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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WP 01/2015 [pdf]

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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WP 04/2014 [pdf]

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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WP 03/2014 [pdf]

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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WP 01/2014 [pdf]

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]

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]

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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