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Overview
Raj Chari and Sylvia Kritzinger argue that there is an agenda that underlies EU policy making. Some policies - those that aim to create a competitive economy - are prioritised, while others are effectively ignored.
Setting the EU in a proper economic and theoretical context, the authors analyse each of the EU's major policy areas. Arguing that traditional accounts of EU integration are inadequate, the authors develop an innovative new perspective.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781783719570 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Pluto Press |
| Publication date: | 08/20/2006 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 272 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
About the Author
Raj Chari is Director of Centre for European Studies in Trinity College Dublin and Lectures in Political Science. He is the co-author of Understanding EU Policy Making (Pluto, 2006).
Sylvia Kritzinger is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science, Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna. She is the co-author of Understanding EU Policy Making (Pluto, 2006).
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
A supranational or a decentralized EU? Politics is policy. This statement is no surprise to speakers of European languages with Latin roots such as Spanish, where the word politica means both politics and policy. It may be a surprise to English speakers who may associate the word "policy" with something that is detached from a world of politics that we sometimes distantly observe on our televisions. However, policy is significant precisely because it consists of political decisions that have a significant impact on all citizens' lives.
Several examples of policies that may be made by governments on a daily basis help illustrate why policy per se is significant to you as a student and a citizen. One example is seen when a government decides to raise taxes on products that come across the border and are imported into your country: this will affect the goods that you can buy as well as the prices that you pay for them. Another example is seen when a governmental regulatory agency oversees the process of two companies seeking to merge together. If the regulatory agency allows a merger that entails massive layoffs, then this may affect the unemployment levels in your city if one of the companies is based there. Or, perhaps you or your family are considering buying a house. If a central bank raises its interest rates, this will ultimately determine your decisions regarding whether or not you can afford a new dwelling. What do you plan to eat tonight? If a government decides to help farmers by way of subsidizing their operations, this may determine what products are available on the market and, inevitably, on your dinner plate. Another policy decision of importance to your life would be whether or not there is a hike in the minimum wage. This will have an impact on your spending during the next month and may even decide whether or not you will be able to make ends meet during the year. A government clamping down on immigration may also change the social fabric of your society. And if your government decides to go to war against another country, then you may be killed or injured if there is retaliatory action. This was recently seen in Spain and the UK where governmental participation in the Iraq War was directly linked to bombs later being planted in Madrid and London, killing hundreds of innocent citizens on public transport. Policy matters because decisions made by your leaders have significant impacts on your lives.
Over the last 25 years public policies that affect European citizens' lives have not only come from national governments. Rather, students of politics, economics and sociology have paid increasing attention to European Union (EU) policies because the supranational level has gained increasing competences as European integration has deepened over recent decades. Where national governments used to have sole prerogative to legislate in a policy area, the EU is increasingly gaining power to make policies on behalf of its member states.
The European integration project started in the 1950s as an answer to the horrors of the Second World War. Integration measures were regarded by the founding fathers as guaranteeing peace across Europe, and especially between the historical enemies France and Germany. The first steps towards integration related to economic issues: the Treaty of Paris was signed by Belgium, France, West Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands in 1951 to form the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), and the Treaties establishing the European Economic Community (EEC Treaty) and the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) were signed by the same six countries in 1957, leading to the creation of the European Community. Although the 1960s and 1970s witnessed a type of deadlock among the various member states of the EU, wherein it was difficult to achieve consensus on the future of the European Union, the 1970s would represent a turning point. Because international economic pressures threatened to force Europe into a recession, the EU was forced to respond in a way that would ensure its future longevity.
These external forces were no different from those facing the United States at the time: pressures from economies such as Japan that increasingly exported to the United States, coupled with the oil crises throughout the 1970s, forced a declining United States to change policies in order to re-establish itself as world economic giant. In the case of the EU, the road to recovery from a similar economic decline during the late 1970s and early 1980s lay in developing and consolidating the single European market. Such a market represented a huge free-trade area within which businesses could operate and increase their economic strength. Thereafter, a single currency was seen as a means to copper-fasten the status of Europe in the world economy.
With this in mind, one may argue that the supranational level has gained increasing responsibility precisely because of economic globalization: the independent force of national governments may, in some cases, be less effective for the future of Europe in the global economy than the force of a centralized EU voice. In order to secure a strong foundation for Europe's place in the world economy, the member states that comprise the EU may seek to exert a unified force under the banner of the EU in certain areas. The idea of developing strong, cohesive policies in the face of economic globalization can be regarded as one of the main driving forces in European integration, resulting in the Single European Act (1986), the Maastricht Treaty (or Treaty on European Union (TEU), 1992), the Amsterdam Treaty (1997), the Nice Treaty (2001) and diverse enlargement rounds. The most recent step, which has been taken by the EU, but which seems close to being shelved since French and the Dutch electorates vetoed the idea in referendums, was the so-called European Constitution of 2005. The Constitution represented a further deepening of European integration by deciding where Brussels could have increasing policy competences and by setting the basis for a firm political union of the 25 states that currently comprise the EU.
In this regard, observers have alluded to the importance of several key policies, which this book denominates as 1st order policies, which have been significantly developed at the EU level over the last 25 years: single market policies, concerned with the establishment of an integrated capitalist market where economic actors can thrive; competition policies, which seek to ensure a level playing field in this free-trade area; economic and monetary policies, which serve as a basis for a common currency that facilitates trade and allows the EU to move towards becoming an economic hegemon vis-à-vis the United States and Japan; and a Common Agricultural Policy, which represents a price-support system for farmers that guarantees production of essential products for European citizens. In these 1st order policy areas one sees a centralized and strong EU that seeks to make its mark on the world in the context of other major players in the world economy such as the USA, Japan, China, India and Russia.
The main institutions of the EU (such as the European Commission) and representatives of national interests (such as the Council of Ministers) classify 1st order policies as being of "high importance", or a priority to develop: harmonization of policies on this dimension across the EU level will eventually establish a strong position for Europe in the globalized economy vis-à-vis other international players. This "deepening" of the integration process will eventually result in a diminishing, if not completely nullified, role for national governments in these policy areas. Broadly speaking, 1st order policies are those in which major efforts to reach integration have been made, and therefore where integration in terms of harmonization and transfer from the national to the supranational level has taken place smoothly. European-wide policies are promoted and guaranteed because deepening integration in these issues has been considered positive and absolutely necessary by the parties involved. National differences do not prevent common agreements. Supranational and domestic players regard themselves as winners when finding a European-wide solution, whereas they believe that adherence to independent national measures would result in a negative-sum game for all.
In contrast to such 1st order policies are what we define as 2nd order ones. Here one sees a decentralized EU, where national governments have maintained their sovereignty. In such areas, the EU level has not fully "taken away" the power of national governments: national governments have not transferred power to the EU-level and are reluctant to do so. In other words, the EU's policy competences in such areas remain weak and ill defined, and intervention by the EU is regarded with suspicion. Key examples where there is little evidence of full harmonization are seen in social policies where, despite calls for a EU-wide Social Charter in the early 1990s, member states of the EU still maintain legislative power over key aspects of labour market rules that regulate the working conditions, including minimum wages, unemployment regulations and social security. Another example is seen in immigration policies, where member states have retained a large degree of control in determining which immigrants can come into their countries. And a final example is seen in foreign policies, where member states have not acted in a unified manner under an EU flag, but rather have retained their sovereignty to pursue independent military action abroad. This was acutely seen in the recent Iraq War where Europe remained almost shamefully divided: on the one hand, states such as the UK, Spain and Italy pursued military action alongside the USA, while others such as France and Germany were against war.
With these ideas in mind, one sees that in contrast to 1st order policies, it is more difficult to achieve EU-wide consensus when 2nd order policies are negotiated. As such, significant supranational agreements that nullify, or at least diminish the importance of, national level politics would not be expected to be found in 2nd order EU policy areas. Because integration here is mistrusted, challenged, or not actively pursued, national sovereignty in these policy areas is thus broadly accepted. In these areas, member state governments and their legislatures have the final say, leaving a myriad of nationally based rules governing these policy areas.
With the above in mind, this book has two driving questions. First, can we find solid evidence of 1st and 2nd order policies at the EU-level? Second, if so, why and how do policies become of 1st and 2nd order nature? Working hypotheses that will be tested throughout this book are that there are several 1st order EU policies, largely economic in nature, that are deemed a priority for the EU by actors at both the supranational and the domestic levels, and that there are several 2nd order ones that have relatively less importance. We hypothesize that developing 1st order policies will largely benefit capital actors and allow the EU as a whole to be a significant, perhaps even hegemonic, economic power in the global economy. Such policies include single market policies, competition policies, monetary policy and agricultural policy; they have been adopted to create a competitive and efficient, but also protected EU market wherein major capital actors can thrive in the context of globalization. Below such 1st order policies, however, are those that can be considered "2nd order", which do not necessarily form a key part of the EU policy-making agenda and which domestic and EU leaders may sometimes effectively ignore. We hypothesize that such 2nd order policies are not of particular concern to capital actors. As mentioned earlier, they include social, immigration and foreign policies, which largely remain under the remit of national governments.
This book first tests the above working hypotheses about the existence of 1st and 2nd order policies in the EU by focussing on the policies' evolution over time. Second, it examines what factors lead to a policy becoming 1st or 2nd order in nature. It does so by examining which actors have been involved in the formulation of the policies and analysing their desires to see a "two-dimensional" EU public policy space develop, where some policies are deemed more of a priority than others. On the basis of this examination of the actors involved, the book characterizes the policy formulation process by referring to theories of policy making that have been considered essential in the literature on European integration and comparative politics, as discussed below. In other words, several significant, interlinked, questions will be asked in a way not hitherto addressed in existing texts by fully studying competition, single market, economic and monetary, social, agricultural, immigration and foreign policies in the EU:
• What has been the historical development of each policy?
• Through analysis of its history and evolution, can one characterize the policy as indicative of either a strong centralized EU, or a weak, decentralized one where there has been a lack of harmonization? In short, does the evolution point to a 1st or 2nd order policy?
• Which actors have been involved in the formulation of aspects of the policy? Which factors, such as the potential desire to increase economic power and secure a role for Europe in the global economy, have guided these actors to act in such a way?
• Given the nature of the actors that have been involved, how can one theoretically characterize the policy's development in the light of different theories taken from the literature on EU integration and comparative politics?
• Taking all the policies together, does analysis of the answers to the latter two questions help us better understand why policies become of 1st order or 2nd order in nature?
Policy making at the European level: definition of key terms and structure of book
While we have already defined the concept of 1st and 2nd order policies, it is useful at this stage to briefly define three terms – policy formulation, actors, and theoretical characterization – that constitute key elements of the questions addressed in the book. Turning to the first key term, policy formulation, we refer to a two-stage process in policy making, drawing on concepts previously outlined by Peterson. Peterson's three-stage process refers to, first, a "policy-setting" stage; second, the "policy-shaping" stage where policy is formulated by interactions among different actors; and, third, the "history-making" stage, where decisions formulated through the policy-setting and policy-shaping stages are formally agreed on, for example in the European Council or diverse intergovernmental conferences (IGCs). Although the last stage of his analysis is less important for the purposes of this book, because it is often a pure formality in the policy process, the first two stages are of significance for our purposes. However, we argue that a change of terminology may help clarify what exactly occurs at these stages. We thus define Stage 1 as being representative of a policy-initiation stage. Whereas "policy setting", as referred to by Peterson, may be conceived as simply laying out the full blueprints of a policy, "policy initiation" in our view clearly indicates the "institutional setting" responsible for first thinking that new rules, regulations or directives need to be pursued. Similarly, the term "policy shaping", as used by Peterson, in our view does not capture the dynamics when policy is actually "negotiated". From this perspective, policy is not simply "shaped", it is "bargained" over between actors. Hence, we refer to the second stage of policy formulation as the negotiation stage.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Understanding EU Policy Making"
by .
Copyright © 2006 Raj S. Chari and Sylvia Kritzinger.
Excerpted by permission of Pluto Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
1. A Supranational or a Decentralised EU?2. Who’s Coming to Play? Policy-Making Actors in the EU
3. Understanding EU Policy-Making: Major Theories and New Insights
4. Single Market Policy: Creating a Strong Neo-Liberal Market in the Global Economy
5. Competition Policy: Ensuring a Competitive European Market.
6. Economic and Monetary Union: The Making of the Money Tree
7. Common Agricultural Policy: Redistributive Policy in Favour of Whom?
8. Social Policy: Demonstrating European Incapability and Differences
9. Policies of Freedom, Security and Justice: A Limited Role for the EU
10. External Policies: Divided We Stand, United We Fall
11. Conclusions: Understanding the Present, Changing the Future.
Notes
Index