European Union

This book is the fourth in a five-volume series examining the cultural, economic, political, and social changes that have transformed Southern Europe (Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain) in the final three decades of the 20th century. Like the preceding three volumes, it examines the impact of three powerful transformative forces that, in general, have eroded away the “exceptional” status of these countries and moved them toward the mainstream of Western industrialized societies: democratization, socioeconomic modernization, and Europeanization. Four public policy sectors (taxation, environmental protection, social welfare programs, and aggregate levels of social spending) and three institutional arenas of the state itself (the judiciary, public administration, and relationships among the national, subnational, and supranational levels of government) serve as the analytical foci of these studies. In contrast with the rapid, “leapfrogging” processes of political change identified in the first two volumes (especially with regard to democratic consolidation and the emergence of “modern” political parties and patterns of electoral behavior), transformations of the state and public policies in these four countries have entailed considerable time-lags, persisting rigidities in some sectors, and striking divergences in the evolution of state structures. At the same time, there have been substantial cross-national differences and divergences among policy sectors (with taxation, aggregate levels of social spending, and, in Spain, political decentralization evolving rapidly, while other policy domains and state institutions have resisted change). The book concludes that these three broad social forces alone cannot account for these patterns. It concludes that they can only be accounted for by political processes, involving the extent to which institutions or policy subsectors had been closely linked to or autonomous from the former, pre-democratic regime, as well as the resources available to defenders of the status quo.

This book focuses on the impact of European integration on national democracies. It argues that the democratic deficit is indeed a problem, but not so much at the level of the European Union per se as at the national level. This is because national leaders and publics have yet to come to terms with the institutional impact of the EU on the traditional workings of their national democracies. The book begins with a discussion of what the EU is — a new form ofregional statein which sovereignty is shared, boundaries are variable, identity composite, and democracy fragmented. But the main focus of the book is on how the EU has altered national governance practices, thereby challenging national ideas about democracy. It finds that the EU’s ‘policy without politics’ has led to ‘politics without policy’ at the national level. The book also shows that institutional ‘fit’ matters. The compound EU, in which governing activity is highly dispersed among multiple authorities, is more disruptive to simple polities like Britain and France, where governing activity has traditionally been more concentrated in a single authority, than to similarly compound polities like Germany and Italy. The book concludes that the real problem for member-states is not so much that their democratic practices have changed as that national ideas and discourse about democracy have not. The failure has been one of the communicative discourse to the general public — a problem which again has been more pronounced for simple polities, despite political leaders’ potentially greater capacity to communicate through a single voice, than for compound polities, where the coordinative discourse among policymakers predominates.

Few dispute that one of the most pressing issues for the future of Europe is the question of constitutional design. To what extent will unanimity voting in the Council of Ministers be replaced by qualified majority voting and how should these votes be distributed by country? Should the European Parliament assume a meaningful policy making role? How should the Commission be reformed? Generally this debate uses the existing and past experience of the European Union as a basis for future reform. Comparisons with other political systems, and in particular with those systems that devolve power to states, provinces, and regions are rarely attempted. Yet with EMU in place and further deepening of EU responsibilities scheduled, much can be learnt from the experience of other systems and especially established federations. This book shows how in five cases — the US, Canada, Australia, Germany, and Switzerland — the rules established in founding constitutions greatly influenced the ways in which federal-state relations evolved. In some cases, for example Canada, these rules proved inappropriate for the balance of provincial and central power, while in others, such as Switzerland, more favourable institutional rules prevailed. In all cases, political parties have played a major role in brokering this balance of central and regional power. And in all cases, intergovernmental fiscal relations have been central to the debate. This book concludes that because, like Switzerland, the EU is both highly decentralized and heterogeneous, super-majoritarian decision rules should apply to EU decision making. In addition, further checks on central power should be provided through a carefully coded constitution which could only be amended via popular approval in member states.

The Community method is the traditional approach to European integration. However, the method is becoming obsolete, being too rigid to permit institutional and policy innovations, or to apply to politically sensitive areas. For these reasons, the member states of the EU are increasingly willing to commit themselves to common tasks, but wish to act outside the traditional framework. In a Union where national institutions and priorities are much more varied than in the past, it is impossible to force the integration process into a single pattern. The Community method was inspired by a federalist vision, but a federal superstate would be unable to provide the public goods which Europeans take for granted. Lacking legitimacy, the federation would be unable to act decisively even in areas where close cooperation is needed. A confederation built on the solid foundation of market integration offers the only viable model for a EU capable of playing a significant role on the international scene.

This book poses two pertinent questions: First, if a European Executive Order is emerging, how can we empirically see it? Second, if a European Executive Order is emerging, how can we explain everyday decision‐making processes within it? The goal of this book is twofold: First, it identifies key institutional components of an emergent European Executive Order. The nucleus of this Order is the European Commission. The Commission, however, is increasingly supplemented by a mushrooming parallel administration of EU‐level agencies and EU committees. This book provides fresh empirical survey and interview data on the everyday decision‐making behaviour, role perceptions, and identities among European civil servants who participate within these institutions. In addition, this book reveals how an emergent European Executive Order profoundly penetrates the domestic branch of executive government. Secondly, this book claims and empirically substantiates that an emergent European Executive Order is a compound executive order balancing a limited set of key decision‐making dynamics. One message of this book is that an emergent European Executive Order consists of a compound set of supranational, departmental, epistemic, and intergovernmental decision‐making dynamics. Arguably, a compound European Executive Order transforms the inherent Westphalian order to the extent that intergovernmentalism is transcended and supplemented by a multidimensional mix of supranational, departmental, and/or epistemic dynamics. This book also theoretically explores conditions under which these decision‐making dynamics gain prevalence. It is argued that the decision‐making dynamics evolving within an emergent European Executive Order is conditioned by the formal organization of its composite parts and by the social interaction patterns that emerge among the civil servants. Political processes and political systems can neither be adequately understood nor explained without including the organization dimension(s) of executive orders.

The European Union is composed of its member states, yet these states have created and delegated increasing powers to a number of supranational organizations, including the executive Commission, the European Court of Justice and the European Parliament. Drawing from principal‐agent analyses of delegation, agency and agenda setting, this book seeks to analyse and explain the delegation of powers by governmental principals to supranational agents, as well as the subsequent role played by those agents in the process of European integration. The book is divided into two parts. The first part of the book analyses the historical and functional patterns of delegation to the Commission, the Court of Justice and the Parliament, suggesting that delegation to the first two is motivated by a desire to reduce the transaction costs of policy‐making, as predicted by principal‐agent models. By contrast, the delegation of powers to the Parliament fits poorly with such models, and primarily reflects the concern of member governments to enhance the democratic legitimacy of the Union. The second part of the book focuses on the role of supranational agents in both the liberalization and re‐regulation of the European market, and suggests that the Commission, Court and Parliament have played a causally important role alongside member governments as the ‘engines of integration’, but that their ability to do so has varied historically and across issue‐areas as a function of the discretion delegated to them by the member governments.

Over the last thirty years, the European Union (EU) has created a system of environmental governance in Europe. With a large number of legislative measures, the EU's environmental policy is broad in scope, extensive in detail, and often stringent in effect. Environmental governance also extends to the ways in which decision-making on environmental policy has become institutionalised within Europe, both at the level of the EU itself and in the practices of the member states. This book seeks to understand this new system of environmental governance both at the European level and at the level of member states. It argues that the system is multi-level, horizontally complex, evolving, and incomplete. Locating developments at the European level in theories of European integration, it goes on to examine the extent of convergence and divergence in environmental policy among six member states: Germany, Spain, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. It then looks at the operation of the system of environmental governance through an examination of policy case studies before examining the wider political significance of these developments.

Fritz W. Scharpf's renowned joint‐decision trap model has suggested that the requirements of (nearly) unanimous decisions in the EU's Council of Ministers, combined with conflicting preferences among member governments, will systematically limit the problem-solving effectiveness of European policies. Certain conditions have significantly changed during the 25 years of this theory's existence: the unanimity rule has been replaced by qualified-majority voting in most issue areas, and successive rounds of enlargement have augmented the diversity of member state interests and preferences. This book presents a comparative study on the differential politics in EU policies. Looking at the political dynamics in an array of EU activities, it analyses breakthroughs as well as stalemates and asks why leaps occur in some areas whilst blockades characterize others. The dynamics that allow the EU to escape various forms of decision trap are analysed in depth. Such mechanisms are from both the type expected by ‘rationalist’ theorists (supranational-hierarchical steering, Treaty‐base games and arena shifting) and from the kind acknowledged by ‘constructivist’ approaches (socialization). The downside of the findings is that when the EU is confronted with a high degree of problem pressure in a given issue area, these mechanisms will often not be available because most remain outside politicians' immediate grasp.

The European Union's (EU) market integration project has dramatically altered economic activity around Europe. This book presents evidence on how trade has increased, jobs have been created, and European business has been reorganized. The changes in the economy have been accompanied by dramatic changes in how people from different societies interact. This book argues that these changes have produced a truly transnational European society. The book explores the nature of that society and its relationship to the creation of a European identity, popular culture, and politics. Much of the current political conflict around Europe can be attributed to who is and who is not involved in European society. Business owners, managers, professionals, white-collar workers, the educated, and the young have all benefited from European economic integration, specifically by interacting more and more with their counterparts in other societies. They tend to think of themselves as Europeans. Older, poorer, less educated, and blue-collar citizens have benefited less. They view the EU as intrusive on national sovereignty, or they fear its pro-business orientation will overwhelm the national welfare states. They have maintained national identities. There is a third group of mainly-middle class citizens who see the EU in mostly positive terms and sometimes — but not always — think of themselves as Europeans. It is this swing group that is most critical for the future of the European project. If they favor more European cooperation, politicians will oblige. But, if they prefer that policies remain wedded to the nation, European cooperation will stall.