Wayne Sandholtz

European Integration and Supranational Governance

Abstract 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.

Accounting for Corruption: Economic Structure, Democracy, and Trade

Though corruption poses fundamental challenges to both democratic governance and market economies, political science research has only recently begun to address corruption in a comparative context. In this article we explain variation in the perceived level of corruption (defined as the misuse of public office for private gain) across fifty countries. We propose a set of hypotheses that explain variation in corruption levels in terms of domestic political-economic structure, democratic norms, integration into the international economy, and Protestant religious affiliation. Levels of corruption, we propose, are higher: (1) the lower the average income level, (2) the greater the extent of state control of the economy, (3) the weaker are democratic norms and institutions, (4) the lower the degree of integration in the world economy, and (5) the lower the share of the population with Protestant religious affiliation. The data analysis broadly confirms our predictions: in the multivariate regression, each of the independent variables is significant in the direction we expect.

Choosing Union: Monetary Politics and Maastricht

The advances in integration theory in the 1980s came primarily as scholars investigated the causes of the European Community’s commitment to create a single market and reform its institutions to accomplish the task. In the early 1990s, scholars had a new chance to test their theories with the signing and ratification of the Maastricht treaty (Chapter9). Little has so far been written in professional publications about the Maastricht negotiations and ratification process, but what has emerged seems to conform to the eclectic trend begun in the late 1980s.

The institutionalization of Europe

Contributors to this volume - Alec Stone Sweet, Neil Fligstein, And Wayne Sandholtz Neil Fligstein And Alec Stone Sweet Adrienne Heritier Sonia Mazey And Jeremy Richardson Martin Shapiro Rachel A. Cichowski Patrick Le Gales Kathleen R. Mcnamara Michael E. Smith Penelope Turnbull And Wayne Sandholtz James A. Caporaso And Alec Stone Sweet

International Integration and National Corruption

We argue that greater degrees of international integration lead to lower levels of corruption, which we define as the misuse of public office for private gain. We theorize that international factors affect a countrys level of corruption through two principal channels. One acts through economic incentives, altering for various actors the costs and benefits of engaging in corrupt acts. The second mode is normative. Prevailing norms in international society delegitimate and stigmatize corruption. Countries that are more integrated into international society are more exposed to economic and normative pressures against corruption. We therefore test the following hypothesis: the more a country is tied into international networks of exchange, communication, and organization, the lower its level of corruption is likely to be. The analysis of data from approximately 150 countries strongly confirms our expectation.

Women and Globalization: A Study of 180 Countries, 1975–2000

How do rising levels of international interconnectedness affect social, economic, and political conditions for women? Research on gender and international relations frequently offers clear propositions but seldom submits them to broad, quantitative testing. This article begins to fill that gap. We advance the hypothesis that, on balance and over time, increasing cross-national exchange and communication lead to improvements in womens status and equality. Economic aspects of globalization can bring new opportunities and resources to women. But equally important, globalization promotes the diffusion of ideas and norms of equality for women. In an analysis of 180 countries from 1975 to 2000, employing cross-sectional–time-series regression techniques, we examine the impact of several measures of globalization on womens levels of life expectancy, literacy, and participation in the economy and parliamentary office. International trade, foreign direct investment, membership in the United Nations (UN) and World Bank, and ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), are associated with improved conditions for women.A grant from the Center for Global Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of California, Irvine, supported this research. The authors are grateful for constructive comments from participants in the faculty research colloquium of the Department of Political Science at Brigham Young University. The authors also received helpful suggestions from their fellow panelists at the 2004 Annual Meetings of the American Political Science Association and from the editor of IO, Lisa Martin, and two anonymous reviewers.

Corruption, culture, and communism

Cultural factors, as measured by the two dimensions of values identified by Inglehart, explain 75% of the variation in the Perceived Corruption Index across non-communist countries. A strong ‘survival’ orientation contributes twice as much as a strong ‘traditional’ orientation to higher levels of corruption. When controlling for these cultural variables, communism and post-communism increase the levels of corruption even further, both directly and by contributing to heavier emphasis on survival values. Communism created structural incentives for engaging in corrupt behaviors, which became such a widespread fact of life that they became rooted in the culture in these societies – that is, the social norms and practices prevailing in communist societies. The transitions toward democracy and market economies have not yet erased this culture of corruption. In addition, the process of privatization itself has opened myriad opportunities for corruption. The effects are manifest in comparisons of corruption in non-communist and (post-)communist countries in five cultural zones.

Institutions and Collective Action: The New Telecommunications in Western Europe

The member states of the European community are not just liberalizing telecommunications but are cooperating extensively in the sector. Breaking with a past dominated by rigid national monopolies (the PTTs), EC states in the 1980s undertook collective action in research and development, planning future networks, setting standards, and opening markets. This article seeks to explain telecoms liberalization and cooperation in Europe. Two conditions are necessary for international collective action to emerge. The first is policy adaptation at the national level, such that governments are willing to consider alternatives to pure unilateralism. In telecommunications, technological changes induced widespread policy adaptation in EC states. This adaptation was a necessary prerequisite for European cooperation. The second necessary condition is international leadership to organize the collective action. This paper extends the analysis of international leadership by outlining the conditions under which international organizations can exercise leadership to organize collective action. The case study, focusing on three dimensions of EC telecoms reform, shows how the Commission of the EC led in organizing collective action.

Dynamics of International Norm Change: Rules against Wartime Plunder

International norms change over time, but we do not fully understand how and why they evolve as they do. In this article, I explore a general model of international norm change. The model builds on two foundations. First, normative systems themselves generate tensions that lead to change. Those tensions are of two major types: (1) conflicts between the generality of rules and the specificity of concrete experience; and (2) conflicts between separate bodies of rules. Second, specific disputes push these normative conflicts to the fore and provoke arguments about the meaning and application of rules. The outcomes of those arguments necessarily modify the rules. The process of normative change is thus a cycle, linking rules to actions to arguments, which in turn reshape the rules. In order to explore the empirical utility of the model, the article assesses the evolution of the rules of war with respect to the plundering of artistic and cultural treasures. Relying on both secondary and archival materials, the analysis focuses on two crucial turns through the cycle of normative change, the Napoleonic Wars and World War II. The empirical account shows that the cycle of normative change depicted in the abstract does correspond to real-world processes.

European Integration, Nationalism and European Identity

Early theorists of European integration speculated that economic integration would lead to political integration and a European identity. A European identity has not displaced national identities in the EU, but, for a significant share of EU citizens, a European identity exists alongside a national identity. At the same time, political parties asserting more traditional nationalist identities and policies have directed their dissatisfaction against immigrants, foreigners, and, sometimes, the EU. Those who participate in “Europe†are more likely to develop a European identity, while those whose economic and social horizons are essentially local are more likely to assert nationalist identities.Â