Core–periphery disparities in Europe: is there a link between political and economic divergence?

Abstract

This contribution examines whether and how economic divergence between the EU core and its southern and eastern peripheries relates to the emerging political divergence within the EU. Data show that persistent and growing economic disparities are linked to EU member states moving apart with regard to their democratic quality, but not as straightforwardly as the literature claims. This gives rise to two puzzles: first, economic divergence does not always go together with political divergence. While all countries in the eastern and southern periphery marked by low or declining levels of democratic quality are poor, not all poor countries are weak democratic performers. The contribution argues that weakness of state institutions as exemplified by high levels of corruption constitutes a crucial condition under which economic divergence is likely to promote political divergence. Corruption makes poor countries more likely to backslide or to perform poorly with regard to their democratic quality. Second, economic convergence is not necessarily linked to political convergence. Even in times of economic development, identity politics that caters to a strong perception of relative deprivation is likely to drive democratic backsliding in the peripheries. This mechanism is also at work in EU core countries.

Keywords:

• Convergence
• divergence
• core–periphery relations
• social inequality
• relative deprivation
• democratic backsliding
• corruption
• identity politics

Notes

Acknowledgements

Research for this contribution has been supported by the Seventh Framework Programme of the EU (project 320115 ‘Maximizing the Integration Capacity of the European Union: Lessons and Prospects for Enlargement and Beyond’ [MAXCAP]). We are grateful to Lisa Sophie Fenner, Lukas Müller-Wünsch and Onno Steenweg for excellent research assistance.

Notes

1 In line with the introduction to this special issue, the term periphery refers to a peripheral position of these countries in economic terms.

2 In line with the focus of this special issue, we use the average of EU core countries (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Luxemburg, Netherlands, Sweden, the UK) as a benchmark for economic and political divergence in the EU.

3 https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2017/poland (accessed 19 January 2018).

4 https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2015/greece (accessed 6 January 2018).

5 Note that respective data for the eastern and southern peripheries are only available since 2005. Likewise, data availability for the Gini coefficient, the main indicator used in the existing literature to measure social inequality, is limited. Moreover, a high Gini coefficient may indicate that inequality is high among members of the same social class or between social classes (Houle 2016). Therefore, we use the share of people at the risk of poverty as an indicator for existing intra-state asymmetries in social exclusions.

6 Social inequality has remained at a comparatively high level in Romania. Slovakia and the Czech Republic remained relatively stable. Poland even witnessed a decline in social inequality in the post-2008 years (Figure 5).

7 https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2017/greece (accessed 18 January 2018).

8 https://euobserver.com/justice/140417; https://euobserver.com/justice/140439 (accessed 6 January 2018).

9 https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2017/hungary (accessed 17 January 2018).

10 https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2017/bulgaria, https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2017/romania (accessed 18 January 2018).

11 We are grateful to one of the anonymous reviewers for pointing this out to us.

12 We thank Miriam Sokalski for making us aware of the study by Gdula and his colleagues.

13 Grande/Kriesi call the cleavage ‘demarcation/integration’ (Kriesi et al. 2008), while de Wilde, Koopmans and Zürn conceptualise it as ‘communitarianism/cosmopolitanism’ (de Wilde et al. 2014).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tanja A. Börzel

Tanja A. Börzel is professor of political science and holds the Chair for European Integration at the Otto-Suhr-Institute for Political Science, Freie Universität Berlin. She directs the Cluster of Excellence ‘Contestations of the Liberal Script’. Her recent publications include The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regionalism (Oxford University Press 2016, co-edited with Thomas Risse), The Oxford Handbook of Governance and Areas of Limited Statehood (Oxford University Press 2018, co-edited with Thomas Risse and Anke Draude), Governance under Anarchy. Effective and Legitimate in Areas of Limited Statehood, with Thomas Risse (Cambridge University Press forthcoming), and The Politics of Compliance in the European Union (Cornell University Press forthcoming). [[email protected]]

Julia Langbein

Julia Langbein is a senior researcher at the Otto-Suhr-Institute for Political Science, Freie Universität Berlin and at the Centre for East European and International Studies in Berlin. Her research focus lies in the field of comparative political economy (with a focus on Eastern Europe and the post-Soviet space), European integration and institutional development. Her research has appeared, among others, in the Journal of European Public Policy, the Journal of Common Market Studies and Europe-Asia Studies. [[email protected]]