Regionalism Contested: Institution, Society and Governance by Henrik Halkier

Author:Henrik Halkier [Halkier, Henrik]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138266742
Google: jNwxvgAACAAJ
Goodreads: 32833381
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-11-15T13:15:45+00:00

The top-down approach perceives Europeanisation as the ‘independent’ (or ‘intervening’) variable impacting upon domestic fields. Borzel and Risse (2000: 6–7) have discerned three major dimensions to facilitate the analysis of the impact on the domestic field: a) policy, b) politics and c) polity. A key issue in the relevant research is the identification of the factors that explain the domestic variations in the EU adaptational pressures’ impact. These factors vary from the ‘goodness of fit’ (Risse et al., 2001) between EU and domestic policies and institutions to the domestic institutional infrastructure, the pre-existing political culture and the actors’ preferences and strategies.

The ‘goodness of fit’ idea has been particularly influential in the Europeanisation research. No matter whether we study policies, politics or polities, the important parameter for expecting domestic change is that Europeanisation must be ‘inconvenient’, i.e. there must be some degree of ‘misfit’ or incompatibility between European and domestic levels (Borzel and Risse, 2000). The ‘goodness of fit’ between the European and the domestic levels determines the adaptational pressure exerted by Europeanisation on the member states. The lower the compatibility (fit) between European and domestic processes, policies and institutions, the higher the adaptational pressure. Subsequently, the higher the policy and institutional misfit between the supranational and the domestic levels, the higher the adaptational pressures and the more extensive the domestic alterations (ibid.)

However, the role of the adaptational pressure exerted by the EU is not the only factor that should be considered when analysing the response of the national systems of governance. There are a number of facilitating (Borzel and Risse, 2000; Radaelli, 2000) or hindering conditions that determine the outcome of the response. Depending on the school of thought one adopts, different facilitating factors could be identified. For example, within the context of rational institutionalism and under the mechanism of the resources redistribution and the differential empowerment of domestic actors, Borzel and Risse (2000: 12) emphasise, next to the significance of the existence of considerable misfit, the capacity of actors to exploit the new opportunities that emerge and avoid the constraints. This capacity depends on the existence of multiple veto points (Tsebelis, 1995) and/or formal institutions that can provide actors with the necessary material and ideational resources (Jeffery, 2000; Caporaso and Jupille, 2001).

Within the context of sociological institutionalism and under the framing mechanism, Borzel and Risse (2000: 12–15) identify two factors impacting upon the degree to which misfit leads to socialization and learning (Checkel, 1999) and subsequently to the incorporation of new norms and the development of new identities: the existence of change agents or norm entrepreneurs mobilizing at the domestic level (epistemic communities and networks) and the existence of a political culture or other informal institutions which are conducive to consensus-building. Thus, it becomes clear that, in spite of the Europeanization process playing a key role in the transformation of the domestic systems of governance, domestic institutions and particular features of the pre-existing national and local institutional infrastructure matter for adaptation (Paraskevopoulos, 2001; Risse et al., 2001;) indicating the diverse and ‘institution dependent’ character of the Europeanisation impact (Borzel, 2001: 138).

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