Thesis

The role of actors in the legitimation or delegitimation of MLG structures: A claims-making analysis of the politicisation and depoliticisation of EU state aid policy

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Abstract

The politicisation and depoliticisation of EU policies such as state aid are key to the legitimation and contestation of the EU. However, the existing literature tends to focus on analysing these processes either in terms of politicisation or depoliticisation, but rarely both simultaneously. Rather, this thesis conceptualises politicisation and depoliticisation as embodying a fluid-like state within Multilevel Governance (MLG) structures, such as the EU, where agents play a key role. The thesis first explores 266 state aid cases labelled "Unlawful with Recovery of Aid" (UWRA) to identify which were appealed, and to gauge the degree of news coverage that each case gained. From the analysis of the 266 cases, the dissertation selects the cases of Apple in Ireland and Ilva in Italy for sustained and detailed analysis. It explores how actors have sought to politicise and depoliticise these state aid cases in the national news media. A claims-making analysis is performed to understand how actors attempt to legitimise or delegitimise their own actions or the actions of the other actors involved (the Commission, Apple, Ilva and the Irish and Italian governments). To perform the analysis, a set of 100 newspapers were gathered from the Factiva database, including two leading quality newspapers (centre-left and centre-right) from Ireland (the Irish Times and the Irish Independent) and Italy (Il Sole 24 Ore and La Repubblica). The results show that a key moment in the trajectory of both the politicisation and depoliticisation of a state aid case is the act of appealing by the member state. More specifically, in the Apple case, TINA (There Is No Alternative) was used as a strategy to discursively depoliticise the action of appealing which, interestingly contributed to the overall politicisation of the state aid case. In contrast, other depoliticising strategies ("appeasing" claims) which intended to calm past tensions between the Italian government and the Commission were used successfully. In terms of politicisation, the Apple case showed an "international conflict trajectory" (Irish government versus the Commission) while the Ilva case raised concerns about the Italian government and the management of the corporation. Overall, this dissertation advances understandings of the differentiated patterns of politicisation and depoliticisation by illustrating that the Apple case followed the "politics against policy" route while this was avoided in the Ilva state aid case.

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... The power and financial disparities created by history and by the costs of aid across the globe remain influential in aid policies and actions (Belloni, 2007). Much has been written about the influence of aid, as politicians at all levels use aid for their own gain whether to grab or keep power, to legitimise financial interests, or to enforce political strategies (Escalante Block, 2021). For example, in 2022, 35 countries abstained, five voted against, and 12 did not vote in supporting a UN resolution against Russia's invasion of Ukraine (Mills, 4 March 2022). ...
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*DM me for full text* While it is undisputed that the Eurozone crisis has contributed to the politicization of European integration, the longer-term impact of this politicization on the structure of political conflict in Europe remains unclear. This article engages with research findings which argue that the crisis has contributed to a shift of political cleavages in Europe, from an economic (left vs. right) to a transnational (pro- vs. anti-EU) divide. We examine whether there is any evidence of such a shift in parliamentary debates about the crisis in four Eurozone states (Germany, Austria, Spain and Ireland) between 2009 and 2014. We use a combination of content and cluster analysis to identify the discursive frames that parliamentarians employed to make sense of the crisis, and then assess which factors affected how these frames were used. Our findings show that the economic (left-right) cleavage remained highly influential in shaping the four parliaments’ crisis discourse.
Article
Following the 2008 financial crash, voices have called governments to re-embrace industrial policy and promote industrial development. Such calls presuppose that the past decades witnessed a relative retreat of activist industrial policies. Within international political economy the latter is explained by the limits posed by the structure of global economic governance and globalisation on the state’s interventionist capacities. This article argues that these constraints have enabled states to pursue the transnational depoliticisation of industrial policy and transfer decision-making responsibilities to spheres lying beyond the governmental arena such as transnational institutions. By appealing to supranational economic rules, governments can disclose their own preferences for certain industrial policies and resist pressures to assist declining activities. To substantiate these claims the article proposes an archival investigation of the French government’s management of the steel industry between 1980 and 1984 and its support for a European Commission-led management of restructuring. The findings suggest that the pressures of the Commission played a crucial role in strengthening the government’s effort to implement socially unpopular but economically vital industrial choices.
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Regions around the world suffered asymmetric effects with the global economic crisis of the last decade. European regions were not different, and a myriad of impacts with varied magnitudes was felt. This article, inspired by the literature of varieties of capitalism (VoC), presents statistical and econometric evidence about the differences of regional resilience, measured by the variation of economic product, unemployment and R&D across regions in European Union during the economic downturn. An exploratory approach analyses the socio‐economic resilience between different member states, and VoC ideal‐types (liberal market economies, the continental capitalism, the social‐democrat economies, the Mediterranean capitalism, and the Eastern economies). The study presents a typology of resilience clusters in European regions. There were found six types of profiles concerning resilience: great performers, fast growth, intermediate position, R&D reduction, regions in divergence, and Mediterranean regions in big trouble. The study identifies key aspects for resilience, providing policy implications for regional economic policies. The comparison of the resilience clusters and the original VoC categorization has implications for this branch of literature as it does not completely address the variety of regional answers to the shocks.
Book
In A Community of Europeans?, a thoughtful observer of the ongoing project of European integration evaluates the state of the art about European identity and European public spheres. Thomas Risse argues that integration has had profound and long-term effects on the citizens of EU countries, most of whom now have at least a secondary "European identity" to complement their national identities. Risse also claims that we can see the gradual emergence of transnational European communities of communication. Exploring the outlines of this European identity and of the communicative spaces, Risse sheds light on some pressing questions: What do "Europe" and "the EU" mean in the various public debates? How do European identities and transnational public spheres affect policymaking in the EU? And how do they matter in discussions about enlargement, particularly Turkish accession to the EU? What will be the consequences of the growing contestation and politicization of European affairs for European democracy? This focus on identity allows Risse to address the "democratic deficit" of the EU, the disparity between the level of decision making over increasingly relevant issues for peoples' lives (at the EU) and the level where politics plays itself out-in the member states. He argues that the EU's democratic deficit can only be tackled through politicization and that "debating Europe" might prove the only way to defend modern and cosmopolitan Europe against the increasingly forceful voices of Euroskepticism.
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This article examines the way in which multi‐level governance ‐more specifically the increased overlap in regional, state and EU spheres of authority ‐ can generate conflict between regional and central state actors in Germany and the United Kingdom.1 The main argument is that this increased overlap between different spheres of authority generates new tensions between regional and central state actors in both of these EU member states. However, the nature of the tensions differs in the two states. Domestic variables, including institutional structures, systems of intergovernmental relations and domestic political culture are key determinants of these differences.
Article
Power is the most important variable in world politics, but scholars and policy analysts systematically mismeasure it. Most studies evaluate countries’ power using broad indicators of economic and military resources, such as gross domestic product and military spending, that tally their wealth and military assets without deducting the costs they pay to police, protect, and serve their people. As a result, standard indicators exaggerate the wealth and military power of poor, populous countries, such as China and India. A sounder approach accounts for these costs by measuring power in net rather than gross terms. This approach predicts war and dispute outcomes involving great powers over the past 200 years more accurately than those that use gross indicators of power. In addition, it improves the in-sample goodness-of-fit in the majority of studies published in leading journals over the past five years. Applying this improved framework to the current balance of power suggests that the United States’ economic and military lead over other countries is much larger than typically assumed, and that the trends are mostly in America's favor.
Book
Concern and hostility towards populism has become a distinctive feature of contemporary political culture. In Europe such concerns are frequently directed at Eurosceptics, whose opposition to the European Union is often portrayed as a cultural crime. Ancient anti-democratic claims about the gullibility, ignorance and irrationality of the masses are frequently recycled through the anti-populist condemnation of people who vote the wrong way. This book argues that the current outburst of anti-populist anxiety is symptomatic of a loss of faith in democracy and in the ability of the demos to assume the role of responsible citizens. Distrust of the people and of parliamentary sovereignty is reinforced by the concern that, on its own, liberal democracy lacks the normative foundation to inspire the loyalty and affection of ordinary citizens. Through focusing on the conflict between the European Union’s Commission and the Government of Hungary, this book explores contrasting attitudes towards national sovereignty, popular sovereignty and the question of tradition and the past as the main drivers of the culture war in Europe.
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How does economic interdependence shape political relations? We show a new pathway to support a commercial peace in which economic interdependence changes strategies for conflict management. The uncertainty arising from political disputes between countries can depress trade flows. As states seek to protect trade from such negative effects, they are more likely to bring their disputes to legal venues. We assess this argument by analyzing why countries bring cases to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Using data on 190 countries from 1960 to 2013, we find that countries are more likely to file ICJ cases against important trading partners than against states with low levels of shared trade. We conclude that economic interdependence changes the incentives for how states resolve their disputes.