Confronting Theories of European Integration: A Comparative Congruence Analysis of Veterinary Drug Regulations in Five Countries

Abstract

This study moves beyond current perspectives of European Union implementation research to paint a comprehensive picture of the fine-tuning of domestic regulations beyond compliance. It compares the hitherto unexplored veterinary drug regulations of four member states, France, Germany, Austria, and the United Kingdom, with those of the non-member Switzerland. It links causal mechanisms back to three differing theoretical assumptions about European integration. These theories are confronted using congruence analysis in a comparative case study design. Evidence is found for historical institutionalism and for the domestic politics hypothesis. The assumption of a neo-functionalist development of regulations is only weakly supported.

Keywords:

• European integration
• historical institutionalism
• neo-functionalism
• domestic politics
• congruence analysis
• comparative case study design
• veterinary drug regulations

Notes

^1. Institutions are defined as the “formal or informal procedures, routines, norms and conventions embedded in the organisational structure of the polity” (Hall and Taylor 1996: 938).

^2. While this outcome would also be expected according to institutional isomorphism, our argument is crucially based on the idea of path dependency.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Fritz Sager

Fritz Sager is a Professor of Political Science at the Centre of Competence for Public Management at the University of Bern. He specializes in policy analysis, programme evaluation, and the history of administrative theory.

Eva Thomann

Eva Thomann is a research assistant and is completing her dissertation at the Centre of Competence for Public Management at the University of Bern, Switzerland. Her research focuses on policy implementation in multilevel systems and at the street level, and qualitative comparative research methods.

Christine Zollinger

Christine Zollinger is a PhD student at the Institute of Political Science, University of Zurich, Switzerland. Her main research interest lies in welfare state politics, policy analysis and evaluation research. Besides her own research she is involved in the teaching at the Department as a lecturer.

Céline Mavrot

Céline Mavrot is a research assistant at the Centre of Competence for Public Management at the University of Bern, Switzerland. Her research focuses on public health policies from a comparative perspective, and on the sociology of public action. She is currently completing her dissertation on the history of French administrative sciences.