Summary of the Politics: Europe course taught in the second year and first semester of the BA International Studies at Leiden University. It contains an extensive summary of lectures 1 to 6.
Lecture 1.1: Turning Point Years in Contemporary European Politics
(1989, 2008, 2015/2016, 2020)
1989
- Meaning of 1989 for global politics in the 1990s/2000s?
- Meaning of 1989 for European politics in the 1990s/2000s?
- Changing meaning of 1989 for global politics in the 2000s/2010s?
- Changing meaning of 1989 for European politics in the 2010s?
- The whole world was moving in the same direction: Liberal democracy
- Moment of optimism
- Objective to include Eastern Europe, which was a promise/propaganda in the Cold War
for Western Europe
- Liberation (example: dancing on the Berlin Wall)
- Demand put forward by the new leaders that they should be allowed to join the
European Union
- Changing meaning: A reconceptualization of 1989 in a more negative direction
- Democratic backslide
- Sense of confidence of the direction Post-Cold War was mistaken
- Meaning has shifted
- In 2010s the discourse is overly focused in Hungary and Poland
- Overtime they developed a more darker view of 1989
2008
- What happened?
- What were its major consequences?
- European banks were affected by the economic/financial crisis in the United States
- Wounded up with a severe recession
- Led to the collapse of many governments in Europe
- Outbreak of the sovereign debt crisis in Greece
- Important factors in domestic politics
- East / West divide
1. The Great Recession (Double-dip recession)
2. Sovereign Debt Crisis
3. Eurozone Crisis
4. Austerity Politics
,2015/2016
- What happened?
- What were its major consequences?
- Refugee crisis from September 2015 until around summer 2016
- Conflicts in the European Union has continued
- Elections in Greece January 2015 and Syriza is elected from the radical left
- Germany is more powerful and beats Syriza
- Launched into the migration crisis
1. Election of Syriza and Greek referendum on terms of EU bailout
2. Migration crisis
3. Brexit referendum (and Trump’s election)
2020
- Covid
____________________________
Lecture 1.2: Introduction to European Integration
What is the European Union?
1. An international organization?
- Conceptualize the relationship between states within the European Union and
the states outside of the EU. As an effect, the EU would be an international
organization.
- International treaties as agreements between states. Those treaties are what
European integration is.
- The actors are national actors in the conception of how the EU works.
2. A Polity?
- Key example: EU law unlike international law has direct effect. It is enforceable
and must be enforced by national courts. This is not the case in international
law.
- If the EU is a polity it should be studied like other polities.
- You have created a state-like organization, and therefore you should look for its
comparative politics and political systems.
, - Looks towards existing models of political organization, not international
organization.
- They are less interested in the treaties, and more about what happens in
between the treaties.
3. Sui generis?
- Meaning: unique
- The EU is something new. Nothing like this has ever existed before.
Key Terms
- Sovereignty
- There is no power above, you are the top power
- Federalism
- A system of shared sovereignty between a federal and fault states
- European integration
- Historic origins
- Comes from the term Marshall Plan
- The term is ambiguous and open-ended
- Supranationalism
- Supranational
- Nationalism above one’s state/identity
- Common mechanisms to decision-making (no veto: an official power or right to
refuse, accept or allow a decision or proposal made by a lawmaking body)
- Germany
- Intergovernmentalism
- Intergovernmental
- Is in affect an international organization
- No transfers of sovereignty: A state has a veto or the right to not participate
- Free Trade Area
- Custom Union; Common Market
Coming in the lecture:
- (Neo)functionalism - Ernst Haas; The United of Europe (1958)
- Political and security communities - Karl Deutsch; Political Community and the North
Atlantic Area (1957)
- Schuman Plan (1950), Paris Treaty, European Coal and Steel Community
- Treaties of Rome (1957), European Economic Community
Institutions of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC)
- The ECSC was a combination of supranational elements with intergovernmental
elements. It was a mixed system.
- Creation of a supranational executive which has powers. It has the ability to overrule
governments.
- Council of Ministers: Most powerful institution of the ECSC. This was the representation
of the governments. The main decisions were made in the Council.
ECSC:
, - High Authority (supranational)
- Two commissioners from each country, supposed to operate above national
interests in interests of community as a whole
- In theory could make directives if opposed by member state governments, in
practice it did not
- Council of Ministers (intergovernmental)
- Representatives of member state governments
- Exercised more powers than envisioned in Treaty of Paris
- Court of Justice (supranational)
- Resolve legal disputes between national governments, the directives of the High
Authority, and businesses
- Common Assembly (supranational)
- Unelected, appointed delegates by national parliaments
- Not a legislative body, mostly advisory
- Formal power of censure: could force retirement of entire High Authority
- Consultative Assembly (supranational)
- Corporatist advisory assembly of trade union, employer and consumer
organizations
Forms of Regional Economic Integration
- Free Trade Area:
- Free Trade Area eliminates/limits imports and exports
- Do not need any institutions for this area
- Weakest form of international integration
- Negative integration: Remove barriers within countries
- > ‘Tariffs and quotas are eliminated among members, but each country retains
its tariffs against imports from non-members.’
- Customs Union:
- > ‘Members erect a common external tariff in addition to the free trade area’
- Common Market:
- Free trade area and a customs union
- Free movements of people in between
- Negative integration: Removal of barriers
- Four Freedoms:
1. Freedom of labor
2. Capital
3. Services and persons
4. Creates institutions of cooperation
- > ‘Combines the features of the customs union but with the elimination of
obstacles for the free movement of labour, capital, services and persons (and
entrepreneurship)’ and creates institutions of cooperation
- > These form the ‘Four Freedoms’ in European Integration
- Fiscal Union:
- > A community with a common budget, debts, bonds, and taxes
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