The future of sovereignty in multilevel governance Europe: a constructivist reading

Multilevel governance presents a depiction of contemporary structures in EU Europe as consisting of overlapping authorities and competing competencies. By focusing on emerging non-anarchical structures in the international system, hence moving beyond the conventional hierarchy/anarchy dichotomy to distinguish domestic and international arenas, this seems a radical transformation of the familiar Westphalian system and to undermine state sovereignty. Paradoxically, however, the principle of sovereignty proves to be resilient despite its alleged empirical decline. This article argues that social constructivism can explain the paradox, by considering sovereign statehood as a process-dependent institutional fact, and by showing that multilevel governance can feed into this process

Sport policy convergence: a framework for analysis

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis Group in European Sport Management Quarterly on 30th April 2012, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/16184742.2012.669390The growth in the comparative analysis of sport management processes and policy has led to an increased interest in the concept of convergence. However, the concept is too often treated as unproblematic in definition, measurement and operationalisation. It is argued in this paper that a more effective framework for examining claims of convergence is one that analyses the concept in terms of seven dimensions which can be explored through a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection. It is also argued that a deeper understanding of the process of convergence can be gained by operationalising the concept in the context of a selected range of meso-level theories of the policy process or of specific aspects of the process. The proposed analytic framework provides not only a definition of convergence but also the basis for a more nuanced investigation of hypotheses of convergence

Conceptualising Europeanisation

This article subjects the existing literature on the concept of Europeanisation to critical scrutiny. It begins by providing a general discussion of the methodology of concept formation. It then goes on to assess five current usages of the tern Europeanisation, before providing an alternative definition. The main argument pursued here is that academics have been too quick to conceptualise Europeanisation as a process which is capable of producing certain effects. Consequently, not enough time has been spent on the subject of what Europeanisation actually is (and, indeed, whether it exists). Unless scholars refocus their efforts towards the subject of Europeanisation, there is a danger of misrepresenting or reifying its supposed effects

Is the European Commission a 'Hothouse' for Supranationalism? Exploring Actor-Level Supranationalism

The article explores actor-level supranationalism among seconded national experts (SNEs) in the European Commission. The transformative clout of the European Commission is assessed by the extent to which SNEs adopt a "supranational" role perception. The survey and interview data presented demonstrates that SNEs evoke multiple roles, notably departmental, epistemic and supranational roles. OLS regression analyses reveal that actor-level supranationalism among SNEs reflect (i) processes of re-socialization inside the Commission, (ii) the organizational composition of the Commission and (iii) organizational "in"compatibilities between the Commission and domestic government institutions. Copyright (c) 2007 The Author(s); Journal compilation (c) 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.