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The crises of the European Union and the geopolitical shifts in its international environment have generated a backlash against the post-Cold War 'debordering' of European integration. Whereas integration theories focus almost exclusively on the EU's internal boundaries and developments, this framework paper conceptualizes and theorizes integration as a process of internal debordering and external rebordering. It sketches the history of European integration in a bordering perspective and proposes general assumptions about the EU's bordering process. Accordingly, rebordering pressures result from widening boundary gaps at the EU's external borders, exogenous shocks to cross-border transactions, growing community deficits of debordering, and their politicization. Whether external rebordering succeeds and how it interacts with internal boundary formation, depends on EU-level boundary negotiations and the relative costs and benefits of external vs. internal rebordering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ever since they first entered the European Parliament in 1979, the EU has proven to be a strong legitimising tool for far right parties, providing them with funding, visibility and a higher degree of credibility and respectability. While recent literature has explored some of these dynamics, the role of the far right's ideological positioning on Europe as a source of public legitimacy has been neglected. This paper argues that as a relatively new and contentious political issue, Europe can function as a powerful ideological resource for far right parties by allowing them to convey a more acceptable political message. This argument is illustrated through a case study of two key aspects of the Rassemblement National's ideological approach to the European Union: the party's claim to be pro-European but anti-EU and its opposition to EU integration on grounds of sovereignty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sheds light on an unexplored phase and a neglected actor in EU constitutional politics: the preparation of Treaty reform by the Group of Government Representatives. Striving to explain whether and under which conditions constitutional decisions in Europe were de facto taken by officials, the paper proceeds in three steps. First, possible functions of preparation in complex negotiations are conceptualized and two conditions for effective preparation are proposed: a preparatory body's issue and process resources as well as consensual pre-agreement. A second section introduces the role of government representatives in preparing EU reform, checks their collective resources against the criteria developed in section 1 and assesses their preparatory agency as strong. Third, I analyse the effectiveness of preparing for Amsterdam, using the negotiations on free movement and flexibility as plausibility probes. The analysis demonstrates that officials play a key role even in the bastion of high politics that is Treaty reform, where the final European Council is only the 'tip' of a long-term negotiation process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The open method of co-ordination (OMC) has received much attention in the recent EU literature. The predominant view claims that the OMC is not only a new but also an effective policy-making instrument. This paper raises doubts about both claims by offering a comparison of soft law policy co-ordination in three international organizations. More specifically, this paper compares the European Employment Strategy to the Broad Economic Policy Guidelines of the EU, the OECD Economic Surveys, and the IMF Article IV Consultations. Based on expert interviews, it seeks to demonstrate that these procedures are forms of multilateral surveillance that do not differ in kind. Such a comparative analysis of the OMC refutes claims to its novelty. Having compared the four procedures, a more general model of multilateral surveillance consisting of six elements is generated that facilitates further comparisons. This paper concludes that governments select voluntarist procedures mainly to secure their own competencies rather than to realize common goals. Effective problem-solving is therefore not necessarily the dominant objective of soft law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Parliament (EP) has often criticized the agencification of the European Union. Yet in practice it often uses its legislative powers to strengthen the powers and independence of European agencies. To explain this paradox, this paper analyses the six cases where the 2004-2009 EP legislated to create a new European agency. It argues that the Parliament overcame some of its doubts about agencification by proposing amendments which brought the legislation closer to its own legitimation beliefs. Moreover, the EP has developed a substantial repertoire of amendments which it now more or less repeats every time it is confronted with a proposal for a new agency. Many of these amendments are designed to shore up control of agencies, sometimes in novel ways which suggest that the Parliament has in part made its peace with agencification by becoming more amenable to the control of agencies by methods involving multiple principals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Its monopoly power to formulate policy proposals and set the European Union's (EU's) legislative agenda guarantees the European Commission considerable prominence in EU legislative studies. It is commonly conceptualized as a unitary actor, acting cohesively - often in its own supranational interest - in EU decision-making. Recent theoretical developments and empirical studies, however, cast doubt on this conceptualization. This paper takes up these matters and investigates the decision-making mechanisms and dynamics of the Commission's executive politics. Two case studies show that the formal division of power along portfolios puts formally responsible Commissioners in a privileged position to influence the content of legislative proposals in internal decision-making. This influence, however, is circumscribed by the opposition of other Commissioners. At least in the cases studied here, Commissioners' position-taking and conflict in internal decision-making follow a national and, to some extent, a sectoral rather than a partisan pattern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interaction between bargaining and monetary policy involves three relationships: the interaction of the bargainers with (a) each other; (b) the monetary regime; and (c) their rank and file. Research has centred on (a) and (b) and neglected (c). However, in practice, interaction (c) gains in importance, since bargaining is a multi-level process in the eurozone. Analytically, this interaction should not be neglected, since the monetary regime can target the bargainers more effectively than their rank and file. This paper conceptualizes the interaction between bargaining and monetary policy in a way which includes all three relationships. Based on a comparison of fifteen European countries, it is shown that the responsiveness of alternative bargaining institutions to the monetary regime depends on their capacity for making the rank and file comply, and that these institutions also differ in which monetary parameter they are sensitive to. The implications of these findings for EMU are discussed in the paper's final section. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European regulatory networks (ERNs) constitute the main governance instrument for the informal co-ordination of public regulation at the European Union (EU) level. They are in charge of co-ordinating national regulators and ensuring the implementation of harmonized regulatory policies across the EU, while also offering sector-specific expertise to the Commission. To this aim, ERNs develop 'best practices' and benchmarking procedures in the form of standards, norms and guidelines to be adopted in member states. In this paper, we focus on the Committee of European Securities Regulators and examine the consequences of the policy-making structure of ERNs on the domestic adoption of standards. We find that the regulators of countries with larger financial industries tend to occupy more central positions in the network, especially among newer member states. In turn, network centrality is associated with a more prompt domestic adoption of standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European Union (EU)-level agencies have emerged as important actors on the EU's policy-making scene. To date, we know relatively little about the personnel working in EU agencies: what attitudes do EU agency staff members hold on issue-dimensions relevant for the EU integration process? How do they perceive of their role in EU policy-making? Moreover, we know little about the cohesiveness of attitudes of agency staff within and between different EU agencies. The aim of this contribution is conceptually and empirically descriptive. It draws on original data from an online survey of professionals working in EU agencies to gain insights into the attitudes held by EU agency staff on three substantive attitudinal dimensions: conceptions relating to legitimate and accountable EU governance, conceptions about the preferred level of centralization of political authority in the EU, as well as views on economic governance in the EU. While the conceptual focus of this paper is on attitudes and not on behaviour, the attitudes held by EU agency staff and their relative homo- or heterogeneity is likely to affect perceptions and evaluations of the political environment and interpretations of the challenges agency staff members face in their substantive area of work. The findings of the survey will enable us to draw broader conclusions about the type and quality of accountability relationships as well as of the EU's democratic legitimacy. Moreover, the data will permit to inform arguments about the actor quality of EU agencies, which are often conceived as efficient institutional solutions to overcome credibility problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agency creation at the European Union (EU) level differs from that at the national one. European regulatory agencies (ERAs) have limited formal powers and separation from other actors, resembling networks rather than stand-alone agencies. ERAs for economic regulation have been created later and in smaller numbers than for social regulation. Using a historical rational analysis, this paper argues that past delegations to other non-majoritarian institutions at the EU and national levels condition the creation of European agencies. The Commission has defended its existing role and powers, accepting ERAs when they aid its strategy to increase its own reach and ensuring that it has many controls over them. When member states have created independent regulatory agencies (IRAs), those IRAs have defended their autonomy and resisted strong ERAs. Formalized EU networks of IRAs have hindered the establishment of powerful ERAs and when created, ERAs have involved layering and conversion of those networks. Hence formal delegation to ERAs has been limited and uneven. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European regulatory space has been expanding rapidly since the 1990s. The double movement towards a single market on the one hand and a Single European Regulatory Space on the other is evident almost everywhere. A new regulatory architecture is emerging and is expressed in the extension of regulatory capacities beyond the European Commission via two major forms of institutionalization: agencies and networks. This paper explores the politics and architecture of the institutionalization and administrative rationalization of the EU regulatory space and demonstrates (a) how agencies replace networks in a process that might best be called 'agencification'; (b) how agencies compete with networks and are often able to create, employ, and control them, creating what might best be called 'agencified networks'; and (c) how networking empowers agencies creating a new type of regulatory organization that might best be called a 'networked agency'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European Union (EU) negotiations take place within the framework of a set of formal and informal institutions. Member states negotiate in the organizational context of the Council and the European Council, take decisions through alternative procedures and decision rules, and sustain a set of norms for the conduct of negotiations. While the effects of these institutions on negotiation behaviour and outcomes have received extensive attention, the question of why these particular institutions have been established or evolved remains underexplored. This contribution makes an argument in favour of systematic attention to the design of negotiation institutions in the EU, and suggests that we should draw on general theoretical approaches to institutional design for these purposes. Moreover, rather than engaging in the exercise of trying to prove or falsify theoretical approaches, we should exploit the potential for explanatory complementarities in concrete empirical domains. To this end, the paper advances a domain-of-application approach to institutional design and illustrates its applicability to EU negotiation institutions through four empirical illustrations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the main temporal factors impacting on the European Commission and sheds light on its particular relationship to time. By way of illustration, it discusses two relatively recent, but increasingly significant, features of the Commission's work: its planning and programming cycle and its use of impact assessments. These two techniques are at the core of the Commission's quest for exemplary management and of its endeavour to promote 'better regulation' principles. Taken together, they can transform EU policy-making and bring about a greater predictability and transparency of EU action. They cannot, however, fully capture the more political and discretionary role of the Commission, which must adapt to a diverse and changing EU agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A decade ago parties were largely absent from research on and theories of EU politics. The role of parties is now a central part of the research agenda, particularly in the area of EU legislative politics. The new research on parties in EU politics has made significant theoretical contributions, led to the collection and dissemination of new datasets, and employs some of the most advanced statistical methods in contemporary European political science. What is still missing, however, is a general theory of the role and impact of political parties, which helps to explain actors' behaviour in EU politics in a range of situations. This paper sketches some of the basic elements of what might be called a 'partisan theory of EU politics', starting from a discussion of how the policy and office incentives of national parties are shaped by the EU's 'upside-down polity'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Europe's 'political space', its dimensionality and its impact on European policies have received increased academic attention lately. Yet, one very basic element of this political space, the party composition of EU member states' governments, has never been studied in a systematic way in the rich literature on European integration. In this paper we explain why the EU literature should pay more attention to the analysis of Europe's party-political 'centre of gravity'. We give a systematic overview of the party composition of member governments from 1957 to 2003. This includes analyses of how the support for integration, the left/right political conviction, and the ideological homogeneity or heterogeneity of the member states affected the Council over the course of time. We draw on expert surveys, the data of the Comparative Manifesto Project, and data about government composition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper summarizes the state of affairs regarding formal and quantitative studies on decision-making in the Council of the European Union. We compare recent empirical studies in the field and distinguish between work that utilizes actors' ideal preferences, their revealed positions in the bargaining process, and their subsequent voting records in the area of EU legislative politics. We argue that document analysis remains an underemployed tool that could help formal modellers in confronting their theories with quantitative empirical information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This concluding paper sets the special issue in the broader context of literature on Europeanization. I consider what sort of empirical picture emerges from the issue and other literature, and highlight some puzzles in domestic politics to which that portrayal directs our attention. We see disjunctures between the EU's policy importance and low political mobilization around it, between general demobilization and bursts of activity around referenda, and between variation in citizens' views of the EU and little variation in mainstream political parties' programs. Then I consider the main ways in which Europeanization scholars explain these puzzles. I argue very briefly for an analysis that stresses the cross-cutting nature of pro- and anti-EU views in French (and other countries') politics, which leads to reactions from political parties to muffle internal dissent. To conclude I modestly extend this analysis to hypothesize a little-noticed mechanism of indirect EU effects on national politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the potential of the open method of co-ordination (OMC) and of laboratory federalism for policy innovation and learning in a multi-level system of jurisdictions. Our analysis shows that both can be seen as institutions that establish processes of generating and spreading new knowledge about appropriate public policies. However, the respective learning mechanisms are very different: in laboratory federalism learning takes place through a purely non-centralized process of experimentation with different new policies. In comparison, the OMC relies on a benchmarking process carried out on a higher-level jurisdiction from which, in a rather centralized way, policy recommendations are derived. In both cases, serious learning problems resulting from limited transferability of experiences gained with policies and from lacking or distorting incentives arise. We find that to fully use their potential the OMC should become an integral part of laboratory federalism, thus supporting the smooth working of yardstick, interjurisdictional and regulatory competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The EU budget has only recently started to feature in theories of European integration. Studies typically adopt a historical-institutionalist framework, exploring notions such as path dependency. They have, however, generally been rather aggregated, or coarse-grained, in their approach. The EU budget has thus been treated as a single entity rather than a series of inter-linked institutions. This paper seeks to address these lacunae by adopting a fine-grained approach. This enables us to emphasize the connections that exist between EU budgetary institutions, in both time and space. We show that the initial set of budgetary institutions was unable, over time, to achieve consistently their treaty-based objectives. In response, rather than reform these institutions at potentially high political cost, additional institutions were layered on top of the extant structures. We thus demonstrate how some EU budgetary institutions have remained unchanged, whilst others have been added or changed over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regionally based processes of political and economic integration, security co-operation, and even social identification have become increasingly important and prominent parts of the international system. Nowhere have such processes gone further than in Western Europe. Somewhat surprisingly, similar patterns of regional integration have been steadily developing in East Asia – a region many observers consider unlikely to replicate the European experience. This paper uses an historically grounded comparative approach to examine the historical preconditions that underpinned the formation of the European Union, and then contrasts them with the situation in East Asia today. While the overall geopolitical and specific national contexts are very different, such an analysis highlights surprising similarities and differences, particularly in the role played by the United States in both periods. A comparative analysis allows us to understand and rethink the incentives for, and constraints on, regional integrative processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explaining the 'task expansion' of the European Community has been at the heart of neofunctionalism. While previous studies have focused on the transfer of competencies from the national to the European level, this paper also looks at the procedures according to which policy decisions are taken at the European level (scope). Distinguishing between scope and level reveals an interesting puzzle. It is common wisdom that the integration of external and internal security has seriously lagged behind. Since the Maastricht Treaty we have witnessed a significant task expansion of the EU into these two last bastions of national sovereignty. But while the achieved level of integration is rather similar, the scope of integration differs significantly. Justice and home affairs have subsequently been brought under the supranational framework of the first pillar. Common foreign and security policy and European defence policy, by contrast, are still firmly confined to the realm of intergovernmentalism. This disparity between level and scope of European integration poses a serious theoretical challenge-not only to neofunctionalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union's immigration policy develops cautiously. Nation-states view immigration control policy as critical to maintaining sovereignty and are slow to relinquish their policy monopoly. This paper analyses the Commission's 2001 communication on an open method of co-ordination in immigration policy, which proposes the creation of a European immigration regime of co-ordination, lacking the imposition of binding external conditions or quotas. Upon tracing the development of EU immigration policy and discussing the OMC and its soft law character, the ‘Communication’ is reviewed. A survey of its main tenets shows that while security thinking remains prominent, there is equal emphasis upon liberalization and co-ordination. ‘Fortress Europe’ is far from inevitable. However, though the OMC appears to be an appropriate mechanism for effecting co-ordination leading to a common regime, the member states have not embraced the format to avoid the further introduction of new ideas and actors into the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union's response to the COVID-19 pandemic revealed changes and continuity in the structure and the functioning of the European project. In lieu of a conclusion to the Special Issue, this article discusses what those lessons tell us about how Europe responds to the following crisis. We compare European responses to the pandemic to those that followed the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We observe more differences than similarities. The same actors do not always play the central role, solidarity among Europeans is sometimes more challenging to engineer, and the requirements to make the overall project more resilient can point in different directions. Such findings show that any argument that Europe is forged through crisis is unlikely to tell us much about what Europe is or where it may be headed. In that sense, the EU is a sui generis multi-level, multi-faceted actor that can change shape in response to events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2006, the European Commission released its Global Europe Communication, in which it announced a shift from a multilateral to a bilateral trade strategy. One of the key pillars of this new strategy was to strengthen the bilateral trade relations with key Asian countries. In contrast to existing analyses that focus on European Union (EU) decision-makers’ agency, we propose an explanation for this notable shift in the EU's trade policy that stresses the political role of import-dependent firms. In light of the increasing integration of such firms into global value chains, the article argues that a plausible case can be made, both theoretically and empirically, that import-dependent firms had a clear stake in the signing of preferential trade agreements between the EU and Asian countries and that their lobbying efforts significantly affected the EU's decision to start negotiations on such agreements with South Korea, India and Vietnam. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Political feasibility (or infeasibility) is often associated with target-group support (or opposition) of specific policy alternatives. We argue that target-groups' capacity to influence the spectrum of politically feasible policy options tends to be higher when (1) target groups control resources needed by decision-makers, that (2) are agenda-setters and/or veto players in the decision-making process. In the 2008 revision of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) exemptions from the basic principle of full auctioning of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions allowances can all be traced to target-group interest representation by single veto players or blocking minorities in the European Council and the Council of Ministers. Our analysis indicates that target groups succeeded in constraining the spectrum of politically feasible policy options to the extent that their positions were unified and threats to shut down or relocate activity were perceived to be relevant, severe and credible. Our findings confirm both the significance and the limits of portfolio assignment in the Commission. Even with Directorate General (DG) Environment in an agenda-setting role, target groups acquired exemptions through their relations with veto players in the Council. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers what light historical institutionalism (HI) may be able to shed on the European Union's (EU's) timescape. Drawing on Paul Pierson's work Politics in Time it reviews what HI has to say about the dual dynamics of path dependent incremental development and radical change (termed punctuated equilibrium or critical junctures) as well as relating to timing, sequencing and long-term processes. It then suggests three areas of EU studies for exploring these contrasting dynamics, namely the integration process as a whole, EU policy dynamics and Europeanization. Applications of HI in EU studies have tended to be empirical and have often neglected to engage with the temporal theorizing embraced by Pierson. The special issue's appeal for a new research agenda on the EU timescape offers the opportunity, it is argued, to rectify the insufficiency of theoretical reflection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why did two rounds of EU constitutional reform held within a five-year period yield very different results? The 2000 IGC resulted in the modest Treaty of Nice, whereas the 2002-04 round drafted the Constitutional Treaty which, although it did not involve major substantive changes, did mark a major symbolic step forward. This article argues that the change in outcomes can to a large degree be explained by the change in negotiating structure due to the use of a convention that drafted most of the Constitutional Treaty's text, creating a context which privileged MEPs. While the outer bounds of the possible were set by governments, the EP was able to build coalitions around ambitious yet realistic positions, leading to a final text that was a major symbolic step forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article suggests that the neofunctionalist theoretical legacy left by Ernst B. Haas is somewhat richer and more prescient than many contemporary discussants allow. The article develops an argument for routine and detailed rereading of the corpus of neofunctionalist work (and that of Haas in particular), not only to disabuse contemporary students and scholars of the normally static and stylized reading that discussion of the theory provokes, but also to suggest that the conceptual repertoire of neofunctionalism is able to speak directly to current EU studies and comparative regionalism. Neofunctionalism is situated in its social scientific context before the theory's supposed erroneous reliance on the concept of 'spillover' is discussed critically. A case is then made for viewing Haas's neofunctionalism as a dynamic theory that not only corresponded to established social scientific norms, but did so in ways that were consistent with disciplinary openness and pluralism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explains why open policy co-ordination has not yet gone very far in innovation policy. We claim that the multi-level character of innovation policies and the diversity of national innovation systems are major stumbling blocks to applying the OMC in this policy area. So far, these two peculiarities of innovation policies prevented ‘vertical policy co-ordination’ and ‘horizontal policy learning’, which have both been heralded as the main goals of applying the OMC. Acknowledging these features of innovation policies, this article argues that the OMC is only likely to constitute a valuable mode of governance if national and regional specificities are carefully taken into account, if actors at each territorial level are considered during the entire policy process, and if qualitative benchmark indicators are developed which consider the diversities of national innovation systems and regional idiosyncrasies. We explore our argument with respect to Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite extensive research examining the implications of European integration, the determinants of national adaptation to EU legislation remain poorly understood. There is particular debate as to whether successful adaptation is determined by the compatibility of national and European procedures and practices ('goodness-of-fit'), or domestic institutional veto points. When implementing the Packaging Waste Directive, Britain introduced new legislation swiftly despite severe mismatches between European and national standards and regulatory styles. However, the German government encountered prolonged difficulties negotiating domestic veto points despite making only incremental changes to existing legislation. Whilst this contradicts 'goodness-of-fit' explanations of integration, the situation was reversed for implementation of the Directive's environmental objectives, with Germany exceeding European requirements but Britain struggling to achieve compliance. It is argued that although institutional vetoes are important during transposition, national resistance is often prompted by poor policy fit during both legal and practical implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the processes through which the European Union has become a major actor in national media regulation. The European Union is not viewed as a monolith but as a constellation of institutions that pursue Europeanization with different policy instruments and intersecting agendas. Therefore, the article illustrates how the European Commission (in turn, operating through different Directorates-General and the Merger Task Force), the European Court of Justice and the European Parliament have successfully constrained and ultimately 'Europeanized' the policies of five member states (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK). The ensuing pattern is one of policy convergence – a result that is somewhat surprising considering the usual argument that the impact of the European Union is refracted by institutional structures that produce national modes of adaptation to Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The EU influences the development of governance in central and eastern Europe through its accession process in ways that go well beyond its official competences in the current member states. However, the EU's impact is diffused by the complexity of actor constellations involved. Moreover, it lacks the comprehensive institutional templates that would be needed to shape political institutions into an identifiably 'EU' mould. Instead, EU influence interacts with other pressures, both external and internal, becoming woven into domestic debates about institutional change. Accession conditions and negotiations privilege a relatively small group of central government officials over other political actors. The lack of involvement of parliamentarians and wider society in the accession process could, in turn, exacerbate the EU's own democratic deficit after enlargement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thirty years after 1989 Europe is once again divided, despite 15 years of integration within the European Union. In contrast to the West's liberal conception of internationally constrained democracy rooted in the protection of individual human rights, Central Europe has developed an illiberal version centred on the popular sovereignty of the nation. I argue that these divergent understandings of democracy and the nation-state are rooted in collective memory. Whereas the West's historical imaginary is based on the traumas of Nazism associated with 1945, Central Europe's is dominated by the legacy of communism symbolically signified by 1989. These differing understandings of past teach strikingly different lessons for the present: one focused on the dangers of nationalism, the other on protecting national self-determination from external interference. The future of the EU depends on its ability create a broader historical narrative that can incorporate both the lessons of 1945 and 1989. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reviews the current study of the European Union (EU), where a new agenda is emerging under the umbrella of 'new governance'. Despite its eclecticism, this agenda argues that the EU is not a state, but is a unique system of non-hierarchical, regulatory and deliberative governance. This agenda also conceptualizes the EU as sui generis, explains its development primarily by (new) institutional theory, and suggests that legitimacy is guaranteed through transparent, pareto-efficient and consensual outputs. Nevertheless, this agenda is open to criticism on empirical, methodological, theoretical and normative levels. Such a dialectic suggests a new duality in the study of the EU: between the new governance approach, and a less developed rival agenda, which treats EU politics and government as not inherently unique, compares the EU to other political systems, explains outcomes through rational strategic action, and suggests that legitimacy can be guaranteed through classic democratic competition over inputs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses upon the problem of policy co-ordination and employs an account of co-ordination between technical systems developed by Fritz W. Scharpf (Scharpf 1994) as the framework within which to explore multi-level environmental policy-making between the European Union (EU) and the countries of Central Europe (CE). Current EU-CE environmental policy co-ordination is characterized as relying upon techniques of technical unification (or 'one-way harmonization') and processes of hierarchical imposition (reflected in 'asymmetrical policy relations'). The article concludes by reviewing the potential advantages of 'policy interface' techniques and 'negotiation-based' co-ordination processes within the EU-CE environmental policy relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union (EU) has to date failed to implement an effective response to the climate change issue. This article identifies a number of explanatory factors. It argues that, first and foremost, the proposed strategy hinged on measures in two areas which have traditionally been the prerogative of the member states, namely energy and fiscal policy. In a general climate of subsidiarity, there has been little readiness (especially by some member states) to cede more sovereignty. Furthermore, other issues, such as lack of strong leadership, uncertainty about costs, economic concerns and heavy industrial lobbying, have also influenced policy developments. The lack of effective EU-level measures means that emission reductions will depend on action in the member states, at national, regional and local levels. However, the article finds relatively few incidences of effective policies being implemented at other levels of decision-making and a general lack of co-ordination between the different levels. It thus comes as no surprise that the achievement of the EU's CO2 stabilization target for 2000 now looks increasingly uncertain. The article concludes that, despite some positive signs, there appears to be a lack of political will to establish an effective EU-level response to the problem of climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The British government's position in the 1996 IGC will reflect long-standing policy positions that have been shared by both main parties. This consistency in policy was partly masked by the tone of British statements on Europe during the Thatcher premierships. However, there was a change of tone when Major came to office, and this was followed by successful British diplomacy in the 1991 IGC on political union, with the result that, on the issues that are under discussion in the 1996 IGC, Britain is largely a status quo state. The government will resist far-reaching changes to the Treaty on European Union, especially any erosion of the three-pillar structure and any further extension of the competences of the European Community. However, it will want to see institutional changes agreed that will pave the way to further enlargement. In these objectives it is likely to find allies because the European Union as a whole has been moving in the British direction since Maastricht, because of public hostility to further integration, the collapse of the federalist coalition, and the 1995 enlargement. However, the influence of Conservative backbenchers is making it more difficult for the present government to adopt the right tone in negotiations. The policies of the Labour Party do not differ markedly from those of the Conservatives, except on social policy, and if there is a change of government before the end of the IGC, the removal of the so-called 'Euro- sceptic' influence on the diplomatic tone of the government might help Britain to achieve its objectives even more successfully than the present government could. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea that internal inclusion requires external exclusion features prominently in many theoretical accounts of modern statehood and citizenship. In a similar vein, it has been argued that internal freedom of movement in the European Union requires strict immigration control at its external borders. This article sheds light on the relationship between internal de-bordering and external re-bordering, making two main contributions. First, we theorise the idea of an integration-demarcation conditionality based on the European Union's symbolic legitimacy and functional needs. Second, we test the common belief that public support for free movement within Europe depends on a restrictive border regime for non-European immigration. For this purpose, we assess how the external shock of the 2015 refugee crisis shaped the bordering preferences of European citizens. We find that the crisis primarily increased citizens' support for external re-bordering, and did not substantially undermine their support for internal free movement. Thus, the large-scale arrival of refugees has not led to a general backlash against open borders and immigration but has, rather, increased public support for the European model of combining internal freedoms with external controls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article assesses the consequences and implications of the rise of European populist parties for European defense cooperation. Focusing on six of the most prominent populist parties in Europe today, we examine their positions along three important defense-related issues: recommended national force posture; integrated military forces; and main national security threats. To determine their position on these three issues, we examine every party manifesto and, if available, official party document on security and defense policy since 2010. We argue that the rise of populism in Europe does not represent an inflection point for the future of European defense cooperation. Instead, our analysis reveals the following three findings: European defense cooperation will continue to be essentially ad hoc, functionally driven, and issue specific; populist parties' attitudes and preferences regarding European defense cooperation both overlap with and diverge from those of other populists and non-populists in the EU; and populism over time may contribute to a shift in domestic preferences toward a Europe that more readily embraces military power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The right of citizens to live and work in any member state is a foundational pillar of the European Union. The views of EU citizens on free movement are characterized by a puzzle: the border-free Europe is seen as the most important achievement of European integration but also appears as a main driver of Euroscepticism. In this article, I argue that this is because of a tension between citizens' own mobility rights and the mobility rights of citizens from other EU countries. This idea of ambivalence towards free movement is tested with observational data and a survey experiment across 28 EU countries. The results suggest that many citizens hold ambivalent views towards free movement due to a tension between the value of one's own mobility and the fear of immigration. Their effective support depends on the relative salience of inward and outward mobility. This finding has important implications for the public support of international integration more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has convincingly been argued that in the United States, immigration is detrimental to welfare state support. In Europe, on the other hand, there is little evidence for such a negative relationship. This article examines whether a particular type of immigration - rapidly escalating intra-European Union (EU) immigration - reduces public support for the welfare state. We argue that because EU states cannot discriminate against resident EU nationals from other countries in the field of social security, intra-EU immigration will negatively affect attitudes towards welfare spending. To test this expectation, we use data from the European Social Survey of 2008, among other sources. The results of our multilevel analyses document a negative relationship between intra-EU immigration and welfare state support, supporting our hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A curious interconnectedness/consent conundrum marks today's world. Whereas states and societies are becoming more closely interconnected, increased proximity need not increase popular acceptance of federal democracy. Nowhere is this conundrum more apparent than in the European Union. The EU is engaged in a process of democratic federalization, but this process is clearly shaped by the interconnectedness/consent conundrum. In the EU democratic federalization unfolds under conditions of polity contestation. This article discusses what we may learn about democratic federalization from reflecting on the EU experience. For that we need adequate analytical tools because no ready-made analytical framework that fully captures democratic federalization is available, certainly not one that is amenable toward resolving the interconnectedness/consent conundrum. This article provides the bare bones of such a framework. The framework consists of the core components or dimensions of democratic federalization, which are devised to address the specific challenges that the interconnectedness/consent conundrum raises. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The recent economic crisis has brought into focus how even open and highly interdependent economies in the European Union try to govern their economies according to territorially defined interests. The aim of this article is to examine an area, online gambling, with the technological and legal conditions that challenge approaches that favour economic patriotism. The article compares two cases, the United Kingdom and Italy, that represent two different models of economic governance to argue that they are similar in which interests they seek to protect and at which level. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Similar to many international public administrations (IPAs), the European Commission has been delegated a range of tasks related to budgeting. The Commission administration enjoys a high degree of autonomy in routine annual budget procedures leading to the adoption of the draft annual EU budgets; it also has a visible influence on inter-institutional budget negotiations. The present contribution analyses how the Commission administration has responded to growing pressures on the EU budget following the recent financial crisis, focusing on changes to its administrative organization and budgeting procedures. Both scholarship on the Commission and previous research on the administrative dimension of budgeting under stress suggest increased centralization as a key response. We find some evidence to support this expectation for the annual budget processes after 2010. Centralization was most pronounced during discussions on the 2014–2020 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), when regular routines came under increased pressure in entangled budget negotiations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article investigates the influence of the institutions that aim to foster democracy in Europe, such as the European Union, European Court of Human Rights and Venice Commission on political party closure cases in Europe, through a comparative study on the Democratic Society Party (DTP) decision in Turkey and the Batasuna decision in Spain. Adopting the theory of communicative action, the arguments presented by the judges in the related reasoned decisions are analysed according to three categories: utility; values; and rights. It is argued that the European norms and principles constitute the main strand of justifications; hence, the European institutions have a considerable right-based influence on national courts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Norwegian energy policy is increasingly made by the European Union (EU), but as a European Economic Area (EEA) member only, Norway lacks representation in EU institutions. This article studies how key Norwegian energy companies and organizations deal with this challenge, asking whether Norwegian interest groups lobby directly in Brussels or lobby in Oslo to influence EU legislation. It finds that although Norwegian interest groups lack access to the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers, they have access to the Commission. Still, they mainly lobby in Oslo, even to influence EU legislation. When lobbying in Brussels, they lobby early in the decision-making process and together with ‘good friends’, mostly European associations. However, these lobbying strategies are insufficient to compensate for lack of representation in EU institutions – which therefore represents a great democratic problem. A case study of the EU 2030 Framework on climate and energy illustrates this democratic challenge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines whether European countries' collective labour standards are converging and if so why. It presents new data on labour protection in 45 European countries and shows that the EU is a labour standards convergence club. It reviews the soft and hard instruments which the EU adopted in order to promote labour standards. The article models the competition, emulation and learning convergence mechanisms using a spatial econometric approach, and shows that EU countries learn from each other's successes and emulate one another. The article thus presents new evidence of the mixture of domestic and cross-national factors which shape labour standards in Europe. It adds to the growing evidence of countries' spatial dependencies in various policy areas. Most importantly, it provides evidence showing that soft co-ordination is an effective instrument which has had a positive impact on labour standards, and has led to horizontal convergence in the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers a first comprehensive overview of the workings of enhanced cooperation in the European Union (EU). Although this form of secondary law differentiation exists since the Amsterdam Treaty, it has only rarely been used so far. In the article, we formulate a theory of when and why enhanced cooperation is used in EU decision-making. Our theory builds on rationalist institutionalism focussing on institutions, preference constellations and the externality structure of policies. We test the plausibility of our theoretical claims by combining comparative and within-case analyses of nine cases. The empirical findings underline that the usage of enhanced cooperation depends to large degrees on the externality structure of the goods under consideration. The article ends with a short normative evaluation of the enhanced cooperation procedure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Orthodox integration scholarship failed to identify the factors leading to the euro area (EA) economic and financial crisis because of weaknesses that Horkheimer identified in ‘traditional’ theory: disciplinary splits and a tendency to idealize from particular instrumental perspectives. By contrast, critical political economy offered a plausible and coherent elucidation of the emergent properties and limits of finance-led capitalism and their concrete manifestation in the EA. This contribution both reviews state-of-the-art critical political economy research on the EA crisis and makes a distinct contribution to it. In addressing the puzzle of why not only the Economic and Monetary Union persists despite morbid symptoms but why crisis management is extending and deepening a discredited finance-led capitalism, the contribution synthesizes theories of transnational class formation and inter-state relations, and proposes that Europe is caught in an ordoliberal iron cage. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The last decades have witnessed a significant shift in policy competences away from central governments in Europe. The reallocation of competences spans over three dimensions: upwards; sideways; and downwards. This collection takes the dispersion of powers as a starting point and seeks to assess how the actors involved cope with the new configurations. In this introduction, we discuss the conceptualization of power dispersion and highlight the ways in which the contributions add to this research agenda. We then outline some general conclusions and end by indicating future avenues of research. Taken together, the collection contributes some answers to the challenge of defining and measuring – in a comparative way – the control and co-ordination mechanisms which power dispersion generates. It also explores the tension between political actors' quest for autonomy and the acknowledgement of their interdependence whilst revealing how, as power dispersion deepens, central governments have sought to both manage and limit it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]