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Emerging scholarship on Ukraine’s wartime European integration and the EU’s reinvigorated enlargement policy have been marked by the focus on intergovernmental matters and member states’ foreign policy coordination. This article challenges this view. First, relying on the neofunctionalist lens, it introduces the notion of a ‘super-spillover’ effect to explain the wartime intensification of Ukraine’s European integration and the plans for Ukraine’s gradual EU accession. It illustrates this notion with the case of Ukraine’s Single Market integration. Second, while reaffirming the neofunctionalism’s usefulness for explaining partner countries’ Single Market integration and EU enlargement under crises, the article points to several weaknesses of the neofunctionalist approach. They include the vagueness of the ‘geographical spillover’ concept and the lack of theorisation as to the sequencing of and the interplay between various spillover logics under crises. It thus contributes to the scholarship on neofunctionalism, EU enlargement policy, Single Market integration and EU-Ukraine relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ever since Ernst Haas' ground-breaking work on European integration, scholars have been theoretically divided over who or what are the drivers of European integration, mainly between supranationalism or intergovernmentalism. Cutting across the substantive divides have also been differences in analytic frameworks, including rationalist/rational choice institutionalism, historical institutionalism, and constructivist/discursive institutionalism. These cross-cutting methodological cleavages have played out in successive phases of substantive scholarly theorisation, even as alternative developments in theory and practice involving deepening integration and increasing politicisation have complicated such theorizations. While the first phase (late 1950s-1970s) was methodologically pluralist as it divided between neofunctionalist supranationalism and realist intergovernmentalism, subsequent phases were clearly divided also by methodological approach. The second phase (beginning in the 1990s) mainly divided between historical institutionalist supranationalists and rational choice institutionalist liberal intergovernmentalists. The third phase (beginning in the 2010s) divided between 'new' constructivist/discursive institutionalist supranationalists and 'new' constructivist/discursive institutionalist intergovernmentalists. The fourth phase (in the mid to late 2010s) takes greater stock of increasing politicisation while dividing between rationalist/historical institutionalist post-functionalists and constructivist/discursive institutionalist post-functionalists. The conclusion asks how these divides could be more fully bridged in order to achieve more substantive and methodological pluralism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ernst Haas initially formulated neofunctionalism as a theory of incremental regional polity formation, treating crises as anomalies. Subsequent revisions of the theory incorporated crises as recurring phenomena. This paper introduces a novel conceptualisation and analysis of recent European Union crises, framing them as effects of and challenges to its regulatory polity. It distinguishes between 'failures' and 'attacks', aligning them with the capacity and community-building dimensions of polity formation. Failures, rooted in capacity deficits, prompt capacity development to sustain common policies, varying with international interdependence among member states. In contrast, attacks arise from contestations of constitutive values, necessitating community demarcation through enhanced unity among defenders and exclusion of attackers. The speed and scope of demarcation depend on the attacker's membership position. Through a comparative analysis of the euro, migration, Covid, Brexit, rule of law, and Russia crises, the study illustrates and substantiates its theoretical argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the interplay of various factors, such as the war between Russia and Ukraine and the changes in Afghanistan, the strategic importance of the five Central Asian countries has significantly increased. Following the Russia-Ukraine war, Japan’s Central Asia policy has focused on fostering spill-over effects and promoting political processes through functional cooperation in low-level political areas. To enhance communication, build trust, and seek political and economic interests, Central Asia’s foreign policy has been adjusted in several ways: improving and enriching the Official Development Assistance (ODA) mechanism for the region, and expanding cooperation from a single focus to a diversified range of fields.

The European Union's (EU's) 'geoeconomic turn' denotes the growing integration of international security considerations into EU economic policies. This article introduces the concept of 'geoeconomic power Europe' to show how this development has the potential to renew debates on the nature of EU power. Most existing conceptualisations of EU power – whether characterised as civilian, normative, market based, regulatory or liberal – tend to focus on the EU's endogenous characteristics. However, the added value of the concept of geoeconomic power is that it redirects attention to the 'co‐constitution' loop between global power competition and the evolution of EU power. In this article, I present an analytical framework that highlights the drivers of EU geoeconomic power and distinguishes between systemic pressures, the intra‐EU policy process and the impact on EU power. I conclude that the concept of geoeconomic power Europe can help to bridge theories of international security and economic interdependence, particularly neorealism and neofunctionalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The activities of the two chambers of the Polish parliament – the Sejm and the Senate – during the twenty years of Poland’s membership in the European Union can be analysed by taking two research approaches, the first of which is universalism, which addresses the civilisational need to build, harmonise, and unify. Universalism, which refers to the neo-functionalism paradigm, has characterised the European activity of both chambers of the Polish parliament. The other perspective is provided by neo-realist particularism, which takes an anti-idealist and anti-utopian stance. It is distinguished by national egotism expressed as an attachment to achieving the nation’s own interests. Today, particularism understood in this way is based on sovereign distinctiveness, independence, and self-reliance. The purpose of this article is to positively verify the hypothesis that the parliamentary dimension of Poland’s membership in the EU observed through the participation of the Sejm and Senate in the process of Europeanisation and de-Europeanisation simultaneously contributes to the dependence and independence of both chambers on the European Union and its institutions. The universalist and particularist approaches have allowed the author of this analysis to reach an empirically-confirmed conclusion that both chambers of the Polish parliament in the period under study had an influence on the following: (1) the political power of the government, reinforcing or sapping it during negotiations; (2) the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of coalition-building in the EU; (3) cooperation with or resistance to the dominance of the parliaments of large EU states; (4) varied responsibility for the integrative system as a united and harmonious whole; and (5) the union of the peoples of Europe or a Europe of Homelands.

The activities of the two chambers of the Polish parliament – the Sejm and the Senate – during the twenty years of Poland’s membership in the European Union can be analysed by taking two research approaches, the first of which is universalism, which addresses the civilisational need to build, harmonise, and unify. Universalism, which refers to the neo-functionalism paradigm, has characterised the European activity of both chambers of the Polish parliament. The other perspective is provided by neo-realist particularism, which takes an anti-idealist and anti-utopian stance. It is distinguished by national egotism expressed as an attachment to achieving the nation’s own interests. Today, particularism understood in this way is based on sovereign distinctiveness, independence, and self-reliance. The purpose of this article is to positively verify the hypothesis that the parliamentary dimension of Poland’s membership in the EU observed through the participation of the Sejm and Senate in the process of Europeanisation and de-Europeanisation simultaneously contributes to the dependence and independence of both chambers on the European Union and its institutions. The universalist and particularist approaches have allowed the author of this analysis to reach an empirically-confirmed conclusion that both chambers of the Polish parliament in the period under study had an influence on the following: (1) the political power of the government, reinforcing or sapping it during negotiations; (2) the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of coalition-building in the EU; (3) cooperation with or resistance to the dominance of the parliaments of large EU states; (4) varied responsibility for the integrative system as a united and harmonious whole; and (5) the preferred model of European integration as either an increasingly closer union of the peoples of Europe or a Europe of Homelands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regional integration theory can explain past and present processes of cross-strait integration and disintegration. Historical institutionalism can analyse how the path dependence of the 'One China policy' shapes cross-strait relations until today and how fundamental changes can occur through critical junctures. Neofunctionalism can well explain the dynamics of economic integration through spillovers and spillbacks driven by transnational actors since the 1980s. Liberal intergovernmentalism can shed light on the bargaining processes and their outcomes during the negotiation of various cross-strait agreements under the Ma Ying-jeou administration. Postfunctionalism offers the best explanation for the central role that identity has played in cross-strait relations, in particular since 2014. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do multilevel health care systems evolve? Do they develop in a similar manner, or are their respective paths of evolution more sui generis? The aim of this article is to compare the way in which Canada and the European Union have attempted to coordinate health policy between their component multilevel jurisdictions over time. This article argues that the EU—despite its limited authority over health care—has been better able than Canada to develop a greater capacity for addressing health policy at a supranational level, notwithstanding Canada’s greater federal involvement in financing health care. While the experience of the EU supports the theoretical premises of neofunctionalism (that a certain level of integration will induce even greater integration in other areas, especially in response to crisis), the experience of Canadian health care federalism does not fit that theoretical paradigm. This suggests a limited applicability for neofunctionalist theory across multilevel systems more widely.

Within Europe's regulatory state, industrial policy has largely remained within national governments' remit. Yet, a plethora of new supra- and cross-national industrial policy initiatives have recently emerged whereby the Commission proactively engages in pan-European activities to foster innovation and economic development. This article brings the 'Developmental Network States' (DNS) literature into dialogue with EU integration scholarship to explain both the timing of EU industrial policy's rise since the mid-2010s and the variation in forms of EU integration of different industrial policy functions. Our analysis suggests that the Commission increasingly operates four major developmental functions akin to DNSs and aimed at promoting and protecting the single market. Neofunctionalist theories of EU integration explain these momentous shifts. The timing behind the rise of EU industrial policy is best explained as an interplay of functional, cultivated, and political spillovers, driven especially by the Franco-German realignment on pro-EU industrial policy positions since 2016. Variation in the governance forms of integrated EU industrial policy functions is instead explained in terms of the degree of pre-existing integration of extant policies, the low vs high politics nature of the policy domain and the types of externalities attached to the specific policy area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do multilevel health care systems evolve? Do they develop in a similar manner, or are their respective paths of evolution more sui generis? The aim of this article is to compare the way in which Canada and the European Union have attempted to coordinate health policy between their component multilevel jurisdictions over time. This article argues that the EU—despite its limited authority over health care—has been better able than Canada to develop a greater capacity for addressing health policy at a supranational level, notwithstanding Canada’s greater federal involvement in financing health care. While the experience of the EU supports the theoretical premises of neofunctionalism (that a certain level of integration will induce even greater integration in other areas, especially in response to crisis), the experience of Canadian health care federalism does not fit that theoretical paradigm. This suggests a limited applicability for neofunctionalist theory across multilevel systems more widely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The EU's response to the European 'refugee crisis' has involved parallel efforts to strengthen the EU's capacity for external migration management in the domains of CSDP and AFSJ. To provide a swift response to the 'refugee crisis' in 2015, EU member states decided to utilise existing operational CSDP capabilities as a short-term foreign policy tool. Simultaneously, we have seen an impressive strengthening of the mandate and capabilities of ASFJ actors in external migration governance. Although institutional links between civilian CSDP and AFSJ have existed for over two decades, the parallel task expansion has created new demands for inter-institutional coordination between the two policy areas. Combining neofunctionalist theory with insights from research on inter-institutional overlap, this article argues that responses to neofunctionalist spillover pressures may trigger inter-institutional dynamics, which can involve both cooperation as well as conflict. Empirically, we find that these inter-institutional interactions have had important implications for integration in both policy areas, which cannot be fully understood by studying these policy domains in isolation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the origins and operationalisation of the concept of a 'geopolitical Commission', which has been promoted by President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen since 2019. This concept has been used to guide the stronger co‐ordination of the external aspects of the Commission's work. It is also symptomatic of the growing role of strategic considerations in the Commission's recent initiatives, particularly through the objective of strengthening the EU's 'open strategic autonomy'. To explain this phenomenon, I combine three different theoretical perspectives: neorealism, neofunctionalism, and geoeconomics. I conclude that the geopolitical Commission should be understood as the result of the interactions between exogenous factors – the intensification of global power competition and the rise of geoeconomic strategies – and endogenous factors, such as the rivalry between the Commission and the European External Action Service and the functional link between the Commission's economic powers and international security issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic shook the European Union (EU). The EU responded to the multifaceted challenge with an integrative leap forward. Member States substantially increased their investment in existing health policy tools such as civil protection and financing for health initiatives. There was innovation in EU law, where a process of redefining public health began, and in strategies for vaccines and pharmaceuticals, where the EU took on a direct and significant role in medicines procurement for the first time. We use the framework of neofunctionalism to analyse developments in health policy during the pandemic to further understand the dynamics of integration and, in particular, to understand why EU Member States opted for further integration in response to the pandemic. As neofunctionalism might predict, Member States solved problems born of integration with more integration: preserving the internal market, insuring against disasters, preventing border closures and enhancing EU power in vaccine development and procurement. Reflecting decades of entrepreneurs who had created various mechanisms, they primarily built on pre-existing, if often weak, structures and enhanced EU governance more than competences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study was conducted using comparative quantitative and qualitative analysis of World Bank and International Monetary Fund data for 1989-2020 and 2000-2020. Two-factor linear econometric models of economic growth in 11 countries of Central and Eastern Europe (depending on their exports and debt) were built on the basis of such analysis. The study also relied on data from the Pew Research Center's Spring 2019 Global Attitudes Survey regarding EU citizens' attitudes toward integration. The research findings were used to examine the causes and consequences of European integration for the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Since 2004, when the first wave of EU enlargement took place, the combined weight of the economies of Central and Eastern Europe in relation to the EU has increased from 6.7% to 10.8% in 2020. On the other hand, none of the countries that have joined the EU have reached Europe-wide labor productivity. Assessment of the possible accession of other countries of the former eastern bloc revealed that Kazakhstan, where productivity in 2020 reached 58.4% of the average achieved in the EU, has the most enabling economic environment. In this context, Kazakhstan outperformed Bulgaria, where such a parameter amounted to 53.5%. During 1995-2000, the multiple of the ratio between the minimum and maximum levels of per capita GDP in the group of countries under study ranged from 6.3 to 7.7 times. Fifteen years after the first wave of accession to the EU, this figure has decreased to 2.5 times. Proposals to reduce regional economic inequality based on the econometric models have been developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that Jeffrey Alexander's The Civil Sphere constitutes the first sociological theory of civil society, a theory with its own developmental history. That history includes the trajectory of Alexander's career prior to his simultaneous turn to cultural sociology and civil society. The former led him to develop what he calls a 'strong program,' while the use of the term 'civil sphere' serves to distinguish his approach to civil society from other articulations, past and present. This includes viewing the theory as offering a more realistic understanding of the prospects for and impediments to liberal democracy. Conceived at the outset as an ongoing project, rather than the last word on the topic, we review how that project has shifted from the work of one prominent theorist to a global network of scholars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of European Policy Analysis is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The European Defence Fund (EDF) has been interpreted by a number of scholars as a step beyond intergovernmental cooperation and towards the introduction of supranationalism in defence policy. We suggest that past developments in space policy can be a guide for developments in the defence area given the functional dependencies between the two fields and their institutional similarities. Based on this, we believe that the Commission will be unable to convert its new authority over the EDF into actual influence over use of force. On the contrary, the EDF may signal that European defence industrial policy is increasingly motivated by civilian and predominantly commercial considerations, dissociated from the operational objectives of national defence policies. Like the EDF, the European Union's (EU's) space programmes involve the supranational financing of militarily relevant capabilities. We argue that Member States have accepted supranationalism in space policy insofar as the Commission was able to civilianize matters of industrial governance and keep them separate from the conduct of military operations. We show that the EU implemented civilian programmes in areas that were otherwise driven by national militaries. In instances where civilianization was impossible, Member States' security interests are preserved through intergovernmental modes of decision-making, even within purportedly 'community'-driven processes. Member States have also retained significant control over future developments by exploiting a web of overlapping institutions and hazy task allocation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Three Seas Initiative harks back as another version of strategic integration in the Central and Eastern Europe. Based on the Neofunctionalism, a functional-based regionalism is expected to take roots in the region with the spillover effect into the political and institutional levels; therefore, the main question of the research study is: what is the effect of the EU on the regionalism in the Central and Eastern Europe? The hypothesis of this research states that the EU's highly developed institutional arrangement has led to a specific type of regional arrangement to take place in the CEE under the Three Seas Initiative, which lacks highly supranational institutionalism, even though it maintains high functional and political dimensions. The main research question was investigated using the qualitative method, namely descriptive method within the theoretical framework of Neofunctionalism. Results indicate that while Central European regionalism is under the effect of political and functional spillover as well as spill-around in institutionalization, the divide between Central European conservative and Western liberal values has been used by Eurosceptic parties to accelerate the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research seeks to contribute to the literature on how to utilize the explanatory approaches of European Integration Theory to understand the broad and complex nature of the European integration dynamics and its politics in times of crises. The recent literature encourages the scholars to remain open to pluralism of approaches and shows that Neo-functionalism provides much convenient account to understand short- and medium-term outcomes of the European Union's crises decide in comparison to (New, Liberal) Intergovernmentalism and Post-functionalism. Nevertheless, Neo-functionalist theorizing requires further investigation to shed light on its potential to deeply examine European integration dynamics in times of crises. This research argues that Margaret Archer's Morphogenetic approach provides a convenient metatheoretical foundation for Neo-functionalist kind of theorizing, especially in terms of spill-over and counter-vailing forces logics, and to engage with pluralism of the approaches within a larger Neo-functionalist framework. For this purpose, the revised Neo-functionalism of Arne Niemann is fused with the Morphogenetic explanatory approach and, the main explanatory concepts of (New) Intergovernmentalism and Post-functionalism are accommodated within a larger Neo-functionalist framework. The research presents explanatory reflections on the post-crisis management of the Schengen regime followed by the 2015 Migration crisis, and its medium-term European Union level governance and regulation outcomes through various kinds of spill-over forces and feedback loops within the nexus of the interaction between supranational, governmental, and non-governmental actors, alongside the rules, procedures and norms triangle of the EU Politics. The research concludes that the Schengen regime has been updated after the Migration crisis as a result of the unforeseen consequences of the earlier institutional arrangements and the entrepreneurship activities of its emergent properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ESDP is always one of the most significant policies of the EU for shaping both foreign relations and the integration process. After security and defense issues have become more important due to political developments since the beginning of 2000s, the ESDP has started to move towards the CSDP. From ESDP to CSDP and today's new initiatives, the EU has taken good steps for further integration. Although new tools brought by the Lisbon Treaty like mutual defense and solidarity clauses and new initiatives which aim to move the CSDP one step further such as EUGS, PESCO, and EDF could lead to long-term results in bolstering the EU's defense capabilities, EU Member States ask for cooperation efficiently in research and acquiring new military capabilities. Analyzing the period from the ESDP to the CSDP by applying neofunctionalist integration theory with a particular focus on new tools and initiatives launched after the Lisbon Treaty came into force, this paper aims to demonstrate that even the pauses in further integration efforts in the defense security and defense issues take place, the EU is continuing to follow a possessed path going to a common security and defense policy.

This article examines perspectives on the creation of the first supranational electoral management body. Initiatives to establish the EU Electoral Authority directly derive from the proposal of introducing transnational lists for the European Parliament elections. In the academic literature, there is a tendency to overlook what the proposed electoral reform entails for EU policy in the area of electoral governance. To address this issue, neofunctionalism is applied as a means to provide a systemic interpretation of the process of creating the EU Electoral Authority. Insights into the dynamics and countervailing forces driving the establishment of EU electoral governance considerably deepen our understanding of how electoral regulations develop at the level of the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The principle aim of this article is to analyze EU’s response to the covid-19 pandemic within the ambit of measures incorporated to tackle the economic fallout and health-related problems. The article makes use of two important theories of European integration, i.e., liberal intergovernmentalism and neofunctionalism in its explanatory capacity to describe actions taken by both the member states and the supranational institutions in mitigating the adverse effects of the pandemic. The article argues that while no one theory completely explains the European response to the pandemic, both the theories offer different perspectives in how the EU member states reacted, within the power of their national capabilities and the collective response measures initiated at the level of EU supranational institutions.

European Defence is in a new and formative phase in which the European Union's long list of defence acronyms has steadily grown. One of the most noticeable new policy initiatives is the European Commission's European Defence Fund (EDF). This article consequently investigates and outlines the establishment of the European Defence Fund and the European Commission's new role within the field of security and defence through the lens of revised neofunctionalism. This article thus asks how and through what steps did the EDF come about; and secondly how can neofunctionalism explain the dynamics involved in the establishment of the European Defence Fund. The analysis uses a process-tracing method and draws on interviews with relevant policymakers and officials in Brussels as well as official EU documents. The conclusions argue that the ever-increasing involvement of the European Commission in a policy field close to national sovereignty is starting to blur the traditional dichotomy between intergovernmental and supranational decision-making. In this way, this study contributes to the growing literature on the weakening of intergovernmentalism within the EU security and defence policy field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent years have witnessed renewed efforts to advance integration in the EU's Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), including in the domain of military and civilian capability development. The adoption of a Civilian CSDP Compact (CCC) and the creation of a European Peace Facility (EPF) are prominent examples of recent steps taken towards further integration. Still, despite recent progress, CSDP reforms have often been slow to materialise, lag behind the reform ambitions of key EU foreign policy actors, and fail to address important shortcomings experienced by CSDP. This article addresses why this might be by exploring the evolution of CSDP crisis management through a failing forward approach, which charts the course of integration dynamics, identified by neofunctionalism and liberal intergovernmentalism, through time, revealing its cyclical nature. Our case studies of the EPF and the CCC demonstrate how the long-term integrative dynamics in EU military and civilian crisis management are marked by a cycle of crisis followed by incomplete institutional reforms, policy feedback, experiential learning and subsequent, yet again incomplete, efforts to remedy institutional shortcomings and policy failure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This conceptual paper examines the development of global citizenship education (GCE) by looking at economic regionalism's political economy. First, this paper situates the Caribbean Community's (CARICOM) citizenship education initiatives within the larger scope of global citizenship. Using a historical policy analysis, this article then explores the nexus between economic integration and the construction of citizenship by analysing CARICOM's Human Resource Development (HRD) 2030 Strategy. In examining the HRD 2030 Strategy, it can be seen how the influence of both regional and global needs is being integrated into an initiative to standardise citizenship for an economically competitive Caribbean. Through the lens of neofunctionalism and intergovernmentalism, we reveal how the Ideal Caribbean Person initiative is a concept of regional citizenship created by regional economic policies and structural institutions. We conclude by arguing that the construction of global citizenship education at the regional level is, therefore, the consolidation of regional norms and their translation into a global context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper intends to advance thinking on the catalysts of V4 railway policy making by offering an overview of the nature and directions of spillovers triggering joint Visegrád railway projects. The Czech, the Hungarian, the Polish and the Slovak governments help each other adopt international railway traffic standards and legislation as the Visegrád Cooperation provides a forum to agree on lobbying positions within international organisations. By citing real-life examples of V4 railway cooperation supporting the neofunctionalist or the liberal intergovernmentalist theoretical frameworks, the paper shall contribute to the better understanding of the spillover phenomena in Central Eastern Europe, while seeking answers on how international railway policies shape the Visegrád Cooperation’s transport strategies through different spillovers. The paper concludes that in Visegrád countries, spillovers are primarily driven by governmental actions that serve as mediators of market, civil society, and financial needs. However, spillovers would hardly take place without the EU’s legal-institutional framework.

This article investigates the trajectory the EU’s policy on the integration of migrants has followed in approximately 20 years of its existence. Drawing upon neofunctionalist theory, it aims to assess whether the EU’s role in the matter is expanding or stalling. Empirically, this article considers the succession of financial schemes explicitly tackling integration, in light of the fact that they constitute valuable indicators of the direction, breadth and stringency of a given policy. I therefore compare the funds allocated to integration in the 2007-2013, 2014-2020 and 2021-2027 multiannual financial frameworks. I find that the process underway is dual: whilst the EU’s role is clearly receding in terms of substantive policy points, it appears to be widening on the procedural side.

Copyright of Medunarodni Problemi is the property of Institute of International Politics & Economics and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In order to better understand the Poland-EU conflict over the rule of law I interviewed selected Polish Members of European Parliament [MEPs] on EU integration in the peak of the controversy in 2018. Drawing from discourse analysis and "practice turn" in European studies I studied the MEPs narratives. They appeared to be deeply rooted in two discourses: neofunctionalism and intergovernmentalism, both considered as dominant narratives in the EU studies. As right-wing MEPs were convinced the EU was politically biased, protecting sovereignty played a crucial role in their narratives regarding the rule of law conflict. The European People's Party [EPP] and Socialists and Democrats [S&D] MEPs emphasized the need to abide by EU rules, but their attitude towards imposing sanctions against Poland was mixed. In the rule of law conflict they didn't firmly stand by its side as a polity protecting its laws. The notion of sovereignty showed cleavages in their narratives, usually full of belief in the supranational community of values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The EU has integrated core state powers in a largely unsustainable manner. Why is this? In this introduction to a special issue on Germany, we take an in-depth look at national preference-formation. We trace the impact of state elites, as emphasised by functionalist theories, and mass publics and political parties, as stressed by postfunctionalism. We find that across policy fields and with striking continuity over time, Germany acts as a normal member state. The country prefers the regulation of national capacities over the creation of European capacities, and (increasingly) the intergovernmental rather than supranational control of those capacities. Only in existential crises, Germany supports European capacity-building under intergovernmental control. This leads to unstable integration but is not an indicator of hegemonic dominance. Crucial from both a practical and theoretical perspective, there exists no major gap between state elites and political parties or public opinion on German preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a qualitative research on the concept of political integration. It represents a case study of the concept of political integration appearing in the theory of neofunctionalism. The research focus could be identified with the concept of political integration, in the perspective of the theory of neofunctionalism. The purpose of this research paper is the cognition of various types of the concept of political integration and its activating, from the perspectives of neofunctionalism. In the scope of this paper, for the purpose of the research, the content analysis method and comparative method are used. Also, a special accent is laid on the terms of integration in a political sense, the term of political integration as a part of this broader one and the concept of spill-over effect. Within the concept of political integration, it could be understood various types of political integration. In parallel, the concept of the spill-over effect is examined as a concept with a huge role in the theory of neofunctionalism. The synthesis of the two mentioned concepts, the one of political integration and the one of spill-over effect, would answer the question of the activating the process of political integration, and its potential dependence of existing other types of integration in a political sense.

In June 2017, the European Commission launched a proposal for a European Defence Fund (EDF) aimed at financing transnational defence research and development through the European Union (EU) budget. This initiative has been described as a 'game changer' for European defence cooperation. I argue that the EDF can be analysed through the lens of neofunctionalist theory and challenges the hypotheses of new intergovernmentalism on the evolution of EU governance. The EDF is also marked by some innovative features, largely because it concerns a policy area – defence – in which supranational dynamics were traditionally limited. First, the Commission displayed an increasingly political cultivated spillover by its promotion of the EDF. Second, the EDF illustrates a new type of offensive functional spillover from the economy to defence. Third, the implementation of the EDF has launched a bureaucratic spillover that could lead to further initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution analyses if and under what conditions bottom-up pressures constrain the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). Neofunctionalists famously explained the power of the Court by its use of 'law as a mask and shield'. Due to its technical nature, the Court is able to mask the political substance of 'integration through law' and to shield it from political challenges. We revisit this argument in times of politicisation of the EU and develop a typology of four constellations depending on different kinds of bottom-up pressures. We argue that depoliticised integration through law still functions, to varying degrees, in face of either governmental contestation or public politicisation. By contrast, if member state governments and the public jointly oppose further integration through law, the Court is constrained as further expansive jurisprudence could even reinforce politicisation and risk political backlash. We illustrate our argument with case law on EU citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The functional pressures shaping policy design may be disrupted in salient policies and politicised contexts, according to recent postfunctionalist/new intergovernmentalist theories. We contrast these expectations with those derived from liberal intergovernmentalism and neofunctionalism by analysing the reforms of the European Union economic governance. Its Council-centred enforcement, which has been a dominant feature until the euro crisis, despite noncompliance, does not sit comfortably with traditional theories but can be explained by policy salience and implementation uncertainties. Instead, the emphasis that traditional approaches assign to noncompliance, commitment problems, threats of exclusion and veto, issue linkages, path dependencies and supranational decision-making, allows to adequately account for the overall direction of reforms toward more tightening and delegation, notwithstanding the pooled enforcement in recent ancillary measures. Postfunctionalist theories overall fall short in highly politicised contexts, exactly where they should do most of the explaining. We conclude discussing politicisation as a strategic elite response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]