Europeanisation and Domestic Administrative Adaptation

Abstract

Over the last decades, ‘Europeanisation’ studies have proliferated both theoretically and empirically (Caporaso et al. 2001; Borzel 2002; Radaelli and Featherstone 2003; Schmidt 2002; Knill 2001; Knill and Lehmkuhl 1999; Ladrech 2010; Borzel and Panke 2013, Bourne and Chatzopoulou 2015). Traditional European integration theories, such as neo-functionalism and liberal intergovernmentalism, are useful in the analysis of the potential redistribution of power and competences between the EU and the domestic level (Sandholtz and Zysman 1989; Haas 2004). However, Europeanisation studies go further and seek explanations on the domestic changes due to European integration of decisions and policies (Bulmer 1997; Hooghe and Marks 2001; Radaelli 2003: Ladrech 2010). The redistribution of power between the EU and the domestic level can be a basic condition for inducing domestic change, but it cannot explain the general conditions under which such domestic changes take place or why variation in administrative adaptation to EU policies prevails among member states. Europeanisation studies emerged in the late 1990s as a response to this need, following European integration (history making decisions) and EU governance (decision-making and system governing). Europeanisation studies focus on how EU decisions impact on domestic polity, policies and politics adaptation and institution building (Ladrech 1994; Borzel 1999; Borzel and Risse 2003).The EU constitutes a ‘political opportunity structure’ above the domestic level. This structure provides new resources and access for but also constrains policy influence, which can trigger domestic change for the domestic actors and institutions (parliaments, interest groups but also executives).