EU Multilevel System Research Articles

The EU as Domestic Polity and the Historical Sociology of State Formation

The first steps towards formal institutional integration in Europe were taken in response to significant changes in the military-technological and economic environments of West European states, and in the state system itself. As we know from the relevant historical-sociological literature, this are precisely the kinds of changes that have been driving the formation and transformation of states in Europe in the longue duree. And yet, systematic attempts to mobilize this literature for the analysis of European integration continue to remain rare. Hence, and broadly defined, the interest pursued in this paper is in the usefulness of state formation theory for the analysis of European integration. More narrowly defined, the paper explores the fit between Rokkan’s state formation theory and the process of European integration. In this regard, the paper follows in the footsteps of Stefano Bartolini. However, and according to my reading, Bartolini emphasizes the Parsonian components of Rokkan’s work, which leads him to collapse his analysis back into a traditional state template. The paper suggests that more purchase can be had if one instead puts the other main inspiration of Rokkan’s model, i.e. Hirschman’s theory of exit, voice, and loyalty center-stage. This allows read to European integration as a new stage in the longer process of the evolution of forms of legitimate authority in Europe, with the immediate postwar period as a critical juncture that changed the trajectory from increasing centralization and territorial closure to decentralization and deterritorialization. The EU multilevel system then appears as an evolving equilibrium of voice and (partial) exits and entries. Intersection of the Rokkan-Hirschman model with theories of consensus democracy and consociationalism (Lijphart) allows for an alternative (and more optimistic) interpretation of the prospects of EU-democracy.

Towards Proceduralisation of Private Law in the European Multi-Level System

The essay is based upon the contribution of Christian Joerges to the previous edition (‘On the Legitimacy of Europeanising Private Law: Considerations on a Law of Justi(ce)-fication (justum facere) for the EU Multi-level System’, 159-190, and the condensed version of this essay (‘Europeanisation as Process: Thoughts on the Europeanisation of Private Law’, European Public Law 11 (2005): 62-82). It is at the same time a product of the intense cooperation of the two authors over more than a decade. Co-operation is not a merger of academic identities. We share many premises and differ nevertheless programmatically in our views on a number of issues. We refrain from discussing these differences here and simply underline that the conflict of laws approach we submit here is compatible with assigning functions of smooth an gradual convergence to a European code prepared by an adequate transnational forum such as a European Law Institute as advocated inter alia by Ch. Schmid, ‘Legitimacy Conditions of a European Civil Code’, Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law 8 (2001): 277; recently further developed in idem, ‘A European Civil Code as a Building Block of a Common Identity?, review essay on: H. Collins, The European Civil Code’, European Review of Contract Law 2010 (forthcoming) and idem, Die Instrumentalisierung des Privatrechts durch die EU, epilogue, 2010 (Baden-Baden: Nomos, forthcoming).

Accountability in the EU's Multilevel System of Governance – Taking Political Science Seriously

Accountability in the EU's Multilevel System of Governance – Taking Political Science Seriously

Cities and Organized Interest Intermediation in the EU Multi-Level System

It is argued that European cities gain new room for political manoeuvre because the process of Europeanization implies the opening-up of a new political sphere in which cities can play a new multi-level game or traditional structures of domestic policy making can — at least partly — be bypassed. First, we consider whether there are specific points of access for local-level actors to EU institutions. Cities can enter into the European policy-making process by providing EU institutions with knowledge, legitimacy and ways to monitor the implementation of EU policies. Second, we analyse how cities organize their activities to utilize these access points. Based on an investigation of two pan-European cities' organizations, the Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR) and Eurocities, we consider how different organizational models influence their effectiveness as a part of the EU governance system. Eurocities is a network type of organization whose activities are based on the modus of coordination. The CEMR, however, is a classic international umbrella organization consisting of national sections; its activities are based on the modus of cooperation. Finally, we conclude the article with some reflections about the potentials and the constraints which apply to each type of organization.

Distortions in a multi-level co-financing system: the case of the agri-environmental programme of Saxony-Anhalt

In this paper we analyse the impact of the EU multi-level co-financing system on regional policy-making and priority setting taking the case of the agri-environmental programme of Saxony-Anhalt. The implications of several co-financing scenarios are analysed and compared to respective lump-sum transfers using an interactive linear programming approach. The results reveal how regional choices on agri-environmental measures are influenced by the co-financing system leading to distortions. The extent of these distortions depends on the specific regional preferences and restrictions.

The Europeanisation of the German Bundestag: Institutional change and informal adaptation

At first glance, the Europeanisation of the German Bundestag seems quite straightforward: in reaction to the process of European integration the Bundestag acquired a set of comparatively strong participation and scrutiny rights in EU politics. It therefore seems rather astonishing that German members of parliament make only very little use of these rights. Different explanations have been put forward in the literature, such as the complicated decision-making system of the EU and the government's gate-keeper position within it, institutional flaws of the German scrutiny system as well as the overall consensus on European integration and the low electoral salience of EU issues. The paper contributes to this discussion in two respects: On the one hand, it offers an additional explanation for the infrequent use of formal instruments. The main argument is that the formal instruments of scrutiny in EU affairs are incompatible with both the overall logic of a parliamentary system as well as the challenges of policy-making in the EU multilevel system. On the other hand, the paper argues that the exclusive focus on the use of formal parliamentary scrutiny rights leads us to overlook more informal means of parliamentary influence and therefore to underestimate the involvement of German parliamentarians in EU affairs. Thus, in order to fully assess processes of parliamentary Europeanisation, we need to take forms of informal or strategic Europeanisation into account.

Sur la légitimité d'européaniser le droit privé.

ON THE LEGITIMACY OF EUROPEANISING EUROPE’S PRIVATE LAW. CONSIDERATIONS ON A LAW OF JUSTI(CE)-FICATION (JUSTUM FACERE) FOR THE EU MULTI-LEVEL SYSTEM There are good reasons to expect that the process of European integration might bring about a renaissance of comparative law and private international law, the two disciplines, in which Herbert Bernstein had excelled in the New and the Old World. To be sure, Europe’s legal systems must respond to processes of economic and political integration. It seems nevertheless quite unrealistic to expect from the European Union any comprehensive harmonisation of private law. Europe’s systems of private law are deeply entwined in the economic and political histories of the polities which they order and to which they owe their legitimacy. Europe’s identity is defined by the diversity of its legal heritage. Should not deepened comparative studies prepare and accompany the search for a Europeanised private law system ; and is it not the very vocation of private international law to organise constructive responses to legal diversity ? Pertinent efforts have been undertaken and are under way. And yet, the Europeanisation process, so this essay argues, follows a logic of its own, which none of our inherited legal disciplines seems able to cope with. Three difficulties will be discussed. One is inherent in very general developments of « post-classical » private law, in particular its linkages with regulatory and distributive policies and its opening to social values and human rights. Comparative law has often furthered, private international law has adapted to this (in Germany) so-called materialisation process. Europeanisation, however, adds challenging new dimensions. They are inherent in the multi-level structures of the European polity and hence inevitable. The interventions of European law into general private law (the codified systems of continental Europe and the common law of the UK) have so far been quite marginal. But Europe has very intensively and quite comprehensively re-organised the regulatory frameworks of private transactions whereas the distributive welfare state institutions in which private relations are embedded remained national domains. The Europeanisation of Private law is therefore to a large degree about the restructuring of the linkages of private law with its (Europeanised) regulatory environment and its embeddedness in welfare state institutions. Europeanisation affects this dimension through the freedoms it grants to European citizens. European law is a transformative discipline. It requires respect for its principles and the regulatory prescription it imposes in the realms of the enumerated competences of the European legislature. It cannot provide comprehensive responses to its quests for change. Europeanisation affects national systems of private law only selectively. The process of change is incremental and the essay therefore does not to try to present Europeanisation of private law as the building of a new system of rules and principles. It rather presents and explores patterns of legal change in three cases of exemplary importance. As will become apparent, neither comparative law, nor private international law or European law can lay claim to exclusive leadership in the Europeanisation process. Europeanisation is generating a new legal discipline. The challenging task of this discipline is to provide normative guidance for the operation of private law within the multi-level system of governance that Europe has become.

Lobbying in de Europese Unie : Is er nog toekomst voor nationale belangengroepen ?

This article studies the lobbying strategies of national business associations against the background of increasing Europeanization. It addresses the question whether national associations have withered away during the process of European integration. On the basis of neo-functionalist integration theory and the multi-level governance (MLG) perspective, a number of hypotheses are generated about the fate of national associations in the European integration process. An extensive empirica[ study of the EU financial services sector analyzes these hypotheses. The data show that European financial integration has not caused the withering away of national business associations as predicted by neofunctionalist theory. The data not only confirm the MLG hypothesis that national associations develop direct lobbying strategies at different levels of the EU multi-level system in order to gain access to the European decision-making process. In addition, the results also confirm the hypothesis that national associations undertake indirect lobbying strategies (through membership in European associations) with the aim of gaining institutional access. Finally, the degree to which national associations gain access to the European institutions is explained in terms of a theory of supply and demand for access goods.

Corporate lobbying in the European Union: the logic of access

The complexity and diversity of European interest politics is exemplified by the multitude of channels and targets that private actors use to lobby in the EU multi-level system. The aim of this article is to investigate the logic behind the apparent ad hoc lobbying behaviour of private interests. A theoretical framework is developed in order to explain the access of business interests to the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers. The degree of access to these institutions is explained in terms of a theory of demand and supply of access goods. Access goods concern information that is crucial in the EU policy-making process. In order to gain access to an EU institution, business interests have to provide the access good(s) demanded by that institution. Organizational form is introduced as the innovative unit of analysis. It follows that associative business action is unconventionally studied in relation to two other organizational forms: individual company action and thirdparty representation.

The Austrian domestic forest policy community in change? Impacts of the globalisation and Europeanisation of forest politics

The interest intermediation system has always attracted the attention of forest policy scientists. However, research on this subject has focused on the national level, despite the fact that forest issues are increasingly prominent on international and European agendas, both in the EU and the Pan-European Process on the Protection of Forests in Europe. Accordingly, the impacts of the globalisation and Europeanisation of forest policy and the peculiarities of multi-level policy processes have not been sufficiently taken into account. This article examines how international forest politics and the integration of national actors in the EU multi-level system of joint decision-making affect national actor constellations. To this end, I draw on the advocacy coalition framework to depict the Austrian forest policy network and its actors’ dispute on forest certification, as well as on hypotheses and empirical results of multi-level governance scholars and on my own preliminary results to investigate the likely effects of the evolving EU forest policy. The discussion provides some hypotheses and indications that national forest policy networks might be subject to significant change.