When norms and rules collide: the social production of institutional conflict in the European Union

ABSTRACT

This paper addresses the question of when and why institutional conflicts break out over decision-making competencies in the European Union. It argues there is untapped potential in constructivist approaches to explain the occurrence of such conflicts. Rationalist institutionalist (RI) models based on the idea of the Commission as a ‘competence maximizer’, while serving as shorthand for understanding institutional dynamics, risk producing simplistic accounts of institutional conflicts. Tensions between broad collective understandings of policy issues and formal institutional rules can help explain why the Commission initiates institutional conflict in specific instances. This general argument is formulated as a social mechanism termed the rupture mechanism, its potential demonstrated by evidence from an in-depth process tracing study of one of the most controversial institutional conflicts between the Council and the Commission in the 2000s.

KEY WORDS:

• Constructivism
• European Commission
• European criminal law
• institutional conflict
• Justice and Home Affairs
• social mechanisms

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author gratefully acknowledges the insightful comments on previous versions of this text by Jeffrey T. Checkel, Johan Eriksson, Stefano Guzzini, Valsamis Mitsilegas, Ulrika Mörth, Mark Rhinard, Phil Rocco, Jonas Tallberg and participants at the seminar for European Studies, Department of Government, Uppsala University. Special thanks are extended to the three anonymous reviewers for their excellent and constructive comments.

SUPPLEMENTAL DATA AND RESEARCH MATERIALS

Supplemental data for this paper can be accessed on the Taylor & Francis website (http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2014.982155).

Notes

1 A more in-depth description of data gathering and processing as well as a complete list of respondents and documents on which the analysis relies can be found in the article's appendix available through the journal homepage (see Supplemental Data and Research Materials).

2 DG JLS was split up on 1 July 2010 into DG HOME and DG Justice.

Additional information

Biographical note

Ludvig Norman is researcher and lecturer at the Department of Government, Uppsala University.