Paradoxes of internationalization deals with British and German trade union responses to the internationalization of corporate structures and strategies at Ford and General Motors between the late 1960s and the early twenty-first century. Based on research in more than a dozen archives in Britain, Germany and the United States, the book is unique in its attempt to bridge historical and contemporary approaches to the study of trade union politics in multinational firms. Conceptually, Paradoxes of Internationalization draws not only on the mainstream industrial relations literature but also on scholarship in comparative and international political economy, transnational history and nationalism studies.Paradoxes of Internationalization takes issue with a tendency for polar juxtapositions in the industrial relations literature on internationalization (expressed, for example, in the convergence vs. path dependence debate) and points to the simultaneity of seemingly contradictory developments. First, it demonstrates how internationalization helped to reinforce trade unions' national identities and allegiances. Second, the book highlights that internationalization made domestic trade union practices more similar in some respects, while it simultaneously contributed to the re-creation of diversity between and within the two countries. And third, the book shows that investment competition was paradoxically the most important precondition for the emergence of cross-border cooperation initiatives although the interest-driven nature of these initiatives also limited their scope.The book will be of interest to academics and students in a range of disciplines from comparative industrial relations, to international political economy, business studies and transnational history.
