Colin Crouch (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198296393
- eISBN:
- 9780191599002
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198296398.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, European Union
The introduction of the single European currency, the euro, draws attention to the institutional deficit of the European Union: the organizational structures and forms of governance within which ...
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The introduction of the single European currency, the euro, draws attention to the institutional deficit of the European Union: the organizational structures and forms of governance within which central banks and other monetary authorities are embedded within individual states, are lacking at the European level. This gives unusual prominence to financial structures. While the contributors to this collection do not agree in their evaluation of this phenomenon, they agree on its importance, and analyse different aspects of it in depth.Less
The introduction of the single European currency, the euro, draws attention to the institutional deficit of the European Union: the organizational structures and forms of governance within which central banks and other monetary authorities are embedded within individual states, are lacking at the European level. This gives unusual prominence to financial structures. While the contributors to this collection do not agree in their evaluation of this phenomenon, they agree on its importance, and analyse different aspects of it in depth.
Kenneth Dyson and Ivo Maes (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198735915
- eISBN:
- 9780191799860
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198735915.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, European Union, Political Economy
The book examines key intellectuals who were directly and actively involved in the process of designing a European monetary union that would be sustainable. Their role was distinguishable from that ...
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The book examines key intellectuals who were directly and actively involved in the process of designing a European monetary union that would be sustainable. Their role was distinguishable from that of the political founders and drivers of this process and from that of expert advisers. They were embedded in the process of giving substance to monetary union and gained influence through their formidable resources of character and intellect. The selected architects include Raymond Barre, Jacques Delors, Roy Jenkins, Alexandre Lamfalussy, Robert Marjolin, Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, Karl-Otto Pöhl, Hans Tietmeyer, Robert Triffin, and Pierre Werner. The book looks at their intellectual biographies, the ideas to which they became committed, their network-building skills, and their practical involvement in the issues of monetary integration and union. The principal emphasis is on their individual contributions, their legacies as seen from the vantage point of the Euro Area crisis, and the prescience and adequacy of their views about the appropriate foundations of EMU. The book considers the strengths and limits of intellectual biography and the thorny question of the roles of structure and agency in historical explanation. It also reflects on the question of the architects’ share of blame in the design flaws of European monetary union.Less
The book examines key intellectuals who were directly and actively involved in the process of designing a European monetary union that would be sustainable. Their role was distinguishable from that of the political founders and drivers of this process and from that of expert advisers. They were embedded in the process of giving substance to monetary union and gained influence through their formidable resources of character and intellect. The selected architects include Raymond Barre, Jacques Delors, Roy Jenkins, Alexandre Lamfalussy, Robert Marjolin, Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, Karl-Otto Pöhl, Hans Tietmeyer, Robert Triffin, and Pierre Werner. The book looks at their intellectual biographies, the ideas to which they became committed, their network-building skills, and their practical involvement in the issues of monetary integration and union. The principal emphasis is on their individual contributions, their legacies as seen from the vantage point of the Euro Area crisis, and the prescience and adequacy of their views about the appropriate foundations of EMU. The book considers the strengths and limits of intellectual biography and the thorny question of the roles of structure and agency in historical explanation. It also reflects on the question of the architects’ share of blame in the design flaws of European monetary union.
Roger Scully
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- February 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780199284320
- eISBN:
- 9780191603365
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199284326.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, European Union
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 ...
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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
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.
Sara B. Hobolt and James Tilley
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199665686
- eISBN:
- 9780191756115
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199665686.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, European Union
A key component of democratic accountability is that citizens understand ’who is to blame’. Nonetheless, little is known about how citizens attribute responsibility in the European Union, or how ...
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A key component of democratic accountability is that citizens understand ’who is to blame’. Nonetheless, little is known about how citizens attribute responsibility in the European Union, or how those perceptions of responsibility matter. This book presents the first comprehensive account of how citizens assign blame to the EU, how politicians and the media attempt to shift blame, and finally, how it matters for electoral democracy. Based on rich and unique data sources, Blaming Europe? sheds light on all three aspects of responsibility in the EU. First, it shows that while institutional differences between countries shape citizen judgements of EU responsibility, those judgements are also highly determined by pre-existing attitudes towards the EU. Second, it demonstrates that neither politicians nor the media assign much blame to the EU. Third, it establishes that, regardless of whether voters are capable of accurately assigning responsibility, they are not able to hold their EU representatives to account via the ballot box in European elections due to the lack of an identifiable ’European government’ to reward or punish. As a consequence, when citizens hold the EU responsible for poor performance, but are unable to sanction an EU incumbent, they lose trust in the EU as a whole instead. In conclusion, this book argues that this ’accountability deficit’ has significant implications for the future of the European Union.Less
A key component of democratic accountability is that citizens understand ’who is to blame’. Nonetheless, little is known about how citizens attribute responsibility in the European Union, or how those perceptions of responsibility matter. This book presents the first comprehensive account of how citizens assign blame to the EU, how politicians and the media attempt to shift blame, and finally, how it matters for electoral democracy. Based on rich and unique data sources, Blaming Europe? sheds light on all three aspects of responsibility in the EU. First, it shows that while institutional differences between countries shape citizen judgements of EU responsibility, those judgements are also highly determined by pre-existing attitudes towards the EU. Second, it demonstrates that neither politicians nor the media assign much blame to the EU. Third, it establishes that, regardless of whether voters are capable of accurately assigning responsibility, they are not able to hold their EU representatives to account via the ballot box in European elections due to the lack of an identifiable ’European government’ to reward or punish. As a consequence, when citizens hold the EU responsible for poor performance, but are unable to sanction an EU incumbent, they lose trust in the EU as a whole instead. In conclusion, this book argues that this ’accountability deficit’ has significant implications for the future of the European Union.
Gerard Toal and Carl T. Dahlman
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199730360
- eISBN:
- 9780199895250
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199730360.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, European Union
This book is an authoritative account of ethnic cleansing and its partial undoing in the Bosnian wars from 1990 to the present. The book combines a bird's-eye view of the entire war from onset to ...
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This book is an authoritative account of ethnic cleansing and its partial undoing in the Bosnian wars from 1990 to the present. The book combines a bird's-eye view of the entire war from onset to aftermath with a micro-level account of three towns that underwent ethnic cleansing and later the return of refugees. Through the lens of critical geopolitics, which highlights the power of both geopolitical discourse and spatial strategies, the book focuses on the two attempts to remake the ethnic structure of Bosnia since 1991. The first attempt was by ascendant ethnonationalist forces that tried to eradicate the mixed ethnic structures of Bosnia's towns, villages and communities. While these forces destroyed tens of thousands of homes and lives, they failed to destroy Bosnia-Herzegovina as a polity. The second attempt followed the war. The international community, in league with Bosnian officials, tried to undo the demographic consequences of ethnic cleansing. This latter effort has moved in fits and starts, but as the book shows, it has re-made Bosnia, producing a country that has moved beyond the stark segregationist geography created by ethnic cleansing.Less
This book is an authoritative account of ethnic cleansing and its partial undoing in the Bosnian wars from 1990 to the present. The book combines a bird's-eye view of the entire war from onset to aftermath with a micro-level account of three towns that underwent ethnic cleansing and later the return of refugees. Through the lens of critical geopolitics, which highlights the power of both geopolitical discourse and spatial strategies, the book focuses on the two attempts to remake the ethnic structure of Bosnia since 1991. The first attempt was by ascendant ethnonationalist forces that tried to eradicate the mixed ethnic structures of Bosnia's towns, villages and communities. While these forces destroyed tens of thousands of homes and lives, they failed to destroy Bosnia-Herzegovina as a polity. The second attempt followed the war. The international community, in league with Bosnian officials, tried to undo the demographic consequences of ethnic cleansing. This latter effort has moved in fits and starts, but as the book shows, it has re-made Bosnia, producing a country that has moved beyond the stark segregationist geography created by ethnic cleansing.
Berthold Rittberger
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- July 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780199273423
- eISBN:
- 9780191602764
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199273421.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, European Union
Why have national governments of EU member states created and, over the past fifty years, successively endowed the European Parliament with supervisory, budgetary, and legislative powers? This book ...
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Why have national governments of EU member states created and, over the past fifty years, successively endowed the European Parliament with supervisory, budgetary, and legislative powers? This book presents a three-staged argument to explain how the European Parliament acquired this power ‘trias’. First, it is argued that the construction of a supranational polity induces political elites in the member states to reflect on the implications posed by transfers of national sovereignty for domestic processes of democratic accountability and interest representation. It is shown empirically that there exists a strong correlation between national governments’ decisions to transfer sovereignty and political elites’ perception of a ‘democratic legitimacy deficit’ that triggers a search for institutional solutions for its remedy. In a second step, it is argued that political elites, first and foremost, domestic political parties, advance different proposals to alleviate the perceived ‘legitimacy deficit’. These proposals are derived from ‘legitimating beliefs’ that vary cross-nationally and across political parties. Consequently, the creation and empowerment of a supranational parliamentary institution plays a prominent but not exclusive role as potential remedy to the ‘democratic legitimacy deficit’. Third, the book illuminates the mechanisms through which ‘legitimating beliefs’ expressed by political elites and the behaviour of national governments who negotiate and decide on the creation and potential empowerment of the European Parliament are linked. What logic of action best captures national governments’ decisions to empower the European Parliament? The explanatory power of the theoretical argument will be explored by looking at three landmark cases in the European Parliament’s history: its creation as ‘Common Assembly’ of the ECSC Treaty and the concomitant acquisition of supervisory powers vis-à-vis the High Authority, the acquisition of budgetary powers (Treaty of Luxembourg of 1970) and of legislative powers (Single European Act signed in 1986). The developments ranging from the Maastricht Treaty to the adoption of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe will also be analysed in the light of the theory.Less
Why have national governments of EU member states created and, over the past fifty years, successively endowed the European Parliament with supervisory, budgetary, and legislative powers? This book presents a three-staged argument to explain how the European Parliament acquired this power ‘trias’. First, it is argued that the construction of a supranational polity induces political elites in the member states to reflect on the implications posed by transfers of national sovereignty for domestic processes of democratic accountability and interest representation. It is shown empirically that there exists a strong correlation between national governments’ decisions to transfer sovereignty and political elites’ perception of a ‘democratic legitimacy deficit’ that triggers a search for institutional solutions for its remedy. In a second step, it is argued that political elites, first and foremost, domestic political parties, advance different proposals to alleviate the perceived ‘legitimacy deficit’. These proposals are derived from ‘legitimating beliefs’ that vary cross-nationally and across political parties. Consequently, the creation and empowerment of a supranational parliamentary institution plays a prominent but not exclusive role as potential remedy to the ‘democratic legitimacy deficit’. Third, the book illuminates the mechanisms through which ‘legitimating beliefs’ expressed by political elites and the behaviour of national governments who negotiate and decide on the creation and potential empowerment of the European Parliament are linked. What logic of action best captures national governments’ decisions to empower the European Parliament? The explanatory power of the theoretical argument will be explored by looking at three landmark cases in the European Parliament’s history: its creation as ‘Common Assembly’ of the ECSC Treaty and the concomitant acquisition of supervisory powers vis-à-vis the High Authority, the acquisition of budgetary powers (Treaty of Luxembourg of 1970) and of legislative powers (Single European Act signed in 1986). The developments ranging from the Maastricht Treaty to the adoption of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe will also be analysed in the light of the theory.
William T. Daniel
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780198716402
- eISBN:
- 9780191784972
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198716402.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, European Union
This book presents an institutional theory for career behaviour in the European Parliament (EP). By focusing on the professional ambition of members of the EP (MEPs), the study presents a rigorous ...
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This book presents an institutional theory for career behaviour in the European Parliament (EP). By focusing on the professional ambition of members of the EP (MEPs), the study presents a rigorous analysis of the powerful multinational legislature from within—problematizing the link between institutional change and individual action, as evidenced in the career paths taken by MEPs. The dependent variable of the book—MEP career behaviour—is addressed in three different ways: (1) the incidence of MEPs who develop extended careers at the European level; (2) the incidence of MEPs who use their time in the EP in order to promote a broader career path elsewhere; and (3) the strategies used by MEPs to advance internally within the EP’s unique committee system. The book uses a major new source of quantitative data collected on the personal and professional backgrounds of all MEPs, 1979–2014. It also relies on extensive qualitative data, taken from over fifty interviews with legislators and other elites in Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, and Poland. The study has implications for the nexus of institutional change and the behaviour of the political elite, broadly, as well as the study of representative democracy in the EU, specifically. It should be seen as an important contribution to the fields of legislative studies, political sociology, and party politics.Less
This book presents an institutional theory for career behaviour in the European Parliament (EP). By focusing on the professional ambition of members of the EP (MEPs), the study presents a rigorous analysis of the powerful multinational legislature from within—problematizing the link between institutional change and individual action, as evidenced in the career paths taken by MEPs. The dependent variable of the book—MEP career behaviour—is addressed in three different ways: (1) the incidence of MEPs who develop extended careers at the European level; (2) the incidence of MEPs who use their time in the EP in order to promote a broader career path elsewhere; and (3) the strategies used by MEPs to advance internally within the EP’s unique committee system. The book uses a major new source of quantitative data collected on the personal and professional backgrounds of all MEPs, 1979–2014. It also relies on extensive qualitative data, taken from over fifty interviews with legislators and other elites in Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, and Poland. The study has implications for the nexus of institutional change and the behaviour of the political elite, broadly, as well as the study of representative democracy in the EU, specifically. It should be seen as an important contribution to the fields of legislative studies, political sociology, and party politics.
Sonia Alonso
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199691579
- eISBN:
- 9780191741234
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199691579.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Comparative Politics, European Union
How do state parties react to the challenge of peripheral parties demanding political power to be devolved to their culturally distinct territories? Is devolution the best response to these demands? ...
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How do state parties react to the challenge of peripheral parties demanding political power to be devolved to their culturally distinct territories? Is devolution the best response to these demands? Why do governments implement devolution given the high risk that devolution will encourage peripheral parties to demand ever more devolved powers? The aim of this book is to answer these questions through a comparative analysis of devolution in four European countries: Belgium, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The book argues that electoral competition between state and peripheral parties pushes some state parties to prefer devolution when their state-wide majorities or pluralities are seriously at risk. Devolution is an electoral strategy adopted in order to make it more difficult in the long term for peripheral parties to increase their electoral support by claiming the monopoly of representation of the peripheral territory and the people in it. The strategy of devolution is preferred over short-term tactics of convergence towards the peripheral programmatic agenda because the pro-periphery tactics of state parties in unitary centralized states are not credible in the eyes of voters. The price that state parties pay for making their electoral tactics credible is the ‘entrenchment’ of the devolution programmatic agenda in the electoral arena. The final implication of this argument is that in democratic systems devolution is not a decision to protect the state from the secessionist threat. It is, instead, a decision by state parties to protect their needed electoral majoritiesLess
How do state parties react to the challenge of peripheral parties demanding political power to be devolved to their culturally distinct territories? Is devolution the best response to these demands? Why do governments implement devolution given the high risk that devolution will encourage peripheral parties to demand ever more devolved powers? The aim of this book is to answer these questions through a comparative analysis of devolution in four European countries: Belgium, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The book argues that electoral competition between state and peripheral parties pushes some state parties to prefer devolution when their state-wide majorities or pluralities are seriously at risk. Devolution is an electoral strategy adopted in order to make it more difficult in the long term for peripheral parties to increase their electoral support by claiming the monopoly of representation of the peripheral territory and the people in it. The strategy of devolution is preferred over short-term tactics of convergence towards the peripheral programmatic agenda because the pro-periphery tactics of state parties in unitary centralized states are not credible in the eyes of voters. The price that state parties pay for making their electoral tactics credible is the ‘entrenchment’ of the devolution programmatic agenda in the electoral arena. The final implication of this argument is that in democratic systems devolution is not a decision to protect the state from the secessionist threat. It is, instead, a decision by state parties to protect their needed electoral majorities
Adrienne Héritier, Catherine Moury, Carina S. Bischoff, and Carl Fredrik Bergström
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199653621
- eISBN:
- 9780191751349
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199653621.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, European Union
With each legislative issue, legislators have to decide whether to delegate decision-making to the executive and/or to expert bodies in order to flesh out the details of this legislation, or, ...
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With each legislative issue, legislators have to decide whether to delegate decision-making to the executive and/or to expert bodies in order to flesh out the details of this legislation, or, alternatively, to spell out all aspects of this decision in legislation proper. The reasons why to delegate have been of prime interest to political science. The debate has concentrated on principal-agent theory to explain why politicians delegate decision-making to bureaucrats, to independent regulatory agencies and to others actors and how to control these agents. By contrast, our research focuses on the question: Which actors are empowered by delegation? Are executive actors empowered over legislative actors? How do legislative actors react to the loss of power? What opportunities are there to change the institutional rules governing delegation in order to (re)gain institutional power and, with it influence over policy outcomes. We analyze the conditions and processes of change of the rules that delegate decision-making power to the Commission’s implementing powers under comitology. We focus on the role of the European Parliament and explain why the Commission, the Council, and increasingly the Parliament, delegated decision-making to the Commission. If they chose delegation, they still have to determine under which institutional rule comitology should operate. These rules, too, distribute power unequally among actors and therefore raise the question of how they came about in the first place and whether and how the “losers” of a rule change seek to alter the rules at a later point in time.Less
With each legislative issue, legislators have to decide whether to delegate decision-making to the executive and/or to expert bodies in order to flesh out the details of this legislation, or, alternatively, to spell out all aspects of this decision in legislation proper. The reasons why to delegate have been of prime interest to political science. The debate has concentrated on principal-agent theory to explain why politicians delegate decision-making to bureaucrats, to independent regulatory agencies and to others actors and how to control these agents. By contrast, our research focuses on the question: Which actors are empowered by delegation? Are executive actors empowered over legislative actors? How do legislative actors react to the loss of power? What opportunities are there to change the institutional rules governing delegation in order to (re)gain institutional power and, with it influence over policy outcomes. We analyze the conditions and processes of change of the rules that delegate decision-making power to the Commission’s implementing powers under comitology. We focus on the role of the European Parliament and explain why the Commission, the Council, and increasingly the Parliament, delegated decision-making to the Commission. If they chose delegation, they still have to determine under which institutional rule comitology should operate. These rules, too, distribute power unequally among actors and therefore raise the question of how they came about in the first place and whether and how the “losers” of a rule change seek to alter the rules at a later point in time.
David Sanders, Pedro Magalhaes, and Gabor Toka (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199602339
- eISBN:
- 9780199949908
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199602339.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, European Union, Comparative Politics
This book provides a broad overview of the main trends in mass attitudes towards domestic politics and European integration from the 1970s until today. Particularly in the last two decades, the ‘end ...
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This book provides a broad overview of the main trends in mass attitudes towards domestic politics and European integration from the 1970s until today. Particularly in the last two decades, the ‘end of the permissive consensus’ around European integration has forced analysts to place public opinion at the centre of their concerns. The book faces this challenge head on, and the overview it provides goes well beyond the most commonly used indicators. On the one hand, it shows how integration's deepening and enlargement involved polities and societies whose fundamental traits in terms of political culture — regime support, political engagement, ideological polarization — have remained anything but static or homogeneous. On the other hand, it addresses systematically what Scharpf (1999) has long identified as the main sources of the democratic deficits of the EU: the lack of a sense of collective identity, the lack of a Europe-wide structure for political accountability, and the lack of recognition of the EU as a legitimate political authority. In other words, it focuses on the fundamental dimensions of how Europeans relate to the EU: identity (the sense of an ‘European political community’; representation (the perception that European elites and institutions articulate citizens' interests and are responsive to them); and policy scope (the legitimacy awarded to the EU as a proper locus of policy-making). It does so by employing a cohesive theoretical framework derived from the entire IntUne project, survey and macro-social data encompassing all EU member countries, and state-of-the-art methods.Less
This book provides a broad overview of the main trends in mass attitudes towards domestic politics and European integration from the 1970s until today. Particularly in the last two decades, the ‘end of the permissive consensus’ around European integration has forced analysts to place public opinion at the centre of their concerns. The book faces this challenge head on, and the overview it provides goes well beyond the most commonly used indicators. On the one hand, it shows how integration's deepening and enlargement involved polities and societies whose fundamental traits in terms of political culture — regime support, political engagement, ideological polarization — have remained anything but static or homogeneous. On the other hand, it addresses systematically what Scharpf (1999) has long identified as the main sources of the democratic deficits of the EU: the lack of a sense of collective identity, the lack of a Europe-wide structure for political accountability, and the lack of recognition of the EU as a legitimate political authority. In other words, it focuses on the fundamental dimensions of how Europeans relate to the EU: identity (the sense of an ‘European political community’; representation (the perception that European elites and institutions articulate citizens' interests and are responsive to them); and policy scope (the legitimacy awarded to the EU as a proper locus of policy-making). It does so by employing a cohesive theoretical framework derived from the entire IntUne project, survey and macro-social data encompassing all EU member countries, and state-of-the-art methods.
Justice and Legitimacy in Upbringing
Clausewitz's Puzzle
International Legitimacy and World Society
Levelling the Playing Field
Multicultural Nationalism
The Politics of Public Service Bargains
Corporate Governance, Competition, and Political Parties
The European Union and the People
Citizenship and the Environment
