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Representing Europe's Citizens?: Electoral Institutions and the Failure of Parliamentary Representation

David M. Farrell and Roger Scully

The past fifteen years have seen declining public support for European integration, and widespread suggestions that a legitimacy crisis faces the European Union (EU). Many in the EU have believed ... More

The past fifteen years have seen declining public support for European integration, and widespread suggestions that a legitimacy crisis faces the European Union (EU). Many in the EU have believed that this problem could be effectively tackled by vesting greater powers in the European Parliament (EP), the Union's only directly-elected institution. The central argument of this book is that, while considerable efforts have been made to increase the status of the EP, it is in crucial respects a failure as a representative body. This failure is grounded in the manner in which the parliament is elected. The electoral systems used for EP elections in many EU countries are, the book argues, actively obstructive of Europe's voters being represented in the way that they are most likely to respond positively towards. While the behaviour of EP members is shaped strongly by the electoral systems under which they are elected (which vary across the twenty-five member states of the EU), the electoral systems currently in place push most of them to behave in ways contrary to what citizens desire. Drawing on public opinion data, surveys of MEPs and considerable qualitative interview evidence, this book that the failure of parliamentary representation in the EU has a strong foundation in electoral institutions.Less

Becoming Europeans?: Attitudes, Behaviour, and Socialization in the European Parliament

Roger Scully

Contemporary political science assumes that ‘institutions matter’. But the governing institutions of the European Union are widely presumed to matter more than most. A commonplace assumption about ... More

Contemporary political science assumes that ‘institutions matter’. But the governing institutions of the European Union are widely presumed to matter more than most. A commonplace assumption about the EU is that those working within European institutions are subject to a pervasive tendency to become socialised into progressively more pro-integration attitudes and behaviours. This assumption has been integral to many accounts of European integration, and is also central to how scholars study individual EU institutions. However, the theoretical and empirical adequacy of this assumption has never been properly investigated. This study examines this question in the context of an increasingly important EU institution, the European Parliament. The book integrates new theoretical arguments with a substantial amount of original empirical research. It develops a coherent understanding, based on simple rationalist principles, of when and why institutional socialisation is effective. This theoretical argument explains the main empirical findings of the book. Drawing on several sources of evidence on MEPs’ attitudes and behaviour, and deploying advanced empirical techniques, the empirical analysis shows the commonplace assumption about EU institutions to be false. European Parliamentarians do not become more pro-integration as they are socialised into the institution. The findings of the study generate some highly important conclusions. They indicate that institutional socialisation of political elites should be given a much more limited and conditional role in understanding European integration than it is accorded in many accounts. They suggest that MEPs remain largely national politicians in their attitudes, loyalties and much of their activities, and that traditional classifications of the European Parliament as a ‘supra-national’ institution are misleading. Finally, the study offers broader lessons about the circumstances in which institutions effectively socialise those working within them.Less

Restructuring Europe: Centre Formation, System Building, and Political Structuring between the Nation State and the European Union

Stefano Bartolini

This study focuses on the historical configuration of territorial borders and functional boundaries of the European nation states, and interprets integration as a process of transcendence, ... More

This study focuses on the historical configuration of territorial borders and functional boundaries of the European nation states, and interprets integration as a process of transcendence, redefinition, and shift of those same boundaries that alters the nature of the nation states’ domestic political structures. The core of the argument concerns the relationship between the institutional design of the new Brussels centre, the boundary redefinitions that result from its political production, and the consequences of both these processes on the established national and emerging European political structures. The EU is interpreted through three key conceptual tools: ‘centre formation’, ‘system building’, and ‘political structuring’. The ‘centre formation’ — with limited administrative and fiscal capabilities and strong regulatory and judicial capabilities — is not accompanied by ‘system building’ in the field of cultural integration, social sharing institutions, and participation rights, that is, by institutions forcing its components to stay within it beyond the mere instrumental calculations. Given that for any new centre a balance must exist between its system building capacity and the scope and reach of its political production, the argument is that the ambitious political production of the EU is clearly out of balance with its weak system building capacity. As far as the ‘political structuring’ is concerned, this work argues that the institutional design of the Union and its weak system building militate to date against any stable form of political structuring for its representative actors, while its growing political production tends to undermine national mechanisms of political representation and legitimation. Under these conditions, any institutional democratization without political structuring may turn into facade electioneering, at best, or dangerous experiments, at worst. In the view of classical sociology — that takes the existence of a certain overlap between social identities, political boundaries, and social practices as a precondition for establishing political agency and a ‘rational’ political order — the EU is both a source of problems but also a possible solution to them. It can be seen as a project for regaining some degree of coherence between extended social practices, social identities, solidarity ties, and rules of deliberation at the European level. Most of the ideas expressed in this book show how problematic this project is believed to be.Less

The Political Economy of Managed Migration: Nonstate Actors, Europeanization, and the Politics of Designing Migration Policies

Georg Menz

European governments have rediscovered labor migration, but are eager to be perceived as controlling unsolicited forms of migration, especially through asylum and family reunion. The emerging ... More

European governments have rediscovered labor migration, but are eager to be perceived as controlling unsolicited forms of migration, especially through asylum and family reunion. The emerging paradigm of managed migration combines the construction of more permissive channels for desirable and actively recruited labor migrants with ever more restrictive approaches towards asylum seekers. Nonstate actors, especially employer organizations, trade unions, and humanitarian nongovernmental organizations, attempt to shape regulatory measures, but their success varies depending on organizational characteristics. Labor market interest associations' lobbying strategies regarding quantities and skill profile of labor migrants will be influenced by the respective system of political economy they are embedded in. Trade unions are generally supportive of well-managed labor recruitment strategies. But migration policymaking also proceeds at the European Union (EU) level. While national actors seek to upload their national model as a blueprint for future EU policy to avoid costly adaptation, top-down Europeanization is recasting national regulation in important ways, notwithstanding highly divergent national regulatory philosophies. Based on field work in and analysis of primary documents from six European countries (France, Italy, United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, and Poland), this book makes an important contribution to the study of a rapidly Europeanized policy domain. Combining insights from the literature on comparative political economy, Europeanization, and migration studies, this book makes important contributions to all three, while demonstrating how migration policy can be fruitfully studied by employing tools from mainstream political science, rather than treating it as a distinct subfield.Less

Federalism, Democratization, and the Rule of Law in Russia

Jeffrey Kahn

This book examines the development of Russia's current federal system of government from its Soviet origins, through Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms, to the presidencies of Boris Yeltsin and the early ... More

This book examines the development of Russia's current federal system of government from its Soviet origins, through Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms, to the presidencies of Boris Yeltsin and the early years of Vladimir Putin. The theoretical relationship between democracy, law, and federalism is examined with a focus on its application to the study of post‐authoritarian state systems. Federal institutions shape political agendas in the constituent units of a federation just as much as those units influence the shape of the federal whole. Case studies focus on Russia's 21 ethnic ‘republics’ (out of 89 units in a complicated multi‐level federal hierarchy) using previously unpublished primary source materials, including official documents and interviews with key participants on a variety of institutional levels.Less

Bureaucratic Elites in Western European States: A Comparative Analysis of Top Officials

Edward C. Page and Vincent Wright (eds)

Presents a comparative study of the senior civil service in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, Greece, Denmark, and Sweden, which provides information about ... More

Presents a comparative study of the senior civil service in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, Greece, Denmark, and Sweden, which provides information about the structures and the composition of the higher civil service, and its position in the political structure. Explores how the higher civil service has developed in the light of the massive changes in European societies over the past thirty years. These changes include the size of the top level of the civil service, the growing social diversity of its ranks, and the tendency to recruit from outside the civil service. Also examines whether wider social changes, such as the democratization of education, the growth of interest groups, and the increasing importance of the European Union have an impact on the higher levels of bureaucracy and produce similar patterns of change throughout Europe.Less

Judicial Control in the European Union: Reforming Jurisdiction in the Intergovernmental Pillars

Alicia Hinarejos

The EU's activity under its intergovernmental pillars — The Common Foreign and Security Policy and Justice and Home Affairs — has traditionally been beyond the scope of judicial control offered by ... More

The EU's activity under its intergovernmental pillars — The Common Foreign and Security Policy and Justice and Home Affairs — has traditionally been beyond the scope of judicial control offered by the central EC legal system. The increasing importance of this activity, and its growing intrusion into the lives of individuals, has led to a sense that the level of judicial oversight and protection is insufficient and that the constitutional balance of the Union stands in urgent need of reform. While the need for reform is widely recognised, wholesale constitutional change has been stalled by the failure to ratify the Constitutional Treaty and the delay in ratifying the Treaty of Lisbon. This book charts the attempts to develop more satisfactory judicial control over the intergovernmental pillars in the face of such constitutional inertia. It examines the leading role played by the European Court of Justice in reforming its own jurisdiction, and analyses the ECJ's development as a constitutional court in comparison with more established constitutional adjudicators. Throughout the book the current constitutional position is compared extensively to the reforms introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon, offering a timely snapshot of the EU's federal structure in a state of flux.Less

Migration, Citizenship, and the European Welfare State: A European Dilemma

Carl-Ulrik Schierup, Peo Hansen, and Stephen Castles

This book examines the current dilemmas of liberal anti-racist policies in European societies, linking two discourses that are normally quite separate in social science: immigration and ethnic ... More

This book examines the current dilemmas of liberal anti-racist policies in European societies, linking two discourses that are normally quite separate in social science: immigration and ethnic relations research on the one hand, and the political economy of the welfare state on the other. Gunnar Myrdal’s questions in An American Dilemma are rephrased with reference to Europe’s current dual crisis — that of the established welfare state facing a declining capacity to maintain equity, and that of the nation state unable to accommodate incremental ethnic diversity. The book compares developments across the European Union with the contemporary US experience of poverty, race, and class, highlighting the major moral-political dilemma emerging across the EU out of the discord between declared ideals of citizenship and actual exclusion from civil, political, and social rights. Drawing on case-study analysis of migration, the changing welfare state, and labour markets in the UK, Germany, Italy, and Sweden, the book charts the immense variety of Europe’s social and political landscape.Less

The International Politics of EU-China Relations

Liu Fei

David Kerr (ed.)

The European Union and China have emerged as new international actors. They have an increasingly diverse relationship covering the economy, politics, technology, culture and education; but beyond ... More

The European Union and China have emerged as new international actors. They have an increasingly diverse relationship covering the economy, politics, technology, culture and education; but beyond these two-way linkages EU–China development is also changing the international political environment. One noted US scholar, David Shambaugh, has pointed to a ‘Strategic Triangle’ between the US, the EU, and China. Several other major actors such as Japan, India and Russia are also interested in the ‘EU factor’ in their relations with China; or the ‘China factor’ in their EU relations. This volume presents contributions from scholars from Europe and China, which debate the nature, problems and potential of the emerging strategic relationship between the EU and China. Several papers develop theoretical approaches to regionalism and inter-regionalism. This book provides an overview of EU–China relations and the wider international context, and it will be of interest to anyone interested in international relations.Less

Europe as Empire: The Nature of the Enlarged European Union

Jan Zielonka

This book seeks to comprehend the evolving nature of the European Union following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the failure of the European Constitution. Its prime focus is the last wave of ... More

This book seeks to comprehend the evolving nature of the European Union following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the failure of the European Constitution. Its prime focus is the last wave of enlargement which has profoundly transformed the EU. Although there are many parallels between the European integration process and state-building processes, the Union is not anything like a Westphalian superstate. The new emerging polity resembles a kind of neo-medieval empire with a polycentric system of government, multiple and overlapping jurisdictions, striking cultural and economic heterogeneity, fuzzy borders, and divided sovereignty. The book spells out the origin, the shape, and the implications of this empire. It suggests a novel way of thinking about the European Union and the process of European integration, showing “two Europes” coming together following the end of the Cold War. It proposes a system of economic and democratic governance that meets the ever greater challenges of modernization, interdependence, and globalization. It identifies the most plausible scenario of promoting peaceful change in Europe and beyond. It argues that mainstream thinking about European integration is based on mistaken statist assumptions, and suggests more effective and legitimate ways of governing Europe than through the adoption of a European Constitution, creation of a European army, or introduction of a European social model. The book covers many fields from politics and economics to foreign affairs and security. It analyzes developments in both Eastern and Western Europe, and gives ample room for both theoretical and empirical considerations.Less

Legality's Borders: An Essay in General Jurisprudence

Keith Culver and Michael Giudice

Analytical legal theories are increasingly sophisticated, yet their development is uneven. While admirably adapted to explaining the unitary law-state, they are poorly suited to characterizing new ... More

Analytical legal theories are increasingly sophisticated, yet their development is uneven. While admirably adapted to explaining the unitary law-state, they are poorly suited to characterizing new law-like phenomena. From international law to the new legal order of the European Union, to shared governance and overlapping jurisdiction in transboundary areas, what at least appear to be instances of legality are at best weakly explained by approaches that presume the centrality of legal system as the mark and measure of social situations fully worthy of the title of legality. What next, as phenomena threaten to outstrip theory? Legality's Borders: An Essay in General Jurisprudence explains the rudiments of an inter-institutional theory of law, a theory which finds legality in the interaction between legal institutions, whose legality is characterized in terms of the kinds of norms they use rather than their content or system-membership. Prominent forms of legality such as the law-state and international law are then explained as particular forms of complex agglomeration of legal institutions, varying in form and complexity rather than sheer legality. This approach enables a fundamental shift in approach to the problems of identity and continuity of characteristically legal situations in social life: once legality is decoupled from legal system, the patterns of intense mutual reference amongst the legal institutions of the law-state can be seen as one justifiably prominent form of legality amongst others including overlapping forms of legality such as the European Union.Less