An inflection point in European Union studies?

ABSTRACT

This contribution introduces a selection of the best papers presented at the 2015 European Union Studies Association’s biennial conference. It uses these papers as a jumping off point to consider whether European Union (EU) studies suffers the same ‘gap’ with real-world problems that is seen to afflict some portions of the academy and to ask whether EU studies is at an inflection point. It argues that EU studies are closely linked to the substance of the European project. It identifies how the contributions to this collection speak to different aspects of the EU: closer co-operation; policy-making within a ‘normal’ political system; the implications of European integration for its member states. Given this link between the substance of the European project and the focus of EU studies, this contribution argues that the challenges currently confronting the EU – the lingering eurozone debt crises; the migrant/refugee crisis; the prospect of a British exit; and recent terrorist attacks – may mark an inflection point in EU studies. The reason is that for the first time ‘less Europe’ has emerged as a serious option in response to crisis. This possibility reignites questions of (dis)integration and calls into question the assumption the EU policy only accumulates.

KEY WORDS:

• Bridging the gap
• crisis
• European integration
• EU studies
• inflection point
• less Europe

As Amie Kreppel (2012: 635) noted in the pages of the Journal of European Public Policy (JEPP), the study of the European Union (EU) has evolved along with its subject of study. This introduction, in introducing seven of the best papers presented at the European Union Studies Association (EUSA)’s 2015 biennial conference in Boston, highlights the continuation of that trend. It also ponders whether that logic implies that, in the light of multi-dimensional challenges – the lingering eurozone crisis, the referendum on British membership, the migrant/refugee crisis, and a wave of terrorist attacks – the EU and EU studies are, in 2016, at an inflection point.

This collection is the third in a collaborative effort between the Journal of European Public Policy and the European Union Studies Association (EUSA). The articles have been through a rigorous selection process. They had to be nominated by the discussant of the panel on which they were presented. Each nominated paper that was not already published or committed elsewhere was then reviewed by two members of EUSA’s current and outgoing Executive Committee (ExCom). The authors of the papers on the resulting short-list were provided with feedback and given a few months to revise their papers before they were submitted to JEPP’s standard, double-blind review process. I am very grateful to all of those – the discussants who nominated papers; the past and present ExCom members who screened them; the referees who provided detailed feedback; and, of course, the authors who engaged constructively with this process – who contributed to making this collection possible. Given this bottom–up selection process, the contributions in this collection do not even aspire to coherence. Their (inadvertent) similarities as well as their differences, however, provide a fruitful springboard for reflection on the state of EU studies.

These reflections are shaped by the fact that I am writing this introduction in April 2016; when the EU is confronting multiple challenges. I am writing in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in Brussels; as the debate over whether the United Kingdom (UK) should leave the EU is in full swing; as the Greek debt crisis threatens to reignite; and as Europe struggles to deal with the migrant/refugee crisis. Writing this introduction at this time provokes two disparate thoughts. The first is the evident gap between the issues addressed in the pages of this collection and those that dominate the pages of newspapers. The second is that perhaps for the first time the response to crisis may be ‘less Europe’ rather than ‘more Europe’. Both of these observations have significant implications for EU studies and, more to the point, help to frame the contributions to this collection.

This brief introduction begins by discussing the issue of policy relevance before turning to the question of the direction of EU studies. It then considers whether the EU and EU studies are at an inflection point. It concludes by introducing the contributions that make up this collection.

A gap bridged?

There is a widespread sense in the United States (US) that there is a ‘gap’ between the (political science) academy and the policy community. In a 2014 request for proposals to address this gap, the Carnegie Corporation of New York identified what it saw as several problems with the (international relations) academy: ‘from the privileging of method over substance to the under valuing of policy relevant scholarship in hiring and tenure decisions’ (Carnegie 2014). Some in the US Congress have repeatedly sought to cut National Science Foundation funding for political science, and social sciences more broadly, with varying degrees of success, in part because they do not consider the research to be relevant (Sides 2015). The concern about the relevance of academic research is not just a US issue. The United Kingdom’s Research Excellence Framework, a periodic review of the quality of academic research that influences the allocation of government research funding, now includes an assessment of the ‘impact’ of that research. That the contributions in this collection do not address the challenges that dominate the news might at first blush seem to be evidence that the problem of relevance afflicts EU studies as well.

I would argue, however, that this is a false impression. As Kreppel (2012) and Egan (2014) have noted, the study of the EU has evolved with the subject of study. Thus, real-world developments have been central drivers of EU studies. As the contributions in this collection illustrate, EU studies is very policy focused (as also suggested by the title of JEPP), just not necessarily the policies in the news. Wilson et al. (2016) ask what affects the re-election of incumbent members of the European Parliament? Hassel et al. (2016) and Mabbett (2016) consider how European integration – particularly the free movement of workers – affected labor relations in the member states. And why in the way it has? Damay and Mercenier (2016) evaluate whether the freedom of movement actually contributes to the construction of European citizenship. Kelemen and Pavone (2016) analyze why subnational courts engage with European law. Wunsch (2016) investigates the impact of accession to the EU on the domestic political influence of non-governmental organizations. Gravey and Jordan (2016) consider whether EU environmental policy has been dismantled. These contributions therefore represent rigorous social scientific efforts to explain political phenomena of consequence, even if they are not the issues dominating the news of the day.

I would go so far as to argue that the disconnect between the pages of JEPP and the headlines is actually a good thing. Rigorous analysis, which academic journals, such as JEPP, rightly privilege, takes time and is very hard to do on unfolding events. The conduct of such analysis in the past, however, can lay the foundations for public engagement on the topics of today. As Ferdi De Ville and Gabriel Siles-Brügge (2016) wryly noted, those of us who have been studying EU trade policy for years have never been as in demand with policy-makers, business groups, civic interest groups and members of the public as we are now that the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership negotiations are attracting attention. The Economic and Social Research Council’s ‘The UK in a Changing Europe’ program, directed by Anand Menon, brings the accumulated weight of decades of academic research on the EU and the UK’s relations with it to bear on the informing the British public about the issues and implications of Britain choosing to leave the EU (see http://ukandeu.ac.uk/). Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman (2016) leveraged their established expertise on EU privacy regulation to explore the implications the Court of Justice of the EU’s decision to overturn the Safe Harbor Agreement, which governed private data transfers across the Atlantic, for a lay and policy audiences in Foreign Affairs. These are only illustrative examples and reflect only those recent examples that I can recall off the top of my head. In no way do they reflect the breadth of scholarly engagement on these and other topical issues. They make the case, however, that there is a substantial bridge between social scientific analysis of the EU and pertinent real-world challenges.

The development of EU studies

As described by Kreppel (2012: 635) and Egan (2014: 795), EU studies has ‘evolved’ along with the EU. As the EU has developed and become more ‘state like’, EU studies has change with it. When the European project was undergoing construction through major institutional developments, the focus was on integration and the main research focus was in international relations. As the European project matured, focus shifted to explaining decision-making within established policy areas and to understanding the functioning of the European institutions. Kreppel (2012: 636–7) contended this led to the EU resembling a ‘normal’ political system. Scholarship on the EU responded, and the disciplinary locus shifted from international relations to comparative politics. This shift in emphasis reflected more a burgeoning of comparative politics literature on the EU than a dramatic reduction in that in international relations. Egan (2014: 794), in her introduction to the previous incarnation of this collection, noted a continuation of this trend, with increasing attention to questions of performance and of the EU’s impact on the world beyond its borders. The broadening of the subject of study and the diversity of disciplinary and methodological approaches, she observed, had led to a ‘fractured and fragmented’ ‘scholarly ‘landscape’. There has arguably been a further shift in EU studies as EU policy has accreted, and, particularly in response to the eurozone crises, the impact of the EU on the domestic policies of its member states increased. As a result, the boundaries between the study of the EU qua the EU and that of its member states has become blurred. The contributions to collection reflect each of these focal points – integration; established polity; the domestication of the EU. The challenges that they do not reflect, however, suggest that the EU and EU studies may be at an inflection point.

Two of the contributions in this collection address questions associated with integration. Kelemen and Pavone (2016) focus on the process of legal integration. Damay and Mercenier (2016) are concerned with the construction of European citizenship. While both of these contributions address questions central to European integration, neither is looking at grand bargains. Rather, they look at micro-level processes of integration. Superficially, they echo neofunctionalist accounts of integration, although both contributions in different ways stress the contingency of integration through such mechanisms. Moreover, they approach their questions from the perspective of political science and political sociology (respectively), rather than international relations. In many respects, Damay and Mercenier’s contribution is an assessment of policy effectiveness.

Another two contributions treat the EU squarely as a political system. Wilson et al. (2016) analyze what affects re-election of incumbent members of the European Parliament. This is a type of question familiar to scholars of the politics of democratic states. Gravey and Jordan (2016) establish that some EU environmental policies have been dismantled. Although they contrast this developed with the expectation that European policies are expected always to expand, the phenomenon they describe is familiar to students of domestic politics as deregulation, which is explicitly their point of departure.

The other three contributions engage with the impact of the EU on its member states, although their focus on the EU differs markedly. Wunsch’s (2016) analysis of how the influence of Croatian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) waxed and waned during and after the accession process presents the EU very much as a pivotal player. Her account thus fits comfortably with the literature on Europeanization. In the contributions by Hassel et al. (2016) and Mabbet (2016), the focus is on domestic political processes and the EU is simply part of the context. Both these contributions are rooted more firmly in the literature on comparative capitalism than on the EU. In these accounts, the EU almost fades into the background, it is so taken for granted.

An inflection point in EU studies?

In the prevailing account, European integration has progressed, not always steadily, but relentlessly. EU studies has changed along with the EU – from focusing on decisions to co-operate; to how co-operation works; to the consequences of established co-operation from a member state perspective. Yet, just as the EU was arguably beginning to become the new normal, a series of challenges have hauled it back into the limelight and called into question the relentless process of integration.

The EU has undoubtedly faced important challenges before, but in those instances the choice was framed as between the status quo and ‘more Europe’. In the contemporary crises, ‘less Europe’ has emerged as a real option. There was serious consideration of whether Greece should (or would) leave the euro. Capital controls were imposed, albeit temporarily, in Greece and Cyprus. Border controls have been, at least temporarily, reintroduced within the Schengen area in response to the refugee/migrant crisis. The UK is holding a referendum (for the second time) on whether to leave the EU. In efforts to keep the UK in the EU, the other member states accepted caveats on the freedom of movement. These developments suggest that European integration may very well have a ‘reverse gear’, even if it is rather sticky.

Given how EU studies has developed in parallel with its subject, these developments should be expected to have implications for the questions EU scholars ask. There may be a renewed interest in questions of (dis)integration. At the very least, the assumption that the EU policy only accumulates (as Gravey and Jorden [2016] challenge) no longer holds. Thus, EU studies, as well as the EU, may be at an inflection point.

Introducing the contributions to the collection

Kelemen and Pavone (2016) use subnational data to bring greater precision to the analysis of why lower courts refer cases to the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU). By using subnational data from Italy, they are able to disaggregate both the independent and dependent variables that have been used to explain the variance in referrals by member state. Moreover, they use geographic information systems (GIS) technology to map the subnational, spatio–temporal patterns of such references. Their evidence suggests that some of the factors identified as influencing referrals to the CJEU at the national level – domestic litigation rates, population, economic resources, trade and social capital – do not hold when the data are disaggregated to the subnational level. Rather, they suggest, the territorial diffusion of EU law litigation reflects the spread of knowledge of EU law, as subnational reference activity in a particular issue area tends to cluster geographically.

Damay and Mercenier (2016) set out to assess the effectiveness of the premise prevalent in the European institutions that there is a ‘virtuous circle’ between the freedom of movement, European citizenship and the feeling of belonging to the EU. They contend that the exclusive linking of EU citizenship to the freedom of movement has three pernicious consequences: it concentrates attention on the tiny proportion of mobile EU citizens; it neglects the effects of the freedom of movement on non-movers; and it discounts the rights linked to EU citizenship that EU citizens have without moving. Using focus groups with young people in Belgium, Damay and Mercenier problematize the assumptions underpinning the virtuous circle. In particular, for non-movers freedom of movement has negative connotations (as is evident in the Brexit debate) and for movers it does not foster a feeling of belonging to the EU. They therefore contend that the European institutions’ emphasis on the freedom of movement as the benefit of EU citizenship is failing to foster a sense of European citizenship.

Wilson et al. (2016) seek to explain the electoral fortunes of individual, incumbent members of the European Parliament (MEPs) who are seeking re-election. They find that those who are able to influence the votes of the greatest number of their parliamentary colleagues across policy areas, what they call ‘policy voting leaders’, are more likely to be re-elected when party leaders control the order of the candidates on the electoral lists. When voters can affect the placement of candidates on parties’ electoral lists, however, electoral visibility matters; party group leaders and MEPs who signal their dedication and policy priorities to voters by joining EP intergroups are more likely to be re-elected. Thus, they demonstrate that the determinants of incumbent re-election differ across ballot structures. They also introduce a novel measure of MEPs’ voting influence, which focuses on whether other lawmakers follow their lead when making individual-level choices that are aggregated into collective decisions. In addition, they bring a candidate-centered approach to the study of European Parliament elections.

Gravey and Jordan (2016) investigate whether deregulatory pressures have resulted in the dismantling of European environmental policy. They find that despite the multitude of veto players created by the EU’s ‘hyperconsensual’ policy process, some policy dismantling has indeed occurred. Thus, they demonstrate that EU policies do not only expand, as is commonly assumed. They note, however, that only a minority of policies targeted for dismantling were pruned; many survived unscathed and some even expanded. Having established that there is something going on, they set out a research agenda to establish both the significance of the phenomenon and to explain why and when it occurs.

Wunsch (2016) analyzes the influence of non-governmental organizations active in the areas of human rights, democratization, and judicial reform during and after Croatia’s negotiations to join the EU. She finds that the position of Croatian NGOs was strengthened during the final stages of the pre-accession period by a combination of: resources from the EU, which enabled the professionalization of the sector; a shift towards trying to persuade EU actors; and their framing of demands in accession-related terms. These results highlight the relevance of domestic agency in translating the EU’s structural support to civil society in candidate countries into actual changes in the power balance on the ground, particularly as there were specific instances of Croatian NGOs uploading their demands into the EU’s conditionality. Once the accession negotiations were concluded, however, the Commission’s political and financial support for the NGOs waned, and, with the specter of conditionality lifted de facto, the NGOs shifted their attention to domestic actors, who were less receptive to their demands. As a consequence, Croatian NGOs have returned to the low level of empowerment they had before the accession process began.

Hassel et al. (2016) analyze the differential impact of liberalization within the context of the single market on low-wage labor in the Danish and German meat production sectors. In Germany firms have responded by using low-cost labor employed by subcontractors from Central and Eastern Europe under the posted workers directive. This strategy has contributed to the emergence of a secondary labor market in Germany, which sits alongside the high-wage, protected labor market. It also led to the expansion of the German meat production industry. In Denmark firms did not lower wages, resulting in job losses and the contraction of the industry. Hassel et al. argue that the key to explaining these different strategies and outcomes was union strength. In Denmark the unions were more inclusive than in Germany and so were better able to resist firms’ efforts to employ low-cost labor. Embedded in the varieties of capitalism literature, this contribution demonstrates the EU liberalization pressures do not prompt the convergence of policies, but that institutional differences of member states lead to different adaptation strategies.

Mabbet (2016) seeks to explain the introduction of a statutory minimum wage in Germany despite business opposition. This outcome runs contrary to expectations from the varieties of capitalism literature, which stresses the importance of business power. This adoption of the minimum wage is linked very much with the emergence of the dual economy in Germany that is discussed by Hassel et al. (2016). Mabbett contends that government intervention occurred and succeeded in large part because economic liberalization, of which the EU was a key source, had eroded the economic power of unions and the political cohesion and, thus, political power of firms. As a result of these changes, unions came to favor government action, which was pressed by the Social Democratic Party as part of the 2013 coalition agreement, and firms were unable to resist it effectively. The introduction of the minimum wage, therefore, indicates a decline in corporatist decision-making.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Alasdair R. Young is a professor of international relations and co-director of the Center for European and Transatlantic Studies (a Jean Monnet Center of Excellence) in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. He is also chair of the European Union Studies Association (2015–17).