Search

The European Union (EU) has been conceptualized as a regulatory state, i.e., an emerging polity that differs from the classic Westphalian state. Unable to engage in redistribution and stabilization, the EU has specialized in a range of regulatory functions related to market creation and management of externalities. We argue that the European financial crisis is pushing the EU to move beyond regulation. We explore the origins of and responses to the crisis, and examine the ways in which the crisis is creating pressures for stabilization and fiscal policy. Indeed, we argue that significant inroads into these areas have already been made and further changes in the direction of stabilization and fiscal policy are likely, though whether such competences are centralized or decentralized is an open question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political science research on Europeanization has focused too little on the domestic legal-constitutional implications of European legal integration. We address this relative neglect, identifying two models of the impact of European law on domestic judicial discourses and testing them against evidence on the invocation of three EU law concepts within English courts. Contrary to a statist model, which expects judicial discourses to correspond closely with direct importations of European law through the preliminary reference procedure, we find stronger support for an indigenization model in which courts gradually domesticate previously alien concepts. These domesticating discourses offer new insights into domestic political and constitutional orders in the context of European and international legalization. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Contributors to this volume attempt to fashion an endogenous theory of institutional change. The main conceptual vehicle is the incomplete contract. Starting with the assumption that the various treaties of the European Union are contracts (agreements among states), contributors look to the ways in which ambiguities and gaps in these contracts, along with different interests among the institutional actors, create dynamic pressures for change. Differences between designing actors and implementing actors create part of the tension motivating institutional change. This article clarifies the requisite logic of an endogenous theory of institutional change and points to obstacles that need to be overcome for success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a study which focused on integrating institutions. Relationship of the European Union studies to traditional political science subfields; Overview of the rational choice and sociological institutionalist variants; Integration of institutional research.

Analyzes the factors involved in the European integration. Promotion of the core economic interest of Britain, France and Germany; Criticisms on the book 'The Choice for Europe'; Role of ideology or doctrine in European integration.

This article is a reflection on the field of European integration studies, a product of four years of collaboration within the 'Laguna Beach Project.' This project, co-organized by Alec Stone Sweet and Wayne Sandholtz, will be published as Supranational Governance: The Institutionalization of the European Union (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). Three themes are explored in this article: the growing importance of institutions in the EU over time; the changing relevance of different theories, especially reflected in the increasing importance of comparative politics approaches; and an assessment of the current theoretical debate, contrasting several competing theories with the approach outlined in the book. While the EU has experienced profound changes over the last five decades, it is often unnoticed that its scholarly counterpart has changed in important ways too. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]