Intergovernmentalists in the Commission:Foxes in the Henhouse?

Contrary to the dominant view in the scholarly literature on European institutions, where the European Commission is generally described as a unitary actor whose acts are primarily influenced by a political agenda and/or considerations of self-interest, this article argues that a variety of opinions coexist within the Commission staff. Based on the largest attitudinal survey ever conducted on Commission officials, it documents the existence of a sizeable minority of intergovernmentalists and analyzes their attitude towards the institution they serve and their views on its place in the integration process

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

A different appetite for sovereignty? Independence movements in subnational island jurisdictions

Local autonomy in a subnational jurisdiction is more likely to be gained, secured or enhanced where there are palpable movements or political parties agitating for independence in these smaller territories. A closer look at the fortunes, operations and dynamics of independence parties from subnational island jurisdictions can offer some interesting insights on the appetite for sovereignty and independence, but also the lack thereof, in the twenty-first century.peer-reviewe

Europe as a multilevel federation

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Gender, foundation degrees and the knowledge economy

This article questions the concept of ‘education for employment’, which constructs a discourse of individual and societal benefit in a knowledge‐driven economy. Recent policy emphasis in the European Union promotes the expansion of higher education and short‐cycle vocational awards such as the intermediate two‐year Foundation Degree recently introduced into England and Wales. Studies of vocational education and training (VET) and the knowledge economy have focused largely on the governance of education and on the development and drift of policy. Many VET programmes have also been considered for their classed, raced and gendered take‐up and subsequent effect on employment. This article builds on both fields of study to engage with the finer cross‐analyses of gender, social class, poverty, race and citizenship. In its analysis of policy texts the article argues that in spite of a discourse of inclusivity, an expanded higher education system has generated new inequalities, deepening social stratification. Drawing on early analyses of national quantitative data sets, it identifies emerging gendered, classed and raced patterns and considers these in relation to occupationally and hierarchically stratified labour markets, both within and without the knowledge economy

Aggregation and Representation in the European Parliament Party Groups

While members of the European Parliament are elected in national constituencies, their votes are determined by the aggregation of MEPs in multinational party groups. The uncoordinated aggregation of national party programmes in multinational EP party groups challenges theories of representation based on national parties and parliaments. This article provides a theoretical means of understanding representation by linking the aggregation of dozens of national party programmes in different EP party groups to the aggregation of groups to produce the parliamentary majority needed to enact policies. Drawing on an original data source of national party programmes, the EU Profiler, the article shows that the EP majorities created by aggregating MEP votes in party groups are best explained by cartel theories. These give priority to strengthening the EP’s collective capacity to enact policies rather than voting in accord with the programmes they were nationally elected to represent

Grand Theories, Differentiated Integration

Even though differentiation has become a core feature of the EU, the grand theories have focused almost exclusively on uniform integration. In this paper, we derive hypotheses about differentiated integration from liberal intergovernmentalism, neofunctionalism, and postfunctionalism. In an analysis of EU treaty making between 1992 and 2016, we find evidence that heterogeneity of both wealth and identity, integration in the area of core state powers, and pre-existing differentiation drive differentiated integration. A comparison of the explanatory power of the grand theories shows that neo- and post-functionalism explain the differentiations that member states obtain in EU reform treaties more convincingly than liberal intergovernmentalism. A synthetic model performs best, however. The grand theories also leave noteworthy variation unexplained