Editors’ introduction to the Special Issue Telle, Stefan; Brunazzo, Marco; Doidge, Mathew
Australian & New Zealand Journal of European Studies,
12/2021, Letnik:
13, Številka:
3
Journal Article
This article analyses the salience of and governmental positions on differentiated integration (DI) in Portugal in the 2004-2020 period. Employing quantitative and qualitative analyses, it first ...examines the salience and position of the successive Portuguese governments towards DI using documents such as government programmes, Prime-Ministerial speeches, parliamentary debates, and statements by the Prime Minister in European Council meetings. The results from the salience analysis demonstrate a low saliency of DI. Salience was enhanced by an increasing intersection between domestic and European politics during the euro crisis period, politicising the debate especially around DI instances of an economic nature. The position of Portuguese governments regarding DI during the period analysed was overwhelmingly negative. A wide consensus stood out among Portuguese political parties that DI models clearly go against both the European – by risking a disaggregation of the EU – and the national interest – by possibly pushing Portugal into an even more peripheral position.
The decision of the Cameron government to renegotiate the terms of UK membership and to hold an in-out referendum has triggered a novel process in European integration: differentiated disintegration, ...the selective reduction of a member state's level and scope of integration. The article starts from an established postfunctionalist explanation of differentiated integration and claims that it also explains demand for disintegration. In this perspective, Brexit resulted from a mix of integration effects (immigration) challenging self-determination, the rise of a Eurosceptic party, and the availability of referendums. By contrast, the institutional and material bargaining power of states demanding disintegration is considerably lower than that of states demanding opt-outs in the context of integration negotiations. Consequently, demanders of disintegration moderate their demands and make concessions to the EU in the course of negotiations. The ongoing UK-EU disintegration negotiations confirm this expectation.
This contribution conceptualizes the European Union (EU) as a system of differentiated integration characterized by both variation in levels of centralization (vertical differentiation) and variation ...in territorial extension (horizontal differentiation) across policy areas. Differentiation has been a concomitant of deepening and widening and has increased and consolidated as the EU's powers, policy scope and membership have grown. Turning to explanation, the contribution attributes the pattern of differentiated integration in the EU to the interaction of interdependence and politicization. Differentiation among the member states (internal differentiation) results from supranational integration under conditions of high interdependence and politicization. By contrast, external differentiation (the selective policy integration of non-member states) occurs in highly interdependent but weakly politicized policy areas. These constellations are illustrated in case studies of differentiation in the internal market, monetary union and defence.
Differentiated integration is the outcome of intergovernmental negotiations resulting from states’ diverse preferences on the European Union’s systemic model. The heterogeneity of states’ preferences ...is rooted in many factors of differentiation, where economy and ideology play the leading roles. Their specific interconnection contributed to the creation of the Polish conservative vision of European integration proposed by ideologists close to the Law and Justice party. Three main postulates emerged from their opinions: re-constitution, intergovernmental democracy, and de-hierarchization. This article aims to place this EU vision in the context of the debate on differentiated integration. The thesis is the view that Polish ideologists transformed the political ‘vision’ into a hybrid ‘concept’ of differentiation combining temporal, institutionally based, policy-based, and territorial divergencies.
Research on differentiated integration (DI) in the European Union has burgeoned in recent years. However, we still know little about citizens' attitudes towards the phenomenon. In this article, we ...argue that at the level of individual citizens, liberal economic values increase support for DI. Stronger preferences for equality, in contrast, make opposition to the concept more likely. Similarly, concerns about discriminatory differentiation at the member state level lead citizens to oppose DI. We test the theoretical claims by analysing survey data on citizens' attitudes towards a 'multi-speed Europe'. Supporters of DI, indeed, are marked by liberal economic attitudes. In contrast to general EU support, we do not find robust correlations with socio-demographic variables. Moreover, the data reveal striking differences amongst macro-regions: support for DI has become much lower in Southern European states. We attribute this opposition to negative repercussions of the Eurozone crisis.
Research on differentiated integration (DI) in the European Union (EU) has focused on the causes, conditions, and patterns of differentiation in European integration. By contrast, we know less about ...its effects on institutional outcomes and public support; moreover, alternatives to de jure DI in providing flexibility are still rarely accounted for. This introduction to the special issue takes stock of, and discusses omissions, in the current literature on DI. We propose an analytical framework, centering on efficiency and legitimacy, to study the effects of different types of DI. We use this framework to motivate the choice and assess the contributions of the articles selected for this special issue.
Abstract This article analyses whether and how fairness considerations affect citizens’ support of European Union (EU) policies and integration. While past literature has revealed that perceptions of ...procedural and substantive fairness impact on public opinion at the level of the nation state, we know less about the fairness‐support nexus when it comes to international cooperation. We here make use of the case of differentiated integration (DI) to experimentally dissect normative and utility‐oriented considerations in the evaluation of EU policies. DI as an instrument to overcome heterogeneity‐induced gridlock has been linked to both autonomy and dominance, and it can generate winners and losers in the EU. Our experiments reveal that citizens largely support DI. However, they are opposed to forms of DI which impose negative externalities on a subgroup of EU member states. This holds irrespective of the affectedness of citizens’ own member states. We take these findings as a first experimental confirmation that citizens, indeed, care about the fairness of the EU and its policies.
We map the pattern and extent of the European integration of core state powers (coercive force, public finance and public administration) and analyse causes and consequences. We highlight two ...findings: First, in contrast to historical examples of federal state-building, where the nationalization of core state powers precipitated the institutional, territorial and political consolidation of the emerging state, the European integration of core state powers is associated with the institutional, territorial and political fragmentation of the European Union. Second, in contrast to European market integration, state élites and mass publics, not organized business interests, are the prime drivers of integration.
Differentiation is becoming an increasingly salient feature of European integration. The multifaceted European crisis and the subsequent Brexit vote (paving the way for a ground‐breaking case of ...differentiated disintegration) have led scholars and practitioners to think about the consequences of differentiated integration. This article draws on five empirical models of differentiation experienced by countries both inside and outside the EU: the European economic area model, the Danish model of (quasi‐)permanent differentiation, the Swedish model of de facto differentiation, the instrumental model and the Brexit process of differentiation. It addresses the different risks and opportunities that each of these models entail. The article also introduces the contributions to this symposium, which aims at paving the way for future research on the consequences of differentiation in light of Brexit.
This article is part of the 2019 Symposium titled ‘Responding to Brexit: Differentiated integration and disintegration in the European Union’, which also includes On the Methodology of Studying Differentiated (Dis)integration: Or How the Potential Outcome Framework Can Contribute to Evaluating the Costs and Benefits of Opting In or Out by Marian Burk and Dirk Leuffen (https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.12958), The End of Exceptionalism and a Strengthening of Coherence? Law and Legal Integration in the EU Post‐Brexit by Paul James Cardwell (https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.12959), Differentiated (Dis)integration in Practice: The Diplomacy of Brexit and the Low Politics of High Politics by Øyvind Svendsen and Rebecca Adler‐Nissen (https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.12960) and Rethinking Britain's Role in a Differentiated Europe after Brexit: A Comparative Regionalism Perspective by Philomena Murray and Alex Brianson (https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.12961).
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