Study Of European Integration Research Articles

Grand theories of European integration in the twenty-first century

ABSTRACTThis paper sets the scene for a JEPP special issue entitled ‘Re-engaging Grand Theory: European Integration in the Twenty-first Century.’ The special issue engages three theories – neofunctionalism, intergovernmentalism, and postfunctionalism – that have their intellectual roots squarely in the study of European integration. The purpose of this article is to describe the genesis of each school and outline what is distinctive about its approach in relation to four landmark events of the past decade: the Eurocrisis, the migration crisis, Brexit, and illiberalism.

ПРОЦЕС ЄВРОПЕЙСЬКОЇ ІНТЕГРАЦІЇ ЯК ІСТОРИЧНИЙ ФЕНОМЕН

The purpose of the article is to highlight the structure of the historical process of European integration. Historical phenomenon of the process of European integration is considered as a historiosophical example of unevenness and not the linearity of development. The Great French Revolution set two opposite trends: the development of sovereign national powers while simultaneously spreading universal cosmopolitan ideas. Two world wars weakened Europe’s influence on world history. The idea of “Eurocentrism” turned to the background. The process of European integration has recreated Europe’s influence on the world-historical process. An interdisciplinary methodological approach to the study of European integration considers it an anonymous socio-historical process. The history of Europe demonstrates the various stages of the development of a liberal rational-market project, which is an integral result of the interaction of different social interests. An alternative is the project of ideocratic, focused on the priority of democratic values, human rights, which are the foundation of European modern civilization. The history of European integration of 1957-1990 was a process of overcoming the ideological split of the continent to the East and West in the Cold War. The Maastricht Treaty actually became a watershed in the transition to a postmodern model of European integration. The experience of developing the European integration process has fixed the following main integration-political strategies: federative community; linear expansion and cooperation of the Union of European Peoples; dual strategy: expansion and deepening of integration; d) flexibility and differentiation of “Europe of Nations”; creation of an integration core of Europe and a strategy of many speeds in the process of European integration, (g) intergovernmental cooperation strategy, sectoral integration, (i) the Directorate of the great powers, Europe of flexible geography, or concentric circles. Therefore, from the point of view of the historical process, the crisis of European integration is structural rather than systemic.

The European Mind-set, European Opinion and Economic Developments in 2007-2017: Major Changes of Public Opinion and the European Mind-set in Years 2004-2018

This study reports major changes in public opinion in the European Union. First part of the study includes (1) citizens´ assessments of the most important issues facing the EU at the moment, (2) The second part of study report changes in (1) national economic situation evaluations, (2) European economic situation evaluations, (3) European economic crisis recovery evaluations (the impact on the crisis on jobs), (4) evaluations of Euro-optimism vs. pessimism, (5) evaluations about the support for the Euro area and (6) evaluations support for the euro. All these changes of the Standard Eurobarometer results are mirrored in relation to long-run GDP changes of the European Union (EU-28). Third part of the study analyses the four key elements of European mind-sets. In general decision theory and general systems theory, a mind-set is a set of assumptions, beliefs, methods, or notations held by one or more people or groups of people. In the field of future studies the concept and the analysis of mind-set have been discussed in many global studies. From this perspective it is interesting to elaborate the European mind-set and its status. The study is based on the very latest “Future of Europe” datasets (September 2017). From these three perspectives this study is relevant for European integration studies. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.eis.0.12.21870

Re-Engaging Grand Theory: European Integration in the 21st Century

This paper engages three theories—neofunctionalism, intergovernmentalism, and postfunctionalism—that have their intellectual roots in the study of European integration in the past century. The purpose of this paper is to assess their use value for explaining EU developments in the 21st century. We briefly describe the genesis of each school and outline what is distinctive about its approach in relation to four landmark events: the Eurocrisis, the migration crisis, Brexit, and illiberalism. We conclude that each provides a distinctive.

Co-Creation of Public Services in Poland in Statu Nascendi. A Case Study on Senior Co-Housing Policy at the Urban Level

Abstract The paper impacts the current debate on governance system in Poland upon Europeanisation in terms of co-creation of public services at urban and regional level. In this context, it can be a part of a discussion on challenges related to cities’ and regions’ transition from industrial economy, society, city and government, to creative and knowledge-based ones. Due to its dynamic and vibrant character, the item can be also implemented into the debate on social and economic strengths in order to solving urgent problems in cities and city-regions linking to innovation in governance. Its clue is the concept of co-creation, which occupies an important space in the current study of European integration. However, the starting point for the considerations contained in the paper is the observation, that while it is commonly accepted that the co-creation of services with citizens and other non-governmental actors seems to be the most effective action to answer to the need for new social innovations and the growing demand for personalised services, the research agenda linked to this has investigated this aspect regarding Eastern and Central Europe not in an enough extensive way. In this regards, the paper can contribute to the field. The aim of the paper is to present the results of the general review of key sources concerning existing knowledge in the field of co-creation in Poland, both in domestic science and institutional practice. In the paper author confronted the EU concepts of co-creation of public services, whereby the basis of this approach was the participation of stakeholders in the decision-making processes as a crucial element of co-governance. In the paper a local case study will be discussed on the basis of social housing policy in Wrocław, the 4th biggest city in Poland. The proposed paper is a part of the international research performed upon the project “Co-Creation of Public Innovation in Europe” (acronym “CoSIE”) financed upon Horizon 2020.

Piecemeal Integration: Explaining and Understanding 60 Years of European Union Forest Policy-Making

This article looks at forest policy as empirical case study of European integration. By applying different theoretical lenses of European integration approaches (neo-functionalism, liberal intergovernmentalism, three institutionalist approaches and constructivism), it seeks to explain and understand the integration of forest policy in the European Union during the policy’s emergence (1958 to 1960s), expansion (1970 to late 1990s) and stabilization period (late 1990s to now). The findings clearly show that, to a certain extent, all European integration theories have their merits for the analysis. However, none of the employed integration theories alone can explain all the relevant aspects of the broader developments in EU forest policy. No individual theory can help explain why forest policy developed only incrementally and why it has been weakly institutionalized. This article, therefore, argues to combine them so as to establish a clearer picture of the driving factors and constraints. As each of the grand theories has its weak spots, it is further argued that scholars of European studies should work across a broader theoretical spectrum as only this would allow light to be shed on blind spots in empirical investigation over longer time periods.

Czech party positions on the EU’s finality: a conceptual metaphor approach

Political parties play an important role in offering voters some choices about European Union (EU) politics. The literature on party positions on European integration rely largely, from a methodological point of view, on coding of manifestos and expert surveys. This paper opts for a different approach to the study of party positions on European integration based on the analysis of metaphors used by parties in their discourse about the future form of European integration. Although analysis of metaphors has been providing an increasingly popular tool for examining international politics since the early 1990s, its application to studies of European integration and the EU has been much scarcer. On the basis of key conceptual metaphors used in discourses on the future of the EU that we identified from the relevant literature as well as the corpus itself, we analyse Czech parties’ Euromanifestos issued between 2004 and 2014. The analysis is subsequently projected onto party positions on European integration and Euroscepticism.

Political images and perceptions at the interdisciplinary crossdoards. Introduction to the Special Issue "Ukraine-EU Relations: Verbal Narratives, Images, and Perceptions"

This special issue presents findings of the transnational research project “Crisis, Conflict and Critical Diplomacy: EU Perceptions in Ukraine, Israel and Palestine” (C3EU) (2015-2018) focusing on Ukraine-specific results [C3EU, online]. Supported by the Erasmus+ of European Commission, C3EU united experienced and early careers scholars into a research team of 36 who studied and facilitated best practice in EU perceptions research. The results of the project contributed to policy debates on EU global and regional governance and fostered academic-policy-makers' dialogues in Ukraine and the EU. Leading to this extensive outreach to the stakeholders, the C3EU research consortium had consolidated academic excellence by gathering linguistic and non-linguistic information, and producing comprehensive and methodologically rigorous analyses of EU perceptions and narratives in Ukraine and Israel/Palestine reflecting major societal challenges. The articles published in this special issue focused on perceptions and images exposed in narratives on the EU, Ukraine and EU—Ukraine relations are interdisciplinary. They combine methodologies of cognitive and communicative linguistics with the findings of communication and media studies, cultural studies, political science, international relations, and European integration studies.

Et tu, EU-historicus?

Abstract Et tu, EU historian? The history of European integration and today’s crises In political science European integration studies has become a thriving specialism since the 1980s. Conversely, historians of European integration have remained a rather isolated community in between national history and international relations. Making sense of past and present realities of multilayered governance, however, is not the only challenge both political scientists and historians face today. They also have to come to terms with polarised public and political debate on Europe’s democratic deficit. The fact that a narrative of the European Union as a modern-day salvation history is a thing of the past opens up new opportunities for research. An equally finalistic narrative, reducing EU integration to an ever-widening gap between citizens and politicans, however, would be a poor substitute and no great analytical help in the current crises.

French military careers and European security integration: How internationalisation changes military socialisation

This study uses qualitative data on the trajectories of French military officers to provide preliminary hypotheses on the internationalisation of military careers and the dynamics of international military socialisation. It is divided into three sections. The first section provides an overview of the structure of the French armed forces and gives details on the biographical qualitative methods used throughout the article. The second and third sections describe the types of internationalisation that occur during the first and second phases of military careers respectively. The article mainly contends that French officers are unprepared for the type of internationalisation they experience in the framework of European security institutions. In spite of prior experiences of international contexts, they are forced to learn most of their work on the job and to improvise in their handling of international interactions and negotiations. These findings are shown to have implications for debates in the sociology of professions and the study of European security integration.

Good governance and differentiated integration: Graded membership in the European Union

AbstractThe study of European integration has traditionally focused on organisational growth: the deepening and widening of the European Union (EU). By contrast, this article analyses organisational differentiation, a process in which states refuse, or are being refused, full integration but find value in establishing in‐between grades of membership. It describes how the EU's system of graded membership has developed, and it explains the positioning of states in this system. The core countries of the EU set a standard of ‘good governance’. The closer European countries are to this standard, the closer their membership grade is to the core. Some countries fall short of this standard and are refused further integration by the core: their membership grade increases with better governance. Other countries refuse further integration because they outperform the standards of the core countries: their membership grade decreases as governance improves. These conjectures are corroborated in a panel analysis of European countries.

Concepts of Law in Integration Through Law (and the Price of Constitutional Pluralism)

This paper explores the concept of law in European integration studies with a particular emphasis on the conception adopted in the Integration Through Law project which was based in the European University Institute in the 1980s. It argues that notwithstanding claims to the contrary, the conception of law adopted in the project was a legal positivist one and that this is evidenced in its conception of law as the ‘object’ and ‘instrument’ of integration. The first part of the paper develops this thesis by arguing, firstly, that characterizing EU law as the ‘object’ of integration entails a Razian conception of the authority of law which results in the integration of national legal systems, and then, secondly, that law as the ‘instrument’ of integration entails a functionalist conception of law which is necessarily positivist.The second part of the paper goes on to highlight the tension between this positivist conception of EU law and the federal principle which was central to the ITL project, given that the former relies on the resolution of the question of ultimate authority (the sources thesis brand of positivism) whereas the latter tends towards its irresolution. It argues that the emerging literature on constitutional pluralism in the EU implicitly endorses the federal principle of the ITL project at the cost of the positivist conception of EU law and that this is evidenced by the shift in models of constitutional pluralism from legal positivist conceptions of law to a more Dworkinian ‘principled’ form as exemplified in the work of Mattias Kumm. However, the paper concludes that this shift comes at a price which is potentially problematic in a fragile political community such as the EU, where the stakes are much higher than that of the sovereign state.

Towards a Practice Turn in EU Studies: The Everyday of European Integration

AbstractThis article explores how practice theory can be recruited for the study of European integration. New generations of EU researchers are fascinated by the prospect of leaving the armchair and studying the people and artefacts that make the EU on an everyday level. This article surveys key practice‐oriented, anthropological and micro‐sociological studies of the EU and European integration and shows how their findings challenge more traditional understandings of the dynamics of European integration. Moving beyond a stock‐taking, the article distinguishes between ‘ordering’ and ‘disordering’ practices and explores the potential of a practice turn in EU studies for both theory (overcoming dualism, replacing substantialism with processualism and rethinking power) and methods (including unstructured interviews, fieldwork and participant observation). A practice turn will force us to rethink core assumptions about the EU and allow us to grasp otherwise uncharted performances and social activities that are crucial for European integration.

The Power of EU Masculinities: A Feminist Contribution to European Integration Theory

AbstractThis article advances feminist analysis in the study of European integration through a focus on gender power in relation to masculinity constructs. It takes issue with the fact that gender studies tend to equate gender with women. It sketches a feminist contribution to integration theory, where the EU is perceived as gender regimes at multiple levels. Gender identity constructs – masculinities and femininities – rely on difference and are shifting across time, levels and sectors. Yet the variations of identity constructs are limited by well‐established ideas – gender binaries – providing continuity and path dependences to maintain the gender system, for example through the ‘EU protector masculinity’ in the EU CSDP. European integration thus is a process whereby EU masculinities and femininities are constructed through EU relations to other states in the global context and in EU policy‐making and institution‐building.

INTERGOVERNMENTAL AND DOMESTIC FACTORS IN THE NEGOTIATION PROCESS ON RENEWABLE ENERGY SUPPORT SCHEMES

The adoption of the Directive 2009/28/EC on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources was an important step for the successive contribution to the global Climate Change Regime as well as the diversification of energy supply, thus ensuring energy security and reducing dependence on external suppliers. However, although the Directive sets out legally binding targets for each Member State by 2020 as well as interim targets, it does not provide any legally binding instruments, i.e., renewable energy support scheme(s), to achieve the above-mentioned objectives. Since the overall EU target as well as national targets are fairly ambitious, it poses a question, why the Directive does not include specific legally binding instrument(s) for achieving these targets, whereas the so-called flexibility mechanisms, provided in the Directive, are limited only to non-obligatory cooperation between Member States. It is important to mention that, during the negotiation process on the Directive, the harmonization of Member States’ renewable energy policies through the EU-level mechanism of Guarantees of Origin was widely debated. Therefore, the intergovernmental negotiation on the Directive’s provisions on renewable energy support scheme which should allow Member States to achieve their national targets as well as the overall EU target shall be submitted as the object of this article, while the purpose is to analyze the case of negotiating the EU-level renewable energy support scheme and to investigate the intergovernmental factors such as asymmetrical bargaining power of Member States as well as specific domestic factors’ influence for the negotiation’s results, applying liberal intergovernmentalist approach as the theoretical framework for analysis. The main tasks of the article are: __ to introduce the basic provisions of liberal intergovernmentalism and to formulate principal theoretical assumptions for further empirical analysis; __ to present a compact overview of the support schemes for renewables, applied in the EU; __ to define the role of the European Commission in the negotiation process, to determine the positions of the Member States on a common support scheme for renewable energy, to analyze the process of interest bargaining through coalition-forming and to detect the essential results of the negotiation. The main methods applied in this article include an analysis of the documents and the Member States’ position papers, conducting a case study of the negotiation process on the mechanism of Guarantees of Origin as the common EU-wide support scheme for renewables in the Directive 2009/28/EC on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources. The article consists of three parts. The basic provisions of liberal intergovernmentalism as well as 35 European Integration Studies 2015/9 the principal theoretical assumptions are examined in the first part of the article as the theoretical framework for further empirical analysis. Renewable energy support schemes, applied in the EU, are presented in the second part and the case study of the intergovernmental negotiation on the pan-European support scheme for renewables based on the mechanism of Guarantees of Origin is carried out in the third part. The findings show that the majority of the Member States demonstrated strong opposition to the European Commission’s proposal for harmonizing their renewable energy policies through specific pan-European support scheme, i.e., the mechanism of Guarantees of Origin. The Commission’s initiative was rejected by posing an argument that the instruments for reaching the renewable energy targets must be selected according to the principal of subsidiarity with respect to each Member State’s national specifics as only under these circumstances renewable energy support schemes could function in the most sufficient and effective manner. Therefore, the Commission‘s initial proposal had to be significantly modified thus abandoning the idea of the EU-level support scheme for renewables. The findings also verify theoretical assumptions based on liberal intergovernmentalism which postulate that the negotiation’s results mainly depend on asymmetric bargaining power and the most powerful Member States’ preferences determined by their national specifics, support schemes and other domestic factors.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.eis.0.9.12794

SUPPLY, DEMAND, FORECAST OF LATVIAN LABOUR MARKET AND TOOLS FOR ITS DEVELOPMENT

Many factors influence situation on Latvian labour market. Employment is one of the core subject to explorer observing changes of labour market supply, demand and forecasts. Focusing on organisational problems concerning labour issues the microenvironment of the organisations ought to be study. The authors would like to compare Latvian labour market forecasts and the real situation for the period starting from the economic crises year 2009 in Latvia to 2015. Reaching the objective of the study additionally, the data on labour market structure is observed focusing on young participants of the employment process (new enterprises and young employees, job seekers). Describing the forecasts fulfilment and current situation on the labour market in Latvia, some risks were defined connected with future employment situation in Latvia. In addition, some tools of labour market development implemented in Latvia were evaluated defining their advantages and disadvantages. The main assessed tools are lifelong education, youth guarantee, new enterprises support programs. They are implemented along the European Commission initiative and European Union funds. This research has an exploratory and descriptive design. The authors develop tentative hypotheses for the future researches. The primary methods used are literature review on employability and labour market topics; statistical data interpretation, statistical data comparison, synthesis, contextual analysis (SWOT). The forecasts about Latvian Labour market done by Ministry of Economics of the Republic of Latvia mainly were wrong. The last tendencies shows that there is a demand for specialists in such areas as trade, agriculture, construction and building, education. The demand of labour for this field is in the top ten rating. However, the forecast was correct about construction field; the demand of the specialists of this field has been decreasing slowly for the last five years. In addition, demand for the specialists of transportation, logistics field is high as it was forecasted as well as demand of medical specialists. The general tendencies of the employment on Labour market are positive. The unemployment rate has been deceased for last five years and is about 10% during last two years. However, youth unemployment rates decrease does not show positive results as it is still high and is about 20 % during last two years. The main risk that can be urgent for the next five years are: economically inactive citizens, higher education institutions non-cooperation with Latvian government, lack of specialists in engineering fields, medicine, Information Technologies, and some other, surplus of humanitarian and social sciences specialists, young specialist emigration, economy dependence on small, medium and microenterprises business. The authors propose public administration work more with their stakeholders especially scientists and younger representatives of the society (pupils). Evaluating unemployment data general and youth some factors needs to be taken in to account before the data interpretation. Before propose any eco171 European Integration Studies 2015/9 Introduction nomically inactive citizens engagement and stimulation activities, it is beneficial to identify and take into account reasons of their inactivity. The authors propose especially public organisations and governmental institutions to work more on youngest generation awareness about new trend on labour market and public organisations’ employer brand development.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.eis.0.9.12805

Coproducing European Integration Studies: Infrastructures and Epistemic Movements in an Interdisciplinary Field

This paper is interested in the interdisciplinary characteristics of European integration studies. It explores how the institutional and intellectual, internal and external boundaries of this interdisciplinary field are shaped. For this purpose, it discusses two interlocking dynamics that are most important: on the one hand, the European Union actively attempts to mobilise European integration studies to contribute to building a united Europe by providing specific spaces, resources, and infrastructures for academic research and the public dissemination of results. On the other hand, the external and internal boundaries of this interdisciplinary field are shaped by the movements and interactions of scholars from different academic backgrounds. Together, the different academic strands and policies coproduce the interdisciplinary field of European integration studies. Suggesting avenues for future research, the conclusion recommends analysing key debates in the context of European integration in terms of boundary objects around which academics, policy-makers, and publics can engage with each other and points to specific sites for further observations of these processes of coproduction.

Analytical and Methodological Framework of Research in European and/or EU Studies Curriculum

Abstract: The aim of this part is to provide a thorough view of the methodological and analytical framework of our study concerning the most important aspects of current developments within the EU Studies curricula. Lately, while speaking about Core Curriculum in European Studies, one can find various names: EU Studies, European Integration Studies or simply, European Studies. So, starting off from previous findings of other research conducted within the field (EpsNet, TEPSA, UACES, Tuning, Enseigner l’Europe), we tried to harmonize the actual debate of Curriculum in European Studies. The Methodology of our research consisted in collecting information about courses of European Studies from 12 EU Member States: BE, DK, FR, GE, IT, PT, SP, UK, LT, PL, RO, SK at the three level degrees: BA, MA and PhD. Then, we proceeded to identify the domains for each course, by placing them in the 9 fields agreed by the European Commission: EU Political and Administrative Studies, EU Legal Studies, EU Historical Studies, EU Economic Studies, EU International Relations and Diplomacy Studies, EU Intercultural Dialogue Studies, EU Communication and Information Studies, EU and Comparative Regionalism Studies, EU Interdisciplinary Studies. Subdomains were established for each domain. We arranged the courses first in compliance with the found categories and then upon the specializations where they are taught. This allowed us to notice that, unlike the previous approaches which regarded European Studies as both a Multidisciplinarity, and also as an Interdisciplinary discipline, we can perceive the European Studies also as a Disciplinary approach, i.e. as a subdomain of either a traditional domain, or of a new one (e.g. Political Studies; Law; History; Economy; Sociology; International Relations; Communication; Regional Studies).

European integration studies, European Monetary Union, and resilience of austerity in Europe: Post-mortem on a crisis foretold

Europe’s Economic and Monetary Union was presented in terms of an idealized, teleological narrative of ‘ever closer union’ that obscured substantive conflicts within and among the member states of the eurozone as well as the EU as a whole. Despite its limitations the narrative persisted, because it was instrumentalized by powerful social forces and states and reproduced by the mainstream European studies academic cohort, which was strongly influenced by the European Commission. At the present time economic stagnation is giving rise to demands from Keynesian and heterodox quarters for an alternative to neoliberal austerity. However, the resilience of austerity should be understood not primarily as a result of a dominant, if flawed, intellectual discourse, but rather as an expression of Europe’s distinctive power relations and the imperatives of German export mercantilism.

Neorealistyczne interpretacje procesu integracji europejskiej

Neorealistic Interpretations of European Integration Process Taking place within the European Union integration processes are the subject of research of many theorists of the European integration. On the basis of the social sciences, there are many theoretical approaches which try to explain the phenomenon of integrating Europe. However. this is a difficult task, because integration is a long and dynamic process, which requires the analysis from the several approaches. Also on the scientific ground is appropriate to use interdisciplinary apporoach to study this issue. Its complexity is confirmed by numerous European integration theories. While those grown on the gound of theories belonging to the theory of international relations. Therefore, they based on liberal or realistic approach. The best known and most widely used theoretical approach in the study of European integration is liberalism. Evidenced by the fact, that most modern integration theory and theoretical approaches derive precisely from the liberal paradigma. We are talking about such theories as neofucntionalism, institutionalism and liberal intergovernemntal approach. The purpose of this article is however, demonstrate the complexity of the integration process on the basis of the neorealistic interpretations of this issue. Therefore will be discussed concepts of H. Morgenthau, M. Mosser and J. Grieco.