Oliver Treib

Modes of governance: towards a conceptual clarification

ABSTRACT Recently, political science has seen an intense debate about the phenomenon of ‘governance’. The aim of this paper is to clarify the basic concepts that are at the heart of this debate, notably ‘governance’ and ‘modes of governance’. We argue that most contributions share a common concern for the relationship between state intervention and societal autonomy, but different strands of the literature highlight different facets of this continuum. Existing understandings may be classified according to whether they emphasize the politics, polity or policy dimensions of governance. We use these categories to present a structured overview of different dimensions of modes of governance as they may be found in the literature. In this context, we argue that the classification of modes of governance as ‘old’ or ‘new’ is of little analytical value. Moving from single dimensions to systematic classification schemes and typologies of modes of governance, we highlight a number of shortcomings of existing schemes and suggest an approach that could avoid these weaknesses. As a first step in this approach, we take a closer look at different policy properties of governance and develop a systematic typology of four modes of governance in the policy dimension: coercion, voluntarism, targeting and framework regulation.

Three Worlds of Compliance or Four? The EU-15 Compared to New Member States

Starting from the findings of an earlier compliance study covering the 15 ‘old’ Member States of the European Union, which identified three ‘worlds of compliance’, this article seeks to establish whether or not the new Member States from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) represent a separate world of compliance. We present empirical findings from a research project on the implementation of three EU Directives from the field of working time and equal treatment in four CEE countries. The evidence suggests that the new Member States display implementation styles that are similar to a few countries in the EU-15. The expectation that the new Member States might behave according to their own specific logic, such as significantly decreasing their compliance efforts after accession in order to take ‘revenge’ for the strong pressure of conditionality, is not supported by our case studies. Instead, all four new Member States appear to fall within a group that could be dubbed the ‘world of dead letters’. It is crucial to highlight, however, that this specific ‘world of compliance’, characterized by politicized transposition processes and systematic application and enforcement problems, also includes two countries from the EU-15.

Non-Compliance with EU Directives in the Member States: Opposition through the Backdoor?

To what extent are European rules complied with, and what are the reasons for non-compliance with EU law? According to an intergovernmentalist perspective, implementation problems should occur when member states failed to assert their interests in the European decision-making process. Focusing on 26 infringement procedures from the area of labour law, we show that such ‘opposition through the backdoor’ does occur occasionally. However, we demonstrate that opposition at the end of the EU policy process may also arise without prior opposition at the beginning. Additionally, our findings indicate that non-compliance is often unrelated to opposition, and due to administrative shortcomings, interpretation problems, and issue linkage. This study is based on unique in-depth data stemming from a ground-level analysis of the implementation of six EU Directives in all 15 member states.

Playing the blame game on Brussels: the domestic political effects of EU interventions against democratic backsliding

ABSTRACT This article develops the argument that European Union (EU) intervention to protect its core values is likely to provoke unintended and undesired consequences at the domestic level. EU intervention will typically invite the accused government to play the blame game on Brussels. By criticizing the EU for illegitimately interfering with domestic affairs, the government may frame EU intervention as a threat from the outside and present itself as the only safeguard against this threat. As a consequence, support for those domestic actors that were supposed to be weakened by EU intervention is likely to increase in the aftermath of a European intervention, while EU support might significantly drop. The article illustrates this argument by tracing domestic reactions to EU interventions against Austria between 2000 and 2002 and against Hungary since 2010. In conclusion, the EU should be very cautious with such external interventions, since they may easily strengthen anti-EU and illiberal political forces at the domestic level. To minimize the risk of such undesired consequences, bottom–up mechanisms against democratic backsliding should be installed, which would allow disadvantaged domestic groups to appeal to an independent European democracy watchdog if they feel that democratic rules are being violated in their country.

Europaische Sozialpolitik in der nationalen Praxis

Wie auch Klaus Busch in zentralen Beitragen und Buchern aufgezeigt hat (Busch 1988, 1992a, 1992b, 1996, 1998; Busch et al. 1998), steht die Sozialpolitik im europaischen Mehrebenensystem vor grosen Herausforderungen.2 Einerseits erschweren die unterschiedlichen Sozialsysteme und Arbeitsrechtsstandards der Mitgliedstaaten eine detaillierte Angleichung durch die EU.3 Andererseits hat jedoch die Liberalisierung der Wirtschaft im europaischen Binnenmarkt den Wettbewerbsdruck auf die nationalen Sozial- und Arbeitsrechtssysteme verscharft. Daruber hinaus wurden auch die geographischen Grenzen mitgliedstaatlichen Sozialrechts im Vergleich zur europaweiten oder gar weltweiten Aktionskapazitat der Konzerne immer enger. Seit Mitte der 1980er Jahre wurde aus diesem Grund vielfach ein verstarktes gemeinschaftliches Agieren auf EU-Ebene fur den Bereich der Sozialpolitik im Allgemeinen und den Bereich des (hier im Zentrum stehenden) Arbeitsrechts im Besonderen verlangt.

Party Politics, National Interests and Government—Opposition Dynamics Cleavage Structures in the Convention Negotiations on EU Social Policy

This article analyses the cleavages that structured the debates within the Convention on the Future of Europe. Taking the positions on the institutional rules governing EU social policy as an empirical example, it addresses the question of whether these positions were determined by party politics or by national interests. The article also examines how the delegates’ different institutional backgrounds affected their positions. A statistical analysis of a new data set on the positions of conventionists towards EU social policy expansion shows that, overall, delegates’ positions were determined by a mixture of party politics and national interests. At the same time, there are institutional effects separating representatives of government parties, who tended to stress national interests, from actors representing opposition parties, who acted more according to a party political logic.

Von Hierarchie zu Kooperation? Zur Entwicklung von Governance-Formen in zwei regulativen Politikfeldern der EU

Die politikwissenschaftliche Forschung hat sich in den vergangenen Jahren intensiv mit dem Wandel von Governance-Formen befasst (siehe etwa Rhodes 1997; Pierre 2000; Kooiman 2003; Kersbergen/Waarden 2004; Mayntz 2005). Diese Diskussion hat mittlerweile auch die Europaforschung erfasst (Tommel in diesem Band). Mit Governance werden unterschiedliche Formen der Koordination und Steuerung sozialer Interaktion bezeichnet. Im Unterschied zum Steuerungsbegriff der 1970er Jahre geht der Governance-Begriff jedoch nicht von einem offentlichen Steuerungssubjekt auf der einen Seite aus, das intentional das Handeln privater Steuerungsobjekte auf der anderen Seite steuert. Governance legt das Hauptaugenmerk vielmehr auf institutionelle Regelstrukturen, die die Interaktion von offentlichen und privaten Akteuren ermoglichen und beschranken.

Wenn der Geist einmal aus der Flasche ist

Grosbritannien ist der erste Mitgliedstaat, dessen Bevolkerung in einem Referendum beschlossen hat, aus der Europaischen Union (EU) auszutreten. Dieser Beitrag argumentiert, dass dem Brexit-Votum eine extreme Politisierung der EU-Mitgliedschaft vorausgegangen ist, und er geht der Frage nach, wie es zu dieser Fundamentalpolitisierung gekommen ist. Er diskutiert zunachst die theoretischen Bedingungen fur die Politisierung vormals nicht umstrittener Themen. Dabei spielen die politischen Kommunikationsstrategien von Parteieliten sowie die Schwerpunktsetzung und die inhaltliche Ausrichtung der Medienberichterstattung eine zentrale Rolle. Im empirischen Teil zeichnet der Beitrag dann den Verlauf des Politisierungsprozesses in Grosbritannien vom Beitritt zur Europaischen Wirtschaftsgemeinschaft (EWG) 1973 bis zum Brexit-Referendum 2016 nach. Er zeigt dabei, dass die Triebkrafte der Politisierung inner- und spater auch zwischenparteiliche Konflikte uber Europa waren, die sich im Rahmen der Mobilisierungsstrategien von Parteieliten und verstarkt durch eine breite Medienberichterstattung schlieslich auch auf die Bevolkerung ubertrugen. Dadurch kam es zu einer tiefen, alle gesellschaftlichen Schichten erfassenden Spaltung uber das Verhaltnis Grosbritanniens zur EU, das schlussendlich zum Brexit-Votum im Juni 2016 fuhrte.

Efficiency or compensation? : The global economic crisis and the development of the European Union’s social policy

How has the global social policy agenda evolved since the global economic crisis? To shed light on this question, this article looks at the discourses in European Union (EU) social policy. It draws on two rival theoretical approaches from the literature on globalisation and the welfare state, the efficiency and compensation hypotheses, and links these approaches to two fundamental rationales underlying the discourse in EU social policy. Based on an analysis of key documents from two Open Methods of Coordination (OMCs), the article shows that the logic underlying the efficiency hypothesis can be extended to discourses in EU social policy. While policy debates in one OMC remained largely unchanged, the discourse significantly shifted towards the economic rationale during and after the crisis in the other OMC. This suggests that the crisis at least partly strengthened the view that social policy should be geared towards economic efficiency, growth, and the creation of jobs.