Is there a sovereignty problem in the EU?

In the process of the European integration, the role of the state seems again to have become stronger over the last fifteen years: oppositions against treaty reforms were carried by national public opinions, framed by state borders; decisions with regard to rescue packages were decided on the basis of governmental debates and included much less than in the past supranational institutions. This contribution aims at analysing the challenges state sovereignty - newly affirmed and old - poses to theoretical approaches of European integration. It does so in two parts. It discusses the question of sovereignty in the regional integration schemes more generally in a first part. In distinguishing between internal and external state sovereignty, my aim is to consider sovereignty not so much as a juridical concept than as a concept whose importance varies according to perception and construction by social agents. A second part will then develop a conceptual framework based on the usage of sovereignty by members state officials both at the EU and the national level

Resistance to Policy Change in the European Union. An actor-centred analytical framework

This article addresses the perspectives and limits of the ever expanding research agenda of various forms of (active or passive) resistance to EU policy change. While taking stock of existing research on Euroscepticism, social movements, Europeanisation and non-compliance, the paper seeks to go beyond their limitations and proposes a broader analytical framework. This framework shall serve to study resistance to policy change in the EU in three constitutive dimensions: its causes, its forms and its effects. We formulate four hypotheses: 1/ a “positive-negative integration hypothesis” analysing the nature of change as a motivation for agents to resist; 2/ a “disposition hypothesis” relating to the perception and framing of change; 3/ an “arena shifting hypothesis” examining the institutional possibilities for resisting at the national or EU political arena; and 4/ a twofold “concentration hypothesis” looking at the extent to which the concentration of resistance in one or few Member States is likely to affect further integration under different decision making regimes (unanimity or qualified majority)

Resisting EU Norms. A Framework for Analysis

This article provides a framework for analysing resistance to norms in the European Union. It argues on the one hand that the development of EU governance makes it necessary to systematically study resistances to EU norms beyond the current concentration on non-compliance with legal norms. On the other hand it develops a typology of the instruments of resistance used by domestic actors to object to the implementation of EU norms. Based on a systematic analysis of case studies stemming from both legal and political science literature, the paper will show that resistances to EU norms have a long history in the EU. We will first analyse the forms of resistance to hard law based on the widespread secondary literature available. This will then be compared to areas in which soft law reigns, with a view to demonstrate that soft law triggers as much resistance as hard law. Based on this empirical data and using a policy instruments approach, the paper develops a typology of instruments used by domestic actors to circumvent or to resist European norms. This allows for establishing possible causalities between the political context, norms and types of resistances

Resisting EU Norms. A Framework for Analysis

This article provides a framework for analysing resistance to norms in the European Union. It argues on the one hand that the development of EU governance makes it necessary to systematically study resistances to EU norms beyond the current concentration on non-compliance with legal norms. On the other hand it develops a typology of the instruments of resistance used by domestic actors to object to the implementation of EU norms. Based on a systematic analysis of case studies stemming from both legal and political science literature, the paper will show that resistances to EU norms have a long history in the EU. We will first analyse the forms of resistance to hard law based on the widespread secondary literature available. This will then be compared to areas in which soft law reigns, with a view to demonstrate that soft law triggers as much resistance as hard law. Based on this empirical data and using a policy instruments approach, the paper develops a typology of instruments used by domestic actors to circumvent or to resist European norms. This allows for establishing possible causalities between the political context, norms and types of resistances

When trade unions succeed: cases of blocked liberalisation in the common market

Despite the generally accepted weakness of trade unions at the European Union level, an analysis of two high profile cases – the Services Directive and the Port Directive – shows that trade unions are able to mobilise effectively at the European level and, within constellations of actors, crucially impact EU decision making. In contrast to common claims that a lack of access to EU institutions makes such groups powerless, it is argued here that the exclusion of large opposing societal groups from consultations is neither a quick nor a sure fire recipe for dismantling opposition. On the contrary, it politicises the process and may lead to opposing groups mobilising in more contentious ways

The study of national preference formation in times of the Euro crisis and beyond

The aim of its introduction is threefold: We start from a conceptual clarification of preference formation, defining it provisionally as a political process ‘by which social actors decide what they want and what to pursue’. After an analysis of different conceptual and theoretical approaches, the introduction offers a critique of liberal intergovernmentalism, one of the major explanatory frameworks of preference formation in European Union studies. This critique centres on the context in which national preference formation took place during the European Monetary Union crisis. This special issue argues that the conceptualisation of preference formation as state-based, unidirectional and unchanged by the regime is deeply problematic. Preference formation is typically messy and non-linear and rarely closed to the possibility that both preferences and positions may change, sometimes radically, it is even more complex, context-sensitive, and open to a wide range of influences in a multi-level system such as the European Union. In other words, the traditional understanding of preference formation as a purely domestic process of interest aggregation and competition require revision given the multiple factors that shape preferences in general and in the interdependent policy-making of the European Union in particular

Analyser les résistances nationales à la mise en œuvre des normes européennes : une étude des instruments d’action publique

Depuis une vingtaine d’années, les oppositions des citoyens à l’intégration européenne deviennent plus visibles : manifestations contre des politiques européennes spécifiques, rejet de referendums, abstention accrue aux élections européennes. Une autre forme d’opposition, moins visible, existe depuis le début du projet européen : celle des administrations appelées à mettre en œuvre des décisions européennes, qu’il s’agit de règles de hard law ou de soft law. L’objet de cet article est de revenir de manière critique et dans une perspective historique sur la littérature qui porte sur ces « résistances » actives autant que passives à la mise œuvre des normes européennes. Sur cette base, nous présentons un cadre conceptuel qui permettra d’analyser ces oppositions bureaucratiques de manière systématique. Il s’agit de mieux identifier les types d’instruments utilisés pour « résister » aux normes européennes en prenant comme point de départ l’action de l’administration, considérée comme l’acteur central dans la mise en œuvre des normes européennes.Over the last twenty years, Europeans seem to increas­ingly oppose European integration: protests against certain European policies, negative results on refer­enda, increased abstentions in elections to the European Parliament. Another form of resistance to European integration existed however since the 1950s: that of national administrations who implement European decisions, whether they are hard or soft law. The aim of this article is to revisit the forms and instruments of administrative resistance to implementation in a historical perspective and to present a conceptual framework, which will help us to systematically anal­yse these bureaucratic resistances beyond specific

Conceptualizing and measuring party-interest group relationships

Relationships between political parties and interest groups form structures that enable and constrain political action. Yet there is a lack of consensus on what ‘party-group relationships’ means. We propose a conceptualization focusing on ties as means for structured interaction, which is different from sharing or transfer of resources and ideological kinship. Our conceptual discussion suggests that organizational ties form a single yet hierarchical scale of strength: groups that have many formal ties with particular parties would also have weaker ties with these parties, but not vice versa. To validate our conceptual map, we furthermore check whether the distinction between organizational ties, resource sharing/provision and ideological kinship holds empirically. We explore our expectations by means of novel interest group survey data from seven mature democracies. The results of our scaling analysis provide support for our predictions and have multiple implications for future research on the causes and effects of party-group relationships

Public support for coercive diplomacy: Exploring public opinion data from ten European countries

Abstract. Scholarship has increasingly acknowledged the importance of public attitudes for shaping the European Union’s Common Foreign and Security Policy. Economic sanctions emerged as one of CFSP’s central tools. Yet despite the emergence of sanctions as a popular instrument in the EU foreign policy toolbox, public attitudes towards sanctions are yet to be studied in depth. This article explains public support for EU sanctions, using the empirical example of sanctions against Russia. It looks at geopolitical attitudes, economic motivations and ideational factors to explain the variation in public support for sanctions. The conclusion suggests that geopolitical factors are the most important, and that economic factors matter very little. Euroscepticism and anti-Americanism play an important role in explaining the support for sanctions at the individual level