Historical Institutionalism in the Study of European Integration

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Christiansen ◽  
Amy Verdun
Keyword(s):  
European Integration ◽  
Path Dependence ◽  
Historical Institutionalism ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Sociological Institutionalism ◽  
Basic Tenet ◽  
Institutional Structures ◽  
Legal Foundations ◽  
Integration Project ◽  
The Eu

Since the 1990s, historical institutionalism has established itself as a frequently used approach in the study of European integration. One basic tenet of those who use this approach is to take history seriously in the study of European integration—in particular how historical choices on institutionalizing particular procedures and policies explain subsequent patterns of agency. Looking at the manner in which time and institutional structures affect outcomes is central in this approach. In the context of the European Union (EU), the works that have adopted this approach have typically examined developments in policies and institutions over time. While sharing with other institutionalist approaches (such as rational choice and sociological institutionalism) the recognition that “institutions matter,” historical institutionalism introduced particular concepts such as “path dependence” and “critical juncture” into the study of the EU. The distinct contribution here is the capacity of historical institutionalism to explain the persistence of institutional structures and the continuity of policies as well as the reasons for change. In the study of European integration, this approach has been adopted in many areas of research, ranging from studies about the legal foundations of the EU, the workings within institutions of the EU, the process of enlargement, to analyses of various sectors of EU policy-making, and the study of the multiple crises confronting the integration project in the 2010s.

scholarly journals The EU external policy and the 2015–2018 refugee relocation system in the light of historical institutionalism

2021 ◽  
pp. 41-52
Author(s):  
Zbigniew Czachór
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
European Integration ◽  
European Commission ◽  
Historical Institutionalism ◽  
The Political ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Main Research ◽  
The Eu ◽  
Integration Rules

The main research objective of the text is to analyse the refugee relocation system in the light of historical institutionalism in 2015–2018. Historical institutionalism refers to the interaction between European integration actors in the European Union system, analysed in retrospect from a documentary perspective. The time factor is particularly important, since it enables to follow the institutional process defined by EU norms, procedures and integration rules and their sequential impact on favoured treatment or disavowing of integration visions, preferences, needs and interests. In view of the above, the refugee relocation system proposed and introduced in the period 2015–2018 confirms the above research assumption that the political decision on relocation made by the European Commission and the European Council resulted in a relevant legal act adopted by the EU Council to regulate the issue. Although under the pressure of the situation Member States agreed, some of them began to contest the decisions later.

scholarly journals Judicial Passivism at the European Court of Justice?

2019 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 127-154
Author(s):  
Ernő Várnay
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Path Dependence ◽  
National Court ◽  
Fundamental Rights ◽  
Sufficient Information ◽  
Preliminary Ruling ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
The Eu

AbstractAccording to the generally accepted understanding, judicial activism arises when a court behaves improperly, straying beyond the limits of the judicial function and acting like a legislature.It is convincing that in the great majority of the cases the Court of Justice of the European Union fulfils the roles assigned to it by the founding treaties of the European Union without any excess, but there are decisions which may be characterized as activist, be they necessary or useful for the proper functioning of the European legal system, and there are decisions (refusing or avoiding to decide) which may be qualified as manifestations of judicial passivism.Judicial passivism is defined in the narrow sense of the term, i.e., when the court clearly refuses or avoids to decide the case before it, or does not answer the question legitimately referred to it. In the jurisprudence of the CJEU, such cases arise when the Court systematically waits for the withdrawal of the action, exceeds the reasonable time of the proceedings, or does not answer the question raised in the preliminary ruling procedure by the national court. The inadmissibility of questions referred by national courts may be perceived as passivism when the qualification of ‘not a court or tribunal’ in the sense of Article 267 TFEU is questionable, or when the scope of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights is defined too narrowly. Cases may arise – at least in theory – in which the Court, while it would be in a position to act, defers the question to the EU or the Member State’s legislator or to the national judge to decide, with the not entirely convincing qualification of the act under scrutiny in annulment proceedings as ‘not an act for the Article 263 TFEU’. The label ‘judicial passivism in a broad sense of the term’ is used when the Court sticks to its position in a questionable manner (conservatism as passivism), steps back from its earlier position, narrowing the scope of EU law expressly or implicitly overruling its former decision, or it introduces new conditions with the same result (retreat).It has been demonstrated that the Court systematically opposed the Member States, the Commission and the parties in the main proceedings, arguing in favour of inadmissibility of referrals for preliminary questions − the Court avoided, in a large number of cases, the temptation of judicial passivism. On the other hand, the Court’s increased rigour in the preliminary ruling procedures is detectable in recent years. The Court took a less benevolent approach towards the qualification of the referring body as ‘court or tribunal’; the questions proved to be ‘hypothetical’ more often than before, and more importantly, the lack of sufficient information regarding the factual and regulatory context led more easily to inadmissibility.The driving forces behind the passivism of the Courts of the European Union are the ‘reasonableness’ of the judiciary in a time of crisis of the European integration, self-defence against the overburden of case-law and against unnecessary pressure from the public, in order to maintain the health of the management of justice and a certain ‘path-dependence’ as far as the traditional theoretical foundations of European integration are concerned.

scholarly journals Ireland, Europe and the Global Crisis

2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 177-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maurice Coakley
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Eurozone Crisis ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Fully Integrated ◽  
The Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Integration Project ◽  
The Eu

For Ireland – along with Spain, Portugal and Greece – membership of ‘Europe’ was seen as an opportunity to escape their historical legacy of ‘underdevelopment’ and become fully integrated into core positions in the global system. Each of these states, and especially Ireland experienced significant growth in the European Union but once the global financial crisis struck, they suffered a deep economic and social crisis, and came to be categorised once again as ‘peripheral’ to Europe. This acute recurrence of a core-periphery divide in the European Union has been accompanied by a rapid diminution of democracy in the EU and its transformation into an increasingly coercive formation. The deprivation programmes imposed by the EU on the peripheral societies has not only damaged growth in the European economy, they have hugely diminished the legitimacy of the European integration project. The essay explores the roots of Europe’s changing power structures and assesses the implications of the Eurozone crisis for the future of the European integration project.

European integration as a peace project

2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vicki L Birchfield ◽  
John Krige ◽  
Alasdair R Young
Keyword(s):  
European Integration ◽  
Special Section ◽  
Functional Integration ◽  
Institution Building ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Individual Contributions ◽  
Recent Phase ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Integration Project ◽  
The Eu

Using the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s justification for awarding the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize to the European Union (EU) as a foil, this article examines the EU through the prism of being a peace project. It contends that European integration reflects a Wilsonian liberalism approach to building peace, which emphasizes free trade and democracy, but with a distinctly European twist; an additional emphasis on functional integration and institutionalization, as well as a regional focus. It also identifies three themes that run through the contributions to the special section. First, there has been a strong dialectic between the internal and external dimensions of security in the European integration project from the outset. In some ways, these have been reinforcing, but in others, they have been contradictory. Second, the European peace project has passed though successive, if often overlapping, chronological phases. These phases have been defined by different security challenges that called for different policy approaches. Russian aggression and jihadi terrorism characterize the most recent phase. The third theme is that, despite the changes in terms of threats and policies, there has been a remarkable consistency in two reinforcing respects: the persistent tension among the member states about closer integration with respect to the external security, and the tendency of the EU to emphasize institution building and to neglect strategy. The article concludes with a dialogic introduction to the individual contributions.

scholarly journals Ukraine’s European Integration and Its Current Challenges

2021 ◽  
pp. 6-11
Author(s):  
Andriy Grіtsenko ◽  
Olena Borzenko (Slozko) ◽  
Tаtyana Burlay
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Financial Stability ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Association Agreement ◽  
Global Context ◽  
Structural Distortions ◽  
Integration Project ◽  
The Eu

The article shows the importance of Ukraine’s development within the framework of the European integration project. A positive impact of European integration on Ukraine’s development dynamics has been revealed. European integration accelerated after signing and implementing the European Union-Ukraine Association Agreement 2014. The main achievements of Ukraine’s European integration are related to the improvement of its institutions, as well as the growth of trade between Ukraine and the EU. It is found out the most serious challenges of European integration of Ukraine are related to the problems of economic growth, deindustrialization, foreign trade structural distortions, macro-financial stability, as well as the slowdown in a convergence between Ukraine and the EU. It is stated that Ukraine needs to restructure its national economy in line with the European and global context.

13. The USA and the EU

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Smith
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
European Integration ◽  
The United States ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Transatlantic Relationship ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Integration Project ◽  
The Eu

This chapter examines the United States’ transatlantic relationship with the European integration project and its implications for US foreign policy. In particular, it considers the ways in which US policy makers have developed images of the European Community (EC) and later the European Union (EU) on the challenges posed by European integration for US policy processes and the uses of US power. The chapter first explores key factors in the evolution of the relationship within US foreign policy up to the end of the Cold War before discussing trends and tensions in the period between 1990 and 2016 covering the presidencies of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. It also analyzes the impact of Donald Trump’s policies on US relations with the EU before concluding with an assessment of a number of wider questions about the future of the US–EU relations.

scholarly journals 5. Governance Approaches to European Integration

2018 ◽  
pp. 87-107
Author(s):  
Tanja A. Börzel
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Broad Concept ◽  
Institutional Structures ◽  
Institutional Spillovers ◽  
Supranational Institutions ◽  
Eu Studies ◽  
The Eu

After twenty years of continuous deepening and widening, European integration has entered an era of recurrent crises. Most students of the European Union (EU) seem to agree that the constitutional equilibrium between intergovernmental and supranational institutions has changed. Some see ‘new intergovernmentalism’ and ‘integration without supranationalization’ prevailing. Others contend that we are witnessing a series of functional and institutional spillovers empowering supranational institutions. This chapter argues that governance approaches are particularly useful to address the puzzling counter-positions represented in the current debate about the ‘nature of the beast’. They are better equipped to explore how and to what end institutional structures and processes have responded to the crises than mainstream integration theories. The chapter starts with introducing the ‘governance turn’ in EU studies as the attempt of EU scholars in the early 1990s to capture the nature of the EU. It then presents a typology that is based on a broad concept of governance as institutionalized forms of political coordination. The empirical part of the chapter uses this typology to give an overview of the structures and processes of EU governance before applying it to the financial and the migration crises. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the major challenges for European integration (theories) from a governance perspective, particularly with regard to managing current and preventing future crises.

European Integration

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johann P. Arnason
Keyword(s):  
European Integration ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Historical Processes ◽  
History Of ◽  
External Conditions ◽  
Eastern European Countries ◽  
Totalitarian Regimes ◽  
The Eu

Different understandings of European integration, its background and present problems are represented in this book, but they share an emphasis on historical processes, geopolitical dynamics and regional diversity. The introduction surveys approaches to the question of European continuities and discontinuities, before going on to an overview of chapters. The following three contributions deal with long-term perspectives, including the question of Europe as a civilisational entity, the civilisational crisis of the twentieth century, marked by wars and totalitarian regimes, and a comparison of the European Union with the Habsburg Empire, with particular emphasis on similar crisis symptoms. The next three chapters discuss various aspects and contexts of the present crisis. Reflections on the Brexit controversy throw light on a longer history of intra-Union rivalry, enduring disputes and changing external conditions. An analysis of efforts to strengthen the EU’s legal and constitutional framework, and of resistances to them, highlights the unfinished agenda of integration. A closer look at the much-disputed Islamic presence in Europe suggests that an interdependent radicalization of Islamism and the European extreme right is a major factor in current political developments. Three concluding chapters adopt specific regional perspectives. Central and Eastern European countries, especially Poland, are following a path that leads to conflicts with dominant orientations of the EU, but this also raises questions about Europe’s future. The record of Scandinavian policies in relation to Europe exemplifies more general problems faced by peripheral regions. Finally, growing dissonances and divergences within the EU may strengthen the case for Eurasian perspectives.

Euroscepticism and the Future of European Integration

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine E. De Vries
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Public Support ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
National Politics ◽  
Public Preferences ◽  
Novel Theory ◽  
The Eu

The European Union (EU) is facing one of the rockiest periods in its existence. At no time in its history has it looked so economically fragile, so insecure about how to protect its borders, so divided over how to tackle the crisis of legitimacy facing its institutions, and so under assault by Eurosceptic parties. The unprecedented levels of integration in recent decades have led to increased public contestation, yet at the same the EU is more reliant on public support for its continued legitimacy than ever before. This book examines the role of public opinion in the European integration process. It develops a novel theory of public opinion that stresses the deep interconnectedness between people’s views about European and national politics. It suggests that public opinion cannot simply be characterized as either Eurosceptic or not, but rather that it consists of different types. This is important because these types coincide with fundamentally different views about the way the EU should be reformed and which policy priorities should be pursued. These types also have very different consequences for behaviour in elections and referendums. Euroscepticism is such a diverse phenomenon because the Eurozone crisis has exacerbated the structural imbalances within the EU. As the economic and political fates of member states have diverged, people’s experiences with and evaluations of the EU and national political systems have also grown further apart. The heterogeneity in public preferences that this book has uncovered makes a one-size-fits-all approach to addressing Euroscepticism unlikely to be successful.

The Governance of the European Union: A New Institutionalist Approach

1993 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 351-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon J. Bulmer
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
European Union ◽  
International Relations ◽  
European Integration ◽  
European Community ◽  
Historical Institutionalism ◽  
System Level ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Comparative Public Policy ◽  
Policy Perspective

ABSTRACTThe analysis of European integration has tended to use a toolkit drawn from international relations. But since the revival of integration in the mid-1980s, the governance of the European Community and European Union has increasingly come to resemble that of a multi-tiered state. Accordingly, this article analyzes the governance of the European Union from a comparative public policy perspective. Using new or historical institutionalism, three levels are considered. In the first part, attention is focused on the EU's institutions and the available instruments of governance. The second part examines the analysis of governance at the policy-specific or sub-system level, and puts forward an approach based on governance regimes. The final part considers the institutional roots of the persistent, regulatory character of governance in the European Union.

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