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Constitutional differentiation is often assumed to match perfectly with reality. We argue, however, that this is often not the case in core state powers. Constitutional differentiation often does not lead to the exclusion of the non-integrated member states (“outs”) from the policies of the integrated member states (“ins”) but to their reintegration by different means. We present a cost-benefit-model which argues that both “outs” and “ins” often have strong functional and political incentives to seek reintegration after an earlier decision for differentiation because the costs of exclusion are too high. We use a novel dataset of reintegration opportunities to map trends and patterns of reintegration across policy fields, reintegration instruments and member states in core state powers. We conclude by arguing that reintegration is a frequent but fragile phenomenon through which “ins” and “outs” cope with the costs of exclusion.
We challenge Kruck and Weiss’ argument about the regulatory security state on two counts. First, we contest the notion that the regulatory state is a viable alternative to the positive security state. While regulation and epistemic authority are increasingly important means of security provision, they remain critically dependent power resources and political authority that only the positive state provides. The regulatory security state is premised on the positive state and unviable without it. Second, the rise of the regulatory security state over the past three decades reflects highly specific historical conditions rather than a general trend. These conditions include unusually low geopolitical tensions in Europe and the strong regulatory bias of EU integration. Concepts matter: The wider the notion of security, the more relevant the regulatory security state becomes. It is an important reality but the war in Ukraine reminds us of the enduring centrality of the positive state.
What are the policy consequences of constitutional differentiation in core state powers? We argue that the most important consequence is not necessarily the exclusion of the constitutional outs from the policies of the ins, but their reintegration by different means. The outs often have strong functional and political incentives to re-join the policies they opted out from, and the ins have good reasons to help them back in. We develop a theoretical framework that derives the incentives for reintegration from the costs of a policy exclusion. We use a novel dataset of reintegration opportunities to map trends and patterns of reintegration across policy fields and member states. We analyze selected cases of reintegration to probe the plausibility of our theoretical argument.
Postfunctionalism posits a tradeoff between the functional scale of governance and the territorial scope of community: functional scale is large and transnational for efficiency reasons; community is small-scale and (sub-)national for reasons of social trust and collective identification. COVID-19 has turned this tradeoff upside down: it has shrunk functional scale to the (sub-)national level in the name of security, while lifting expectations of community to the grand transnational scale in the name of solidarity. This reversal of scales has resulted in a rapid rebordering of the Single Market and the Schengen area on the one hand, and a significant debordering of fiscal risk and burden sharing on the other. We reconstruct the evolution of this double-movement from January to August 2020, contrast it to historical trends in the scale-community tradeoff of European integration, and discuss implications for postfunctionalist theory.
This paper studies two areas of Core State Powers (CSP), i.e. the EU budget and Justice and Home Affairs. The two cases have the aim to reconstruct how Differentiated Integration (DI) has developed over time in these two specific domains. While the aim is the same for both cases, the way the cases are structured is substantially different. This is due to various reasons. First, the politics of the EU budget go back to the early days of the EU, while JHA is a post-Maastricht feature. This implies that the budget case study concentrates on a much longer time span. Second, DI in the budget interests several member states, while in JHA it is a phenomenon circumscribed to fewer members. Finally, the politics of the budget are decided through intergovernmental negotiations, while JHA is a rather supranationalised policy that relies a lot on secondary legislation and EU executive bodies such as EU agencies.
This report provides a general overview of the dataset under construction for WP5, EUDIFF-RES, focusing on differentiated integration in core state powers (CSP) in the European Union (EU). The report explains the rationale behind the data collection and provides an outline of the information gathered so far. The aim of the report is to make the dataset easily accessible to anyone who wishes to utlise it for further research.
The present report makes an overview of the progresses made so far in Work Package 5. At this initial stage, the main aim was to develop a new coding for core state powers in EU legislation. Such coding serves the purpose of expanding EUDIFF1 through new information on core state powers integration. The report is structured as follows: after a brief introduction, Section I presents a tripartite categorization of core state powers modes of integration. Section II tests the plausibility of the proposed categorisations through an empirical analysis that explores primary legislation from 1952 to 2016. Section III discusses the possibility of a more fine-grained distinction.
The paper summarises different patterns of differentiation and reintegration in core state powers during the post-Maastricht period, based on the EUDIFF-RES dataset. Moreover, it offers a theoretical framework able to explain the observed variation. The framework is further tested by means of short empirical illustrations taken from different policy areas. Overall, the EUDIFF-RES dataset substantially contributes to our understanding of CSP differentiated integration by revealing that the behaviour of states vis-a-vis core state powers varies greatly according to the kind of resource, as well as the costs and opportunities attached to it.
Juncker's Curse? Identity, Interest, and Public Support for the Integration of Core State Powers†
(2020)
Abstract
In this study we analysed the patterns and covariates of public support for the European integration of core state powers based on an original new survey. We found considerable variation across integration instruments, member states and policy issues. Horizontal transfers are supported more than vertical capacity building; member states from the EU's South‐East are more supportive than states from the North‐West; and support increases from debt relief to unemployment assistance, sharing the burdens of refugees, and military defence to disaster aid. Identity is a strong and fairly consistent predictor for individual variations in support. The association with respondents’ interest is less consistent, but can be quite strong with respect to specific policy issues such as debt and unemployment. Overall, support for the integration of core state powers is higher and more variable than expected. This suggests there is considerable room for political agency rather than a general constraining dissensus.
We map the pattern and extent of the European integration of core state powers (coercive force, public finance and public administration) and analyse causes and consequences. We highlight two findings: First, in contrast to historical examples of federal state-building, where the nationalization of core state powers precipitated the institutional, territorial and political consolidation of the emerging state, the European integration of core state powers is associated with the institutional, territorial and political fragmentation of the European Union. Second, in contrast to European market integration, state élites and mass publics, not organized business interests, are the prime drivers of integration.