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

Less Than a state, more than an international organization: The Sui generis nature of the European Union

In this paper, I show that the European Union (EU) is less than a state, but more than an international organization. Although it possesses some characteristics of both, the European Union is, I argue, a sui generis project: Although the EU wields extensive influence in some policy areas (such as competition policy or international trade regulation), its institutions’ powers are quite limited in many areas that remain firmly within the grasp of its Member States’ governments (such as security, justice, tax or redistribution policies). The European Union’s supranational elements – especially the EU laws’ supremacy over the laws of individual Member States – distinguish it, furthermore, from international organizations, such as the United Nations or the World Trade Organization. I conclude that the European Union is really a sui generis project that has not been attempted anywhere else: As such, it could be regarded as a useful case study, or perhaps even a “pilot project,” for regional integration projects elsewhere