This article takes initial steps in evaluating contending models of EU governance. We argue that the sovereignty of individual states is diluted in the European arena by collective decision-making and by supranational institutions. In addition, European states are losing their grip on the mediation of domestic interest representation in international relations. We make this argument along two tracks. First, we analyse the conditions under which central state executives may lose their grip on power. Next, we divide up the policy process into stages and specify which institutional rules may induce various actors to deepen EU policy-making.

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European integration from the 1980s: State-centric v. multi-level governance

Introduction: Explaining the EU Political System PART I: GOVERNMENT Executive Politics Legislative Politics Judicial Politics PART II: POLITICS Public Opinion Democracy, Parties and Elections Interest Representation PART III: POLICY-MAKING Regulation of the Single Market Expenditure Policies Economic and Monetary Union Citizen Freedom and Security Policies Foreign Policies Conclusions: Rethinking the European Union Appendix: Decision-making Procedures of the European Union Bibliography

The political system of European Union

There is no integrated regime governing efforts to limit the extent of climate change. Instead, there is a regime complex: a loosely coupled set of specific regimes. We describe the regime complex for climate change and seek to explain it, using functional, strategic, and organizational arguments. This institutional form is likely to persist; efforts to build a comprehensive regime are unlikely to succeed, but narrower institutions focused on particular aspects of the climate change problem are already thriving. Building on this analysis, we argue that a climate change regime complex, if it meets specified criteria, has advantages over any politically feasible comprehensive regime, particularly with respect to adaptability and flexibility. Adaptability and flexibility are particularly important in a setting, such as climate change policy, in which the most demanding international commitments are interdependent yet governments vary widely in their interest and ability to implement them.

The Regime Complex for Climate Change

There is no integrated regime governing efforts to limit the extent of climate change. Instead, there is a regime complex: a loosely-coupled set of specific regimes. We describe the regime complex for climate change and seek to explain it, using interest-based, functional, and organizational arguments. This institutional form is likely to persist; efforts to build a comprehensive regime are unlikely to succeed, but experiments abound with narrower institutions focused on particular aspects of the climate change problem. Building on this analysis, we argue that a climate change regime complex, if it meets specified criteria, has advantages over any politically feasible comprehensive regime. Adaptability and flexibility are particularly important in a setting—such as climate change policy—in which the most demanding international commitments are interdependent yet governments vary widely in their interest and ability to implement them. Yet in view of the serious political constraints, both domestic and international, there is little reason for optimism that the climate regime complex that is emerging will lead to reductions in emissions rapid enough to meet widely discussed goals, such as stopping global warming at two degrees above pre-industrial levels.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S1537592710004068

We argue that European integration is provoked and sustained by the development of causal connections between three factors: transnational exchange, supranational organization, and European Community (EC) rule-making. We explain the transition, in any given policy sector, from national to intergovernmental to supranational governance, in two ways. First cross-border transactions and communications generate a social demand for EC rules and regulation, which supranational organizations work to supply. We thus expect that Community competences will be unevenly constructed, both across policy sectors and over time, as a function of the intensity of these demands. Second, once EC rules are in place, a process of institutionalization ensues, and this process provokes further integration. Although we recognize the importance of intergovernmental bargaining in EC politics, our theory is not compatible with existing intergovernmental theorizing.

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European integration and supranational governance

Was the European Court of Justice a key actor in the “relaunching” of European integration in the 1980s? This article examines the crucial political role that was played by the Court with its Cassi

Judicial Politics in the European Community: European Integration and the Pathbreaking Cassis de Dijon Decision

The decade long trans-Atlantic banana dispute was not a traditional trade conflict stemming from antagonistic producers' interests. Instead, this article argues that the banana dispute is one of the most complex illustrations of the legal and political difficulties created by the nesting and overlapping of international institutions and commitments. The contested Europe-wide banana policy was an artifact of nesting - the fruit of efforts to reconcile the single market with Lome obligations which then ran afoul of WTO rules. Using counter-factual analysis, this article explores how the nesting of international commitments contributed to creating the dispute, provided forum shopping opportunities which themselves complicated the options of decision-makers, and hindered resolution of what would otherwise be a pretty straightforward trade dispute. We then draw out implications from this case for the EU, an institution increasingly nested within multilateral mechanisms, and for the issue of the nesting of international institutions in general.

Nested and Overlapping Regimes in the Transatlantic Banana Trade Dispute

How are policy competences allocated between different actors? This paper contributes to the literature on institutional development through an in-depth case-study of the conditions under which the competence over the negotiation of agreements on foreign direct investment (FDI) was transferred from the national level to the European Union (EU) in the 2009 Lisbon Treaty. Most analysts assume that this competence shift was a rationally designed delegation, intended to maximize European bargaining power in international investment negotiations, and conceived as an important element of a teleological drive to make the EU a meaningful external actor. This paper tells a different story -- one where the competence shift happened by stealth as a result of a combination of Commission entrepreneurship and historical accident, against the preferences of the Member States. The paper also assesses whether the conditions under which the competence was transferred have implications on the implementation of the new policy.

Integration by Stealth: How the European Union Gained Competence Over Foreign Direct Investment

The increasing density of international regimes has contributed to the proliferation of overlap across agreements, conflicts among international obligations, and confusion regarding what international and bilateral obligations cover an issue. This symposium examines the consequences of the complex of overlapping, parallel and nested agreements for subsequent politics, thus the issue of overlap and complexity as an independent variable. Our central questions are: What insights can be gained by thinking about any single agreement as part of a larger complex of international rules and agreements? Does the existence of simultaneous and overlapping agreements alter either the strategies of players or the politics of the issue itself? Karen Alter and Sophie Meunier's introductory essay identifies the mechanisms through which nesting and overlap across agreements can influence politics, and identifies six modes through which overlap as an independent variable can manifest itself. Short contributions identify how the complex of international agreements affects politics in specific issue areas: refugee politics (by Alexander Betts), trade politics (by Christina Davis), human rights and trade (by Emilie Hafner-Burton), intellectual property politics (by Laurence Helfer), security politics (by Stephanie Hofmann), and election monitoring (by Judith Kelley). Daniel Drezner concludes by arguing that the complexity of rules may well benefit the powerful more than others.

The Politics of International Regime Complexity Symposium

The 2009 Lisbon Treaty transferred the competence over Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) policy from the national to the supranational level. This article analyses the impact of this transfer on the content of international investment agreements and, more broadly, the shape of the investment regime complex. Is the competence shift expected to have an independent impact or simply reproduce and continue existing trends? Exploring these two conjectures through a combination of text analysis, primary materials, and interviews, we are making a Historical Institutionalist argument focusing on the timing and sequencing of international investment negotiations. While the competence shift has allowed the EU to innovate in developing its own approach to negotiating international investment agreements, notably with the proposal to create an Investment Court System, the novelty may be only at the surface as the constraints of past, current, and future negotiations restrict the options available to EU actors - we call this the space-time continuum. The result of this learning-and-reacting process is a new European approach which simultaneously duplicates and innovates and could eventually favour greater centralization within the investment regime complex.

Sophie Meunier-Aitsahalia

Papers

Judicial Politics in the European Community: European Integration and the Pathbreaking Cassis de Dijon Decision

Nested and Overlapping Regimes in the Transatlantic Banana Trade Dispute

Integration by Stealth: How the European Union Gained Competence Over Foreign Direct Investment

The Politics of International Regime Complexity Symposium

The European Union and the Space-Time Continuum of Investment Agreements