Search

After over a decade of crisis, the ECB's functions have expanded considerably, which in turn altered its relationship with other institutions. In particular, when the ECB assumed the role of Banking Supervisor under the Single Supervisory Mechanisms, it was generally accepted that this role would require more accountability than its traditional role in monetary policy. Yet, accountability requires transparency. However, there is a dearth of studies on the transparency of European banking supervision, and the few that exist are usually single case studies. This leaves us without a point of comparison that would help us understand what constitutes a 'transparent banking supervisor'. Therefore, the aim of this article is to situate the transparency of the ECB within the wider literature on the transparency of banking supervisors. This allows us to pinpoint more precisely its strengths and shortcomings and the potential for reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article links the discussions which are currently centring on the future design of the European Union legislative process to modern constitutional political theory as exemplified in the Federalist Papers . It argues that, to better understand the European Union policy–making process, analysts are well advised to consult the Federalist ’s objectives as well as its method of reasoning. Considering institutional design in general and legislative decision–making in particular, Jean Monnet, one of the principal architects of modern–day Europe, perceived the early developments which led to the Treaty that established the European Coal and Steel Community of 1952 as an unprecedented process. However, although the European Union is indeed novel, and not a state in the traditional sense, the dialogue in Europe would benefit from a more constitutionally oriented assessment of the potential effects of the Union’s institutional arrangements on legislative outcomes. Modern constitutional theory can provide the basis for this assessment. Without assuming the Constitution of the United States for itself, the European debate on legislative design would be enriched by looking back at the Federalist ’s reasoning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses a Polanyian frame to place the plight of Roma in Europe in the context of an age of crisis, as evidenced by faltering neoliberal economies and a corresponding rise in xenophobia and extreme manifestations of nationalism. The situation of the Roma remains precarious, a situation exacerbated by the 2008 economic crises and the COVID-pandemic. Despite a number of social inclusion measures in recent decades, at the national and European level which target the Roma, Roma exclusion remains a serious challenge. The paper assesses why previous policy regimes failed but also reflects on what is the way forward in terms of inclusive policy frameworks. The article seeks to provide some answers to these questions with a vision of a Polanyian countermovement in the form of a New Social Europe predicated on redistribution, recognition and community action but also a re-envisioning of integration and transformative change in structural and cultural terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including award winning research papers published in the issue, information of European Union in International Affairs 2018, and acknowledgement in the issue for contributions of colleagues.

This paper contributes to the literature on EU trade policy by introducing insights from the political economy literature on development to the study of how EU trade liberalisation affects development in trading partners. Drawing on a comparison of EU trade liberalisation with Moldova and Georgia, we argue that the type of coalition between public and private actors in partner countries' top export sectors determines which firms benefit from better market access to the EU, as indicated by their ability to increase their exports. We show that liberalised trade with the EU tends to contribute to achieving the EU's declared objective of inclusive development if the presence of inclusionary development coalitions ensures that a broad range of firms is enabled to increase their export capacities through a mechanism that we call 'inclusive empowerment'. Otherwise, trade liberalisation contributes to exclusive development, benefitting big, mostly foreign firms, or, at worse, consolidating rent-seeking practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union-Japan political and international development dialogue is resurging through the Strategic Partnership Agreement recently agreed between the two actors. The current paper argues that in order for this agreement to deliver on its promises, the EU and Japan need to build on their similarities, but more importantly on their differences and lessons learnt through their distinct international experiences. While common values and norms have helped them to agree on such document, building on their differences will help both actors to make this bilateral dialogue more productive and strategic. Through the theoretical lenses of policy entrepreneurship used to consolidate knowledge for development on horizontal cooperation, the paper questions how sharing their experiences as international donors can be of strategic relevance for both the EU and Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 is regarded as a major driver for digital transformation of our society and potentially as a boost for further digital single market integration. From the current perspective, pandemics cannot be avoided, but fully enabled digital societies will be better prepared to cope with them in future. This will, however, require reliable digital infrastructures to be put in place and further developed. Member States of the European Union and the European Commission have worked for more than 30 years to realise a European Digital Single Market. One key element in this development has been the so-called 'Large-Scale Piloting' (LSP) approach. This paper will focus on implementation of the 'Once-Only Principle' Pilot (TOOP) as part of LSP and the adjoint Single Digital Gateway Regulation (SDGR). This paper will examine whether, and how these initiatives can foster further integration into a digital single market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The papers of this special issue investigate the persistent challenges to European Banking Union and explore the tensions between broader financial stability objectives and national political and socio-economic pressures through a diversity of lenses. In this introduction, we examine two main issues that need to be addressed in order to strengthen Banking Union: the incomplete institutional design of Banking Union and the difficulties encountered in applying the different elements of Banking Union to loosen sovereign-bank ties. These elements include the so-called 'single' rulebook, supervision, resolution, and financial mechanisms to support and resolve banks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) from three overlapping perspectives: first, as a centralized hierarchy, seeking to enforce uniform rules, standards, and procedures; second, as a polyarchic network, seeking to orchestrate cooperation between the ECB and national authorities; and finally, as an experimentalist organization, seeking to learn from diversity by adapting common rules and procedures to the specificities of individual banks, and revising them regularly through peer review of implementation experience at multiple levels. Drawing extensively on interviews and primary documents, the paper traces the evolution of the SSM's institutional structures, decision-making processes, and organizational practices from its origins to the present. On this basis, the paper argues that the most encompassing perspective on the SSM is that of an experimentalist organization, which integrates and recasts key elements of the other two views into a more complete and dynamic analysis of its evolving architecture and practical operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Covid-19 pandemic has spurred a discussion about the role of the European Union (EU) in the governance of cross-border health threats. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is another major global health challenge that requires international collective action to be resolved. By using survey data from experts on AMR from 29 European countries, this paper investigates the support for an increase in the power of EU over AMR. Based on insights from collective action theory, we hypothesize that experts who believe that other countries free ride, will be more supportive of EU as a Leviathan in the European response to AMR. The results show that the experts generally were strongly in favor of expanding the authority of the EU over AMR. Furthermore, in line with theoretical expectations, experts who think that other countries free ride, are particularly supportive of more EU power over AMR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past three decades, the Visegrad Four (V4) shifted from normative conformity with the West to pursue a counter-hegemonic strategy in relation to the EU. Explaining the 'why's' behind the non-conformity stance, the paper adopts discourse analysis to explain the rise of modern-day sub-regionalism within the political borders of the EU. The European migration crisis catalyzed a discursive clash between members of the V4 on one hand and actors within the European Institutions on the other. This has led to an identity redefinition within the V4, igniting a process of sub-regional reaffirmation. Other than being a complementary sub-regional grouping, the paper finds and coins a new category of sub-regionalism, 'opportunistic sub-regionalism' to explain the dialectic relationship between the EU and V4. We find that this alternative form of sub-regionalist grouping is linked to observable attempts at achieving a level of sub-regional actorship to influence decision making in the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When the member states of the European Union (EU) accepted the Defence and Security Procurement Directive, the expectation was that they would be able to retain a substantial amount of autonomy. During the implementation process, however, the members accepted the European Commission as a legitimate authority on how the Directive should be implemented. In this light, member states changed one specific policy issue, not addressed in the Directive: their offset policy. Addressing the role of the Commission in the Common Security and Defence Policy, this paper analyses three separate cases and finds that a cost benefit analysis cannot explain why these member states complied with non-legally binding Guidance Notes issued by the Commission. The paper also explores the role of national civil servants seeking rule consistency and finds they acknowledged the authority of the Commission in prescribing new rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary global governance is characterized by a diversity of institutions. The European Union (EU) interacts with these institutions in multiple ways. Despite their importance, the interactions of the EU with different types of global governance institutions have remained underexplored in EU scholarship. The papers in this special issue address this research gap. They map the EU's interactions with different types of global governance institutions. They also explore the factors that explain patterns of interactions. In this introduction, we develop a common analytical lens that unites the contributions to the special issue and identify our main research questions. We map different types of global governance institutions and discuss the ways in which the EU interacts with them. We also bring together the main insights from the individual contributions and discuss avenues for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the European Union has gained access to several international organizations (IOs). This is a noteworthy and novel development, as IOs not only formalize but also deepen their interactions with the EU by granting it formal rights to participate in their policymaking processes. Building on the literature on the EU's role in global governance and the opening-up of IOs, this paper investigates the conditions under which IOs grant the EU access to their decision-making processes. While overlapping policy mandates between the concerned IO and the EU are certainly an important explanation, they are not the entire story. As this paper suggests, much depends on the authority of the IO granting access to the EU. This is because the members of authoritative IOs recognize in the EU a highly authoritative IO and might thus be more inclined to take it on board in order to mitigate negative externalities, enhance their own effectiveness, and avoid intra-institutional conflicts. Using a novel dataset on the EU's formal access to 33 IOs and addressing important inferential concerns, the statistical analysis shows that EU access depends on the authority of IOs. That authoritative IOs establish formal relations between themselves provides the basis for increased interactions and opportunities to jointly shape global outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the development of judicialization literature in the EU arguing that – in spite of the obvious advantages of inter-disciplinary collaboration – scholarship on judicialization in law and political science is drafting apart in the 21st Century. While early political science research on the European Courts found theoretical inspiration in legal research, law and political science have increasingly diverging epistemological and methodological starting points. As the article argues, using prominent papers, this results in both disciplines producing partial accounts of judicial change with limited external validity. The article concludes by offering routes to improving the inter-disciplinary foundations of judicialization research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interregionalism constitutes a main feature of EU external policy and unfolds specifically in Africa-EU-relations. However, research has merely focused on the EU as a coherent actor, although many EU institutions implement cooperation with African partners. Likewise, principal-agent research, a prominent path to unpack the internals of EU policies, on the EU´s interregional relations is nascent. This paper seeks to fill these research gaps by applying a principal-agent framework to internal processes of the EU in its Africa relations. After analyzing acts of delegation, it analyzes the discretion of the agents. Pointing specifically to the EU-Africa Partnership on Peace and Security, the study investigates on principal-agent relations from a non-principal-related perspective that puts forward structure-induced and interest-induced factors for increased agent discretion. The results suggest that agents enjoy substantial discretion enabled by the specific environment and agent actions in a policy field of high importance to the principals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The past two decades have witnessed a tremendous increase in the scholarly attention paid to the European Union (EU)'s external relations as well as the nature of the union's role in world politics. With an aim to contribute to the EU-as-a-power debate, this research explores how EU economic and market-related norms and policies have been promoted and received by taking the EU's relations with Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as an empirical case study. Drawing on transnational diffusion literature, this paper seeks to bridge existing scholarly discussions on Normative Power Europe and Market or Regulatory Power Europe, offering a more nuanced understanding of subjects of the EU's externalization, as well as the processes and effectiveness of the EU's diffusion of market-related norms and regulatory approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why did the issue of hedge fund regulation enter the formal EU agenda in response to the subprime crisis? Building on existing literature on agenda dynamics in the EU, this paper argues that framing and issue expansion were key in getting the issue into the formal agenda, and that issue expansion does not necessarily imply public mobilization. Going beyond existing scholarship, however, the paper also shows that framing processes are closely associated with the characteristics of the issue for debate and that issue expansion is intimately related to the arrangements governing the specific issue domain. In other words, whereas framing and issue expansion are traditionally conceived as a strategic choice or as the outcome of an exogenous event, this paper shows that framing may also be shaped by the nature of the issue at stake and that issue expansion may result from the unintended consequences of previous governance choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the development of Sino-European relations following Russia's attack on Ukraine. I argue that the behaviour of European and Chinese leaders is driven by the availability and attractiveness of outside options. While both sides want to reduce their dependence on the other, neither actor seeks a radical decoupling. Measures to diversify supply chains, the negotiation of new trade agreements around the world, and the 'technology war' have made Beijing's outside options less favourable. Europeans are emboldened to articulate their interests more forcefully, particularly in the areas of human rights, scrutiny of foreign funding, and economic coercion. China, in turn, provides diplomatic cover for Russia but resists undermining Western sanctions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union (EU) revived the enlargement process in response to the Russia-Ukraine war. That reaction compares to how the EU utilized this process following the wars in the Balkans in the 1990s. In this paper, we argue that on neither occasion was the inclusion of more states within EU borders a preferred EU working agenda. Instead, the EU used enlargement as a stabilization and security-building mechanism without guaranteeing membership as the end state. This observation has implications for the future of the enlargement process. We argue that the outcome of the previous rounds of enlargement was reactive and context-driven. Absent those same contextual factors, and although the EU reacts to the Russia-Ukraine war in a familiar sequence of incomplete decision-making, the outcome of this wartime enlargement negotiation process points in a different direction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper's aim is two-fold. First, it wants to explore if and how the war in Ukraine has exposed tension in the EU's foundational myth as a political community forged in crisis with the aim to bring peace and stability to Europe. Second, it highlights how the war reveals that the EU ultimately fails to be an ontological security provider for member states and Europeans. The paradox of the EU's myth of crisis is that it, like all foundational myths, is supposed to lead to a more secure sense of self and continuity. However, the war in Ukraine is a crisis that cannot be addressed without putting into discussion the other part of the foundational myth of how integration leads to peace and how this may help to explain limits to how much the EU can do to guarantee peace and stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the politicization of European integration is channeled through the media, it fundamentally implies a discursive power distribution between actors and institutions based on who and what type of argument is promoted. Scholars have started to hypothesize who will benefit from this expansion of debates to wider publics, predominantly using media logics to conclude with the notion of 'discursive intergovernmentalism': where media spotlights enter, executives benefit. In this paper, we contribute to these nascent studies into the discursive empowerment of actors and institutions, by adding a critical notion. Taking our cue from Critical Discourse Analysis, we argue that media output should not only be theorized based on news values, but equally by accounting for existing institutional power (im)balances. To evaluate this argument, we draw on new intergovernmentalist theory, and empirically delve into the Spanish and Dutch media coverage of the (run-up to the) July 2020 NextGenerationEU recovery package. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents actions for annulment as indicator for conflict over policy application in the EU and argues that it is a valuable complement to the indicator of infringement proceedings. This is because annulment actions shed light on conflicts in areas that remain undetected by infringement proceedings and because annulment actions are able to uncover potential multilevel characters of these conflicts. On this basis, the paper identifies four different types of multilevel application conflicts. Based on an original dataset on all actions for annulment initiated against the European Commission between 1957 and 2009, the paper explores the dominant cleavage structure in application conflicts over time. This cleavage structure has changed: national governments have started to become more and more reluctant to use their access to annulment proceedings to influence legal developments in many policy sectors as they no longer try to actively influence the legal dialogue in court. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper offers a defence of ambivalence as a response to the political polarisation of our era using multiple languages to present its case from psychology to sociology, political science, philosophy and critical theory. It suggests that the Brexit story can be told in a different key, whereby the politics that have led to entrenching 'leave' and 'remain' identities overlay a harder to assess ambivalence about the EU both in the UK and in the EU, a dynamic referred to as the 'Machiavelli Trap.' Accordingly, we ought to ground the future relationship in the recognition of the 'Brexit paradox' (you can leave and therefore you shouldn't), and its implications for the core principles that have shaped the Brexit debate and negotiations. In the end, the paper offers a plea for a politics that allows citizens to tune into their constructive ambivalence about the fundamental tension between control and cooperation which pervades both Brexit, EU and global politics at large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the first time, this paper investigates the influence of ordoliberalism (OL) at both the ideational and regulative levels of European integration processes regarding agricultural policy (i.e. CAP), competition policy, and economic and monetary policy (i.e. EMU) in comparison. The analytical key is an operationalisation of OL into five elements. The paper generally confirms the hypotheses proposed that OL was and remains an ideational influence of some importance, without exaggerating this influence, for European integration processes, both at the constitutive level as well as – but less so – at the practical level. However, there are differences in the degree of influence across the various policy areas. The influence is weakest in CAP and strongest in competition policy, but only since the Internal Market was proposed in the mid-1980s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What consequences will Brexit have for EU defence integration? Answering this question, the article analyses the new visions for the future of EU defence that emerged in the debate after the Brexit vote. In doing so, the paper moves beyond institutionalism and argues that a practice approach to Brexit paves the way for a deeper understanding of EU integration as a social process and of the effects of Brexit. Through a study of the debates and concrete developments in EU defence since the Brexit referendum, the article shows how defence - an area already subject to differentiation - has enabled innovative visions for defence integration in post-Brexit Europe across three dimensions: the military, the political and the economic. Building on this analysis, the paper concludes on the possible consequences of Brexit for EU defence and the value of a practice approach to differentiated defence integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union (EU) has actively promoted the establishment of national regulatory agencies (NRAs) in its member states since the 1990s. In parallel, the EU has supported the establishment of trans-governmental regulatory networks (TRNs) to facilitate the harmonization of regulatory frameworks within the EU. In most cases, these TRNs had a very light organization but allowed an intense interaction and collaboration among officials from the different national regulatory agencies. In this paper, we examine the involvement of EU institutions and NRAs in trans-governmental regulatory networks in Europe and beyond. Based on a mix of quantitative and qualitative approaches, we corroborate the extensive use of TRNs on the European continent beyond the EU in many fields, often supported by EU institutions or emerging as bottom-up initiatives of NRAs. We can only document some occasional attempts beyond the European neighborhood. Among possible reasons, we examine the institutionalization of global governance in many sectors, geographical considerations, and EU strategies to support TRNs development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even the best existing model of legislative decisionmaking in the European Union, the compromise model, makes huge prediction errors when it is assumed that each actor's power is determined by their formal voting weight. A few studies have attempted to improve the model's predictive accuracy by examining alternative distributions of power, but extending their brute force approach poses daunting computational challenges. In this paper I illustrate how techniques from evolutionary computing can be employed to overcome these challenges. I then demonstrate the new possibilities that this approach opens up by identifying the relative power of each actor that best predicts policy outcomes from the EU-15 period. Some actors appear to punch significantly above or below their formal weight, with power varying dramatically across legislative procedures. My analysis highlights important unanswered questions about power in EU decisionmaking, and potentially indicates fundamental problems with the compromise model or the underlying data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper posits three phases in EU financial market regulation. First, for the 1990s, established scholarship suggests leadership by public actors in the context of development of the single market and relations with the USA. We adopt this analysis, characterising it as ‘public–private’ regulation. Second, in the new millennium regulation shifted towards ‘private–public’, with regulators paying more attention to the demands of large financial firms. This tendency is explored through a critical study of ‘technical’ decision‐making by EU regulators, focusing upon the Committee of European Securities Regulators and rating credit agencies. Third, as from 2010 EU policy‐makers react to the spillover of the financial crisis from markets to member states, some limits to private–public governance have been underlined. The paper concludes with a discussion of positions taken by the European Parliament, moderating claims made for ‘technical’ rule‐making and opening up the possibility of wider intellectual and policy debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally, Europe stands out as the region where data protection regulation is strongest throughout the world. With its General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the European Union in 2016 updated its claim for leadership in this policy realm by adopting measures which better meet the challenges of digitalisation. The main interest of this paper is whether three intensely debated emerging norms in the regulation have been driven by the supranational institutions or by single or groups of member states who acted as norm entrepreneurs. Therefore, we trace the decision-making process leading to the GDPR. We conclude that the new regulation provides more support for supranational norm promotion, while we see little evidence for norm entrepreneurship by member states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues the importance of integrating power considerations into the study of the communities of practice in European studies and International Relations (IR). Since its introduction, the ‘community of practice’ concept has been criticised for implying overly consensual relations of its members. Notably, the concept has been criticised for underplaying the relations of power affecting the structure and processes of the communities of practice. Drawing on this critique, this paper offers a framework for integrating the considerations of power into the study of the communities of practice in European studies and IR. The argument is illustrated with the case of crisis early warning systems, following the European Union’s initiative to integrate them at the global level. While, the case analysis mainly serves the purpose of probing the suitability of the theoretical framework, it offers insights into some of the power-related challenges facing the community of crisis early warning practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Have national parliaments become 'multi-arena players' in the field of EU affairs? Through the means of cross-country comparison of Poland and France this study probes how national parliaments juggle their activities between domestic and EU-level realms with regard to four EU-oriented arenas: ex-ante scrutiny of national governments, the Early Warning Mechanism for subsidiarity control, the political dialogue with the European Commission, and the 'green card' initiative. The paper detects what conditions parliamentary activity in particular arenas and to what extent domestic legislatures act autonomously within them. The findings are counterintuitive and yet clearly demonstrate that what drives parliamentary mobilization in EU affairs is not the institutional strength of a parliament in EU scrutiny, but rather Member of Parliament's perception of their institutions' EU-related roles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A buzzword in the EU since four decades already, coherence is at the centre of the Lisbon Treaty. The risk of incoherence is deeply embedded in the institutional framework of EU external policies. Coherence is seen as a permanent quest, while incoherence carries a negative baggage. Goal-oriented coherence is expected to lead to the EU’s effectiveness, legitimacy and credibility as an international actor, but this positive causality has not been questioned all too often in the literature. This paper aims to fill this void: why, to what extent and for which problems is coherence a ‘miracle solution’? To what extent does coherence actually impact on the EU’s international status? The paper will discuss different theoretical perspectives to the coherence debate. It aims to contribute to the theoretical understanding of coherence in EU external policies and to better explain EU efforts towards enhancing coherence. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper attempts to define the EU system of government through an innovative approach that, taking into account both the legal framework and the political practice, focuses on the confidence relationship between the executive and legislative branches. This approach simplifies the comparative study of regime types, capturing the main distinctive features of systems that are neither presidential, nor parliamentary. The paper shows that the EU model does not belong to any of the traditional regime types; indeed, it represents a distinct system of government, characterised by a peculiar confidence scheme. Although the legal framework of the EU Treaties presents some elements of parliamentarism, the nature of the inter-institutional relations in the EU is not parliamentary; in particular, the role played by the European Council in the formation process of the Commission is not merely formal, and involves a much more complex confidence relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union has repeatedly committed itself to increase the coherence of its external action, with Policy Coherence for Development being singled out as one of the most prominent cases. This paper investigates how the EU promotes this aim in the policy formulation of different governance areas. Using a historical institutionalist approach, it focuses on the process dimension of coherence by presenting extensive empirical data to analyse which institutional procedures – such as Commission inter-service consultations – are regularly applied to what effect. The study discusses the results of tracing the planning of six selected initiatives in fisheries, environment and security policy. It finds that the effective promotion of Policy Coherence for Development does not necessarily depend on the particular policy field and its degree of communitarisation as such but rather on the policy instrument used and especially on the EU institution which conducts the policy formulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rule of law (RoL), as a highly valued international principle and one of the founding principles of the European Union (EU), plays a significant role in its environmental governance. Overlapping interests between China’s search for effective solutions to environmental problems and the EU’s environmental governance experience provide a solid ground for bilateral cooperation in environmental area, and the RoL which is embodied in these bilateral programmes has also been diffused to China. Through looking at the top-down approach of capacity building in law enforcement and the bottom-up approach of the raising of public awareness of environmental rights and public participation promotion, China’s lesson-drawing and the EU’s RoL promotion in EU-China Environmental Governance Programme can be understood. Moreover, although studying the long-term effect of RoL promotion requires more empirical data, this paper does explain how EU norms diffuse in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union (EU) has been a critical player in international environmental negotiations, especially those relating to climate change. This has been documented, and the role of the EU analysed, in many studies, some of which focus specifically on the role of European non-state actors in these negotiations. Yet few studies have analysed the role played by sub-state actors, namely government departments in the member states and directorate-generals in the European Commission. This paper attempts to redress this imbalance by considering the behaviour of the EU in the international climate negotiations through the prism of a ‘two-level’ game. In particular, it will consider what role sub-state actors played in determining the negotiating position of the EU and the type of agreement it has been willing to sign. In doing so, this paper reveals that there are limits to what the two-level game can explain, especially in long negotiations, and it suggests three factors that existing theories need to take into account to understand variations in state behaviour and its implication for negotiation outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As compensation for their disempowerment in the process of European integration, national parliaments have been provided with various new rights and powers since the 1990s, culminating in the current provisions of the Lisbon Treaty. This paper argues, however, that rather than simply re-enhancing traditional powers of national parliaments, these reforms imply ideas of a new type of parliamentary democracy in Europe. It identifies three different roles for national parliaments in the EU: preventing rather than shaping legislation (gatekeeping role), cooperating with other parliaments and supranational institutions (networking role), and adopting a uniform mode control of government across all party groups (unitary scrutiniser role). All these roles require a significant deviation from the standard role legislatures usually play in European parliamentary democracies. The paper briefly explores how national parliaments in two ‘old’ (France, Germany) and one ‘new’ (Poland) member state fulfil these three new roles. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Standard accounts assume that representatives are authorised and held accountable through elections in territorially defined constituencies. In contrast, claims-making approaches hold that representation does not always depend on an electoral connection. This paper argues that the claims-making approach addresses some of the difficulties in the standard account, but remains itself theoretically underspecified. This becomes especially clear when applied to systems with exceptional institutional complexity like the EU. As an alternative to both those other approaches, the paper proposes a revised claims-making approach in which rights claims are used to specify representative claims. It then shows how rights claims do, indeed, play an important role in the representative claims that are made in the European Union arena, and how that, in turn, allows the Union to deal with some of the problems of applying standard forms of representation to its decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The European Union has emerged as the global precautionary superpower, particularly in the field of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The EU has moved away from the initial World Trade Organization (WTO) and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) consensus and shifted toward strict safety assessment and mandatory labelling. In addition, the pathway to this change has been beset with incoherence and a series of crises. What explains this move toward tight regulation despite enduring economic interests to do otherwise? This paper uses the framework of competitive governance to analyse this outcome. The high degree of politicization of the GMO issue has made it a key battleground for competition for leadership, particularly between the Commission and the Council of Ministers. The result has been a protracted battle over agenda setting and issue framing and a cycle of competitive regulatory reinforcement. The Council has used its leverage in comitology to shape the legislative agenda and push the outcome toward its political preferences. The paper unpacks both the steps and incoherence in GMO governance since 1995 and the relationships between key actors involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate private authority in European Union (EU) energy governance in order to address two research questions: First, how has authority been conferred on, and acquired by private actors? Second, to what extent has this lateral shift of authority been contested and on which grounds? The paper links the literatures on regulatory governance and private authority. This allows us to shed light on an issue that tends to be neglected in the discussion about the transfer of competencies in the energy field: the horizontal transfer of authority. In our case study about the role of transmission system operators (TSOs) in the creation of an internal electricity market, we identify three distinct settings where both the level of sovereignty-based contestation and the shift towards private authority vary. We find that private rulemaking has gained in importance due to functional expertise requirements, but also because it provides an escape route in a context of political contestation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To evaluate critically public policy towards undeclared work in the European Union, this paper presents a typology of the various potential policy approaches, ranging from repressive measures to those seeking to enable compliance, so as to provide a lens through which the breadth of practices currently adopted can be viewed. The finding is that despite signs of growing experimentation with a wider range of measures, most countries remain firmly entrenched in a repressive approach that seeks to detect and punish non-compliance. Evaluating critically this dominant approach, this paper reveals not only the paucity of evidence of the effectiveness of repressive approaches at eliciting behaviour change but also how EU member states through the repression of undeclared work unintentionally stifle precisely the entrepreneurship and active citizenship that elsewhere on their policy agendas they are so desperately seeking to nurture. The paper concludes by discussing the ways forward for public policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper is to examine the changing role of the state in employment regulation in an environment that has become more market-driven and Europeanized since the introduction of the European Monetary Union (EMU) and the European Employment Strategy (EES). The point of departure is a general discussion of the role of the state in capitalist development and a review about the recent debate on the spatiality of state regulation. It further suggests different ways in which the state shapes employment relations along the following dimensions: as employer, as legislator, as guarantor of employment rights and procedural regulator, in intermediating neo-corporatist processes, in macro-economic management, and as a welfare state. From this theoretical basis, the paper identifies changes in state strategies within employment regulation by comparing two periods of European integration: the post-war period and the ongoing period after the introduction of the EMU and the EES. In conclusion, the paper asserts that there has been a transition in the ways the state 'intervenes' in the economy and shapes the different dimensions of employment relations from a governing and legislating mode towards a steering and advising one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an up-to-date overview of the gradual development of differentiated integration and the ensuing changes in the nature of European integration. It considers the dynamics of deepening and widening of the EU and proposes the metaphor of a 'European Onion' that is designed to capture the bigger picture. Further, this paper expands upon the centripetal effects of differentiated integration and shows its potential to generate more cooperative public opinion in future enlargement rounds. Finally a state of play in European integration theory is offered that incorporates differentiated integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How much can civil society participation actually contribute to the EU's democratic legitimation? This article examines this question in order to assess whether the current debate possesses the potential to cure the EU's alleged 'democratic deficit'. It rests on the assumption that democratic legitimation through civil society requires the participation of civil society to meet democratic standards themselves. The analysis treats a normative and an empirical aspect of the subject. Firstly, it focuses on the European Commission's White Paper on European Governance, and examines its requirements for civil society participation in the light of the concepts of associative and deliberative democracy. However, requirements for democratic civil society participation can also be developed by civil society itself. Therefore, secondly, the potential of the community of European interest representatives for the creation of a European civil society will be assessed, on the basis of original empirical data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the changes in regional inequality, polarisation and mobility in per capita income within the European Union between 1980 and 1996. Using different techniques, the main findings that arise from the study are (i) a small decrease in regional inequality; (ii) no apparent change in the polarisation process; and (iii) a relatively high degree of mobility. The paper also shows that the speed at which convergence and mobility were taking place has declined over time. This raises some concerns about these two processes for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a discussion of main channels through which fiscal stability can contribute to financial stability, the current legal governance framework of the euro area and the experience gained in its application are assessed with the aim to offer an answer to the question alluded to in the title, namely whether the EU's fiscal architecture, namely the current EMU legal framework on economic policy coordination, provides a meaningful contribution to financial stability. Moreover, the potential of this framework to accommodate future measures to enhance fiscal stability is briefly assessed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]