. And in a resolution adopted during their March plenary session, the European Parliament pronounced Renault’s actions unacceptable (by a vote of 358-36).

Still, Renault remains defiant; claiming that financial need justified their actions. In the words of a Renault spokesperson, "the economic reality is what it is and cannot be compromised by decisions bearing on procedural issues" (Reuters April 3, 1997).

The Renault affair may represent a new reality for social movements in Europe as they respond to the processes of integration. As Renault suggests, social movements may become transnational in their sources, processes, and outcomes.

The sources of contentious politics: Contentious politics can be Euro-centered when domestic actors are stimulated to take action – in any form or locale – as a result of decisions taken by transnational actors. Transnational actors can include regimes and governing bodies such as the European Union, or they can take the form of multi-national agents and corporations such as Renault. As they respond to the European sources of their grievances, domestic actors level their sights on a variety of targets, including other private groups; national governments; and foreign nationals; as well as transnational institutions – such as the EU.

The processes of contentious politics: Contentious politics may also take transnational form in terms of the actions of social actors. As the Renault story suggests, transnational processes may include cross-border cooperation between contentious actors, or may take even more dramatic shape through multinational social movement events that draw participants from across the continent. Transnational social movement events remain infrequent occurrences.

Outcomes of contentious politics: Finally, contentious actions become Europeanized where they are resolved through the intervention of international bodies such as the EU or European Court. In time, we can imagine a more involved process of Europeanized outcomes in which inter-European conflicts or issues will lead to the development of Trans-European social movement organizations. With few exceptions, this long-term structural change remains much in the future.

In the Renault affair we find examples of each of these three facets of the Europeanization of contentious politics. We can think of the Renault affair as having transnational sources in two ways. At one level, the actions of Renault – a major multi-national presence across the continent – were decried as violating European directives concerning both proper notification of workers and appropriate steps toward reconversion. At another level, these same moves may have been facilitated by pan-European initiatives designed to encourage industries to locate in poorer and, coincidentally, labor-cheap regions.

As it developed, the response to Renault soon came to involve a range of European processes as well. At the level of institutional politics, national governments were quick to respond to the automaker’s attempt to move out of Belgium. With indignation, governments launched a flurry of formal protests and called meetings with both company executives and trade unions in an effort to resolve the dispute. First onto the scene, Belgian announced its intention to take the corporation to court in the name of justice. The Flemish regional government, also took center stage in demanding Renault be brought to justice.

The French government also claims to have been caught off guard (though this has been contested by both the national and international press), and has slapped Renault on the wrist for not consulting the unions. At the same time, as the majority shareholder in Renault, the government appears to share responsibility for the decision to close the Belgian plant rather than seek cost savings which might have labor market ramifications closer to home. The Spanish government also made an appearance. Bowing to international pressure, the Spaniards announced that they would freeze plans to support the expansion of the Spanish plant in Vallodolid.

As these events suggest, the role of the nation-state may be changing in light of the creation of international regimes. These trends are significant for contentious politics. Set against a history of engagement where states and domestic social movements have been locked in contention, the Renault events may illustrate a new role for the state. In this emerging scenario, the state increasingly functions as an intermediary between domestic actors and the transnational, European, realm of decision-making. To the extent this pattern proves lasting, it is decidedly different from the traditional role of the state.

At the level of contentious politics, the response of labor across the continent presents the widest range of examples of Europeanized processes of contention. In this case, the repertoire of labor is best described as encompassing a range of forms of action, including familiar, local and domestically focused contentious actions, as well as cross-border coordinated activity, and even a number of actions directed toward the institutions of the European Union.

The most vocal outcry in the Renault affair came from workers soon to be sacked – who seized the imperiled factory – as well as from their compatriots in organized labor across Europe – who launched a series of sympathy actions. While the plant workers seized and occupied the threatened plant for more than five weeks, the main Belgian union confederations (Socialist, Christian and Liberal) all came out in sympathy with the Vilvoorde workers.

Intriguingly, the three French union confederations also made clear their support of the Belgians – suggesting both the possibility of a growing international brotherhood of organized labor and, closer to home, the threat of more layoffs both in France and abroad. International support from labor also came from Spanish and Slovenian Renault workers.

Adding a range of both institutional and non-institutional tactics, the trade unions have responded to the opportunities for political and economic redress presented by the European Union. Their actions at the transnational level include: calling for punishment of Renault by the EU; demanding representation at the European Worker’s Council; and coordinating cross-national contentious political events. These included the cross-border action at Warin, the actions by French and Belgian workers on March 13^th at Douai and, most notably, the series of coordinated strikes across the continent against Renault-Europe.

Between organized labor and the state, most of the Belgian parties and the French parties of the left also announced their support for the workers and their opposition to Renault. (Although the French Socialists have been more quiet in their opposition, since Schweitzer is a Socialist and took control of Renault while the Socialists were in power).

Renault also suggests a number of the ways in which contentious political events may become Europeanized in their outcomes. There is little doubt that the Renault affair will ultimately require, and gain, the intervention of several European agencies. The carmaker has been the target of strong criticism by members of both the Commission and Parliament, who have vowed to stop corporate "aid shopping", and have scolded the French government for failing to intervene. Additionally, the EU Trade Confederation successfully demanded that Renault reopen negotiations with labor. Still pending are the Belgian court cases that are likely to be a preamble to a hearing before the European Court of Justice.

As the Renault story illustrates, the potential for a Europeanization of social movements is multi-leveled and rapidly emerging. As we write, workers from across the continent are caught up in the implications of the major socio-economic shifts involved in monetary union. The upheaval this restructuring has caused leads us to suspect that the processes of Europeanization will follow a pattern of development similar to that outlined by David Snyder and Charles Tilly (1972). Snyder and Tilly suggest that patterns of social unrest closely correlate with critical political events such as electoral opportunities or changes in regimes, rather than following a linear path. In part, their findings would suggest, any interpretation of the Renault affair must concede that the current period of integration is unusually turbulent as countries move toward monetary union.

Given the episodic nature of the Renault affair, that fact that – while dramatic – it still remains a single case, and the turbulence associated with the current wave of Euro-integration, we are hesitant to generalize about a new level of Euro-protest based solely on this story. Yet the questions it suggests are tantalizing: Does this series of moves and countermoves by a multi-national corporation, workers from across the continent, their national governments, and the institutions of the European Union, describe a new and increasingly prominent form of political interaction?

At the anecdotal level, the evidence of the development of a new realm of transnational movement activity extends far beyond the case of the aggrieved auto workers. Across the continent, workers and other social actors are increasingly engaged in contentious politics. In recent media accounts, we find a number of parallel examples. In the last few months, German Miners have taken to the streets, carrying crosses emblazoned with the names of mines which have fallen victim to German austerity measures (New York Times, April 10, 1997); Greek Cotton Farmers held 100 road junctions around Greece for two weeks in protest of reduced EU subsidies (Financial Times, December 11, 1996); French truckers paralyzed their nation’s highways and borders with a month long series of strikes; Italian milk producers staged a campaign against the "starvation" subsidy arrangement their government negotiated with the EU (Reuters EC Report, January 27, 1997); and Belgian foundry workers took to the barricades in response to announcements of some 1,500 layoffs in their industry (New York Times, April 10, 1997).

Not only the Renault incident but the protests of these other groups, as well, can be read as episodic responses to the structural upheaval wrought by the current – and painful – round of Euro-integration. But these contentious events may represent more than an episodic response to structural change. Their emergence, shared objectives, and transnational tenor may suggest a new reality for social movements in Western Europe.

Do the contentious events described by the Renault affair represent a new era in the Europeanization of political movements? There are several reasons to suspect that this is the case:

First, there is mounting evidence that Europe increasingly is becoming a social movement society. The waves of contentious action, which have swept the continent of late, are simply the most recent waves of protest. Since the 1960s, levels of participation in contentious politics across the continent, as well as the range of actors taking part in such activity – from farmers and student groups to anti-nuclear protesters, the unemployed, and right-wing skin-heads – have been on the rise (Dalton 1996; Duyvendak 1994; Kriesi et al 1995).

Second, the growth in contentious political action across Europe has accompanied the structural changes wrought by the process of integration into the European Union. As Euro-regulation encroaches on national legislation, and as individual states work to align their national policies with emerging Euro-guidelines, citizens groups have been shaken out of their complacency, scrambling to address new issues and respond to new opportunities (Imig and Tarrow 1996: 6).

Third, there is ample evidence that the process of integration has led to the development of new, transnational forms of citizen political engagement. We see this increase not only in the number of interest groups formed to take action at the transnational level, but also in the increasing frequency of their approaches to the EU. This process of development suggests one form of active public response to the openings for political approach and policy access presented by the Union.

Before rushing to herald a new era of transnational social movements in Europe, a few cautionary notes need to be sounded. The first concerns the historical development and dynamics of the social movement. The second has to do with the nature of the political opportunity structures available at the transnational level. Our third concern involves the type of evidence that has been used to make the case for the emergence of a realm of transnational mobilization.

Caution One; Movement Development and Networks:Among the strongest reasons to remain cautious before predictions of a rapidly developing transnational movement sector in Western Europe is the nature of social movements, which historically have found their advantage in a context largely delimited by state-imposed boundaries and opportunities. In this sense, social movements may be "prisoners of the state," in that they may require the presence of a state antagonist in order to have meaning to their citizens and to organize. By extension, movements may have a difficult time seizing hold of the non-state character of transnational governing institutions.

Additionally, one of the most consistent lessons of social movement studies of the last twenty years is that social and institutional networks are necessary to organize and sustain contentious politics (McAdam 1982; Gould 1995). This includes previously-organized networks of social actors within occupational, neighborhood and demographic identities. It is extremely difficult for ethnically, linguistically and geographically separated actors to recognize their collective identity and grievances, let alone act upon them, as they would be called upon to do in a truly transnational movement. Some have pointed to the internet as a possible medium for international movement linkages (Ganley 1992, Wellman and Gulia 1995). But the inherently disconnected nature of electronic communication is a far cry from the interpersonal and immediate linkages that bind the members of social movements together.

Caution Two; the Limitations of Opportunity Structure: A second difficulty that movements face at the transnational level concerns the largely "hollow" nature of the institutions and policies of international organizations. Where visible and targetable transnational antagonists can be identified, they are generally geographically distant and their policy effects are mediated through national states. It is far easier for disgruntled citizens to engage in collective action on the steps of their local government offices than to make the trek to centers of transnational or supranational decision making. Transnational mobilization is made more difficult still by the logistics of coordinating cross-national collective action on the part of citizens from different countries.

Caution Three; the Anecdotal Nature of the Evidence: Our third reason for voicing caution about the development of a transnational movement realm follows from the limitations of the evidence documenting such a development. Most of our understanding of social movements' responses to the processes of globalization comes from spectacular journalistic reports or single case-study analyses. While the case-study is a useful tool for interpreting particular movements' histories or arenas of action, it offers little of the longitudinal and comparative information needed to assess whether transnational action is progressively increasing or how domestic actors respond to transnational issues.

This is especially true of the literature on European integration, which often includes the assumption – sometimes stated as a finding – that collective actors are increasingly directing their demands at Brussels. Yet such assertions remain highly speculative. Claims of large-scale mobilizations toward Brussels have usually been backed by stories about organized business, sometimes with data about environmental groups, and almost never with systematic information about contentious politics or social movements in general.

Drawing from the emerging evidence concerning social movements, we hypothesize three alternative routes for domestic claimants responding to the policy initiatives posed by the European Union:

First, what we call "transnationalization", in which domestic actors shift the focus of both their demands and their targets to respond to EU policy making. In the process they develop a new repertoire of tactical forms appropriate to political engagement at the transnational level. As Jackie Smith and Ron Pagnucco suggest:

Contemporary social movements are really more like fugitives of the state than its prisoners: they create transnational alliances and organizational structures to formalize and routinize transnational cooperation as a means of waging a kind of diplomatic guerrilla warfare on the state (1995: 1).

The development of international institutions and regimes – and the increasing policy making authority of these entities – may create new and expanded political opportunities for social movements to mobilize transnational resources and attempt an "end run around the state".

Second, "polarization", in which domestic actors are divided into two camps, with some actors gaining privileged access to transnational institutions (for example, internationally-oriented business organizations), and some – like labor – remaining trapped in national opportunity structures (Tilly 1994).

Third, "domestication", in which social actors employ their access to national powerholders to mobilize their support against the decisions of transnational institutions. Here contentious actors continue to target the state, but in its role as intermediary rather than as a direct target.

These three hypothesized routes for domestic claimants to respond to the European Union are not mutually exclusive, and it is likely that the development of a European realm of mobilization will witness all three to some extent. There may be a temporal relationship between the three, with actors climbing from domestic to transnational responses as international institutions develop, as policy realms increasingly come under the control of the EU, and as claimants develop repertoires appropriate for transnational engagement.

On its own, the anecdotal evidence gathered from Renault and similar campaigns is difficult to interpret. We may simply be too early in the process of integration to know whether Renault is best understood as a deviation from the historically domestic and national character of the social movement or is instead an indication of the shape of contentious politics to come. To more fully explore this question, we need to extend our analysis beyond anecdotal case studies. This paper represents a stage in a larger project that is designed to provide longitudinal and cross-national evidence of the processes of Europeanization.

Arising out of the quantitative study of the 1960s ghetto riots and of strike behavior in the 1970s, the analysis of contentious events has recently gained ground in comparative politics and sociology. As Mark Beissinger puts it, "events data are explicitly temporal, and therefore give us some understanding of how forms of collective behavior relate to key developments within the polity" (1995: 3). Provided they are based on similar sources and methods, events data are also cross-nationally comparable, which allows us to compare the rates of change and the diffusion of collective action across space.

In keeping with the logic of contentious event analysis, we base the core of our work upon the extensive record of European political events established by media coverage. Yet events data ideally suited to our purposes are elusive. There are a number of well-known methodological problems involved in the use of media data (Danzer 1975; Franzosi 1987; McCarthy, McPhail and Smith 1994; Snyder and Kelly 1977). Additionally, we faced the difficulty of finding a source that would provide comparable data both cross-nationally and over time, allowing us to reliably study variations in contentious politics historically and across Western European states as the European Union developed. In addition to each of these concerns, we faced a seemingly crippling problem given the thickness of European political and economic transactions and the volume of information produced by even a single news source – making the mechanical work of collecting and coding events data a daunting problem.

Responding to these concerns, we set aside the tried-and-true methods of manual coding of "hard" or microfilm sources such as those used to study American ethnic conflict (Olzak 1992) or the Italian protest cycle of the 1960s (Tarrow 1989), and began to experiment with a recent advance in computerized collection and coding of electronic data sources. Specifically, for this research project we employ an automated coding software protocol called PANDA (The Protocol for the Assessment of Nonviolent Direct Action). PANDA is essentially a computerized code-book which establishes a set of decision-rules to guide a sentence parsing software program (named KEDS, for the Kansas Events Data System) which – in turn – parses and codes reports of political interactions from on-line news reports. More specifically, we download and filter on-line news reports and code them using the PANDA protocol and the KEDS coding system.

Using the PANDA automated coding system, we are constructing a dataset which, as of this writing, has drawn media accounts of 19,330 discrete Western European contentious events between October, 1983 and March, 1995 from Reuters' World News Service. By hand checking the machine-coded data against the original news accounts, we are increasingly confident that the system is turning up real and reliable variations in collective action. Within this set of events, we have found a small percentage (791 events, or 4.1% of the total) which involved interactions between domestic social actors and the EU. This small percentage suggests that over the period of integration that we are investigating, the vast majority of contentious politics events recorded across Western Europe remained domestic rather than transnational.

Turning more closely to the subset of 791 Euro-centered contentious events, we find evidence in the distribution of these events over the twelve-year period of an increasing level of engagement between domestic social actors and EU policy making. Specifically, we find an increasing ratio of contentious Euro-centered events to the larger set of all contentious events enumerated in Western Europe, a finding which speaks directly to our hypotheses concerning a growing Europeanization of contentious politics.

As Figure One shows, the ratio of contentious events involving the EU to the total number of all such Western European events drawn from the Reuters' press-releases has increased four-fold since the mid-1980s. The inflections indicated in the figure suggest that the European Union is increasingly recognized by domestic social actors as both an antagonist and as a likely target for contentious collective action.

Within this set of 791 Euro-centered contentious political events, we have found not only actions launched directly against the institutions of the European Union, but also actions targeting other – usually domestic – actors or institutions, but which were motivated by claims against EU proposals and policies. These results are highly preliminary, but they indicate support for both the first (eg. the transnationalization of movements) and the third (eg. domestication of transnational issues) models of Euro-centered collective action proposed above.

In subsequent stages of the analysis, we will compare the incidence of each of these forms of engagement both over time and with respect to different social actors. For example, it is plausible that transnationalization will be more effectively used by movements representing actors in the export economic sector, while domestication will be the recourse of groups with a largely internal market or clientele. We also hope to examine evidence for whether the varying rate of integration of different European countries into the EU, as indicated by Eurobarometer polls as well as by their governments' policies, is structuring the patterns of collective action (Rucht 1996).

It is appropriate that we sound a cautionary note about the shortcomings of machine coding of events data and regarding the limitations of the data source from which we currently draw (Reuters news service). Both of these facets of the current stage of the project underscore the need for a more complete investigation, for developing complementary methods, and for a professional evaluation of the results.

1. Limitations of Machine Coding: One of our primary concerns is with the limitations of machine coding. We have preliminary inter-coder reliability statistics which suggest that the automated coding system (PANDA) is comparable in terms of reliability with human coders, and that this method of compiling data compares favorably with the banks of human coders used on previous events data projects (Bond, Jenkins, Schock, Taylor 1996). But we find echoes of our concern in one of the few published comparative assessments of machine coded events data. As its authors note;

"What the PANDA approach gains in breadth, it loses in precision in any specific geographic area...We believe that the best events data collections will...focus on narrowly and explicitly defined conceptual domains but are as geographically inclusive as possible" (Huxtable and Pevehouse 1996: 15).

Given our system of checking the coded text against the original reports, we are reasonably confident that the system generates few false positives. At the same time, we have no way of knowing how many reports it fails to include, potentially leaving us with an under-counting of the actual number of such events. Our reporting of European contentious events is, consequently, a conservative estimate. To respond to this issue, we intend to triangulate between several coding systems, as well as against the yield from human coders in selected sectors of activity.

2. Data Source Limitations. We are also concerned that the data source (Reuters) used in our study may systematically under-report extra-institutional political activity such as contentious political events. Our ideal dataset would provide comparable, consistent, and inclusive information on the full range of political actions undertaken in each nation included in the investigation. Our preliminary assessment of the dataset we have constructed from Reuters suggests that it is highly comparable and fairly consistent, but suspect in its inclusiveness. This limitation points to one of the first areas where we will need to undertake comparative assessment of alternative and multiple sources of data.

The current work of John McCarthy, Clark McPhail and their team in Washington D.C. may provide a strategy for combining different forms of information and for correcting for the biases of press agency coverage (McCarthy, McPhail and Smith 1994). We also have commissioned a number of case studies in particular policy areas in which Euro-collective action is well documented to test the inclusiveness of our computerized sources.

As the Renault campaign illustrates, the emergence of a transnational realm of European government presents a series of new opportunities and constraints for domestic social actors. In this new transnational realm of engagement, autoworkers not only undertake traditional and domestic forms of contentious action, but at the same time they also are linked in cross-border actions with compatriots from across the continent and are joined in massive international demonstrations and rallies by bus-loads of fellow laborers. In this emerging European political space, threatened workers draw upon the cross-national linkages and negotiating resources of labor unions that – in turn – increasingly seek international identities. Meanwhile, workers and their intermediaries continue to press claims before both regional and national governments. Now, in addition, they also press claims directly before the European Union and the ECJ. In all of these ways, Renault’s autoworkers demonstrate the emerging possibilities which integration presents for a full range of citizen representatives, including not only organized interest groups and business representatives, but also social movements and other domestic claimants.

Set against the rapid development of policies and institutions at the transnational level remain consistently high barriers to launching contentious action in the transnational realm. Most individuals continue to have difficulty ascribing the sources of their grievances to the EU. Significant transaction costs confront efforts to coordinate collective action across national boundaries, and national governments continue to play a primary role in policy-making before the EU.

Perhaps the difficulties of launching transnational social movement activity account for another of our findings. In the Renault case as well as across the larger sample of Euro-centered contentious events we have drawn, workers have launched the preponderance of the contentious events identified. We find a vigorous range of contentious actions launched by farmers, fishermen, construction workers and miners, for example. Not coincidentally, it is these same groups which have confronted the painful realities of integration first hand: reductions in agricultural subsidies and production quotas, shifting trade restrictions, limitations on net sizes and fishing territories, and massive layoffs in the name of fiscal austerity and monetary union.

But the widespread activism of commodity groups also highlights the much more tentative presence of many other social actors, to date, in the international arena. While there are dramatic cases of contentious action on the part of the environmental, student, anti-nuclear, animal rights, and anti-racist movements in Europe (Imig and Tarrow 1996), the preponderance of contentious events in Europe continue to involve workers. The mobilization of these groups directly follows the economic retrenchments of the current round of integration, retrenchments that follow EU directives. The immediacy of this link suggests an additional caution in assuming the Renault affair will become a model for a wide-ranging transnationalization of social movements any time soon. Whether the EU will as directly affect other European social actors remains to be seen. Groups not immediately affected by decisions made at the Euro-level – or groups with grievances that can not be linked so clearly to the EU – are much less likely to shoulder the costs of transnational action.

The preliminary evidence suggests that rather than see an immediate and direct displacement of contentious politics from the national to the supranational levels, we are more likely to see a range of social movement approaches to the European level of governance. Many domestic claimants will continue to exert pressure domestically to demand that national governments take action on behalf of aggrieved citizens’ groups in the European community. At least in the short term, this process will likely lead to a partial transformation of national states from autonomous centers of sovereign decision-making to the European representatives of domestic collective actors who cannot themselves reach the European level but maintain considerable domestic political clout.

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