Federal dynamics, solidarity, and European Union crisis politics

ABSTRACT

In this article, I analyse solidarity between regions during times of crisis. To begin with, I define two types of solidarity preferences. Negative solidarity means that territories will regard solidarity only as appropriate in the limits of intergovernmental contracts and consider the fiscal consequences of solidarity to be more important than the social consequences. Positive solidarity implies that regions consider solidarity even if it goes beyond existing intergovernmental contracts as they regard social consequences to be more important than fiscal consequences. I argue that the combination of regional collective identities, the relative importance of intergovernmental over parliamentary decision-making, and the complexity of policy problems impact on preferences for solidarity. To illustrate my argument empirically, I use the European Union (EU) and federal states as examples. More generally, I make a theoretical contribution to understanding the politics of solidarity.

KEYWORDS:

• Intergovernmentalism
• federalism
• European integration
• Euroskepticism
• positive solidarity
• negative solidarity

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Christopher K. Ansell, Can Umut Ciner, Markus Jachtenfuchs, Satoshi Miura, Konrad Posch, Leonce Roeth, Matthew Stenberg, two anonymous reviewers, and the editors of the Journal of European Public Policy for their very constructive and helpful comments. All remaining errors are mine.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 For a detailed literature overview read also: (Fossum and Jachtenfuchs 2017).

2 An exception to this finding is the case of Catalonia, which I will discuss below.

3 The Guardian, June 26, 2015: https://tinyurl.com/y7lx5hmv, last accessed on November 13, 2017.

4 EU-Commission https://tinyurl.com/yaw8rmw4, last accessed on November 13, 2017.

5 ESM https://tinyurl.com/yc528b4t, last accessed on November 13, 2017.

6 The Guardian, January 22, 2015: https://tinyurl.com/ycudjb99, last accessed on November 14, 2017; The Guardian, October 26, 2017: https://tinyurl.com/y9omspw3, last accessed on November 13, 2017.

7 The Guardian, September 22, 2015: https://tinyurl.com/yampbncw, last accessed on November 13, 2017. Eastern European countries even went to the European Court of Justice and lost (Reuters World News, September 6, 2018 (http://tinyurl.com/y2j8jn64)), last accessed on March 20, 2019.

8 The Guardian, December 8, 2016: https://tinyurl.com/zhtdoq8, last accessed on November 13, 2017.

9 The Guardian, May 15, 2017: https://tinyurl.com/kh5uejm, last accessed on November 14, 2017; Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (F.A.Z), September 13, 2017: https://tinyurl.com/ybe7mnm4, last accessed on November 14, 2017; Spiegel Online, October 7, 2017: https://tinyurl.com/y92jtwnt, last accessed on November, 2017.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung [grant number 162832].

Notes on contributors

Philipp Trein

Philipp Trein is a Senior Researcher at HEC Lausanne and a Senior Fellow at the Institute of European Studies at the University of California, Berkeley