Thomas Christiansen

The Social Construction of Europe

The article introduces constructivist approaches to research on European integration. While stressing middle-range theory, it recognizes that meta-theoretical choices also matter for theorizing and analysing European integration. Tracing developments in the philosophy of science and in international relations theory, social constructivism is introduced as a way of establishing the middle ground in juxtaposition to rationalism and reflectivism - not as a grand theory for the study of European integration. Crucial aspects of the integration process - polity formation through rules and norms, the transformation of identities, the role of ideas and the uses of language - are thereby opened up to systematic inquiry.

Tensions of European governance: politicized bureaucracy and multiple accountability in the European Commission

The article proposes a neo-institutionalist perspective on the European Commission based on two lines of internal conflict: the Commissions need to be accountable simultaneously to the member states and to the citizens (multiple accountability) and its dual function of providing executive government and public administration (politicized bureaucracy) for the European polity. These dimensions of conflict have created a multi-organization which combines features of four organizational ideal-types. Within the Commission the search for answers to the inherent tension between these conflicting organizational modes is different from one policy area to the next, and the overall balance is shifting over time. It is suggested that the study of the politicization of such institutionalized contradictions, the mechanisms developed for their resolution and the resultant organizational dynamics are a useful guide towards an improved understanding of the European Commission and the integration process at large.

Intra-institutional politics and inter-institutional relations in the EU: towards coherent governance?

While the coherence of EU governance - or the lack of it - can be studied in a number of different arenas, this article focuses on the EU level rather than on relations between EU institutions and the member states. An examination of the evolution of, first, the internal politics of Commission and Council Secretariat and, second, of relations between these two institutions across a range of areas of EU governance leads to the identification of an apparent paradox: while intra-institutional politics are becoming increasingly fragmented, the relative coherence of inter-institutional relations in the EU is improving. The article offers a tentative explanation based on the expansion of EU institutions, the growing interconnectedness of EU policy processes and the strengthening of a supra-institutional allegiance among EU officials. The increasing complexity of European governance means that policy-makers knowledge of, and identification with, more specific policy environments - and thus the management of inter-institutional relations - is becoming relatively more important than their institutional identification.

The role of supranational actors in EU treaty reform

Treaty reform, traditionally seen as the preserve of national governments, nevertheless involves supranational actors to a significant degree. This article, having re-conceptualized treaty reform as a broader process which includes, but goes beyond, the negotiations of IGCs, looks in some detail at the respective roles of Commission, Parliament and Council Secretariat in this process. In assessing the contribution which these institutions can make, the article concludes that their involvement is different from that of member states, but that their influence is nevertheless significant, pointing to issues such as the institutionalization of the treaty reform process, the legitimation of treaty changes and their command of specialist expertise in what are highly technical negotiations. Given their particular resources in this respect, supranational actors matter in the treaty reform process and ought to be the object of more systematic empirical analysis in the future.

Theorizing EU Treaty Reform: Beyond Diplomacy and Bargaining

This article argues that a comprehensive approach to treaty reform requires both a more inclusive and longer-term perspective. We re-conceptualize agency and structure in the process of treaty reform; examine theoretically as well as empirically the respective roles of interests, ideas and institutions in treaty reform; and seek to reconcile agency and structure, as well as ideas, interests and institutions, in a temporal perspective on treaty reform.

Transnational governance ‘above’ and ‘below’ the state: The changing nature of borders in the new Europe

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 Europe has been faced with what many view as a paradoxical development. On the one hand, there has been the demise of the Iron Curtain and the prospect of Europe becoming one again after almost a half-century of separation. The end of the Cold War, and of the ideological, economic and physical divisions it had brought about, neatly coincided with the European Unions 1992 programme and the establishment of the European Economic Area, which promise to remove all barriers to movements of people and goods in Western Europe. A borderless Europe seemed at hand in many of the commentaries at the time. Yet, on the other hand, this image of borders withering away in the process of integration can be contrasted with a parallel experience of increasing fragmentation. In Eastern Europe and on the Balkans, states have fallen apart and their fragments been re-constituted as new states, thus creating new and often highly impenetrable borders. In the European Union, states may have maintained their integrity, but processes of regionalization or devolution have increased internal differentiation and thus enhanced the significance of regional boundaries. The result is the rise of territorial competition in Western Europe. The question as to whether Europe is now less divided than it used to be is impossible to answer in any straightforward way. This contribution will look at some of the developments on and around the borders of Europe in the 1990s. The argument advanced here is that what we are witnessing is not a paradox of simultaneous integration and fragmentation. Instead, we need to understand contemporary Europe as an area in which the nature of borders is in a process of fundamental change. The concept of border is in a process of functional differentiation, which means that economic, social, legal, political and identity spaces are increasingly bounded separately. In order to pursue this argument, we examine the emergence of transnational governance below the state through the growth of crossborder co-operation in Europe as well as above the state through the

Negotiating Treaty Reform in the European Union: The Role of the European Commission

In this article we seek to show that treaty reform is best seen as a process, and that we are witnessing a process of constitutionalization. We challenge the distinction between day-to-day politics and the high politics of treaty reform, demonstrating that high politics approaches are unable to take the significant role of non-governmental actors into consideration. While the European Commissions impact on the Maastricht Treaty was fairly limited, particularly concerning Political Union issues, we conclude that the Commissions impact on the Amstrerdam Treaty has been considerable. In fact, such an impact is not surprising given the Commissions technical expertise and its close cooperation with both the Council Secretariat and the Presidency of the Council. It is only if the impact of non-governmental actors, such as the Commission (and the Council Secretariat), is assumed to be negligible and therefore left unexamined that our findings are surprising. In this way, the article contributes to criticism of intergovernmental approaches to European integration.

‘Bringing process back in’: The longue durée of European integration

The acceleration of European integration in the 1990s, essentially through an increase in the scope and frequency of Intergovernmental Conferences, has provided renewed debate between intergovernmental and supranational approaches to the European Union. While efforts towards theory development have significantly increased, the ontology of such work tends to rely on actors and on specific decisions or events rather than on the elements which structure the process. In an attempt to “bring process back” into the study of the integration process, the article distinguishes between three different layers of change in Europe. Among these, policy‐making and constitutional reform have received ample attention in the literature, while the deeper layer of change, structural transformation, has largely been neglected. In redressing this balance, the article suggests approaches such as constructivism, historical institutionalism and structuration theory ‐ advances which have been important in other disciplines – to be...

Introduction: Political agency in the constitutional politics of the European Union

The revision of the treaties on which the political and institutional life of the European Union (EU) is based officially turned into constitutional politics when, in 2002, a ‘Convention on the Future of the European Union’ took up its work. This convention, set up to prepare a fundamental institutional reform of the Union in preparation for its enlargement to 25 member states in 2004, quickly defined its role as that of drafting a ‘Constitutional Treaty’. Even though formally it was merely invited by the European Council to propose scenarios or suggest treaty changes which may or may not have been taken into account by the subsequent Intergovernmental Conference (IGC), the Convention, under the chairmanship of former French President and Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, had momentum on its side and ultimately drafted a treaty that member states could not ignore. The Convention’s Draft Constitutional Treaty not only set the agenda for the IGC negotiations, but indeed to a large extent constituted the Treaty that was eventually signed by Heads of State and Government and submitted for ratification in the member states. Constitutional politics in the Union have turned out to be a process rather than a single event – despite frequent references to the Constitutional Convention as ‘Europe’s Philadelphia’ by Giscard and others, there was no constitutional moment. Instead, constitutional politics proceeded through several stages, each building on the achievements and problems encountered previously: the idea of creating a convention was born out of the experience of the previous IGC that had produced the Nice Treaty, the Convention then discussed changes to the existing treaties, the IGC negotiators worked from the Convention draft and further negotiations were then required when the Constitutional Treaty failed to be ratified in several member states. In June 2007, the European Council agreed to convene a new IGC to draft a ‘Reform Treaty’ that would keep most of the important innovations of the Constitutional Treaty but would avoid the language of constitutionalism which had dogged its ratification.

Actors in the policy process of the European union

Policy‐making in the European Union: Conceptual Lenses and the Integration Process. By Laura Cram. London: Routledge, 1997. Pp.232. £55 (hardback); £16.99 (paperback). ISBN 0 415 14625 9 and 0 415 14626 2 Representing Interests in the European Union. By Justin Greenwood. London: Macmillan, 1997. Pp.312. £49.50 (hardback); £16.50 (paperback). ISBN 0 333 61177 2 and 0 333 61178 0 European Union Committees as Influential Policymakers. Edited by M.P.C.M. Van Schendelen. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998. Pp.320. £42.50 (hardback). ISBN 1 8014 724 5