From the euro to the Schengen crises: European integration theories, politicization, and identity politics

ABSTRACT

This contribution argues that the three dominant approaches to European integration cannot fully explain why the two most recent crises of the European Union (EU) resulted in very different outcomes. Liberal intergovernmentalism and neofunctionalism can account for why the euro crisis resulted in more integration, but fail to explain why the EU has been stuck in a stalemate in the Schengen crisis. With regard to postfunctionalism, it is the other way around. To solve the puzzle, we have to consider that depoliticization through supranational delegation during the euro crisis has ultimately led to more, not less politicization. Moreover, both crises were about identity politics. Political controversies over the euro crisis have centred predominantly on questions of order, i.e., what constitutes Europe as a community and how much solidarity members of the community owe to each other under which conditions. The mass influx of migrants and refugees changed identity politics, since Eurosceptic populist parties framed the Schengen crisis in terms of borders, advocating for an exclusionary ‘fortress Europe.’ In contrary of a more inclusionary discourse, the dominance of exclusionary positions in the politicization of EU affairs has impaired an upgrading of the common European interest in the Schengen crisis.

KEYWORDS:

• European Union
• euro crises
• EU migration and asylum policy
• politicization
• European identity
• European integration theories

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to two anonymous reviewers, to Liesbet Hooghe, Gary Marks, and Brigid Laffan (the editors of this collection), to Chris Bickerton, Peter Katzenstein, Philipp Genschel, Frank Schimmelfennig, and John Stephens, as well as the participants of the workshop ‘Theory Meets Crisis: Europe’s Crises and Comparative Politics’ held in Florence, June 20-July 1, 2016, for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. A revised version of this contribution was presented at the 2016 Annual Convention of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interests was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Tanja A. Börzel is professor of political science and European integration at the Otto Suhr Institute of Political Science, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany.

Thomas Risse is professor of political science and European integration at the Otto Suhr Institute of Political Science, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany.

Notes

1 ‘(T)he process whereby political actors in several distinct national set­tings are persuaded to shift their loyalties, expectations and political activities toward a new centre, whose institutions possess or demand jurisdiction over the pre-existing national states’ (Haas 1958: 16).

2 For slightly different conceptualization of the same cleavage see Kriesi et al. (2008).

3 We thank an anonymous reviewer for pointing this out to us.

4 https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/sites/homeaffairs/files/what-we-do/policies/european-agenda-migration/press-material/docs/state_of_play_-_relocation_en.pdf (accessed 30 March 2017).

5 Polyakova and Fligstein (2016) use the 2010 Eurobarometer data to make their point. However, 2010 was the only year since the late 2000s where ‘exclusive national identities’ were stronger than ‘inclusive national’ identities (nation plus Europe). See Figure 3.

6 http://ec.europa.eu/COMMFrontOffice/PublicOpinion/index.cfm/Chart/getChart/themeKy/29/groupKy/180 (accessed 29 February 2016).

7 12 December 2010, quoted from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/16/business/global/16union.html?pagewanted=all (accessed 10 March 2012).

8 http://p5.focus.de/img/fotos/origs916560/2412301311-w1280-h480-o-q72-p4/focustitel08-10.jpg (accessed 10 January 2017).

9 E.g., https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/03/opinion/paul-krugman-europes-many-disasters.html?_r=0 (accessed 10 January 2017).

10 http://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/eurokrise/griechenland/schuldenstreit-schaeuble-von-merkel-abgekanzelt-13631341.html (accessed 10 January 2017).

 

Additional information

Funding

This article is based on research conducted in the framework of the Centre for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences (FOR 1026) ‘Transformative Power of Europe?’, funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG).