393 research outputs found
Introduction : escaping the politics trap? : EU integration pathways beyond the polycrisis
No full textPublished online: 26 June 2024Since 2016, the EU has widely been considered to be in a state of ‘polycrisis’,where simultaneous, mutually reinforcing challenges threaten the Union’scohesion and legitimacy. Such polycrises may fracture Europe’s politicalspace, creating cross-cutting ‘polycleavages’ that polarise member states andtheir citizens asymmetrically, thereby constraining the EU’s capacity to forgeeffective compromises on key policy issues. In so doing, they exacerbate therisk of the EU’s falling into a multi-level ‘politics trap’, where negativepoliticisation of European issues inhibits national leaders from agreeingambitious solutions in intergovernmental negotiations, while the ensuingdeadlock in turn saps the Union’s output-based legitimacy and fuels aEurosceptic ‘constraining dissensus’. In this introductory article, we developan analytical framework elaborating the concepts of polycrises,polycleavages, and politics traps, which we then use to present and interpretthe main findings of the contributions to this collection, focused on theCovid-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The most importanttakeaway from the contributions to this collection is that – consistent withour framework – the EU has clearly proved more resilient to the potentialnegative consequences of politicisation than many commentators hadexpected at the beginning of this long polycrisis decade
Transnational Transformations of Governance : The European Union and Beyond
No full textFar-reaching transformations in the nature of contemporary governance can be observed, within and beyond the nation-state. At the heart of these transformations, Jonathan Zeitlin argues, is the emergence of new forms of 'experimentalist' governance, based on framework rule-making and revision through comparative review of alternative approaches to advancing common objectives in different local contexts. The proliferation of these new organizational forms can best be understood as a response to increased environmental volatility and complexity, which have overwhelmed in many settings the capacities of conventional hierarchical governance and 'command-and-control' regulation. Although robust examples can be found in many jurisdictions, including the United States, the epicenter of these developments is the European Union, where experimentalist governance arrangements have been institutionalized across a wide range of policy domains over the past 15 years. These have not only facilitated the extension of European integration into new, politically sensitive policy fields, but also enabled the EU in many areas to produce high-quality, revisable rules capable of broad application across a diverse polity of 500 million inhabitants and 27 member states. In this inaugural lecture,Zeitlin analyzes the properties of these experimentalist arrangements, examines their development within the EU, and opens up new research questions about their influence on governance processes within the member states and beyond the Union's borders
sj-docx-1-eup-10.1177_14651165221126387 - Supplemental material for EU regulation between uniformity, differentiation, and experimentalism: Electricity and banking compared
No full textSupplemental material, sj-docx-1-eup-10.1177_14651165221126387 for EU regulation between uniformity, differentiation, and experimentalism: Electricity and banking compared by Jonathan Zeitlin and Bernardo Rangoni in European Union Politics</p
Socializing the European Semester? Economic governance and social policy coordination in Europe 2020
No full textThe European Semester of policy coordination, which is the core of EU’s new institutional architecture for economic and social governance, introduced since the beginning of the Euro crisis, has prompted questions about the nature and dynamics of the EU’s emerging socio-economic governance architecture. In this report, Jonathan Zeitlin and Bart Vanhercke argue that since 2011, there has been a partial but progressive ‘socialization’ of the European Semester. This can be understood not only as the response from i.e. the European Commission to the growing social and political discontent with austerity policies, but also as a product of reflexive learning and creative adaptation on the part of social and employment actors
Introduction
No full textThis chapter introduces the theoretical framework and research agenda of the book. It provides an overview of the three contemporaneous trends from which the book departs: the development of experimentalist governance within the EU; the EU’s efforts to extend its rules, norms, standards, and governance processes to third countries and global institutions; and the emergence of experimentalist regimes in transnational governance. It then goes on to identify the key research questions arising from the relationship between these three trends, focusing on how far the EU’s attempts to expand the geographical scope of its internal rules, norms, and governance processes contribute positively or negatively to the development of experimentalism in transnational regulation, and through which institutional channels, pathways, and mechanisms are regulated. The chapter concludes with a brief preview and explanation of the design of the volume
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