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Differentiated Integration: Explaining Variation in the European Union
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This introduction to the Special Issue reviews the existing literature on the domestic politics of international organizations (IOs), presenting them within a unified theoretical framework. We emphasize the central role of domestic forces in the study of IOs: how individual preferences are channeled through domestic political institutions, and ultimately inform a government’s foreign policy decisions toward and within IOs. We show that these forces can be distilled into a game between citizens in which they select welfare weights to be assigned to citizens across the globe. We refer to this as the Citizens’ IO Game. The contributions in this Special Issue and previous studies are discussed in the framework of the Citizens’ IO Game, which offers fresh insights into the intersection of domestic constitutions, politics, resource distribution, and IO membership and policy. We construct a specific application to trade policy to further clarify the role of the framework. Using this example, we show that global externalities can never be fully internalized through IOs when sovereignty is prioritized. We conclude by suggesting directions for future research on the domestic politics of IOs.
When confronted with a threat to security, a European government can respond on its own or join an alliance. Because a democratic government is accountable to its electorate for security, it may choose to act on its own to avoid diluting its power to act. However, in order to act effectively, a government needs substantial resources, and joining a multi-national alliance can enhance national resources. There are hundreds of institutions that a government can ally with to increase its resources; these differ in their powers and specialised purposes. The European Union is a multi-purpose alliance with strong powers to deal with economic security; significant powers to deal with climate change; and very little authority to deal with military defence. The United Nations Charter lists a variety of purposes. However, the very inclusiveness of its membership greatly limits its effectiveness, since the governments threatening security are member states as are states wanting protection. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization by contrast is an alliance with a clear purpose: to protect its member states against military attack. The great majority of European states belong to alliances to help deal with threats to their security and engage in political bargaining with other governments that restrict their independence.
European trade in the 21st century has undergone significant changes due to EU enlargement and global production shifts, especially towards Southeast Asia. In response, global actors like China, India, and the US have adjusted their trade strategies, engaging with the EU not only through WTO mechanisms but also addressing non-trade issues (NTIs) beyond WTO regulations. These changes have politicized EU free trade agreements (FTAs) and preferential trade agreements (PTAs), as the EU seeks to export its regulatory framework on NTIs such as environmental protection, human rights, and labor standards. While some argue that the EU’s regulatory influence is limited, others suggest its long-term objectives in promoting domestic policy changes internationally remain significant. The European Commission plays a key role in advancing these agreements, balancing trade defense tools like anti-dumping procedures with the promotion of EU standards abroad. This article explores the role of NTIs, especially labor standards, in shaping EU trade policy and its future implications.
Amidst growing scholarly interest in narratives, little attention has been paid to narrative-making by governments in the context of the EU. This chapter sets out why the way in which governments imagine, explain, and justify their positioning in respect of the EU is important. It considers the promise held by the study of government EU narratives for understanding the purposes, operation, and evolution of the EU, and for offerings insights into whether governments can shape or must reflect wider societal views on ‘Europe’. After a brief survey of the formal narratives developed by EU institutions since the 1950s to enable comparison with national EU narratives, it outlines the questions addressed in the country studies, and the comparative and theoretical debates that the volume attempts to inform.
This chapter reviews the role of theories in the evolution and transformations of regionalism in Latin America. The demand for developing regional cooperation and integration mechanisms in Latin America in the late 1950s follows the premises of the European integration process. Over time, the Latin American process found some obstacles to advancing the regional agenda, paving the way for more flexible cooperation formulas and waves of regionalism. While explanations and theorization were primarily Eurocentric, the peculiarities of regionalization projects in Latin America have demanded a supply of innovative theoretical and conceptual debates regarding Latin American regionalization. The result of the transfer of Eurocentric theories and concepts was ambivalent. On the one hand, it stimulated theory-driven research on Latin American regionalism; on the other hand, Eurocentric approaches produced misinterpretations and ended up in dead ends, which ultimately led to the emancipation and differentiation of Latin American regionalism research from Eurocentric analytical approaches and theories, without, however, completely abandoning the reference to research on the EU.
Zróżnicowana integracja (differentiated integration) zawiera cechy charakterystyczne odróżniające ją od integracji jednolitej (uniform integration) i decydujące o specyfice tego typu współpracy jak: fakultatywność w decyzjach, przejściowość w czasie, partialność, czyli częściowość w zasięgu (tak przedmiotowym, jak i podmiotowym) oraz asymetryczność wobec otoczenia w systemie. Badania zróżnicowanej integracji w Unii Europejskiej wymagają studiów porównawczych, gdyż przedmiot badań jest dynamiczny i wielowymiarowy. Ontologia zróżnicowanej integracji, czyli ujawniony dyferencjalizm (differentialism) jest więc także typowo dynamiczną ontologią systemową, gdyż zróżnicowana integracja ingeruje w procesy integracyjne i potrafi je zmieniać. Głównym zadaniem badawczym powinna być zatem próba identyfikacji źródeł, przestrzeni pojawiania się i komponentów składowych zróżnicowanej integracji, czyli podstaw jej ontologii.
The article identifies and analyses four main approaches to understanding the enlargement of the European Union, which has evolved from a sporadic practice to a component of the Union's daily activities. In particular, enlargement as a way to a superstate formation, as a response to external challenges, as horizontal institutionalisation and as deteleologisation. The need to accept another group of states, including Ukraine, makes the European Union decide on its future: to become a federation by amending the founding treaties, or to maintain the staus quo, somewhat limiting the veto power of the Member States and opening the way to a multi-speed Europe. In the latter case, the menu for member states will not be limited to admission to the Schengen or Euro area, but will also offer various forms of quasi-political participation in decision-making processes in the EU bodies. The main reasons are the very low level of economic development of the candidate states and the different pace of pro-European reforms, which will make it much more difficult to simultaneously accept this group of candidates. The granting of membership to the current candidate states will be dominated by the security factor and will actually mark the culmination of the EU as a geopolitical project, as, given the numerous failures of attempts to integrate immigrants from non-Christian countries, no state outside the European continent will be offered membership. In addition, the outcome of the Russian- Ukrainian war — Kyiv's victory or the freezing of the conflict — will determine not only Ukraine's position in the EU, but also the fate of the Eurasian continent, its division into spheres of influence between Brussels and Beijing. Key words: enlargement, European integration, European Union, institution, democracy, geopolitics.
How has European integration developed in reaction to the Russo-Ukrainian war? This chapter presents a “bordering” analysis of “integration through war”. In this perspective, integration has two dimensions. First, and corresponding to the community-building dimension of polity formation, integration consists in the opening of boundaries for subjects and objects. Second, and corresponding to capacity building, it consists in the centralisation of control over the EU’s external boundaries. We examine the level and change of boundary closure and control in response to the war both within the EU and between the EU and Ukraine across four functional domains and for more than thirty categories of subjects and objects from 2013 to the first half of 2023. EU-Ukrainian boundaries, we find, have gradually opened after the 2014 Russian attack, and we observe a sharp decline in boundary closure in response to the 2022 invasion. We also show that this opening in 2022 has been particularly remarkable for the entry of persons in the economic and political domains. By contrast, boundary control has changed only slightly. We conclude that, at least in the initial period, “integration through war” has occurred primarily in the community building and less so in the capacity-building dimension of integration.
This chapter focuses on liberal intergovernmentalism (LI), which has acquired the status of a ‘baseline theory’ in the study of regional integration: an essential first-cut explanation against which other theories are often compared. The chapter argues that LI has achieved this dominant status due to its theoretical soundness, empirical power, and utility as a foundation for synthesis with other explanations. After providing an overview of LI’s main assumptions and propositions, the chapter illustrates LI’s scope and empirical power with two recent cases: migration policy and the euro. It closes by considering common criticisms levelled against LI, as well as the scope conditions under which it is most likely to explain state behaviour. This chapter concludes by emphasizing LI’s openness to dialogue and synthesis with other theories and reiterating its status as a baseline theory of European integration.
This chapter examines the gradual development of foreign and security policy cooperation among European Union member states. It begins with a discussion of the hesitant moves from European political cooperation (EPC) to a common foreign and security policy (CFSP), along with the emergence of a common security and defence policy (CSDP) as part of CFSP. It then considers CFSP in the context of eastern enlargement and the significance of the Treaty of Lisbon for EU foreign and security policy. It also looks at the intervention in Iraq and the adoption of a European Security Strategy, as well as CSDP missions and operations. Finally, it analyses the underlying theme of national sovereignty combined with EU-level capacity through a range of examples.
Taking a fresh look at the impact of non-state actors on world politics and on the foreign policies of states, this book revives the debate on transnational relations which started in the 1970s. This debate withered away in the face of state-centered approaches, but this book's new approach emphasizes the interaction of states and transnational actors, arguing that domestic structures of the state as well as international institutions mediate the policy influence of transnational actors. Empirical chapters examine the European Economic and Monetary Union, US-Japanese transnational relations, multinational corporations in East Asia, Soviet and Russian security policy, democratization in Eastern Europe, and ivory management in Africa. The book concludes with chapters discussing the theoretical implications of the findings in the empirical studies.
All books in this flagship series contain carefully selected substantial extracts from key cases, legislation, and academic debate, providing students with a stand-alone resource. The seventh edition of EU Law: Text, Cases, and Materials provides clear analysis of all aspects of European law in the post Lisbon era. This edition looks in detail at the way in which the provisions of the Lisbon Treaty have worked since the Treaty became operational, especially innovations such as the hierarchy of norms, the different types of competence, and the legally binding Charter of Rights. The coming into effect of the new Treaty was overshadowed by the financial crisis, which has occupied a considerable part of the EU’s time since 2009. The EU has also had to cope with the refugee crisis, the pandemic crisis, the rule of law crisis and the Brexit crisis. There has nonetheless been considerable legislative activity in other areas, and the EU courts have given important decisions across the spectrum of EU law. The seventh edition has incorporated the changes in all these areas. The book covers all topics relating to the institutional and constitutional dimensions of the EU. In relation to EU substantive law there is detailed treatment of the four freedoms, the single market, competition, equal treatment, citizenship, state aid, and the area of freedom, security and justice. Brexit is the rationale for the decision to have a separate UK version of the book. There is no difference in the chapters between the two versions, insofar as the explication of the EU law is concerned. The difference resides in the fact that in the UK version there is an extra short section at the end of each chapter explaining how, for example, direct effect, supremacy or free movement are relevant in post-Brexit UK. Law students in the UK need to know this, law students in the EU and elsewhere do not.
The construction of the European Community (EC) has widely been understood as the product of either economic self-interest or dissatisfaction with the nation-state system. In Europe United, Sebastian Rosato challenges these conventional explanations, arguing that the Community came into being because of balance of power concerns. France and the Federal Republic of Germany-the two key protagonists in the story-established the EC at the height of the cold war as a means to balance against the Soviet Union and one another. More generally, Rosato argues that international institutions, whether military or economic, largely reflect the balance of power. In his view, states establish institutions in order to maintain or increase their share of world power, and the shape of those institutions reflects the wishes of their most powerful members. Rosato applies this balance of power theory of cooperation to several other cooperative ventures since 1789, including various alliances and trade pacts, the unifications of Italy and Germany, and the founding of the United States. Rosato concludes by arguing that the demise of the Soviet Union has deprived the EC of its fundamental purpose. As a result, further moves toward political and military integration are improbable, and the economic community is likely to unravel to the point where it becomes a shadow of its former self.
