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Working Papers 2024

Explaining the Leadership Vacuum
Germany, the completion of the Banking Union and arms deliveries to Ukraine

Magnus G. Schoeller, Emil Wieringa Hildebrand, Olof Karlsson

WP 01/2024

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Abstract:

While successful leadership in regional and international politics has been analysed and explained at great length, the reasons for its failure are still under-researched. Therefore, we ask in this paper how and why a leadership vacuum comes about. Drawing on rational-functionalist propositions, we argue that the emergence of leadership fails if the realisation of a collective goal requires the would-be leader to compromise their individual interests. Empirically, we apply this argument to Germany’s role in the European Union (EU). While there is little doubt that Germany is in great demand to take the lead, the reasons for its frequent leadership rejection have so far remained in the dark – especially as recent research has shown that the German political elite would actually endorse a leading role for its country in the EU. Based on a fine-grained causal mechanism, the systematic collection and in-depth analysis of 220 media articles, and rigorous process tracing, we therefore compare Germany’s role in two crisis policies: the completion of Europe’s Banking Union – i.e. the European Deposit Insurance Scheme (EDIS) – and the supply of arms to Ukraine. The results demonstrate in detail how vested interests prevent the provision of leadership that would benefit all. Regarding Germany’s role in Europe, the paper thus highlights why many of the leadership demands directed at the EU’s largest member state might be misled. With regard to leadership research and practice in general, the paper provides an explanation for leadership vacuums in international politics and cautions against treating leadership as an altruistic sacrifice.

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Working Papers 2023

Ending The Digital Wild West? Online Content Regulation in the European Union and the United States

Dominik Rubeš

WP 01/2023

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Abstract:

We live in times of great salience of internet governance. In times when the democratic world has generally recognised that the digital industry and modern big tech companies have produced not only progress but also new challenges which desperately need addressing, such as the efficient spread of illegal or otherwise harmful content online. The European Union has been particularly active on this issue: its Digital Services Act passed in 2022 greatly updates the rules around the responsibilities of online platforms for how they manage content. In the USA, however, no such updating has occurred yet. This comparative qualitative analysis based on primary and secondary sources as well as interviews unpacks the main reasons for the regulatory divergence in the period between 2016 and early 2023, which, if lasting, could lead to increasingly different internet experiences for Europeans and Americans, or big complications for the internet companies operating in both markets, and be an indicator of further divergences in other digital policy areas. The paper identifies the different legal frameworks within which policymakers on the two sides of the Atlantic operate as one part of the explanation given especially how the First Amendment jurisprudence ties Americans’ hands regarding government regulation of online content. The second part of the explanation consists of recognizing how the political conditions in the EU have in recent years been favourable to sweeping new digital regulations – with the Union assigning high priority to its digital agenda and reaching broad consensus around its general goals which facilitated the negotiations about specific policies and instruments – while the US government has been far less consistently focused on the issue, and its political class far more polarized about the nature of the problem of online content moderation as well as appropriate responses.

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Working Papers 2022

Mapping continuity and change of goals, protagonists and instruments of EU digital single market governance over three decades

Sebastian Heidebrecht

WP 01/2022

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Abstract:

Against the background of the increasing importance of digital services, the European Commission is creating a Digital Single Market (DSM) to make Europe fit for the digital age. However, challenges related to the platform-dominated e-commerce sector, such as distorted competition and endangered fundamental rights, suggest that its traditional market-liberal governance is not suitable for the digital economy. Based on a historical-institutional analysis of selected Commission policies and legislation on the DSM since the mid-1990s, I illustrate that key DSM governance elements continue the market-liberal principles established over 25 years ago and implemented in the Lisbon period (2000-2010). The DSM period (2010-2020) added some more interventionist layers in the area of data protection. More recently, to address the challenges of “Big Tech” in the early 2020s, the EU is building on these layers and converts its governance approach towards more public interventionist elements. This ultimately empowers the European Commission to supervise very large online platforms.

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WP 01/2022 [pdf]

 

Working Papers 2021

The European Parliament and the Investiture of the Commission -
A first-mover in European Integration?

Katharina Meissner, Magnus Schoeller and Catherine Moury

WP 03/2021

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Abstract:

In numerous areas of European Union (EU) policy-making, the European Parliament (EP) managed to expand its informal institutional rights through the use of bargaining strategies. We put forward a crucial, but largely overlooked bargaining strategy that the EP uses for its self-empowerment: By “moving first”, the EP unilaterally interprets its formal powers by inventing a new informal institutional rule, which it then tries to impose on other actors. We propose that this strategy is successful when it incurs high costs for other actors to return to the status quo ante. In this article, we conceptualize the first mover strategy, embed it in the literature on informal institutional change in the EU, and theoretically deduce the conditions under which the EP gains institutional rights when applying it. Empirically, we demonstrate the significance of moving first in the investiture of the European Commission in five case studies, including the strategy’s failure in the 2019 appointment of Ursula von der Leyen as a negative case study. We thus trace how the EP was able to achieve a considerable institutional empowerment in appointing the executive – starting from a mere right of censure in 1957 to ‘electing’ the European Commission President in 2014 – by making use of a first-mover strategy. In 2019, however, the EP failed with its first-mover strategy due to countervailing dynamics of distributive consequences, timing and a lack of internal consensus.

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WP 03/2021 [pdf]

 

Commodification and Disruption -
Theorizing Digital Capitalism

Timo Seidl

WP 02/2021

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Abstract:

There is little disagreement that digital technologies are transforming contemporary economies and societies. However, scholars have only begun to systematically think about how digitalization - the process whereby more and more of what we say, think, and do becomes mediated by digital technologies - is both driven by and transformative of capitalism. This paper argues that when one speaks about digitalization, one cannot be silent about capitalism. It reconstructs commodification and disruption as key features of capitalist development. It then shows how three digital revolutions - the platform, (big) data, and artificial intelligence revolutions - have ushered in a new wave of commodification and disruption, giving rise to digital capitalism. The paper further argues that when one speaks about digital capitalism, one cannot be silent about politics. Having identified central challenges digital commodification and disruption pose, it points to coalitional struggles and ideational battles as key features of the politics of digital capitalism. The paper combines scholarship on capitalism with scholarship on digitalization, offering a simple but historically and theoretically grounded framework for how to think about, but also for how to study, digital capitalism.

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WP 02/2021 [pdf]

 

Der Einfluss des Europäischen Parlamentes auf die Verhandlungen zum CETA-Abkommen

Alice Jacobi

WP 01/2021

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Abstract:

Das Europäische Parlament hat in den vergangenen Jahren, angestoßen durch die Reformen des Vertrags von Lissabon an Einfluss in der Europäischen Handelspolitik gewonnen. Dies bestätigt auch die Analyse des informellen Einflusses des Europäischen Parlamentes auf die Verhandlungen zu CETA. Diese Arbeit schließt sich an die Empowerment-Forschung an. Es wird mithilfe der Auswertung der parlamentarischen Resolution zu CETA von 2011 untersucht, inwiefern sich die Präferenzen des Europäischen Parlamentes im CETA-Vertragstext finden und mithilfe welcher informellen Strategien das Parlament Einfluss genommen hat. Dabei lassen sich bereits in der wissenschaftlichen Literatur erwähnte Strategien nachweisen, zudem konnte das Parlament die Bedeutung der Resolution als informelles Verhandlungsmandat zementieren.

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WP 01/2021 [pdf]

 

Working Papers 2020

The need for ethical algorithms:
The European approach to Artificial Intelligence

David Leopoldi-Wieshaupt

WP 03/2020

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Abstract:

This research project examined the European approach to Artificial Intelligence. With the social constructivist concept of Normative Power Europe, the topic has been discussed on two levels of abstraction. Empirically, the United States, China and the EU have been compared regarding the aspects of data protection regulation and military AI, which resulted in the classification of the EU as Weak-Normative Power. On a more abstract level, the EU’s human-centric approach to Artificial Intelligence, the emphasis on developing trustworthy technology and the focus on human rights in the discourse led to the characterisation of the European Union as normative power.

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WP 03/2020 [pdf]

 

Free Riders, Allies or Veto Players?
Preferences and Strategies of Smaller Creditor States in the Euro Area

Magnus Schoeller

WP 02/2020

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From the introduction:

This EIF Working Paper presents the main findings of the research project ‘Free Riders, Allies or Veto Players? The Role of Small Creditor States in the Euro Area’. The two-year project (2018-20) is funded by the Austrian Central Bank and directed by Gerda Falkner, Head of the Centre for European Integration Research (EIF) at the University of Vienna (Department of Political Science). The project investigates how smaller creditor states in the eurozone – such as Austria, the Netherlands or Finland – pursue their preferences in the shadow of German ‘hegemony’.

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WP 02/2020 [pdf]

 

Institutionalising EU Cyber Law:
Can the EU institutionalise its many subjects and objects?

Elaine Fahey

WP 01/2020

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From the introduction:

Cyber-law-making is one of the most challenging fields of global governance because there State-centric regulatory and governance structures of public international law clash with the reality of private actors as war generators, civil society collides with international organisations and State and transnational regulators catch up with technical realities. [...] The paper examines I) cyber law-making and its subjects and objects, II) the two key planks of internal cyber-law-making firstly cybercrime then III), cyber security, followed by a look at the cyber actors in IV, and, finally, by external considerations in V).

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WP 01/2020 [pdf]

 

Working Papers 2019

Der österreichische Bundesrat und die Subsidiaritätskontrolle – eine Entwicklung hin zur „Europakammer“?

Johannes Grames

WP 02/2019

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Abstract:

Ever since the founding of the Austrian Bundesrat (Federal Council) of the Austrian Parliament, there have been discussions about its need to be reformed. The debate has mainly focused on the domestic competences of the second chamber of Parliament. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the EU-specific competences of the Austrian Bundesrat and the actual enforcement of these rights. It is examined to which extent the Bundesrat evolved to the “European chamber” of the Austrian Parliament between 2013 and 2016, as claimed by the Bundesrat in its activities reports. The thesis illustrates which policy areas are covered through these activities and investigates how cases where the EU Committee of the Bundesrat objected to legislative proposals based on the principle of subsidiarity are dealt with on a European level. The theoretical framework of this work is the concept of Historical Institutionalism by Kathrin Thelen and co-authors. In order to answer the research question, first the domestic and the EU-specific competences of the Austrian Bundesrat, which are based on the Treaty on European Union and the Austrian federal constitution, are illustrated. The analytical part of the study begins with a comparison of the activities of the EU Committees of the Nationalrat (National Council) with those of the EU Committee of the Bundesrat. Subsequently, the reasoned opinions of the EU Committee of the Bundesrat are reviewed and analysed. In a last step, two expert interviews were conducted to provide a more comprehensive context for the findings of the thesis. The research has shown that in the period of 2013-2016 the Bundesrat indeed evolved to the “European chamber” of the Austrian Parliament. However, this finding is not entirely clear. While three of the five chosen evaluation criteria indicated that the Bundesrat takes on more EU-specific tasks, two criteria pointed towards the Nationalrat. The Austrian Federal Council issued reasoned opinions on European legislative proposals covering six different policy areas. Most of the proposals objected by the EU Committee of the Bundesrat in the given time period have meanwhile entered into force. None of the proposals against which the EU Committee of the Bundesrat issued a reasoned opinion reached the required number of votes from the national parliaments to initiate a subsidiarity check. In only one out of eleven cases did the Austrian representative in the Council of Ministers vote against the European legislative proposal objected by the Bundesrat, but to no avail.

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WP 02/2019 [pdf]

 

The European Union and Arab Refugee Hosting States:
Frictional Encounters

Tamirace Fakhoury

WP 01/2019

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WP 01/2019 [pdf]

 

Working Papers 2018

 

Building Peace Through Proxy-Mediation:
The European Union’s Mediation Support in the Libya Conflict

Patrick Mueller and Noé Cornago

WP 01/2018

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Abstract:

This paper develops the concept of EU proxy-mediation for the study EU mediation support. EU proxy-mediation is an indirect approach to conflict mediation where the EU works through intermediaries (proxy mediators) that are institutionally distinct from the EU foreign policy system in pursuit of its mediation objectives. Conceptually, the paper identifies drivers of EU proxy-mediation, strategies of proxy-mediation, and ways to manage EU-proxy relations. Empirically, the paper demonstrates the relevance of EU proxy-mediation activities for the case of EU mediation support in Libya. While the EU has not assumed a prominent profile as a direct mediator in Libya, it has actively engaged in proxy-mediation activities, providing mediation support to a variety of actors at the regional, national and local levels. Importantly, the EU facilitated coordination among key third-party mediators; provided financial support and training to a range of proxy mediators; and lend its own leverage to support peace initiatives of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL). The EU’s proxy-mediation activities in Libya show that the EU can play a meaningful mediation role through empowering others, even in situations where it does not establish itself as a direct mediator.

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Working Papers 2017

 

The Increasing Institutional Power of the
European Parliament and EU Policy Making

Adrienne Héritier

WP 01/2017

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Working Papers 2016

 

The EU’s Green Dynamism, Decision-making Strategies and the
Alignment of Legislative Actors

Henning Deters

WP 03/2016

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WP 03/2016 [pdf]

 

Albaniens Weg in die Europäische Union - Zwischen Konditionalität und partikularen Interessen

Arlind Dinollari

WP 02/2016

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Abstract:

The EU integration process of Albania began in 1992. The country’s political class vowed immediately after the fall of communism, that it would decidedly strive to integrate Albania as soon as possible into the Euro-Atlantic structures. This ambition was welcomed by the EU and soon after supported by it with political and financial means. However, the process is pending until today. This research’s goal was to examine whether the outcomes of the process were in fact compatible with the given official conditionality or not. The study was grounded on the assumption that in such a complex process, both the institutional guidelines – enshrined in the Copenhagen conditionality – as well as the different conditionality-incompatible interests of the participating stakeholders are likely to have played a role for the results of the process. Taking into consideration this main assumption and the aim of this study, process-tracing was chosen to elaborate the topic. The main moments of the process were identified and the actors with the highest possible influence determined. The most important finding of this research was that the EU integration process of Albania was broadly running in accordance with the Copenhagen conditionality. Solely for two of the main moments an exception from this rule was observed.

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WP 02/2016 [pdf]

 

New EMU governance: Not (yet) ready for social investment?

Anton Hemerijck

WP 01/2016

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Half a decade after the Euro crisis, the European Union (EU) is in dire need of a growth strategy that is – all at once – economically viable, politically legitimate and seen as socially fair. Without a strategic focus on an inclusive labour market, helping to ease the employment transitions for working families, undergirded by a comprehensive safety net and strongly supported by human capital investments from early childhood on, Europe risks becoming entrapped in economic stagnation and political discord. This was the central message of the ‘Social Investment Package’ (SIP), launched by the European Commission in February 2013. The SIP is best read as a strategic vision for welfare state modernization for post-crisis Europe, based on forward-looking social policies to ‘prepare’ individuals and families to respond to the changing nature of social risks in the competitive knowledge economy. The SIP was published in the wake of a major overhaul in EU fiscal surveillance – the Six Pack, Two Pack, and the Fiscal Compact – enacted after the Euro zone sovereign debt crisis of 2010. The central question of this paper is whether and to what extent Europe’s new macro-economic governance regime is supportive of the social investment imperative? The short answer to this question is ‘no’. Reinforced fiscal austerity, underwritten by heterodox Outright Monetary Transactions and quantitative easing interventions by the European Central Bank (ECB) to counter deflation, continues to be based on the widespread belief that generous social provision inescapably ‘crowds out’ economic growth, private entrepreneurship, employment participation and labour productivity. The ‘long’ rejoinder to the central question in this contribution is more positive. With the publication of the non-binding SIP communication, the intellectual genie of the social investment policy paradigm is out of the bottle, with fairly strong evidence of ‘capacitating’ welfare provision enhancing dual-earner employment and skills levels, while mitigating the reproduction of inter-generational poverty. The current schizophrenic posture of the European Commission as the ‘social investment cheerleader’, on the one hand, and the ‘fiscal austerity headmaster’, on the other, informed by contradictory policy theories, is difficult to sustain. The Eurozone has entered a period of transition. Policy attention is shifting to accumulating evidence, brought forth most notably by recent OECD studies, that well-calibrated social investment policies ‘crowd in’ inclusive growth and social progress in tandem. At the same time, a fragile recovery, competitive divergences and the social imbalances of mass (youth) unemployment, rising poverty and a deepening intergenerational divide, are increasingly met with rising anti-EU populism. In conjunction, negative anti-EU political feedback and more positive social investment policy feedback may open up a vista, contingent on effective political mobilization and adequate EU support, for anchoring an assertive social investment commitment in future EMU economic governance.

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Working Papers 2015

 

Ein neues Werkzeug: Die Europäische Bürgerinitiative am Fallbeispiel von „right2water“

Jakob Anton Luger

WP 04/2015

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Diese Masterarbeit analysiert das Partizipationspotential der Europäischen Bürgerinitiative (EBI). Dabei wird auf das theoretische Konzept der „Opportunitätsstrukturen für BürgerInnenbeteiligung" (OSCP) zurückgegriffen, mithilfe dessen die EBI sowie auch alle anderen Teilhabeinstrumente charakterisiert werden. Darauf aufbauend erschließt sich der aktuelle Zustand der „politischen Opportunitätsstruktur" (POS) in der EU. UnionsbürgerInnen können mit der EBI umfassend in den EU-Policy-Prozess eingreifen und insbesondere die formale Agenda auf europäischer Ebene bestimmen. Am Fallbeispiel „right2water" zeigt sich, dass die Kernziele einer EBI schwer durchzusetzen, aber dennoch eine Vielzahl an politischen Folgewirkungen zu beobachten sind. So hat die Kommission beispielsweise eine öffentliche Konsultation zur Trinkwasserrichtlinie durchgeführt. Außerdem konnten die „right2water“-OrganisatorInnen die Herausnahme des Wasserbereichs aus der so genannten „Konzessionsrichtlinie“ erreichen. „Right2water“ veranschaulicht die Notwendigkeit der Unterstützung einer EBI durch ressourcenstarke zivilgesellschaftliche Organisationen wie Gewerkschaften oder NGOs.

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Die Wiederaufnahme von Grenzkontrollen - Schengen als Opfer für "die nationale Sicherheit"?

Stefanie Rieder

WP 03/2015

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Das Ziel dieser Arbeit ist es festzustellen, ob durch die Schengen-Reform bis Ende 2013 die rechtlichen Voraussetzungen für die Wiedereinführung von Binnengrenzkontrollen als Ausnahmeklauseln verschärft oder ausgeweitet wurden. Um dies zu überprüfen beleuchtet diese Arbeit nicht nur die Entwicklung der Ausnahmeklausel, sondern vergleicht die Reform-Forderungen der involvierten Akteure mit den erzielten Reform-Ergebnissen – im Rahmen zweier Fallbeispiele zur Wiedereinführung von Grenzkontrollen. Das Ergebnis zeigte, dass die Möglichkeiten, Grenzkontrollen wiedereinzuführen, durch eine neue Ausnahmeklausel einerseits ausgeweitet, durch striktere Verfahren aber auch verschärft wurden – was insgesamt nicht als Spill-Back im europäischen Integrationsprozess zu qualifizieren ist.

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WP 03/2015 [pdf]

 

Österreich und die EU-Erweiterung am westlichen Balkan: Nationale Präferenzbildung und EU-Verhandlungsstrategien

Jun Saito

WP 02/2015

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This paper analyzes Austria’s contribution to the integration of the Western Balkans into the European Union (EU). I investigate this research interest by combining liberal intergovernmentalism with theories on how small states conduct foreign policy. The Austrian position to promote EU-accession for all Western Balkan states was established at the beginning of the 2000s, driven primarily by the desire to enhance its security, but also by economic interests. In the relevant EU negotiations, Austria not only used the threat of a veto but also relied on coalition building and side-payment and presented its position as norm-based. However, these strategies did not always lead to satisfactory results for Austria.

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WP 02/2015 [pdf]

 

Austria: stable society and crisis-exposed banks

Zdenek Kudrna
Draft version of the Chapter 12 of the forthcoming edited volume on the EU and its member states edited by Eleanor Zeff and Ellen Pirro and to be published by Lynne Rienner Publishers in the US.

WP 01/2015

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Austria passed through recent crises relatively unscathed, although its banking sector remains vulnerable to shocks. Austria is the wealthiest EU country, with some of the highest living stand-ards and lowest unemployment.
As in many past crises, its unique system of a social partnership coordinating its economic and social policies served it well, despite increasing internal and exter-nal tensions that put it under pressure.
During the two decades of its EU membership, Austria was more exposed to external shocks as its economy in general and banking sector in particular became more open.
Austrian authorities managed to reduce the destabilizing effects of financial contagion and contributed to coordinated international responses to the financial crises. At the same time, the crisis experience undermined public support for European integration, as is indi-cated by the 20 per cent of votes for the populist right in the recent national and European elec-tions. Nonetheless, the government remains broadly pro-European and support for EU policies and reforms is above the EU and Euro area averages.

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Working Papers 2014

A European Fundamental Rights Ornament that turns into a European Fundamental Rights Order: The EU Charter of Fundamental Rights at its fifth birthday

Gabriel N. Toggenburg

WP 04/2014

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Die Grundrechtecharta der Europäischen Union feiert ihren fünften Geburtstag. Zwar wurde sie bereits vor 14 Jahren angenommen, doch in Kraft steht sie erst seit Dezember 2009. Insofern ist es ein guter Moment den Einfluss der Charta zu untersuchen. Der Charakter der Charta wird hier sowohl als konservativ als auch als innovativ beschrieben. Die Wirkung der Charta wird als beträchtlich eingestuft. In den letzten Jahren hat sich die Art und Weise, wie die EU an Grundrechte herangeht, deutlich geändert. Auch auf nationaler Ebene spielt die Charta eine Rolle, wie ein Blick auf nationale Gerichte zeigt.
Der Autor beschreibt die Charta auch insofern als ein Instrument des Mehrebenenregierens als die Charta auch dort politische Wirkung entfalten kann, wo es nicht um Unionsrecht als solches geht. In diesem Sinne ist die Grundrechtecharta nicht nur im Zusammenhang mit einem unter Umständen entstehenden strategischen Rahmen zum Schutz und der Förderung von Grundrechten innerhalb der EU von Relevanz. Auch im Kontext des EU- Working Paper No: 04/2014 Page 3 of 26 Rahmens zur Rechtsstaatlichkeit ist die Charta von Bedeutung, da sie nicht nur eine ‘Charta der Rechte‘, sondern auch eine ‘Charta der Werte‘ darstellt.

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The future of the Euro: agreements to disagree and prospective scenarios from the 2014 Vienna debate

Zdenek Kudrna
Working paper based on the 2014 Vienna debate on European integration between Fritz Scharpf and Henrik Enderlein

WP 03/2014

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The policies of the European Central Bank and a series of reforms have stabilized the Euro area. However, further systematic reforms are necessary for the long-term viability of the Euro. At the same time, the limited legitimacy of many crisis-induced measures and their asymmetric conse-quences in terms of growth and employment across the Euro area make unanimous agreement on systematic reforms difficult. This keeps the Euro area vulnerable to economic and political shocks that may yet force either its systematic reform or break-up.
The 2014 Vienna debate on the future of Euro has revealed some agreement on reforms that could make the heterogeneous Euro area viable over the long-term, as well as two fundamental disagreements on the political feasibility of such reforms and on the consequences of (openly discussing the) reintroduction of differentiated macroeconomic policies within the Euro area. Possibly, these disagreements could be reconciled when formulating a policy recommendation for moving ahead: the Euro area needs to focus on minimizing the reform agenda in order to maximize the political chances of its adoption while also exploring unorthodox strategies and break-up scenarios in such a way that would not trigger a self-fulfilling crisis. This would provide the Euro area with a realistically designed 'Plan A', but also a better idea of a 'Plan Z' that could guide its actions in case joint responses get overwhelmed by the next bout of crisis.

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European Disintegration – non-existing Phenomenon or a Blind Spot of European Integration Research?

Henrik Scheller and Annegret Eppler
WP 02/2014

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Die bis heute nachwirkende Finanz- und Wirtschaftskrise 2008/2009 stellt die politikwissen-schaftliche Europaforschung vor ein Dilemma: Den weitgehend populär(wissenschaftlich)en Sze-narien zum möglichen Auseinanderbrechen der EU kann sie keine elaborierte Theorie europäi-scher Desintegration entgegensetzen, die es erlauben würde, die aktuellen Entwicklungen zu er-klären und einzuordnen. In diesem Working Paper wird zunächst der Forschungsstand zum Thema aufgearbeitet.
In einem zweiten und dritten Schritt erfolgt eine Prüfung, inwieweit sich aus gängigen Integrations- und Föderalismustheorien Erklärungen für europäische Desintegrati-onsphänomene ableiten lassen. Anschließend erfolgt eine eigene Definition des Desintegrations-Begriffs. Im vorletzten Abschnitt wird die Notwendigkeit eines mehrdimensionalen Verständnisses europäischer Desintegration am Beispiel einer kurzen empirischen Analyse zur Entwicklung des Integrationsprozesses seit Ausbruch der Finanz- und Wirtschaftskrise 2008/2009 verdeutlicht.

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WP 02/2014 [pdf]

 

Synopsis of EIF project “EU Policies in a Global Perspective”

Gerda Falkner und Patrick Müller
WP 01/2014

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Wichtige Herausforderungen für die Europäische Union, wie der Klimawandel oder die Stabilisierung der internationalen Finanzmärkte, sind globaler Natur und übersteigen die Problemlösungsfähigkeit der Nationalstaaten und sogar der EU-Politik. Während der Bedarf an globalen Lösungen stetig zunimmt, kann die EU nur sehr bedingt internationale Standards auf Grundlage ihrer eigenen Normen und Regeln durchsetzen. Der EU ist es in einigen Bereichen zwar gelungen globale Politiken mitzugestalten. So hat sie bis in die 1990er Jahre, grundlegende Regeln des Welthandelssystems im Zusammenspiel mit den USA entscheidend geprägt. Insgesamt ist ihr Einfluss jedoch sehr beschränkt, nicht zuletzt auch aufgrund des globalen Aufstiegs der BRIC Staaten. Dieses Arbeitspapier fasst wichtige Erkenntnisse unseres internationalen Forschungsprojektes über den globalen Einfluss der EU in unterschiedlichen Politikfeldern in knapper und prägnanter Form zusammen. Allerdings wird nur die Langfassung der Ergebnisse, der Komplexität der Fragestellungen, Methoden und Ergebnisse gerecht.

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Working Papers 2013

Entwicklung im Konflikt – (un)möglich?
Das EU-Friedenslabor im Magdalena Medio, Kolumbien

Michael Doschek
WP 01/2013

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Entwicklung im Konflikt ist nicht möglich. Dies wird häufig in der wissenschaftlichen Literatur und in der Praxis der EZA angenommen. Für die Entwicklung eines Landes müsse zuerst der Friede sichergestellt werden. Dieser sei die Voraussetzung für jede weitere Entwicklung.
Die vorliegende Arbeit hinterfragt diese Annahme und beschäftigt sich mit der Frage, ob Entwicklung in einem Konfliktgebiet möglich ist und wenn ja, welche Faktoren es dazu braucht. Um sich dieser Thematik anzunähern, wurde das Friedenslabor im Magdalena Medio im Allgemeinen und das Fallbeispiel „Ciudadela Educativa“ im Speziellen untersucht. Empirisch stützt sich die Arbeit auf eine Analyse von Primär- und Sekundärliteratur sowie zahlreicher Interviews, die im Rahmen eines Forschungsaufenthaltes in Kolumbien durchgeführt wurden.
Die Arbeit hat sich der Fragestellung angenähert, indem sie sich mit dem Begriff der Entwicklung theoretisch auseinandergesetzt hat. Es hat sich gezeigt, dass sich das in der Literatur herausgebildete Verständnis von Entwicklung nicht unbedingt mit dem Verständnis der Akteure des Friedenslabors deckt. Dort bedient man sich einer weitläufigen Definition und sieht darin ein „Aufwachen und Handeln“, womit ein gesellschaftlicher Veränderungsprozess verstanden werden kann.
Entsprechend dem Leitgedanken „wir müssen nicht warten, bis der Frieden kommt, um mit dem Aufbau unserer Region zu beginnen“ wurde mitten in einem Konfliktgebiet eine Schule gebaut. Dieser „zuerst Entwicklung dann Frieden“-Ansatz konterkariert die traditionelle EZA-Praxis, wonach für eine Entwicklung zuerst Frieden nötig sei. Für den Erfolg des Projekts war die mit den regionalen Spezifika vertraute und mit progressiven Elementen ausgestattete „Grassroots-Ebene“ essentiell. Sie hatte die Entscheidungshoheit und Kontrolle über das Projekt inne. Der „bottom-up“-Ansatz, wonach Entwicklung von lokalen Kräften gefordert und gefördert werden muss, erwies sich speziell in der Startphase als entscheidend.
Die lokalen Akteure sind aber auf Unterstützung von außen angewiesen. So erfüllen die Partner auf der Top-Ebene – für das Fallbeispiel sind dies die EU und die kolumbianische Regierung – zwei wichtige Funktionen: Sie gewährleisten die Finanzierung des Projekts und fungieren als Schutzschild gegenüber den bewaffneten Gruppierungen. Sowohl die Guerilla als auch die Paramilitärs zeigten vor der internationalen Präsenz Respekt.
Eine Allianz mit derart mächtigen Partnern birgt aber auch die Gefahr einer überhandnehmenden Einflussnahme und der Etablierung eines „top-down“-Ansatzes: Verfolgen die Akteure der Top-Ebene nur noch eigene Agenden und Interessen und entziehen der lokalen Ebene die Projektleitung, ist der Erfolg gefährdet.
Zusammenfassend lässt sich daher sagen, dass für die Entwicklung im Fallbeispiel „Ciudadela Educativa“ zwei essentielle Faktoren ausschlaggebend waren:
1. Die Entschlossenheit, der Zusammenhalt und Wille der Gemeinschaft;
2. Die Allianz mit einflussreichen und mächtigen Partnern, die als Finanziers und Schutzschild gegenüber den Konflikt-Parteien fungieren und den Akteuren der „Grassroots-Ebene“ die Projektleitung überlassen.

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WP 01/2013 [pdf]

 

Working Papers 2012

Mittelbare Europapolitik im Bundesland Kärnten

Christoph Gräfling
WP 1/2012

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Ziel dieser Arbeit war es herauszufinden, welche innerstaatlichen Einflussstrukturen offizielle Repräsentanten des Bundeslandes Kärnten nutzen, um regionale Interessen (mit europäischer Dimension) in den innerösterreichischen EU-Willensbildungsprozess einzubringen. Da neben den Bundesländern weitere Akteure in den innerstaatlichen EU-Willensbildungsprozess involviert sind, sollte dadurch insbesondere geklärt werden, ob die offiziellen RepräsentantInnen Kärntens, neben den ihnen im Zuge des Länderbeteiligungsverfahrens explizit zugesicherten (formalrechtlichen) Beteiligungsmöglichkeiten, auch Einflussstrukturen anderer innerstaatlicher Akteure nutzen. Theoretisches Fundament der Arbeit bildet neben dem Multi-Level Governance-Ansatz insbesondere das Konzept Regionaler Einflussnahme. Um die Forschungsfrage zu beantworten, wurden zunächst der innerösterreichische EU-Willensbildungsprozess und die darin involvierten Akteure anhand der vorhandenen Primär- und Sekundärliteratur dargestellt. Anschließend wurden ExpertInneninterviews mit den Mitgliedern der Kärntner Landesregierung bzw. mit sie vertretenden MitarbeiterInnen durchgeführt. Die Untersuchung ergab, dass alle offiziellen RepräsentantInnen des Landes Kärnten in EU-Angelegenheiten unterschiedlichste Einflussstrukturen nutzen und demnach mit einer Vielzahl von innerstaatlichen Akteuren zusammenarbeiten, um regionale Interessen in den innerstaatlichen EU-Willensbildungsprozess einzubringen bzw. um selbigen dort mehr Gewicht zu verleihen.

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WP 01/2012 [pdf]

 

Working Papers 2011

Partnership in implementation of the Structural Funds in Poland: 'shallow' adjustment or internalization of the European mode of cooperative governance?

Marcin Dabrowski
WP 05/2011

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The ongoing debate about the future of EU cohesion policy includes the voices of critics questioning its effectiveness, as well as those praising its contribution to regional development policy. The proponents specifically acclaim its enhancement of inter-institutional cooperation and coordination in the delivery of the regional development policy through the partnership principle. However, the legacy of centralism, lack of traditions in collaborative policy-making, and weakly institutionalized sub-national authorities in Central and Eastern Europe prompt questions about the transferability of the partnership approach to the new member states, the main recipients of cohesion funding. What is the impact of EU cohesion policy's partnership at the sub-national level? What are the mechanisms of the sub-national actors' adjustment to this EU-imposed practice and what is the scope for its institutionalization? By investigating sub-national partnership arrangements in Poland, the paper sheds light on these under-researched issues. It also offers a valuable contribution to the debates on the future of EU cohesion policy and the logic of the domestic policy actors' adjustment to externally imposed policy norms.

The paper draws on the concept of Europeanization, understood as the domestic impact of EU policies, to examine the implementation of a horizontal partnership in an unprecedented way by focusing on the strategies, preferences, and attitudes of the sub-national actors involved. It reveals that initially their adjustment to EU cohesion policy's partnership tends to be strategic and interest-driven. Nevertheless, there is also evidence that partnership can be internalized over time provided that it is in line with the actors' interests and there are specific incentives for cooperation. These findings show that strategic adjustment of domestic actors to European policy framework does not exclude socialization and internalization of the related norms and practices, as these processes can indeed be intertwined.

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WP 05/2011 [pdf]

 

Justice and Home Affairs in a Globalised World:
Ambitions and Reality in the tale of the EU-US SWIFT Agreement

Marise Cremona
WP 04/2011

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The EU's policy on Justice and Home Affairs has as its objective the establishment of the Union as 'an area of freedom, security and justice with respect for fundamental rights and the different legal systems and traditions of the Member States'. How does this essentially internal objective translate into international action? How does the Union respond, in an internal policy field, to external challenges?

This paper will assess the ambitions and the reality of the external dimension of the EU's policy of Justice and Home Affairs from two perspectives. The first is the close link between internal and external objectives and policies, and the implications for both EU competence and policy priorities. The second is the progressive constitutionalisation of the JHA field, its transformation from inter-governmental cooperation into a policy domain subject to the political and judicial accountability of ordinary legislative procedures.

The paper is structured around a case study of the negotiation, renegotiation and eventual conclusion of the EU-US Agreement on the transfer of financial messaging data for the purpose of combating terrorism (the 'SWIFT' Agreement), and in particular the interplay thereby revealed between

(i) different regulatory approaches to data protection in the context of international commercial transactions and the needs of private commercial undertakings;

(ii) different (EU) institutional actors in the context of international action against terrorism where the EU needs to be seen as an effective actor and partner of the US; and

(iii) the needs of public security and the need to provide against the risk of breaches of individual rights of data protection and privacy through the misuse of security-based powers.

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WP 04/2011 [pdf]

 

Interlinking neofunctionalism and intergovernmentalism: Sidelining governments and manipulating policy preferences
as "passerelles"

Gerda Falkner
WP 03/2011

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The EU's founding fathers had the protection of the EU's constituent units as a key concern and set up serious hurdles to policy innovation in the absence of unanimous governmental agreement. These institutional design features, aptly characterised as "joint-decision trap" by Fritz W. Scharpf, were only softened but not erased over time. Nonetheless, the problem of how to innovate has, at times, been overcome through eclectic means. There are indeed some well known and quite visible practices as well as some less expected and more obscure strategies that have propelled the EU's policy system beyond what has for a long time been expected.

This paper argues that there are two strategic moves the European Commission (and, at times, other supranational actors such as the European Court of Justice) can use to actively overcome member state opposition: first, sidelining some or even all national governments; and, second, manipulating relevant policy preferences. These two basic strategies can be seen to interconnect the diverging basic assumptions of intergovernmentalism and neofunctionalism as 'passerelles'.

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WP 03/2011 [pdf]

 

Europe at a Historical Crossroads: Grand Strategy or Resignation?

Jolyon Howorth
WP 02/2011

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The European Union is gradually emerging as a global actor, a role which the Lisbon Treaty aims to enhance. Yet the global order is changing rapidly, from the uni-polarity of the post-Cold War years to some inchoate form of multi-polarity. In that emerging world, both the traditional and the rising powers face huge responsibilities in defining the contours of a consensual new order which will deal effectively with the inter-connected challenges of the 21st century: regional stability, arms control, environmental protection, energy security, climate change, poverty and inequality and migratory flows. Most of the global actors are centralized nation states with well-defined national strategies. The EU faces additional obstacles in generating a "grand strategy" which effectively articulates the relationship between means and large ends. Yet in many ways, the EU has already trail-blazed the type of world order which appears to be emerging, one in which international law and institutions are primary, in which the limited utility of military power is recognized, in which failing states are more destabilizing than powerful ones and in which human security is as important as state security. If the EU can begin to address these problems with strategic clarity, it can have an important role to play in the striking of the grand bargains necessary to underpin the new world order. If it fails to define a grand strategy, it will be increasingly marginalized from the global stage.

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WP 02/2011 [pdf]

 

Move Closer! New Modes of Governance and Accession to the European Union

Tanja Börzel
WP 01/2011

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This paper focuses on new modes of governance in the EU’s attempts to impact upon states, which are not (yet) members and which have become members in the 1980s. More specifically, I seek to explore the role of new modes of governance for the implementation of EU policies and EU primary Law in different types of states, “weak states” in particular, including Southern European member states, CEE candidate countries and associated states in the former Soviet Union and Northern Africa. To what extent have new modes of governance helped weak states that lack sufficient capacities to adopt and implement domestic reforms to comply with EU norms and rule cope with the challenge of accession and approximation to the EU?

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WP 01/2011 [pdf]

 

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Working Papers 2010

Connecting the Dots:
Case Studies and EU Implementation Research

Dimiter Toshkov
Moritz Knoll
Lisa Wewerka

WP 10/2010

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This paper is an accompanying text to the Compliance Database – the database of case studies of transposition, implementation, and compliance with EU law. ( http://www.eif.oeaw.ac.at/compliance/). The database contains the results from the literature survey in a form that enables detailed overviews of individual studies as well as easy comparisons across studies. The database has been developed with the support of the Institute for European Integration Research at the Austrian Academy of Sciences and it is a free and regularly updated resource. The conclusions of this paper are based as much on the inferences that the database offers, as on the original articles and books that have been reviewed.

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WP 10/2010 [pdf]

 

Ministerial Transposition of EU Directives:
Can Oversight Improve Performance?

Radoslaw Zubek
Katarina Staronova

WP 09/2010

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This paper argues that the extent to which national administrations transpose EU directives in a timely fashion may be related to how transposition is coordinated inside national ministries. Focusing on transposition through secondary legislation in Estonia, Poland and Slovenia, the paper finds initial evidence that oversight can contribute to better transposition performance. Ministries with strong internal oversight tend to be better at timely transposition, while ministries with no or weak oversight perform worse. The results tend to hold if one controls for country effects, party preferences and transposition workload.

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WP 09/2010 [pdf]

 

Cross-border resolution of failed banks in the EU:
A search for the second-best policies

Zdenek Kudrna
WP 08/2010

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This paper analyzes the reasons for the failure of the multilateral resolution of EU cross-border banks such as Fortis. We argue that the pre-crisis regime based on soft law and voluntary coordination was unable to align the incentives of national authorities acting under the time pressure and uncertainty of a banking crisis. We ask whether this experience induced the Commission to propose reforms that would close the regulatory gap between integrated cross-border banks and national resolution regimes. Although, the Commission proposals submitted within a year of the crisis considered the more radical reform options, such as shifting the regime to the EU level or reorganizing cross-border banks so that they could be resolved on the national level, in the end the Commission supported the traditional reform path of deepening soft law and strengthening pre-crisis governance arrangements. At the same time, the new financing mechanisms introduced to stabilize the Eurozone can pave the way for the introduction of an EU-level bank resolution regime, when the next reform opportunity arises.

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WP 08/2010 [pdf]

 

The Evolution of the Common Fisheries Policy: Governance of a Common-Pool Resource in the Context of European Integration

Lukas Schweiger
WP 07/2010

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This paper seeks to analyse the evolution of the EU Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) as a Community tool for the management of a common-pool resource in the context of European integration. The theoretical framework, comprising different levels of analysis, employs European integration theories (Neo-Functionalism and Liberal Intergovernmentalism), paradigms of fisheries management (conservation, economic and social/community) and the concept of common goods.

Spillover contributed to the development of the two pillars of the original policy, the structural policy and the common market organisation, which was complemented by a resource conservation regime and a common external policy regarding fisheries. Also, the European Court of Justice has played a significant role in confirming the supremacy of Community law in this field. At the same time, domestic interests in several Member States led to the extenuation of Commission proposals and to perennial stalemates, also due to the Luxembourg Compromise and especially in negotiations on distributive matters. Furthermore, since the adoption of the first CFP in 1970, overdue reforms have not been undertaken (particularly the introduction of individual transferable quotas as a market-based management tool and a definitive end to subsidising overcapacity). Partial reforms, especially concerning equal access, enshrined the status quo through repeatedly renewing derogations, thereby making them de facto permanent.

The CFP has evidently failed to prevent the Tragedy of the Commons as most major fish stocks in Community waters are far below their 1983 levels, the year the common conservation regime went into effect. This trend has been exacerbated not only due to the CFP's ambiguous objectives that stem from its common heritage with the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) but also through a tendency of the policy to be oriented toward the social/community paradigm of fisheries management.

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WP 07/2010 [pdf]

 

Compliance with EU Social Policies in Old and New Member States: Different Worlds, Different Remedies

Gerda Falkner
WP 06/2010

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Going beyond the traditional “compliance” debate that is still ongoing in various journals and geared towards a specialized political science sub-community, this paper focuses on the wider social reform issues arising from the finding that there are serious compliance problems almost everywhere in the EU, particularly when enforcement and application of the standards are considered and not only formal transposition into domestic law.
This article presents in brief the findings from two large-scale research projects on (non-)compliance with EU law in two sub-fields of social policy, working time and equal treatment policies. Two teams of co-authors studied the "old" EU15 plus later four countries from Central and Eastern Europe: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia.
Four "worlds of compliance" were discussed on the basis of our findings from the 102 overall qualitative case studies. Searching for ways to improve the state of social affairs, it seems useful to build on these differential procedural modes of implementation and to draw up tailor-made recommendations of potential use for those fighting compliance problems, such as the European Commission.

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WP 06/2010 [pdf]

 

The European Union in search of political identity and legitimacy: Is more Politics the Answer?

Vivien A. Schmidt
WP 05/2010

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The problems of identity and legitimacy in the EU are significant, but tangentially interconnected. The problems for EU identity derive not solely from the fact that European citizens have not developed much sense of being European because they have not been doing a lot in the EU; it is also that national elites have not been saying much about what the EU has been doing—except in moments of crisis. The problems for legitimacy derive not only from the ways in which the EU works—with more emphasis on ‘output’ for the people and ‘throughput’ with’ the people than ‘input’ by and of the people. It is also that the EU’s development challenges nationally constructed identities at the same time that it alters the traditional workings of national democracy. And this in turn adds to problems for citizen identification with the EU and their perceptions of its legitimacy. So the question is: would politicizing the EU help build more identity and legitimacy? Or would this only increase the problems?

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WP 05/2010 [pdf]

 

Zum Verhältnis von Markt- und Gemeinwohlorientierung:
Die Auswirkungen der EU-Liberalisierungsinitiativen auf die Sektoren Elektrizität und Eisenbahn in Österreich?

Michael Joos
WP 04/2010

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Dieses Arbeitspapier stellt eine Diplomarbeit an der Universität Wien dar, die auf Anregung der Direktorin und mit Unterstützung des EIF entstand. Die Liberalisierung verschiedener Wirtschaftssektoren durch die EU ist in ihren Rückwirkungen auf Österreich noch bei weitem nicht ausreichend studiert, und Fragen der Implementierung von EU-Politiken stellen einen Schwerpunktbereich der Arbeit des EIF dar.

Wenngleich eine abschließende Beurteilung gerade des Spannungsfeldes zwischen De- und Re-Regulierung sowie zwischen Gemeinwohlzielen einerseits und Marktprinzipien andererseits fraglos aufbauender Studien bedarf, empfiehlt sich meines Erachtens die Zurverfügungstellung der vorliegenden Arbeit für die wissenschaftliche und politische Öffentlichkeit, was in dieser Form eines EIF - Working Papers gewährleistet werden soll.

Gerda Falkner
(Direktorin des EIF)

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WP 04/2010 [pdf]

 

Nichtregierungsorganisationen, die offene Methode der Koordinierung und die Suche nach dem deliberativen Moment: Lost in translation?

Alexandra Lamprecht
WP 03/2010

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Deliberative Demokratiemodelle nehmen in der theoretischen Diskussion um die Partizipation zivilgesellschaftlicher AkteurInnen einen bedeutenden Stellenwert ein. Dieser Artikel stellt die normative Annahme der deliberativen Polyarchie, Nichtregierungsorganisationen seien integraler Bestandteil neuer politischer Gestaltungsprozesse, ihren tatsächlichen Parti-zipationsmöglichkeiten gegenüber. Anhand der Einbindung von NROs in die Offene Metho-de der Koordinierung zur sozialen Eingliederung in Österreich wird analysiert, ob ihre Mit-arbeit die normativen Erwartungen der deliberativen Polyarchie erfüllt. Weiters legt der Artikel offen, dass das Verständnis politischer und administrativer EntscheidungsträgerIn-nen von jener Rolle, die NROs im Prozess einnehmen sollen, klassischen liberalen Demokra-tievorstellungen entspricht und damit einer deliberativen Einbindung von NROs im Wege steht.

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WP 03/2010 [pdf]

 

Die Gretchenfrage an die Mitgliedstaaten:
„Sag, wie hast Du’s mit der Integration?“

Heinrich Schneider
WP 02/2010

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Dieses Arbeitspapier fällt insofern etwas „aus der Reihe“, als es die erweitere Fassung eines Vortrags und kein typisches Forschungspapier darstellt. Diese Ausnahme scheint mir dadurch gerechtfertigt, daß der Autor niemand geringerer ist als der Doyen der Europaforschung in Österreich, Heinrich Schneider.

Seinen 80. Geburtstag im Sommer 2009 durften wir im Herbst mit einem kleinen „Kaminabend“ im Rahmen des Instituts für europäische Integrationsforschung an der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften mit feiern, und eine seiner jüngsten Arbeiten soll nun auf diesem Wege einer etwas breiteren Öffentlichkeit zugänglich gemacht werden. Die Leserschaft wird in diesem Beitrag einen breit gespannten Bogen von prinzipiellen wie auch kon-kreten historischen Anmerkungen sowie ein Panoptikum von wichtigen Einsichten und Erin-nerungen finden.

Dabei präsentiert das Papier Ausführungen zu folgenden Punkten:
a) der anfänglichen Verwendung und zum anfänglichen Verständnis von Integration;
b) dem deutschen Verständnis von Integrationsverantwortung;
c) den Karlsruher und Brünner Verfassungsgerichtsurteilen zum Lissabon-Vertrag;
d) der Dynamik und den Wirkkräften des Sinnwandels von Integrationskonzepten;
e) den Einigungsmotiven und politischen Weltbildern als Hintergrundfaktoren;
f) und dem Konzept des Superstaates.

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WP 02/2010 [pdf]

 

Taking stock: a review of quantitative studies of transposition and implementation of EU law

Dimiter Toshkov
WP 01/2010

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This paper presents a literature review of all quantitative (statistical) studies of compliance with EU law. The paper introduces and makes use of a new online database which presents a detailed and comprehensive overview and classification of the existing quantitative research on transposition and implementation of EU directives in the member states. The study discusses and compares the different conceptualizations and operationalizations of compliance used, the list and specifications of the explanatory variables included in the models, the hypotheses proposed, and, most importantly, the findings of the literature. While the academic field has made progress in terms of assessing the scale and dimensions of the transposition failures in the EU, the causal inferences advanced in the existing literature are often weakly supported and sometimes contradictory when all studies are considered. The literature review suggests that only causal relationships that are specific for a certain time period, policy area, country, or type of legislation can be supported by empirical data, which means that broad generalizations about compliance in the EU might be impossible to uncover. The paper also suggests that decomposing the implementation process into its component stages, incorporating more rigorously the interactions between the Commission and the member states, and paying closer attention to the multilevel structure of the data in the statistical models can benefit future research on compliance in the EU.

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WP 01/2010 [pdf]

 

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Working Papers 2009

 

Applying the Concept of Europeanization to the Study of Foreign Policy: Dimensions and Mechanisms

Patrick Müller
Nicole Alecu de Flers

WP 05/2009

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Recent years have witnessed a growing interest in applying the Europeanization concept to the study of foreign policy. Discussing how foreign policy Europeanization relates to Europeanization research in other areas of EU governance as well as to traditional approaches from the International Relations discipline, we examine the added value of studying foreign policy through the lens of Europeanization. As there is by now a considerable diversity of explanations for EU-induced changes of the national foreign policies of EU Member States, we propose important conceptual refinements, providing a clear distinction between the dimensions of Europeanization, their respective outcomes and particularly the mechanisms that drive Europeanization in these different dimensions. Overall, this working paper illustrates that Europeanization research addresses important shortcomings of International Relations approaches dominant in the field of European foreign policy analysis. By focusing on the interplay of “top-down“ and “bottom-up“ dynamics between the EU and national levels, which have been previously considered as isolated phenomena, the Europeanization concept contributes to a better understanding of the complex nature of European foreign policy-making.

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WP 05/2009 [pdf]

 

The EU Financial Market Policy:
Evolution, Innovation and Research Outlook

Zdenek Kudrna
WP 04/2009

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This paper reviews the process of regulatory integration in the financial markets of the European Union. It shows that the regulatory framework for the single market in financial services has progressed in stages reflecting the evolution of EU policy-modes; from market opening to attempts at harmonization, to reliance on mutual recognition. The slow progress induced the EU to innovate its decision-making processes by introducing the Lamfalussy procedure in 2001. The new procedure accelerated the adoption of new regulations and is being adapted to ensure consistent enforcement across all EU jurisdictions. The next round of challenges to regulatory integration will stem from weak crisis management mechanisms revealed by the current crisis.

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WP 04/2009 [pdf]

 

European Integration and the Welfare State(s) in Europe

Gerda Falkner
WP 03/2009

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This paper summarizes the state-of-the-art on European social policy integration. It summarises the controversy over the ‘social dimension of European integration’, which has been ongoing ever since the founding fathers of European integration in 1957 agreed that the economies should be integrated basically without social regulation to counterbalance liberalisation effects. It presents the historical development of EU social policy as well as criteria for evaluating the state of “social Europe” and finally discusses how the EU is impacting on different types of welfare states. The argument is that the EU contributes to framework conditions that promote more ‘bounded varieties of welfare’ in Europe. In other words, it is held that there will be a more restricted variety, oscillating within limits that are directly or indirectly imposed or reinforced by European integration.

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WP 03/2009 [pdf]

 

Ideas, interests or institutions?
The drivers of recent reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP)

Sandra Kröger
WP 02/2009

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This contribution analyses recent CAP reform, the so-called Health Check, and evaluates the explanatory power of the theories usually applied to CAP change or the lack thereof. The paper starts out by giving a brief account over the founding ideas and instruments of CAP before it addresses recent reforms, the Fischler reform of 2003 and the so-called Health Check of 2008, in detail. Doing so, it is shown that member states resistance against a stronger marketisation of CAP persists while the discoursive trend towards rural development is not financially supported by member states. Three sets of theories commonly used in political science CAP analysis – ideas, interests and institutions – are identified and explored with regard to their explanatory power for the latest reform. The contribution concludes by arguing that there is no single factor driving CAP reform but that a triangle of international trade negotiations, national and sectoral preferences as well as dominating paradigms in public (and elite) discourses must be taken into consideration when seeking to explain the direction and the occurrence of CAP change.

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WP 02/2009 [pdf]

 

Post-accession compliance with EU law
in Bulgaria and Romania: a comparative perspective.

Florian Trauner
WP 01/2009

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This paper takes stock of academic literature and official sources on post-accession compliance in Bulgaria and Romania, the only new member states where the Commission has preserved the right to monitor key reforms beyond accession. The data used in the analysis suggests that the formal compliance with EU law has not decreased since their accession, quite the contrary. Bulgaria and Romania have performed well with regard to the transposition of EU law, yet signs of shortcomings appear at the enforcement level, most likely even on a greater scale than in other CEECs. Moreover, it is argued that in the first two years of membership the EU’s extended conditionality did not yield the same results in Bulgaria and Romania. While Romania managed to convince the Commission of its good will and determination to meet the benchmarks set by the EU, Bulgaria failed to do so and faced conditionality sanctions. The analysis concludes by presenting some directions for further research.

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WP 01/2009 [pdf]

 

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