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Samenvatting EU Politics and Policy
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Samenvatting van het vak EUPP
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Hoorcollege 1What is European Union?
- Unidentified Political Object
- Depending on where you stand in politics, you identify EU in a different way
Nation: a community whose member identify with each other based on shared language, ancestry,
history, culture, territory, religion, myths and symbols
- EU has some symbols: flag, hymn, (euro), but is not really a nation
State: a legal and political arrangement through which all large-scale political communities are
organized, combining government population, legitimacy, territory and sovereignty
- EU is seen by people very negative about EU as a superstate
- Not a stand alone state -> always in relation to national state
Federation: a system of administration involving two or more levels of government with autonomous
powers and responsibilities
- EU: states are member states, but who is central government?
- Monnet-method: the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community as a first
step towards more integration on other areas with the eventual achievement of a
European federation
- Altiero Spinelli (criticism): no political center or leadership to push this ‘method’
along. All structure, no agency
Confederation: a group of sovereign states with a central authority deriving its authority from those
states, and citizens linked to the central authority through the states in which they live
- No direct link between people and central government
International organization: a body set up to promote cooperation between or among states, based
on the principles of voluntary cooperation, communal management and shared interests
- International nongovernmental organization (NGO): members are representatives of private
associations
- Intergovernmental organization (IGO): members are states and goal is to promote
cooperation among state governments
EU: somewhere between federation and confederation
EU as political system: multilevel governance
- Government <-> governance
- EU government: idea that EU institutions constitute a level of authority above that of the member
states, and that they have powers to make laws and drive the political agenda
- EU governance: arrangement in which laws and policies are made and implemented as a result of
interactions among a complex variety of actors, including member state governments, EU
institutions, interest groups and other sources of influence
Recap MLG
- About governance, not government
- Not hierarchically ordered relationships
- Negotiated order and not defined by formalized legal framework
- Political game
,Why integrate?
- Prevent WOIII -> EU (integrate to prevent war)
- Economic growth
Why differentiate integration?
- Differentiated integration: move forward with some member states, give opt-outs to other member
states
- Sweden (euro), Denmark (drinking age?), (United Kingdom)
- Switch in public opinion: from permissive consensus to constraining dissensus
- More countries joining EU -> more diversity between policy and politics of countries within
EU -> more need for differentiation
Why disintegrate?
- Take back control: borders and migration
- Single market yes; free movement of people no
- Less bureaucracy, no spending money on EU projects a member state is ‘not benefitting from’
- Reconnecting with ‘the people’
Explaining continuing integration
- Neo-functionalism (Haas)
- Liberal intergovernmentalism (Moravcsik)
- Historical institutionalism (Pierson)
Ernst Haas
- Functionalism
- A state creates functionally specific interstate institutions and agencies, regional integration
will develop its own internal dynamic and peace can be achieved through the creation of a
web of interstate ties without the need for grand intergovernmental agreements
- Neofunctionalism
- States are not only important actors in efforts to integrate and supranational institutions,
interest groups and political parties all play a key role
- Functional spill-over: policy areas are not isolated but related. Integration in one
domain leads to the need for integration in a second functionally related area
, - Political spill-over: effective problem-solving arrangements invented in one area will
be applied in another area
- Integration is result of spill-over
- Integrative potential
1) Economic quality and compatibility of the states involved
2) Extent to which the elite groups that controlled economic policy in the member states
thought alike and held the same values
3) Presence and extent of interest group activity, the absence of which made integration
more difficult
4) Capacity of member states to adapt and respond to public demands, which depended in
turn on levels of domestic stability and the capacity (or desire) of decision-makers to respond
Andrew Moravcsik
- Intergovernmentalism
- Sees EU primarily as a meeting place in which representatives from the member states
negotiate with each other in an attempt to achieve a consensus, but pursue state interest
while paying less attention to the broader interests of the community of states
- Supranationalism
- In EU, governments of the member states compromise state interests in the common good
and transfer authority to institutions that work in the interests of the EU as a whole
- Liberal intergovernmentalism
- Theory combining elements of neofunctionalism and intergovernmentalism, arguing that
intergovernmental bargains are driven by pressures coming from the domestic level
- Integrations is results of negotiations by member states and determined by ‘national’
interests
Historical institutionalism
- Actors founding the European Community at moment ‘t’ are unlikely to understand the long-term
implications of that founding act
- The preferences of actors at ‘t+n’ will have to operate in a context defined by choices made by
(other) actors at ‘t’
- Emphasis on unexpected consequences of choices made by rational actors
- Path dependencies
- Attention for critical junctions ( = a major event)
How can we explain the process of integration between European countries since WOII?
- Liberal intergovernmentalism
- Expectation 1: EU structure and policy is the result of bargaining between EU member
states
- Expectation 2: European integration only proceeds when in line with national interests of
member states
- Historical institutionalism
- Expectation 1: EU structure and policy is the result of choices made by actors whom are not
perfectly knowledgeable about the consequences of these choices
- Expectation 2: Integration is a path dependent process, often set in motion by a critical
juncture
- Internal market, critical junctures: WOII
- EMU, critical junctures: fall of Berlin Wall/uniting Europe
- Neo functionalism
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