Expertise suffers booms and troughs like any other market good. The supply and demand for specialists, and the nature of the specialisms required, change in accordance with the exigencies of time and place. A particular breed of specialists is on the ascendant as a number of countries seek to confront, accept or adapt to the massive body of obligations of European Union (EU) law (referred to as the acquis communautaire) in the context of accession negotiations. In the dozen applicant states, a typically very small number of specialists in such matters is suddenly sought after as government consultants, media commentators, technical reporters and impact assessors. This article adopts a political sociology perspective in seeking to assess the influence of such technical experts on the politics of national industrial relations. It argues that such experts do somehow infect the opinions of interest groups, as well as their policy with respect to the EU in particular. Such is more likely to be the case when such interest groups suffer from a `knowledge gap' and do not enjoy the services of professional EU specialists `in-house'. Primary data are drawn mainly from autobiographical material; but the article attempts to propel a cross-national debate on the relevance of the experience and its analysis.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Bachrach, P.
(1967) The Theory of Democratic Elitism. Boston: Little Brown.
2.
Baldacchino, G.
(1997) Global Tourism and Informal Labour Relations: The Small Scale Syndrome at Work. London: Mansell.
3.
Baldacchino, G.
(2000) Malta and the European Union: A Comparative Study on Social Policy, Employment and Industrial Relations. Malta: Malta Employers Association.
4.
Bellemare, G.
(2000) `End Users? Actors in the Industrial Relations System?', British Journal of Industrial Relations38(3): 383-405.
5.
Bereiter, C.
and Scardamalia, M. (1993) Surpassing Ourselves: An Inquiry into the Nature and Implications of Expertise. Chicago: Open Court.
6.
Blau, P.
(1968) Bureaucracy in Modern Society. New York: Random House.
7.
Dabscheck, G.
(1995) The Struggle for Australian Industrial Relations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
8.
Dahrendorf, R.
(1964) `Recent Changes in the Class Structure of Modern Societies', Daedalus93: 225-270.
9.
Dreyfus, H.L.
and Dreyfus, S.E. (1986) Mind Over Machine. New York: Free Press.
10.
Dunlop, J.T.
(1958) Industrial Relations Systems. New York: Holt.
11.
Ferner, A.
and Hyman, R. (1992) `Industrial Relations in the New Europe: Seventeen Types of Ambiguity', in A. Ferner and R. Hyman (eds) Industrial Relations in the New Europe, pp. xvi-xlix. Oxford: Blackwell.
12.
Fox, A.
(1974) Beyond Contract: Work, Power and Trust Relations. London: Faber.
13.
Frow, J.
(1995) Cultural Studies and Cultural Value. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
14.
Gill, C.
and Krieger, H. (2000) `Recent Survey Evidence on Participation in Europe: Towards a European Model?', European Journal of Industrial Relations6(1): 109-132.
15.
Goetschy, J.
(1999) `The European Employment Strategy: Genesis and Development', European Journal of Industrial Relations5(2): 117-137.
16.
Goldthorpe, J.H.
(1982) `On the Service Class, its Formation and Future', in A. Giddens and G. Mackenzie (eds) Social Class and the Division of Labour, Essays in Honour of Ilya Neustadt, pp. 156-175. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
17.
Hyman, R.
(1975) Industrial Relations: A Marxist Introduction. London: Macmillan.
18.
Illich, I.
(1977) Disabling Professions. New York: Calder and Boyars.
19.
Kerr, C.
, Dunlop, J.T., Harbison, F.H. and Myers, C. (1962) Industrialism and Industrial Man. London: Heinemann.
20.
Laffan, B.
(1997) `The European Union: A Distinctive Model of Internationalisation?', European Integration On-Line Papers1(18): 1-17.
21.
Lasswell, H.
(1911) Politics: Who Gets What, When and How. London: Peter Smith.
22.
Marginson, P.
(2000) `The Eurocompany and Euro Industrial Relations', European Journal of Industrial Relations6(1): 9-34.
23.
Marks, G.
, Hooghe, L. and Blank, K. (1996) `European Integration from the 1980s',Journal of Common Market Studies34(3): 341-378.
24.
Milner, A.
(1999) Class. London: Sage.
25.
Murphy, R.
(1986) `The Concept of Class in Closure Theory', Sociology20(2): 247-264.
26.
Orwell, G.
(1948) Nineteen Eighty-Four. London: Secker and Warburg.
27.
Perlman, S.
(1928) A Theory of the Labor Movement. New York: Macmillan.
28.
Piore, M.
(1995) Beyond Individualism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
29.
Strauss, A.
, Schatzman, L., Ehrlich, D., Bucher, R. and Sabshin, M. (1971) `The Hospital and its Negotiated Order', in F.G. Castles, D.J. Murray and D.C. Potter (eds) Decisions, Organisations and Society, pp. 103-123. Milton Keynes: Open University.
30.
Streeck, W.
(1998) `The Internationalisation of Industrial Relations', Working Paper 98/2. Cologne: Max Planck Institute for Work and Society.
31.
Sweet Stone, A.
and Sandholtz, W. (1997) `European Integration and Supranational Governance', Journal of European Public Policy4: 297-317.
32.
Symeonides, K.
and Baldacchino, G., eds (1996) Cyprus and Malta and the Road to EU Accession: Lessons for Workers and Trade Unions. Nicosia: Government Printer.
