Mercosur has undergone numerous transformations, from a customs union to an organization promoting development and consulting civil society. Recently, there has been a backlash against such ‘politicization’, and an attempt to return Mercosur to its origins. At each of these phases, Mercosur was plagued by questions about its legitimacy and purpose, and its leaders reached out to different types of

In this article we investigate how a particular vision of the future of EU defence has embedded itself into different arenas of EU politics over decades, and is currently gaining material expression in the European Defence Fund (EDF). Through an historiographic approach, we traced the development of a particular narrative on security, innovation, research, and economic growth based on fears of technology

The question whether elites contribute constructively to the process of European integration has become more crucial today in times of increasing Euroscepticism and populist opposition to the European Union in the member states. In this article we venture off beaten paths and focus on a hitherto much less investigated segment of society, business elites, and particularly on their attitudes towards

Economic agreements concluded between the EU and third parties increasingly take on security matters, such as counter‐terrorism, nuclear proliferation and international criminal law. Highlighting the remarkable variation in the presence and content of these security non‐trade issues (SNTIs), we argue that it is best explained by the EU's intensity of foreign policy interests vis‐à‐vis its partners

Introduction Regional organizations in the Global North have sought to create avenues for legitimating integrationist activities. Participatory initiatives are one such route. Referring to mechanisms whereby ‘independently created forms of collective action’, encompassing trade unions, special interest groups and pressure groups, political parties, business organizations, and mass social movements

How do private firms respond when they are hit by economic sanctions? Economic sanctions are a vitally important element of the European Union's foreign policy toolbox. While their importance and frequency of use increased, not much is known about the economic impact of the economic sanctions at the micro level. Yet the sanctions imposition has been recently politicized within the EU, especially in

Europeanization research found no general convergence towards centralized EU policy coordination, despite decentralized systems' comparatively slow and ineffective position‐taking. Does this finding hold against the threat, urgency, and uncertainty exerted by recent years' polycrisis? We posit that decentralized systems indeed persist, albeit in a three‐step reactive sequence in which situational centralization

Over 15 years ago Joseph Jupille articulated the conditions under which actors clash over, rather than merely within, political institutions. He showed that between 1987 and 1997 the theory of procedural politics helped explain why and when EU institutions contested the legal basis of EU legislation. The two key determinants in the theory are jurisdictional ambiguity and actors' desire to maximize

In recent times, the European Union’s external engagement has expanded in originally internal policy areas. This process is particularly intriguing in areas where the EU possesses only supplementary competences. Examining the case of EU higher education policy, this contribution sets out to understand and explain EU external engagement in such areas. To this end, it employs an explanatory framework

The dynamics of the relationship between political participation and legitimacy have received limited attention, despite the widely held view that the former contributes to the latter. This article advances conceptualizations of this relationship by demonstrating how participatory innovations can be analysed as processes of legitimation. Studies of participation highlight how institutional actors define

The European Commission has been active in proposing legislation on the exchange of information on Intergovernmental Agreements (IGAs) in the field of energy, pushing for an ex ante control mechanism which most member states have been reluctant to accept. This article aims to explain the extent to which and the conditions under which the Commission has been able to achieve its IGAs objectives. It argues

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In the past few years decision‐making processes and the normative underpinnings of EU external relations have become subject to intense debate in the European institutions, member states and the wider public. Previous research suggests that there is variation in the extent to which individual domains of EU external relations are politicized and contested. This special issue aims to theorize further

Previous research suggests that the rise of populist radical right parties (PRRPs) is contributing to the politicization of European domestic and external policies. However, whether this is also the case for European development policy is unclear. Building on a new dataset that analyses government positions and coalition agreements across European countries since the 1990s, we investigate whether,

This article provides a longitudinal analysis on the driving forces behind Europeans' positions toward development aid and identifies changes in the dynamics following the migrant flows in 2015. Specifically, it assesses the extent to which policy‐makers' decisions to utilize development policy as a strategic tool to manage migration resonates at the public level. Using multilevel regression models

The European Union's development policy has become increasingly intertwined with other policy fields, which erodes the objectives of this policy domain in their own right. We specifically look at the linkages with migration policy, which has been a highly politicized EU policy domain. This article assesses the EU migration–development discursive linkages by addressing two related questions: how and

The EU is committed to promoting human rights through its development policy. This article argues that its expansive human rights framework has led to EU‐internal and outside‐in politicization of LGBTI rights in Uganda. It views contestation as a mechanism of politicization and suggests two paths through which contestation occurs; based on the normative core or on the application of human rights conditionality

Some elements of EU assistance to the countries of MENA have become more politicized in recent years. This is largely because sharper differences of opinion have emerged over EU funds being used to limit migration and for security aims. Contestation has intensified horizontally between different EU institutions and European governments. However, this politicization varies across different policy areas

This article highlights the role of external audiences and their perceptions in analysing the politicization of EU development policy. We analyse how EU foreign assistance is understood in two different intermediary arenas of politicization – elites in different societal sectors and media – within Ukraine, a major recipient of EU aid. By investigating to what extent EU assistance is perceived to be

This article explores the empirical relevance of researching outside‐in politicization processes in European studies. To this end, it examines to what extent and how civil society organizations (CSOs) have contributed to the politicization of EU policies towards Western Africa in two cases: the negotiation of Economic Partnership Agreements and the EU's engagement with the G5 Sahel. CSOs were strongly

While celebrating the 63rd anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, the EU has been dealing with ongoing challenges both externally and internally. Those challenges undermine the liberal order of which the EU was once a founder and a guarantor. They have also shaken the ground of EU values such as free trade and liberal democracy. The European Union in a Changing World Order provides analytical insights

The impact of Brexit on NATO will – barring the dissolution of the UK – have no significant operational consequence for the alliance. British forces will continue to function within NATO as they did before and after its accession to the EEC in 1973. But Brexit will deprive the EU of significant military capabilities. The UK contributes 20 per cent of the capabilities in the EU force catalogue, it possesses

The EU Trade Secrets Directive (Directive (EU) 2016/943 of the European Parliament and of the Council, OJ L 157/1) was adopted on 8 June 2016, and member states were required to comply with it by 9 June 2018. Before the directive some member states had fragmented laws with varying levels for protecting trade secrets across the EU. The directive aimed to harmonize the law on this matter. Some member

In this book, a team of political scientists makes an impressive attempt to provide a new narrative for European integration. As the lead editors explain in the introduction, contemporary European politics suffers from a lack of solutions in the face of changing socioeconomic problems. The authors also claim that integration theories, which in the past served as a theoretical underpinning to the narrative

This edited volume valuably combines doctrinal, political science and socio‐legal research. Going well beyond its title, in this book the diverse and highly qualified pool of authors demonstrates that there is no single eurosceptic challenge to EU law. In the summary that follows the 11 preceding chapters (many of which offer single or comparative country case studies) as well as a prologue and an

This article uses Börzel and Risse's norm diffusion framework to conceptualize and evaluate the EU's ‘death penalty diplomacy’ in Japan. Despite the ‘exceptional’ nature of Japanese politics with regard to the death penalty the EU has enjoyed numerous successes in its attempts to diffuse the abolitionist norm within Japan. These successes have occurred through both direct and indirect methods of norm

The European Parliament's political groups have traditionally been studied using quantitative methods and roll call votes. This article expands such research agendas by applying qualitative methods and interview data to expose existing power relations not just on macro level but within and between political groups. This generates insights on the ways in which radical right populism impacts on democratic

Despite a rise in the number of competitive far right parties leading up to the European refugee crisis, some centre right parties achieved or maintained electoral success. We argue that some centre right parties recognize the electoral opportunity for radical right parties to exploit the refugee crisis for electoral gains and strategically adopt hard‐line positions on immigration to maintain and even

This article discusses how populism and political uncertainty are impacting on one of the main current trends in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice, namely the privatisation of JHA. Through an exploration of a cybersecurity policy case study, the article proposes to understand how the privatisation of internal security, which has resulted in private actors shaping JHA policies and regulation

This paper compares how European and non‐European participants in international environmental negotiations perceive the EU's role in such negotiations. Three dimensions of the EU's role (environmental ambition, diplomatic activity and influence) are assessed in three UN‐wide environmental forums (the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions on chemicals, the Convention on Biological Diversity, and

The dominant literature on the development of the EU's new economic governance regime suggests that it constitutes another step towards integration in the European fiscal policy framework. However, I argue that this limited view neglects the politics of labour that underlies European monetary integration. In the euro area competitiveness adjustment is promoted, which means in practice fostering and

This article offers a historical assessment of the ‘Europe Open for Business’ campaign, launched in 1988 by Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government and related to the programme to complete the single market. The campaign, which greatly increased business awareness of the 1992 programme, was a unique propaganda exercise that emphasized the importance that the Conservatives attached to the single

The question of social dumping has again climbed the EU policy agenda. In this article, we call into question some established views of social dumping that conceptualize the relationship between EU internal market and Member States in binary terms. Based on an analysis of relevant case law, and drawing on the conceptual tools provided by critical legal geography, we show that the project of EU integration

The article discusses the role of the European Union (EU) in facilitating concessions between member states which, paradoxically, pursue discrepant foreign interests. First, the article develops a theoretical framework for the under‐researched Europeanization model of cross‐loading. Here, strategic socialization, experiential learning, and policy transfer conceptualize how national actors adopt cooperative

The EU's profound crisis has drawn into sharp relief the challenges of reconfiguring national democratic processes around regional political communities. Over the same period for which the EU has fractured, however, other regional organizations have intensified integration. These divergent trends raise urgent questions regarding how regional organizations seek to legitimate integration and associated

Since its origins, the European Union (EU) has increasingly relied on prizes to highlight the values and principles channelling European integration. In the last two decades, such symbolic tools of governance have shifted away from the kind of distinctions granted by elites to elites and aiming to honour prominent figures offered as role models mainly in the field of identity, memory and cultural policies

Based on original data, this article analyses the politicization of European issues in European elections. Contrary to scholarly expectations, our findings show a higher level of politicization of European issues compared to national elections. However, politicization has been declining in both electoral arenas from the early 2000s until 2014 despite the increasing visibility of radical Eurosceptic

While the EU was still recovering from the Great Recession, the refugee crisis polarized and mobilized national and European political spaces, inducing governments to revise their immigration policies. Scholars are presently engaged in academic debate over whether these revisions can be explained by reference to grand theories of European integration. In this context, we ask the following questions

Although international proclamations increasingly recognize legal sex beyond binary categories, domestic legislation is lagging behind. Germany and the Netherlands are the first countries in Western Europe where courts have ruled in favour of a third option. While the German constitution was amended to guarantee a third option, the Dutch government has refrained from implementing comparable legislation

This article studies how efforts to democratize the European Union's (EU) decision‐making procedures are reshaped by the growing influence of anti‐system parties in Europe. This new political landscape exacerbates a fundamental democratic dilemma for the EU: to either open up, and further democratize its institutions or to work to protect those institutions from the influence of anti‐systemic actors

Cohesion Policy is a core policy of the European Union, the main objective of which is to address uneven economic growth across the EU by promoting balanced and sustainable development. Given its characteristics, it certainly has a great impact on the daily life of European citizens and can compensate population groups and places less favoured by the implementation of the internal market and economic

Since the Treaty of Lisbon, national parliamentary chambers in the European Union can issue reasoned opinions on legislative proposals by the European Commission. These individual reasoned opinions lead to a review if at least one third of all chambers raise such concerns. Hence, coordination among parliaments is key. Using advances in inferential network analysis, this article infers the underlying

This article examines the role of interest mobilization in strengthening or weakening congruence between elected representatives and citizens on EU policy issues. It argues that the relationship between public opinion, interest groups and elected politicians can be theorized as a selective transmission process. We expect interest groups to strengthen congruence between citizens and elected representatives

The introduction of smart specialization (S3) as a fundamental pillar of the 2014 reform of the EU cohesion policy is a significant strategic shift in European development intervention. S3 strategies aimed at mobilizing the economic potential of each country and region of the EU by allowing a more place‐based and bottom‐up approach to development. However, despite the salience that S3 has acquired

There has been a gradual consolidation of interparliamentary cooperation over EU foreign and security policies (CFSP/CSDP). This has culminated in the setting up of a dedicated interparliamentary conference (IPC) on the CFSP/CSDP. This paper considers whether IPC gatherings in their current form help foster the creation of a transnational epistemic community of parliamentarians in foreign and security

While the interest group literature suggests there is a consistent trend towards more corporate lobbying in various political systems, it remains unclear whether this also applies to EU lobbying. This study addresses this debate in three ways. Firstly, it takes stock of the extant literature and discusses some of the methodological hurdles that have rendered it difficult to provide conclusive evidence

This article explains why the European Union has remained strikingly cohesive during the Brexit withdrawal negotiations by focussing on the role played by its negotiator: the European Commission'’s Task Force 50. The analysis demonstrates that the Task Force 50 set out to forge unity among the EU27 by exercising both subtle instrumental and direct political leadership. The Commission significantly

This article examines how contending appeals to pan‐Africanism have been central to the (de)legitimation processes that have shaped the trajectory of African regional governance. Such appeals have been used variously to construct and contest the scale, pace and norms constituting continental integration, including its modes of participation. The African Union (AU) remains a site of contestation over

This article explores the impact of EU membership on foreign direct investment (FDI). It analyses empirically how the effects of such deep integration differ from other forms and investigates what drives these effects. Using a structural gravity framework on annual bilateral FDI data for almost every country in the world from 1985 to 2018, we find EU membership leads to about 60 per cent higher FDI

Since 1989, no major European merger has been able to go through without EU approval. The introduction of a centralized merger control procedure was another increase in the powers of the Commission's Directorate‐General for Competition (DG COMP). While some see it playing a neo‐mercantilist role in a positive European integration, others underline its neoliberal ideological roots. Through our analysis

In 2009, the Treaty of Lisbon empowered the EU to pursue an international investment policy and to conclude international investment agreements. The EU's first steps in this policy domain have attracted considerable public attention. Analysts depict competing societal interests as the main forces shaping EU policy in this domain. This article scrutinizes this widespread perception. It argues that competence

This paper sheds new light on the policy reality of the European Energy Union on the example of the EU natural gas market. The paper argues that, as the energy union preserves the treaty‐based parallelism between the competences of the EU and the member states, the resolution of conflicts between individual preferences and shared priorities has emerged as a measure of consolidation in the EU energy

This article investigates the history of the German–Greek relationship in the context of European integration and demonstrates that West Germany and German–Greek business networks played a crucial role in the shaping of Greece's post‐war growth model. The article challenges the assumption that the relationship between the two countries is overshadowed by the past. In contrast, it shows that post‐war

Although regions are becoming increasingly important in the liberalization of international trade, the academic literature has only explored the issue extensively in the case of the European Union (EU). With respect to other regions, little is known of the internal factors that enhance their external performance. This paper uses EU interregional trade negotiations to examine the factors within the

The literature on Normative Power Europe (NPE) largely omits the question of why the EU chooses to focus on particular norms in the first place. This paper goes beyond the assumption that the EU simply externalizes its internal norms, because such a perspective does not sufficiently explain why the EU prioritizes certain norms over others, particularly in the case of contested norms. Using LGBTI rights

Removing so‐called technical barriers to trade is a critical aspect of contemporary deep integration trade agreements. Yet, these barriers – standards, regulations, conformity assessment procedures – form a set of institutional complementarities, named technical infrastructure, which performs a central role for the functioning of integrated markets. Drawing on evidence from the Transatlantic Trade

It is commonly argued that public institutions resist the advance of transparency, while civil society organisations (CSOs) are expected to advocate for more generous transparency laws that allow them to better participate in decision‐making. Remarkably, the way in which transparency developed in the Environment Council at least partially contradicts both claims. Here, the Council oversaw a steady

Rapporteurs in the European Parliament are influential figures, drafting reports, preparing and collecting amendments and negotiating files on behalf of Parliament as a whole. Previous studies have shown a persistent under‐representation of MEPs from the post‐2004 accession states among rapporteurs. In this study, we demonstrate the evolution of this disparity. Although it no longer exists at the surface

The EU's external promotion of norms and the idea of normative power Europe itself are increasingly contested, which is especially true in the EU's southern neighbourhood. However, whereas scholars of EU foreign policy acknowledge the contestation of external norms, they find it difficult to understand why other normative frameworks could be equally or more appealing to Middle Eastern and North African