Fritz W. Scharpf

Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies | MPIFG · Research Group on the Political Economy of European Integration

The euro crisis has been a consequence of the structural divergence between the export-oriented growth models of Northern political economies and the domestic-demand oriented growth models of Southern political economies. In response to the crisis, the Monetary Union has established a regime of compulsory structural convergence on the Northern mode...

Treating electoral accountability as a necessary institutional precondition of both input- and output-oriented democratic legitimacy, the chapter explores its realization in several variants of multilevel government. Whereas US “dual federalism” and German “joint-decision federalism” differ significantly in the allocation of governing powers and in...

European integration has long relied on the democratic legitimacy of its Member States without paying much attention to the increasing importance of its multilevel governing processes. At this time, however, Europe is caught in the intersection of multiple crises, all of which—Brexit as well as the euro crisis, the refugee crisis as well as the cri...

This volume argues that the crisis of the European Union is not merely a fiscal crisis but reveals and amplifies deeper flaws in the structure of the EU itself. It is a multidimensional crisis of the economic, legal and political cornerstones of European integration and marks the end of the technocratic mode of integration which has been dominant s...

From a social-market perspective, European integration has reduced the capacity of democratic politics to deal with the challenges of global capitalism, and it has contributed to rising social inequality. The article summarises the institutional asymmetries which have done most to constrain democratic political choices and to shift the balance betw...

This paper attempts a normative assessment of the input and output-oriented legitimacy of the present euro-rescuing regime on the basis of policy analyses examining the causes of present crises, the available policy options and the impact of the policies actually chosen. Concluding that the regime lacks inputoriented legitimacy and that its claim t...

On the basis of a brief reconstruction of the causes and impacts of the euro crisis, this paper explores, counterfactually and hypothetically, whether the new euro regime, insisting on fiscal austerity and supply-side reforms, could have prevented the rise of the crisis or is able to deal with its disastrous economic and social impact. A comparison...

European policies imposed in the euro crisis have disabled democratic policy choices at the national level, while the present European euro-rescuing regime lacks democratic legitimacy. But policy choices might now become politicised in the Europe-wide competition of partisan candidates for the Presidency of the European Commission. In that case, vo...

European integration has created a multilevel polity in which governing powers are exercised at the European, national, subnational and local levels. But whereas in EU member states there is generally a clear hierarchical relationship in which the political and legal bases of legitimate authority at the national level dominate those at the regional...

At the most general level, the perpetual momentum of ‘integration through law’ is driven by the substantive dynamics of legal doctrines extending the protection of individual interests and by procedural conditions facilitating the use of European law to challenge the institutional regimes of EU member states. Given the supremacy and direct effect o...

This chapter re-examines the original joint-decision trap (JDT) model in light of this author's later work and the research presented by Gerda Falkner and her colleagues in this volume. Pointing out that a focus on the joint-decision mode was not meant to deny the existence of other modes of EU policy-making, it is nevertheless argued that the mech...

The European Monetary Union (EMU) has removed crucial instruments of macroeconomic management from the control of democratically accountable governments. Worse yet, it has been the systemic cause of destabilizing macroeconomic imbalances that member states found difficult or impossible to counteract with their remaining policy instruments. And even...

Die gegenwartige Diskussion uber die Eurokrise und ihre Bewaltigung ist von einer einseitigen, allein auf Griechenland bezogenen Problemsicht gepragt. Schuld an der Krise waren danach die fruheren griechischen Regierungen, die schon den Eintritt in die Wahrungsunion mit gefalschten Zahlen erschwindelt hatten, und die auch danach Jahr fiir Jahr gege...

The article documents a panel debate held at the Kiel congress of the German Political Science Association (DVPW) in September 2009. With its Lisbon judgment passed in June 2009, the German Federal Constitutional Court delivered a groundbreaking decision on Germany's involvement in the European integration process. The Court ruled that the German a...

Judge-made law has played a crucial role in the process of European integration. In the vertical dimension, it has greatly reduced the range of autonomous policy choices in the member states, and it has helped to expand the reach of European competences. At the same time, however, 'integration through law' does have a liberalizing and deregulatory...

Since the mid-1980s, Fritz W. Scharpf has been investigating the evolution of the multilevel European polity and its impact on the effectiveness and legitimacy of democratic government in Europe. Community and Autonomy collects in one volume Scharpf’s nearly two decades of research on government in Europe and offers new contributions that focus o...

Der vorliegende Beitrag dokumentiert eine Kontroverse, die auf dem Kieler DVPW-Kongress im September 2009 im Rahmen einer Podiumsdiskussion ausgetragen wurde. Mit seinem Lissabon-Urteil vom Juni 2009 fällte das deutsche Bundesverfassungsgericht ein Grundsatzurteil zur deutschen Beteiligung an der europäischen Integration. Das Gericht erklärte das d...

In this paper, we propose a theoretical model to study the effect of income insecurity of parents and offspring on the child's residential choice. Parents are partially altruistic toward their children and will provide financial help to an independent child when her income is low relative to the parents'. We find that children of more altruistic pa...

In order to be simultaneously effective and liberal, governments must normally be able to count on voluntary compliance – which, in turn, depends on the support of socially shared legitimacy beliefs. In Western constitutional democracies, such beliefs are derived from the distinct but coexistent traditions of “republican” and “liberal” political ph...

Die Föderalismusreform sollte die Handlungsfähigkeit der Politik in Bund und Ländern verbessern. Ihr Ergebnis bleibt jedoch weit hinter dem Nötigen und Möglichen zurück. Denn nach wie vor erschwert die im Grundgesetz angelegte Verflechtung zwischen Bund und Ländern die nötige Reform. Fritz W. Scharpf beschreibt, wie es zu dieser Politikverflechtung...

In federal states with territorially based ethnic, linguistic or religious cleavages, the allocation of competences among the levels of government may be determined by highly salient normative convictions and conflicts. In their absence, the economic theory of federalism and the subsidiarity principle might offer some highly abstract guidelines. Of...

Die deutschen Sozialdemokraten sind dabei, ihr im Dezember 1989 beschlossenes „Berliner Programm“ zu modernisieren.1 Es war von den Problemsichten, und noch mehr von den Hoffnungen, der achtziger Jahre geprägt, und es wurde durch weltpolitische und weltwirtschaftliche Umwälzungen und die Beschleunigung der europäischen Integration so schnell überho...

Compared to early expectations, the process of European integration has resulted in a paradox: frustration without disintegration and resilience without progress. The article attempts to develop an institutional explanation for this paradox by exploring the similarities between joint decision making (‘Politikverflechtung’) in German federalism and...

The reform of German federalism was meant to overcome the mutually imposed constraints on autonomous political action at the federal and Land levels. The proposals that are now to be discussed in parliament will provide some improvement, but are far from adequate in light of the original goals or the practical needs for reform. The reason was a sim...

In this paper, we propose a theoretical model to study the effect of income insecurity of parents and offspring on the child's residential choice. Parents are partially altruistic toward their children and will provide financial help to an independent child when her income is low relative to the parents'. We find that children of more altruistic pa...

The original analysis appears as a basically valid - if simplified - account of the institutional conditions of "political" policy choices in the EU and their consequences. It needs to be complemented, however, by a similar account of "non-political" policy-making in the supranational-hierarchical mode of governance by the ECB or ECJ. Copyright 200...

The political economy of the welfare state, which had emerged as the successful response of capitalist democracies to the economic crisis of the nineteen-thirties, is now confronted with new problems and demands which seem to challenge its continuing viability. The resulting crisis of transition may lead into political regression and even catstroph...

There were three distinct phases in the evolution of post-war German federalism: The initial expansion of national legislative competences and of centralized fiscal relations was, by the mid-1960s, corrected through the institutionalization of "cooperative federalism", with tightly integrated fiscal arrangements and very high consensus requirements...

Die im Herbst 2003 eingesetzte "Kommission zur Reform der bundesstaatlichen Ordnung" hatte sich das Ziel gesetzt, die deutsche Politik aus der "Verflechtungsfalle" zu befreien - aus einer Situation also, in der die Bundespolitik durch die Vetomacht des Bundesrats gefesselt werden kann, während die Politik in den Ländern weder in der Gesetzgebung no...

The unique institutions that make up Germany's unitary federal state, long considered part of the country's post-war success story, are now generally perceived as a joint-decision trap impeding effective policy responses to new economic and demographic challenges at both levels of government. Nevertheless, a high-powered bicameral Commission set up...

Zusammenfassung In diesem aus Anlaß der Verleihung des in Erinnerung an Niklas Luhmann gestifteten Bielefelder Wissenschaftspreises gehaltenen Vortrag setzen sich die Autoren mit Luhmanns These von der grundsätzlichen selbstreferentiellen Geschlossenheit funktioneller Teilsysteme auseinander. Am Beispiel des Verhältnisses von Politik und Wirtschaft...

Das Scheitern der Föderalismuskommission erklärt sich nicht nur aus einer suboptimalen Verhandlungsführung, sondern auch aus einer erheblich veränderten Ausgangslage während der Beratungen. Eine Schlüsselrolle nahm dabei das Bundesverfassungsgericht ein, dessen restriktive Auslegung der Erforderlichkeitsklausel des Art. 72 GG die gesamte konkurrier...

In der Entwicklung des deutschen Bundesstaates lassen sich drei Phasen unterscheiden: Die anfänglich ungebremste Unitarisierung der Gesetzgebung und Zentralisierung der Finanzbeziehungen wurde seit Mitte der sechziger Jahre korrigiert durch die Institutionalisierung eines kooperativen Bundesstaates mit eng verflochtenen Finanzbeziehungen und gestei...

This paper discusses the «associational democratic» model of relationship between state and civil society organizations, which recommends devolution of as many regulatory functions as possible to local groups and associations with detailed knowledge of problems and possible solutions, extensive monitoring capacities, and the potential to deliberate...

[Introduction by Vivien Schmidt, Forum Guest Editor]. This forum originally came in the form of a roundtable I organized at the American Political Science Association meetings in Philadelphia (August 2003) in an attempt to bring together a wide range of views on the democratic challenges facing the EU. Amitai Etzioni questioned the sustainability o...

Bis vor kurzem war die Diskussion über die Wünschbarkeit und mögliche Gestalt einer europäischen Verfassung eine fast ausschließlich akademische Angelegenheit. Die tatsächliche Entwicklung der europäischen Institutionen dagegen war von pragmatischen Kompromissen der Regierungen bestimmt, die sich jeweils an dringenden Problemen oder vorrangigen sac...

Abstract Governing acts violating the preferences or interests of the governed require legitimation. In democratic political systems, such acts may be legitimated either by the input-oriented reference to the collective preferences of the governed, or by the output-oriented reference to their interests. In the nation state, both types of legitimati...

Present debates on a European constitution should consider not only the legitimacy, but also the problem-solving effectiveness of EU decision making. The existing governing modes (supranational centralization, joint-decision making, intergovernmental agreement) are not capable of dealing with the three main challenges the European Union is currentl...

The paper begins by examining the functions ofinput-oriented and output-oriented legitimating arguments in liberaldemocracies. At the European level, input-oriented arguments remain weak, butlegitimacy problems are generally avoided since the policies which can in factbe adopted under prevailing institutional conditions are still based on broadinte...

The complexity of the multi-level European polity is not adequately represented by the single-level theoretical concepts of competing “intergovernmentalist” and “supranationalist” approaches. By contrast, empirical research focusing on multi-level interactions tends either to emphasize the uniqueness of its objects, or to create novel concepts — wh...

European integration has created a constitutional asymmetry between policies promoting market efficiencies and policies promoting social protection and equality. National welfare states are legally and economically constrained by European rules of economic integration, liberalization and competition law, whereas efforts to adopt European social pol...

Discuter à propos d’une constitution européenne nécessite de se confronter à d’importants défis politiques qui ne se rencontrent pas réellement dans le cadre institutionnel actuel de l’Union européenne. Le présent article présente tout d’abord trois modes de gouvernement communautaire distincts : les négociations intergouvernementales, la centralis...

European public policy has succeeded in its economic goals of integrating theinternal market and creating the monetary union. But it is now confronted with criticalchallenges which cannot be effectively resolved within the Union’s present governingmodes. While these governing modes differ from one another, they share two essentialrequirements: eff...

Abstract The paper examines,the implications of European,economic,integration for the effec- tiveness and the democratic legitimacy of government ,at European ,and national levels. In contrast to the situation in the United States, welfare-state functions were fully developed at the national (state) level before economic integration was completed,...

The complexity of the multilevel European polity is not adequately represented by the single-level theoretical concepts of competing ‘intergovernmentalist’ and ‘supranationalist’ approaches. By contrast, empirical research focusing on multilevel interactions tends either to emphasize the uniqueness of its objects, or to create novel concepts – whic...

L'institutionnalisme centré sur les acteurs Renate Mayntz et Fritz W. Scharpf Cet article résume une approche caractéristique de la recherche menée à l'Institut Max Planck pour les sciences sociales de Cologne, sur les interactions entre politique gouvernementale et autoorganisation des secteurs industriels et des services. Selon cette approche, le...

Abstract This Working Paper is an attempt, occasioned by theevaluation of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, to provide aconceptual framework within which institute research on multi-level Europeanproblem solving could be discussed in the context of a more comprehensiveoverview of the literature. The framework combines an institut...

Abstract The text is a comment on the White Paper on"European Governance" presented by the European Commission (COM[2001]428, 25.7.2001). It begins by confronting the Commission's emphases with thegovernance problems that it fails to address, including the unresolveddifficulties of economic-policy coordination among EMU member states, theadjustment...

Abstract The complexity of the multi-level European polity is not adequately represented by the single-level theoretical concepts of competing intergovernmentalist and supranationalist approaches. By contrast, empirical research focusing on mul-tilevel interactions tends either to emphasize the uniqueness of its objects, or to create novel concepts...

This is the first of a two‐volume study of the adjustment of advanced welfare states to international economic pressures, in which leading scholars detail the wide variety of responses in 12 countries to the challenges to their employment and social policy systems in the period between the first oil‐price crises of the early 1970s and the increasin...

The article explores the intersections between the different perspectives of institutional and policy research and discusses the characteristic purposes and conditions of theory-oriented policy research, where the usefulness of statistical analyses is generally constrained by the complexity and contingency of causal influences. Although comparative...

The capitalist welfare state achieved its full development within the nearly closed national economies of the early postwar decades. After the rampant protectionism following the Great Depression, and after the complete breakdown of world markets in World War II, the restoration of international competition in the markets for industrial goods was a...

1. Political Democracy in a Capitalist Economy 2. Negative and Positive Integration 3. Regulatory Competition and Re-Regulation 4. National Solutions without Boundary Control 5. The European Contribution Conclusion: Multi-level Problem-Solving in Europe References Index

Die politische und die wirtschaftliche Integration Europas sind eng verwoben. Die Integration ist in eine Phase eingetreten, in der sie die auf dem Kontinent vertretenen unterschiedlichen Wirtschafts- und Sozialmodelle systematisch transformiert. Dieser Band wendet die Erkenntnisse der Vergleichenden Politischen Ökonomie auf die europäische Integra...

Four ECSA members reflect on institutionalism in European integration studies. A collective bibliography appears at the end of this Forum.

Der Vorschlag, mehr Arbeitsplätze im Niedriglohnbereich durch Entlastungen bei den Sozialabgaben zu schaffen, ist auf Kritik gestoßen. Welche Überlegungen liegen diesem Ansatz zugrunde? Kann hierdurch die Arbeitslosigkeit abgebaut werden? --

Abstract The paperrepresents a preliminary and partial analysis of the information collected in acomparative 12-country study of the adjustment of national employment andsocial-welfare policies to the increasing internationalization of product andcapital markets. After the postwar decades, when national governments were stillable to control their e...

The process of European economic integration creates conditions of "regulatory competition" that are undermining the problem solving capacity of the nation state in critical areas of social policy. At the same time, effective European solutions are prevented by the high consensus requirements of European decision processes, and by the institutional...

The process of European integration is characterized by a fundamental asymmetry, described accurately by Joseph Weiler (1981) as a dualism between supranational European law and intergovernmental European policy making. As Weiler (1994) points out, political scientists have for too long focused only on aspects of intergovernmental negotiations whil...

In den Diskussionen über die Folgen der „Globalisierung“ der Wirtschaft und der Vollendung des Binnenmarkts wird häufig als selbstverständlich vorausgesetzt, daß die Fähigkeit der nationalen Politik zur Regulierung und Besteuerung von Kapital, Unternehmen und Produktionsprozessen wesentlich eingeschränkt wird. Während liberale Ökonomen die Befreiun...

The premise of the Bellagio Project on Democracy has beenthat, in recent decades, Western democracies have come to suffer a decline ofpolitical "trust" or "confidence" in, or popular "satisfaction"with, the "performance" of their representative institutions, and thatthis decline needs to be taken seriously as a potential threat to the viabilityof d...

In the post-war decades, advanced capitalist economies have developed in symbiosis with democratic political systems with a high capacity for effective regulation and welfare-state compensations. As economic integration deepens globally and even more so within the European Community, national capacities to regulate and to tax mobile capital and fir...

Demokratische Politik und kapitalistische Ökonomie koexistieren in einer antagonistischen Symbiose, die erst nach der großen Weltwirtschaftskrise in den Jahrzehnten nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg verträgliche Konfigurationen entwickelt hat. Die Politik hatte gelernt, die kapitalistischen Krisen zu dämpfen und die Ausbeutung der menschlichen Arbeitskraf...