Historical Drift and the Co-existence of Orders

Europe in search of political order

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Europe in Search of Political Order An institutional perspective on unity/diversity, citizens/their helpers, democratic design/historical drift and the co-existence of orders

Jo h a n P. Ol s e n

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3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With oYces in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York ß Johan P. Olsen 2007 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2007 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available Typeset by SPI Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Biddles Ltd, King’s Lynn, Norfolk ISBN 978–0–19–921434–1 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Acknowledgements When Robert E. Goodin suggested that I should present a collection of my recent articles on European cooperation and integration in book form, I was not completely convinced that the idea was a good one. Experience suggested that essays written for diVerent purposes and contexts seldom make a good book, or that it takes a signiWcant amount of work to create focus and coherence. And so it did: The Introduction and Chapters 2 and 10 are new, while Chapter 1 comes closest to a reprint. In the other chapters, pages, paragraphs, sentences and words have been added, deleted or moved. References have to some degree been updated and cross-references between chapters have been added. Nevertheless, the chapters draw, more or less, on previously published articles. For permission to reprint material I am grateful to the publishers of the following: Chapter 1: ‘Unity, Diversity and Democratic Institutions: Lessons from the European Union’, Journal of Political Philosophy 12 (2005): 461–95, published by Blackwell Publishing; in Spanish: ‘Unidad, diversidad e instituciones democra´ticas’, Gestio´n y Polı´tica Pu´blica 14 (2000): 5–55, published by Centro de Investigacio´n y Docencia Econo´micas, AC (CIDE). Chapter 3: ‘The Many Faces of Europeanization’, Journal of Common Market Studies 40 (2002): 921–52, published by Blackwell Publishers. Chapter 4: ‘Organizing European Institutions of Governance: A Prelude to an Institutional Account of Political Integration’, in H. Wallace (ed.), Interlocking Dimensions of European Integration, (Houndmills: Palgrave, 2001), 323–53. Chapter 5: ‘What is a Legitimate Role for Euro-citizens?’, Comparative European Politics 1 (2003): 91–110, published by Palgrave Macmillan. Chapter 6: ‘Maybe it is Time to Rediscover Bureaucracy?’, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 16 (2006): 1–24, published by Oxford University Press; in Spanish: ‘Quiza´s sea el momento de redescubrir la burocracia’. Revista del CLAD, Reforma y Democracia 31 (2005): 23–62 published by Centro Latinoamericano de Administracio´n para el Desarrollo (CLAD). Chapter 7: ‘Reforming European Institutions of Governance’, Journal of Common Market Studies 40 (2002): 581–602, published by Blackwell Publishers. Reprinted in J. H. H. Weiler, I. Begg and J. Peterson (eds), Integration in an

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Acknowledgements

Expanding Union: Reassessing the Fundamentals (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), 45–65. Chapter 8: ‘How, Then, Does One Get There?’, in C. Joerges, Y. Me´ny and J. H. H. Weiler (eds), What Kind of Constitution for What Kind of Polity? Responses to Joschka Fischer (Florence: Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute, and Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Law School, 2002), 163–79. Chapter 9: ‘Coping with ConXicts at Constitutional Moments’, Industrial and Corporate Change 12 (2003): 815–42, published by Oxford University Press. Chapter 11: ‘Towards a European Administrative Space?’, Journal of European Public Policy 10 (2003): 506–31, published by Routledge. For constructive comments and other help, I want to thank my colleagues at the ARENA Centre for European Studies at the University of Oslo and the participants in seminars and conferences where the key ideas have been presented, in Barcelona, Bergen, Birmingham, Brussels, Canberra, Lucca, Madrid, Mexico City, Oslo, Potsdam, Seoul, Stanford, Tokyo and Uppsala. Thanks also to several anonymous reviewers and to Svein S. Andersen, David Arellano, Stefano Bartolini, Jozef Ba´tora, Øivind Bratberg, Peggy S. Brønn, Simon Bulmer, James Caporaso, Daniele Caramani, JeVrey T. Checkel, Josef Chytry, Dag Harald Claes, Jon Erik Dølvik, Morten Egeberg, Erik Oddvar Eriksen, John Erik Fossum, H. George Frederickson, Colin Hay, Beate Kohler-Koch, Ragnar Lie, Gary Marks, Keun Namkoong, B. Guy Peters, John Peterson, Jon Pierre, Christopher Pollitt, Claudio Radaelli, R. A. W. Rhodes, Philippe Schmitter, Ulrich Sedelmeier, Fredrik Sejersted, Per Selle, Helene Sjursen, Martha Snodgrass, Mahadevan Surendra, Lars Sva˚sand, Ulf I. Sverdrup, Trygve Ugland, Helen Wallace, Wolfgang Wessels, Daniel Wincott and Hellmut Wollmann. A special thanks to Robert E. Goodin, for initiating and encouraging the book and for constructive comments, and to Dominic Byatt at Oxford University Press for competent and enthusiastic help throughout the process of turning a stack of manuscripts into a book. And I would also like to thank Timothy Barte1 for copy-editing and Michele Marietta for proofreading. Claire Gourlay, Christine Rode, Victoria Patten, Elizabeth SuZing and Clare Hofmann at Oxford University Press deserve thanks for their competent work. My friendship, cooperation and co-authorship with James G. March over nearly forty years has left its mark throughout the book and upon my authorship and life in general. Jim is a remarkable scholar and human being and I am thankful for having the privilege to know him and work with him over all these years. All these Wne colleagues notwithstanding, my greatest thanks go to Helene Olsen. Helene has been my sweetheart and best friend since we were 16 and

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my spouse since we were 20. She has made life enjoyable by her enduring concern for the well-being of other people, by creating a great family, by sharing her knowledge and insights from an extensive reading of poetry, drama and novels, and by her daily practice of a wisdom developed through a long professional career as a teacher of young people in the best tradition of that vocation. Helene has been the most important precondition for anything of value I may have done or written, including this book. Therefore, the book is dedicated to her—my Vandringskamerat through life—as a small token of my great appreciation. Johan P. Olsen Oslo, May 2006

Contents Introduction. The European Union: Challenge and Opportunity

1

PART I. UNITY AND DIVERSITY 1. 2. 3. 4.

The possibility of political order The legacy: nationalization of political life ‘Europeanization’: a fashionable and contested term A prelude to an institutional account

19 49 68 92

PART II. CITIZENS AND THEIR HELPERS 5. What role for Euro-citizens? 6. ‘. . . to serve the citizens of Europe’

117 135

PART III. DEMOCRATIC DESIGN AND HISTORICAL DRIFT 7. Institutions of governance: can democracies choose them? 8. Reformers as pawns, engineers and gardeners 9. Coping with conXict at constitutional moments

165 183 200

PART IV. NEW AND OLD POLITICAL ORDERS 10. The Europeanization of the territorial state? 11. Towards a European administrative space?

227 252

References Index

277 317

Introduction The European Union: Challenge and Opportunity This book deals with the role of formally organized institutions in political life and, in particular, the role of democratic institutions of government in mediating between unity and diversity, citizens and their helpers, democratic design and historical drift, and new and old political orders. The purpose is two-fold. The Wrst is to contribute to an improved understanding of the ongoing search for political order in Europe by oVering an institutional perspective on the dynamics of change. The second is to use the European case as an opportunity for reXecting on political organization, democratic governance and the role of institutions in non-violent comprehensive change in general. Among several processes of change in Europe, attention is focused on the European Union. For half a century the EU has represented a large-scale experiment in political organization and governance, including ways of establishing and reforming institutions. The terms of political order and the basic rules of political cooperation and association have been reconsidered. Constitutional and institutional change has taken place. A new level of governance, with democratic aspirations, has emerged. Are we then in the midst of a transformation of the European political order? Are there signiWcant and durable shifts in boundary, institution and group formation and in the legitimate exercise of authority and power? If so, what kind of order, with what foundational principles, is developing? How can we understand the emergence of a new, multi-tiered system of governance and what are the consequences for the member states when they become part of a larger entity? Alternatively, will the forces of historical continuity turn out to be stronger than the forces of change? Has the nation-state developed institutional arrangements that take the sting out of European and international forces? Have learning from experience and piecemeal adaptation reduced the signiWcance of the domestic impacts of integration in Europe?

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The EU: Challenge and opportunity

Understanding European transformations is of great importance in its own right. There are also good reasons, however, for demystifying the Union and de-emphasizing its uniqueness. A rapidly growing number of empirical observations increase the need for theoretical ideas that create more order in a bewildering picture, and one way of doing so is to link studies of the EU more tightly to some fundamental and enduring issues in the study of political agency, organization and change. European processes of change provide an opportunity for examining theoretical ideas developed primarily in the context of the sovereign territorial state and for exploring new ideas about democratic organization and governance with relevance beyond a particular territory, level of governance and time period.

THE UNION’S DUAL SELF-INTERPRETATION The EU’s self-interpretation, as expressed in oYcial documents and in speeches by its leaders, often evokes the image of an actor-centred political order. The Union is constituted by sovereign states, conceived as unitary strategic actors cooperating voluntarily and pooling their resources in order to control their environments and improve their performance. Political community is founded on functional expediency and behaviour is driven by a logic of consequentiality, that is, the anticipation of its consequences assessed in terms of predetermined utility functions. Institutions are organizational tools for achieving desired policy goals, such as peace and prosperity. Institutional change stems from deliberate choices, adapting institutions to shifting environments in order to improve substantive performance.1 Sometimes the creative-actor aspect, however, is put into the shade by assumptions of necessary adaptation to a globalizing economy, cross-cultural migrations or an ageing population. The EU also presents itself as a political order constituted around institutions, principles, procedures and identities. Member states, for example, must commit themselves to democracy, the rule of law, human rights, and a 1 For example, the Maastricht Treaty reXects a rather unproblematic instrumental view: ‘The Union shall be served by a single institutional framework which shall ensure the consistency and the continuity of the activities carried out in order to attain its objectives’ (European Union 1992: art. C). Furthermore, ‘the Union shall provide itself with the means necessary to attain its objectives and carry through its policies’ (European Union 1992: art. F). Interestingly enough, the Commission (sometimes) portrays institutional developments as a more complex and almost haphazard historical process, with institutions being the fruit of layer upon layer of hesitant advances and compromises, reXected in the complexity of the European Union’s institutions and instruments (Commission 1995b: 34).

The EU: Challenge and opportunity

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market economy. Behaviour, then, is rule-driven and subjected to a logic of appropriateness. Institutions have a value of their own and an ordering eVect upon political life. They are not solely instruments for achieving immediate policy beneWts that can be changed arbitrarily. Institutions have some degree of autonomy. They are the residue of past experiences, and they evolve as new experience is encoded into institutional rules and practices. While there is no agreement on who the key actors are, the strategic-actor perspective has a high standing in the Union’s oYcial self-interpretation and in the scholarly literature. Nevertheless, this book explores the value of an institutional perspective on the dynamics of European change. It is an account that does not give priority to heroic founders and constitutional moments. Rather, the main concern is what contribution to the dynamics of European change is attributable to political institutions, how the European institutional legacy and the emerging EU institutions provide resources for and constrain integration, and how institutions change through processes such as incremental modiWcation of existing rules and practices on the basis of learning from experience, the diVusion of rules and practices among institutions and polities, and the endogenous generation of new rules.

AN INSTITUTIONAL APPROACH ‘Institutionalism’ denotes a general approach to the study of political organization and governance, a set of theoretical ideas and hypotheses concerning the relations between institutional characteristics and political agency, performance and development. Institutionalism supplements and competes not only with micro approaches featuring political agency and identiWable rational policy-makers and their preferences and power, but also with macro approaches giving primacy to societal forces such as economic competition, technological innovation, cross-cultural migration and demographic change. Without denying the importance of human agency and societal imperatives, the credo of institutionalism as understood here (March and Olsen 1984, 1989, 1995, 2006a, b) is that institutions have a partly autonomous role in political life. Institutions are not epiphenomena that mirror predetermined individual preferences and initial resources or societal circumstances. They are not simply equilibrium contracts among self-seeking, calculating individual actors or arenas for contending social forces. Institutions are markers of a polity’s character, history and visions and it makes a diVerence how they are organized. Historically, political institutions have shown considerable

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The EU: Challenge and opportunity

resilience in the face of eVorts toward radical reform and major economic, technological, social and cultural change. While European integration to a large extent is legal integration, this book goes beyond a formal-legal description and looks at how institutions are organized, how they work, and how they emerge, are maintained, and change. An institution is a relatively enduring collection of rules and organized practices derived from collective identities and belongings and embedded in structures of meaning and resources. Behaviour is rule-driven and constitutive rules and practices prescribe appropriate behaviour for speciWc actors (such as citizens, elected representatives, administrators, or judges) in various situations. Structures of meaning explain, justify and give direction to behaviour. Structures of resources make actors more or less capable of acting according to prescriptive behavioural rules and laws. Institutionalism emphasizes the endogenous nature and social construction of political institutions. Comprehensive reorganization attempts, for example, are an occasion not only for making decisions but also for interpreting purposes and meaning and for creating or reaYrming a sense of community and belonging (March and Olsen 1976). A core assumption is that the translation of structures into political action, and action into institutional continuity and change, is usually generated by comprehensible and routine processes (such as rule-following, choice, learning or diVusion) and that these processes produce recurring modes of action and organizational patterns (March 1981). ‘Historical ineYciency’ implies that such processes are not perfect and that the matching of institutions, behaviours and contexts takes time and has multiple, path-dependent equilibria. Adaptation is less automatic, less continuous and less precise than is assumed by standard equilibrium models and does not necessarily improve eYciency and survival (March and Olsen 1989: 54–6, 1995: 40–4). Exploring the possible explanatory power of institutions, the book makes a modest attempt to illuminate four basic and enduring themes in the study of political organization and governance: how institutions mediate between unity and diversity, between democratic citizens and their helpers, between institutional design and historical drift, and between new and old orders.

U N I T Y AN D D I V E R S I T Y The European Union, like other polities, struggles with reconciling unity and diversity. These eVorts take place within a territory already occupied by domestic institutions and identities, a legacy shaped by several hundred

The EU: Challenge and opportunity

5

years of national uniWcation and European diversiWcation. Visions of an ‘ever closer union’ are diYcult to reconcile with enlargement from six to 25 member states. The list of candidate countries is also long, and due to continuous enlargement and cross-cultural migration the European experiment is increasingly an encounter with diversity, raising questions about what kind of Union is possible and desirable. Students of European integration, then, face some persistent issues. How is political community, order and authority possible in spite of enduring diversity? How can processes of integration be understood? Why do sovereign states voluntarily join a larger political unit? What are the relations between the whole and the parts: what ties the component units together and what keeps them apart? How is the autonomy of the component units combined with legitimate normative bonds of community? How much diversity and how much unity can a democracy accommodate? Which factors determine what form of organized system of governance is developed? In particular, if ‘politics is eternally concerned with the achievement of unity from diversity’ (Wheeler 1975: 4) and democracy and adaptive change require the tolerance, even the encouragement, of diVerences, what is the role of political institutions in mediating between diversity and unity? Under what conditions do common institutions reduce diversity and create increasing mutual understanding, recognition and cohesion, and when do they stimulate diversity in the face of pressure towards convergence? Under what conditions do institutions accommodate diversity and make a polity thrive despite enduring disagreements, and when do they reinforce or magnify conXicts? DiVerent conceptions of ‘the people’ give diVerent answers to such questions. For example, when the people are seen as a collection of autonomous, rational, self-seeking and competitive individuals, unity is based on calculation of utility. In an individualist perspective the task of political institutions and governance is to facilitate exchange and protect life, property rights, freedoms and voluntary contracts. Collective decisions involve the eYcient aggregation of predetermined preferences and resources. Dysfunctional institutions are eliminated and agents and institutions develop as the successful survivors of the imperatives of competitive selection. In contrast, when the people are seen as a collectivity, a coherent actor with a strong shared identity that overshadows all other identities and interests, unity is based upon history, traditions and loyalties. The task of political institutions and governance is to facilitate the discovery of the common good through interpretation of the community identity and then make and implement the decisions to further that common good. Behaviour is driven by cultural rules and institutions develop through slow historical processes of reinterpretation of collective identity, values and worldviews.

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The EU: Challenge and opportunity

An institutional perspective portrays the people as neither completely atomized nor fully united. Therefore, institutionalists explore integrative processes involving the political construction of common purposes, identities, norms, understandings, trust, solidarity and resources through education, socialization and decision-making (March and Olsen 1986). Unity, for example, is seen to depend on how disputes are handled within diVerent institutional settings—the degree to which there are clear winners and losers, and the degree to which valid tasks, objectives, policies and institutions are developed through common reasoning and mutual learning. Impacts upon the balance between unity and diversity can often be the most important outcome of policy-making processes. Nevertheless, there are unresolved conXicts and institutionalists take an interest in how institutions cope with enduring diVerences. An example is how institutional diVerentiation, separation and autonomy enable institutions to buVer conXict, to create and accentuate diversity, and to provide resources and instruments for supporting diVerentiation which is consistent with system coherence (Cyert and March 1963; Weber 1978; Walzer 1984). In Europe, there is a long tradition of understanding integration instrumentally and functionally (de Saint-Simon and Thierry 1814: 28), and EU integration has also been justiWed primarily in terms of substantive results and improved performance. OYcially, European policy-making is pictured as ‘a kind of positive-sum game in which there are no losers and everyone gains something’ (Commission 1992: 5). Furthermore, a scenario of historical discontinuity in the political organization of Europe, where the territorial state withers and most of its tasks, support and resources are transferred to institutions at the European, regional or local levels is based on the assumption that the state is no longer functional. It is ‘increasingly out of step with the necessities of the world in which we actually live’ (Beetham 1990: 219). In the literature, however, there are ample warnings that a political order tied together solely by utility calculations is unlikely to be viable. Chapter 1 begins from this observation and examines how the European Union reconciles centre-building and common institutions with attempts to protect the identity and autonomy of the component units against encroachment from the centre. These balancing eVorts are inXuenced by the historical processes through which Europe’s territorial political organization has unfolded over time, with nationalization of political life and the ascendancy of the sovereign state as the predominant form of territorial-political organization. Chapter 2 therefore explores how observations in the literature on state-building may enhance the understanding of contemporary European cooperation and integration. Holding together ‘nationalization’ and the ‘Europeanization’ of political life is complicated, however, because the latter refers to a variety

The EU: Challenge and opportunity

7

of diVerent processes, and Chapter 3 asks whether ‘Europeanization’ is a term as disappointing as it is fashionable, and whether it should be abandoned or is useful for understanding changing unity–diversity balances in Europe. The Wnal chapter in Part I, Chapter 4, presents a prelude to an institutional account of political integration and of how institutions mediate between diversity and unity.

CITIZENS AND THEIR HELPERS ‘Democracy’ is the main standard by which political organization and governance are legitimized in Europe, and within a democratic framework the citizen is the most important institution and actor. In the EU, however, the terms of belonging, rights and obligations are uncertain and the Union has faced criticism for being an executive-technocratic project of the elite. The Commission, the European Court of Justice and the European Central Bank are to a large extent shielded from popular control and it is argued that ‘the bureaucracy in Brussels’ is too large, powerful and self-enhancing. It intervenes in too many aspects of peoples’ lives, at the expense of individual freedom, cultural identity and national sovereignty. There is a ‘democratic deWcit’ with an enduring gap between rulers and ruled and some argue that democracy simply is impossible at the supra-national level. While Union authorities have declared a need to bring the Union ‘closer to the citizens’ and create a ‘citizens’ Europe’, it has also been argued that non-majoritarian institutions are bound to play an increasingly important role in Europe (Majone 2005). The questions of who governs, of how to avoid turning the sovereign citizen into a dilettante, and of which institutions are most likely to maintain citizens’ control over the rulers, have intrigued students of government for centuries. While it has been commonplace to argue that citizens’ power depends upon plebiscitary institutions facilitating direct participation and representation, it has also been observed that citizens have limited motivation and ability to participate in political life. They are unlikely to think that direct participation and majority decisions are possible or desirable for all issues in all settings and sometimes they want high-quality services or protection against bad government more than participation in government. Citizens therefore need helpers that act with competence and integrity (Gaus 1947; Olsen 2004a). Balancing the legitimate interests of unborn citizens with the legitimate interests of those currently active, and correcting the myopia of day-to-day democracy, requires the capacity for organized action and also the

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The EU: Challenge and opportunity

delegation of responsibilities to institutions that are not structured according to democratic principles and yet routinely defend citizens’ rights and freedoms and attend to their concerns and interests. A dilemma arises because the insulation of agents and institutions from majority institutions and citizens’ inXuence carries both democratic advantages and risks. How can helpers be given enough discretion and power to perform well, but not so much freedom that citizens lose control? How do institutions mediate between citizens and their helpers and how do diVerent forms of government and administration reconcile majority- and nonmajority-based institutions? How do they balance centralization of authority and power with citizens’ participation, representation, rights and freedoms? An institutional approach rejects the idea that those with mandates to act on behalf of citizens can be controlled through incentives, monitoring and the enforcement of voluntary contracts alone, as assumed by standard rational (principal–agent) models, or by general cultural values and norms, as assumed by communitarian models. Democratic governance assumes distinct political norms and rules. Government becomes (at least in part) a trusteeship based on Wduciary arrangements and the democratic quality of a polity depends on properties of its citizens and oYcials. A spirit of citizenship and public oYce implies willingness to think and act as members of the political community and to follow rules of appropriate behaviour, as deWned by the community, and not to act solely as self-interested individuals or members of particular interest groups. Which institutional properties, then, make non-majoritarian institutions function well, so that they improve the democratic quality of a polity? Which types of character and identity are selected and formed by diVerent institutional arrangements and forms of government? In what institutional contexts are individuals transformed into oYce-holders and rule-followers acting on the basis of law, impartiality, self-restraint and competence? Under what conditions are actors likely to be motivated and capable of complying with the codes of appropriate behaviour in institutional settings such as deliberative democracies, majority voting systems, hierarchies, bargaining arrangements or competitive markets? The list of questions dwarfs the list of available answers. The questions, however, are highly relevant in the context of the EU because subjecting human conduct to constitutive rules has been portrayed as part of European democratization and civilization—a development manifesting itself simultaneously as the attention of institutions for peaceful power-struggle and conXict resolution, and a fashioning of character which distances one’s own individual interests, passions and drives (Elias 1982, 1988). In addition, the EU, more than any other regional integration, is a rule-based polity.

The EU: Challenge and opportunity

9

The Union bears the imprint of the legalistic tradition of continental Europe and its belief in the importance of rule-driven Weberian bureaucracies (Katzenstein 2005). Like the member states, the Union has been concerned with how codes of conduct in political and administrative life may nurture integrity, responsibility and accountability. Starting out with the assumption that democracies need both institutions for eVective political participation and institutions that make continuous popular participation redundant, Chapter 5 asks what role is possible for Euro-citizens, and how that role depends on how the Union’s political order is envisioned, and which institutions encourage demands for political participation, actual participation and representative outcomes. Chapter 6 then attempts to throw some light on the role of bureaucrats and their relations to citizens and elected oYcials in a polity characterized by the rule of law. Public administration is the core action-capability of modern government, and the chapter argues that there are good reasons to question the fashionable ideas that bureaucratic organization is an obsolete, undesirable and nonviable form of administration and that there is an inevitable and irreversible shift towards market or network organization.

INSTITUTIONA L D ESIGN AND HISTORICAL DRIFT The idea that decision-makers Wrst formulate policies and then tailor institutions to achieve their goals is popular in the Union. For example, the Convention proposing the Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe (European Union 2005) mainly portrayed political institutions as instruments, and the writing and rewriting of the Treaties has been interpreted as a series of rational adaptations by national leaders to shifting circumstances. Yet European institutions have developed without agreement on a political philosophy or a constitutional theory that sets out the purposes and ends of institutional arrangements, and it has been observed that the dynamics of change are ‘driven by several engines operating according to diVerent principles and sometimes out of sync’ (Dehousse and Majone 1994: 92). Change has taken place outside the framework of formal Treaty amendments, as learning from daily practice has been incrementally encoded into rules. Functional spillovers have been believed to create a development towards ‘an ever closer Union’ and causal mechanisms have been located in trade and other transnational transactions. Nevertheless, the continuously expressed need to reform European institutions also suggests that neither deliberate reforms nor day-to-day adaptations or environmental imperatives have been completely eVective.

10

The EU: Challenge and opportunity

The belief in rational institutional design and reform as a means to avoid disorder and chaos has a long pedigree. Institutions of government have been seen as malleable organizational instruments to achieve human purposes, making governing through the organizing and reorganizing of institutions a Wrst-order political process and an important aspect of political agency. This view also Wnds support in democratic principles of self-government prescribing that institutional development should reXect the will of the sovereign people. Legitimate political order and authority must stem from the people, institutions are instruments of government expressing the will of the people, and the demos is assumed to have the will, understanding and power to shape and reshape institutions in accordance with procedures for orderly change. Change then follows from authoritative decision-making and constitutional choices, generating a series of discrete shifts in institutional arrangements, as one political order is replaced by another. However, the view that comprehensive rational design and reform is neither feasible nor normatively attractive has also been around for some time. According to this view, which denies that institutions of government can be chosen at will, (dis)integration of organized cooperative eVorts evolves through slow ‘organic’ processes of historical drift. Orders wax and wane as one order slowly fades away, often due to its own internal weaknesses, yielding place to a new order that grows out of the older one. Admiration of the past and respect for customary law has also in many cases been stronger than belief in progress through active lawmaking and deliberate intervention in established institutions. Institutional developments in modern societies have also been interpreted as monotonic trends towards more civilization, democratization, bureaucratization, secularization, urbanization etc. For example, more than a hundred years ago, Sidgwick predicted future political integration in Western Europe organized on a federal basis. The trend towards a federal form of government was seen as part of the growth of civilization. It was based, Wrst, on the observation of a historical tendency for previously hostile units to integrate and form continuously larger political societies, often in order to protect themselves against larger states; and, second, on the belief that federalism, more than a unitary polity, is in harmony with the ideas of modern democracy and the eVort to realize the maximum of liberty compatible with order (Sidgwick 1903: 437, 439). An institutional approach holds that political institutions create order and continuity and also provide a dynamic element. Institutions are neither completely malleable nor completely rigid. Assumptions about partly autonomous institutions and historical ineYciency represent an attempt to avoid contextual determinism. An institutional approach also tries to avoid

The EU: Challenge and opportunity

11

infeasible assumptions that require too much of political actors in terms of normative commitments (virtue; clear, consistent and stable goals), cognitive ability (bounded rationality) and social control (resources; capabilities). The belief in a demos designing and redesigning institutions in the name of progress is tempered by the observation that citizens and their helpers often have a multiplicity of inconsistent purposes and limited understanding and control. Nor are processes of learning and competitive selection perfect. They do not guarantee that human reason and experiences are continuously and correctly encoded into institutions. Tensions may build up. The anomalies of old orders may be revealed and there may be demands for emancipation from institutions that are seen to be founded upon ignorance, superstition, prejudice or illegitimate power. Comprehensive institutional reform then becomes a battleground between competing values, interests and world views, with a possible transcendence of inherited institutions, the privileges they embody, and the groups that have obtained a share in government. Institutionalists, furthermore, argue that the assumption that institutional structures persist unless there are external shocks or deliberate attempts at reform underestimates intra- and inter-institutional sources of change. The early formative years give institutions ‘birthmarks’ that can survive the preconditions that generated them. Yet intra-institutional dynamics can detach an institution from its founding raison d’eˆtre and logic. There is also a dynamism inherent in institutional diversiWcation and collisions and transformations sometimes take the form of an ecology of mutual adapting and co-evolving institutions. Possibly new constellations of processes of change can be discerned, but currently there is limited theoretical understanding of the processes through which European integration may persist, speed up, slow down, disintegrate, or reverse itself. From a democratic point of view, there is a need to understand the conditions on which institutional development is in fact based, including reXection and deliberate choice, and how diVerent institutions mediate between intentional design, piecemeal adaptation and institutional drift. For example, under what institutional conditions are radical design and system-wide reforms legitimate, necessary and politically feasible? When is such change illegitimate due to constitutional constraints? When is it unnecessary, due to a polity’s institutionalized ability to learn routinely from, and adapt to, the experiences of self and others? When is it politically infeasible, due to institutions that lack the ability to mobilize support and bring about change (Olsen 1997c)? The Union has combined a belief in institutional engineering with the experience that comprehensive reform is diYcult to achieve. Like all modern

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The EU: Challenge and opportunity

democracies, the EU has shown a limited capacity for institutional design and for achieving intended eVects through institutional reform (see Chapter 7). While a simple model of institutional engineering, assuming predetermined political will, understanding and power, is unlikely to capture processes of comprehensive reform in complex, multi-tiered and dynamic political orders such as the EU, Chapter 8 identiWes some possible ways in which institutional dynamics can be aVected. Furthermore, Chapter 9 examines how characteristics of the institutional context within which constitutional change takes place, and the organization of the reform process itself, may inXuence the extent to which reformers are capable of radically changing the political order through reXection and choice.

NEW AND OL D OR D E RS Part IV shifts attention from deliberate reform eVorts to what has actually happened to the European political order and in particular the territorial state. What are the basic features of the emerging order and what consequences have changes in the relations among European states had for changes within each state? Has the territorial state persisted, or have domestic institutions and identities been aVected by intergovernmental cooperation and the development of European-level institutions, identities and policies? Has there been change in a consistent direction and, if so, has it been towards convergence or divergence? Has the territorial-national-democratic-welfare state been empowered, withered away, or been transformed? Have some states and institutions undergone more profound changes than others? After half a century of integration, the balance between levels of governance and institutions are still contested issues in the European Union and there is little agreement about how the institutional characteristics of the emerging European polity can best be described. There is also little agreement about the causal mechanisms through which European cooperation and integration generate change in domestic arrangements and the role of institutions in mediating domestic eVects of European integration. The general question—how diVerent institutional arrangements are likely to inXuence what consequences a new order has for pre-existing institutions—is often circumvented in the literature. An ancient tradition in political science has classiWed and compared separate and static constitutional orders, rather than studying how they have impinged upon each other. Likewise, modern equilibrium models, assuming that equilibrium is achieved through processes of constitutional choice, voluntary exchange or political

The EU: Challenge and opportunity

13

power-struggle, have analysed comparative statics rather than the interaction and mutual impacts of new and old orders. In contrast, an institutional approach assuming (some degree of) institutional autonomy and historical ineYciency suggests that political development cannot be understood as instant switches from one orderly arrangement (equilibrium) based on one distinctive organizing principle to another arrangement based on another principle.2 A new order does not spring to life overnight and it is unlikely that an emerging order immediately and completely replaces an old one. Institutions ‘are not created or recreated all at once, in accordance with a single ordering principle; they are created instead at diVerent times, in the light of diVerent experiences, and often for quite contrary purposes’ (Orren and Skowronek 2004: 112). Nor does history usually lead to some deWnite conclusion. It is more helpful to assume a continuous contest, with competing tendencies, that rarely results in the decisive and complete victory of any particular tendency (Wincott 2004: 388–9). Institutions create imperfect and temporary order (March and Olsen 1989). There are historic processes of institutional sedimentation (Sait 1938) and elements of the new and the old order co-exist. They co-evolve and impinge upon each other, and existing institutions mediate between continuity and change, and between adding new structural features and replacing old ones. Purifying a single principle or logic to excess is likely to create conXict. A polity, then, is a conWguration of formally organized institutions that Wt more or less into a coherent, integrated system. While concepts of institution and order assume some coherence and consistency, conXict is endemic in institutions and institutions operate in environments populated by other institutions organized according to diVerent principles and logics. Strong identiWcation with a speciWc institution and incremental and institutionspeciWc reforms, reXecting local experience and adaptation, for example, makes it less likely that polities will be integrated, unitary, coherent wholes organized and legitimized according to a single principle. Historic studies of the governmental foundations of society and the societal foundations of government also suggest that polity and society are two interdependent and partly autonomous institutionalized spheres for thought and action, rather than that one always dominates the other (Bendix 1960; Weber 1978). This view of political order harks back to a tradition from Plato, Aristotle, Polybius and Thomas Aquinas and their ideas about how ‘mixed’ orders and combinations of competing, inconsistent and contradictory organizing 2 Of course, some orders are organized in accordance with a single principle, logic or coherent system of rules, e.g. alphabetical order, numerical order, or a Linnaean system.

14

The EU: Challenge and opportunity

principles and structures may co-exist and balance interest, values and claims to power. Throughout history, mixed orders have been assumed both to generate change (because opposite principles and forces are never perfectly balanced and therefore continuously challenge each other) and to create harmony and stability (by balancing forces and principles).3 The precise conditions for each pattern are not well known. In transition periods, such as the one taking place in contemporary Europe, political orders are in particular imperfectly integrated. In the Union there are co-existing intergovernmental, transnational and supranational arrangements and elements of federalist and non-federalist government, parliamentary democracy and the separation-of-powers system. Individuals are embedded in multiple institutional settings and roles. EU integration is also uneven across institutional spheres and policy areas. Domestic institutions, diVerently organized and with diVerent histories, dynamics and resources, are aVected diVerently and they attend to, interpret and respond to European integration diVerently. Causal chains are often long and complex and it is problematic to tease out how diVerent institutions mediate between the old and the new order, e.g. whether they help reconcile elements of the new and the old order or provoke collisions, replacements and transformations. While a mixed order is usually found wanting when assessed by a single normative or organizational principle, the mixed order observed in the EU is not necessarily pathological. It may even be a precondition for European integration. Chapter 10 takes its point of departure from the revival, during the last part of the 1980s, of the old debate on the non-viability and the withering of the nation-state. The chapter explores what consequences European integration has had for the territorial state and also attends to some of the complications of Wnding Wrm answers to this question. Because understanding European impacts upon domestic public administration is an important part of comprehending ongoing transformations, Chapter 11 examines the degree to which there has been a trend towards a ‘European administrative space’, understood as convergence on a common administrative model.

3 Daniel Wincott has called my attention to Marshall’s observation that ‘human society can make a square meal out of a stew of paradox without getting indigestion—at least for quite some time’ (Marshall 1996 [1950]: 49). Marshall argued that conXict of principles springs from the roots of the social order and that apparent inconsistencies are a source of stability, achieved through a compromise which is not dictated by logic. Marshall, however, also warned that this balance may not continue indeWnitely: ‘It may be that some of the conXicts within our social system are becoming too sharp for the compromise to achieve its purpose much longer’ (Marshall 1996 [1950]: 49; see also Wincott 2004).

The EU: Challenge and opportunity

15

FOOTNOTES An institutional approach is consistent with the observation that political institutions are more or less autonomous, malleable and consequential. Spheres of thought and action can be more or less institutionalized. They can be governed by a single institution and a single set of rules of appropriate behaviour, or there can be competing and colliding institutional regimes. Some polities, spheres of actions and time periods are characterized by clear, agreed-upon and stable purposes and norms, well-known standard operating procedures with predictable eVects, and stable and uncontroversial participation, authority and resources. It is clear who can legitimately make decisions under diVerent circumstances. There are also, however, ‘organized anarchies’, settings characterized by weak institutionalization, problematic preferences, uncertainty, and Xuid participation, authority and resources (Cohen, March and Olsen 1972, Forthcoming). Exactly what phenomena political institutions can explain is an empirical question (G. Alexander 2001). The aim of this book is not ‘capturing as much explanatory territory as possible for institutional factors’ (Jabco and Parsons 2005: 8). Nevertheless, it is assumed that the dynamics of the European political order cannot be understood without an understanding of the role of formally organized institutions. My aspiration is to contribute to such an understanding, in particular an understanding of how institutions mediate between unity and diversity, democratic citizens and their helpers, institutional design and historical drift, and new and old orders. No available theory can fully explain how institutional arrangements inXuence the way political order is developed, maintained, modiWed and dissolved, or the varying policy performance of diVerent orders. The following chapters are Wrst and foremost oVered as footnotes to how one may think about these issues. They all represent attempts to illuminate the role of formally organized political institutions in the development of the European political order, as well as attempts to develop ideas with relevance beyond a single political setting and time period. The book is written with the conviction that it is important to get the questions and the concepts right before good answers can be expected. One preliminary conclusion is that European integration has so far succeeded because Union practice has not followed the Union’s strategicactor rhetoric. Integration and cooperation have not been based on a process where, Wrst, operational substantive goals have been formulated and, then, tailor-made institutions have been designed, on the basis of means–end analysis and calculation of institutional consequences, for policy performance

16

The EU: Challenge and opportunity

and goal achievement. Rather, the Union has been involved in a fairly open-ended institutional search process. It has tried to develop interpretations, accounts and identities and to build resources and organizational action capacity, guided by general notions of appropriate legislative, executive and judiciary institutions. Furthermore, the EU has proceeded by formulating procedures, rules, timetables and fairly general targets and aspirations, without agreeing on any desired ‘end-state’ of the Union. Another preliminary conclusion is that the European experiment in political organization and governance has yielded new insights, but it has conWrmed rather than fundamentally discarded available theoretical ideas about political institutions, agency and development. Students of the European Union have imported more theoretical ideas than they have exported. Analytical frameworks have been elaborated and not completely replaced. The Union is, however, in the midst of a search for a new order. New constellations of processes of change can be discerned and arguably it remains too early to say how students of European integration will aVect core disciplinary ideas in the future. In comparison, the development of the sovereign territorial state, the state order, and the state-oriented vocabulary, concepts and categories took centuries and not decades. In this temporal perspective, the European experiment is new and open-ended, providing both challenges and opportunities to students of political institutions.

Part I Unity and diversity

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1 The possibility of political order THE ISSUES Can the European experiment in political organization and governance give a better general understanding of how political order is possible and what factors inXuence the rise and decline of voluntary cooperative eVorts across established entities and boundaries? Can it shed light on why sovereign states voluntarily join a larger political unit, such as the European Union, and what consequences there are for the component units when they become part of a larger entity? Can we learn something about the signiWcance of democratic institutions and actors for the dynamics of change in political orders? These themes are elaborated in the rest of the volume. Change in political orders is conceptualized as institutionalization and de-institutionalization and the focus is on voluntary cooperation and integration among political entities in contemporary democratic contexts. Changes caused by war and coercion, important as they have been in Europe and elsewhere, are excluded. First, three basic questions about political order are raised. Second, it is hypothesized that the continuous eVort to balance unity and diversity, system integration and component autonomy, is a key to understanding the dynamics of political orders; and it is asked how democratic institutions of government, as a particular type of normative integration, might help develop and maintain unity in diversity. Third, European integration is viewed as a process of (re)balancing unity and diversity, a complicated analytical task because interpretations of the emerging political order in Europe vary from seeing the Westphalia state order as decaying, to seeing Westphalia as being rescued or transformed.1 Finally, four lessons which students of institutions of government can learn from the European case are suggested. 1 There are ample warnings against using ‘the Westphalian order’ as a description and a point of reference for studying change in the European or international political order. Krasner, for example, argues against using the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 to mark the beginning of a modern order based on territoriality and sovereignty. There have always been competing principles and ‘there has never been some golden age of the Westphalian state. The Westphalian model has never been more than a reference point or convention; it has never been some deeply conWning structure from which actors could not escape’ (Krasner 1995: 115). With this caveat in

20

Unity and diversity THREE QUESTIONS AB OUT POLITICAL ORDER

Students of political institutions have wondered, Wrst, how a relatively enduring political order emerges, is maintained and is changed, and how disorder, violence and capricious rule are avoided. They have asked what the preconditions for political order are and under what conditions there is political authority at all. They have also asked what the processes are through which actors with inconsistent preferences are transformed into a politically organized cooperative community with a shared system of authority, rules, common purposes and allegiance (Wheeler 1975: 4). How are unity, legitimacy, allegiance, and a collective commitment to follow shared rules fostered, maintained and lost? Second, what kinds of political orders are there and what kinds can there be? What are the distinctive characteristics, organizing principles and identities of diVerent polities, across political communities and time? What are the terms of order? What are the institutions for and how are they explained and justiWed? How do they organize authority, relations and interaction, and how do they prescribe, allow, proscribe and constrain behaviour and habits of thought as more or less appropriate? How do they allocate and control the use of resources? Third, the functioning and consequences of political orders have been examined. Institutions have both collective and distributive eVects. They enable collective action and create mutual advantage. They also systematically favour some social groups and types of behaviour and create distributional conXicts, winners and losers (Schattschneider 1960; Knight 1992). Institutions focus collective attention on shared concerns and sentiments or on what divides people (Rosenau 1984: 277). They regulate access to political centres and networks (Rokkan 1970) and fashion mentalities and habits of mind (Mill 1962[1861]). Transformation of political orders, then, destroys as well as creates institutions and life chances (Black 1966; Tilly 1975: 71). An Enlightenment-inspired democratic vision is that political order and authority stems from the people, as the ultimate source of legitimacy. Society mind, and acknowledging that both authority and state capabilities have varied throughout history, I use the ‘Westphalian order’ to refer to a political order where national borders and sovereignty became important for the structuring of European political life (Rokkan 1999; Chapter 2 below). While attempts at European uniWcation have a long history beyond the Peace of Westphalia (Heater 1992), the European Union has been the most successful in terms of developing voluntary European-level institutional arrangements that modify domestic authority structures and capabilities. My aspiration here, then, is not to contribute to the literature on the historical development of the ‘Westphalian order’. The term is only used as a heuristic to explore some institutional diVerences and dynamics between Europe in 1955 and Europe in 2005. The observation of competing principles and of the co-existence of elements of old and new orders are elaborated in several chapters of this book.

The possibility of political order

21

can be understood and inXuenced and citizens can make history and design the institutions under which they want to be governed. Citizens have a ‘hypothetical attitude’ towards existing institutions (Habermas 1996: 486) and the choice among forms of government is the most fundamental question facing a polity. Constitutional politics signiWes the processes through which the basic institutions, principles and norms of politics and government are developed and changed. The democratic vision is consistent with the most common answer to why individual or collective actors voluntarily enter an organization: they organize because together they can solve some problem better, or with less eVort and expense, than each can for themselves. Yet doubt has been expressed concerning the degree to which political orders and institutions can be deliberately chosen (Hamilton, Jay and Madison 1964[1787]; Mill 1962[1861]). Doubt has also been expressed whether it really matters how institutions and constitutions are designed, if they are out of step with social and economic forces (Dahl 1989: 127–8, 139). Generally, an interpretation of political development as the choice and perfection of human institutions is problematic. There is institutional inertia. Institutions (and institutional ideologies) reXect the historical experience of a community. They require time to take root and they are often diYcult to change. Organizational structures and institutional ideologies are forged through historical processes in successive eVorts to match normative principles and causal beliefs to experience. Yet, institutions are also diYcult to keep constant. They are vulnerable and threatened by the possibility of decline and entropy—disorder, disintegration, disorganization, confusion, chaos, decay, and violent conXict. Institutional dynamics are also inXuenced by the fact that democratic orders are never perfectly integrated: never perfectly monolithic, coordinated and consistent. They are composed of a variety of structures and processes, organized on the basis of diVerent principles, and routinely colliding and changing (Skowronek 1995; Orren and Skowronek 2004). Some of the Wercest political conXicts have been over the appropriate institutional principles and the balance between unity and diversity, coordination and autonomy, and many students of political organization have seen lack of stability as a more serious problem than lack of Xexibility. Understanding the emergence of a new order, then, includes understanding why established rules and practices are undermined, but more is known about how institutions arise than how they decay and disintegrate (Schweller and Priess 1997: 25). Political change and continuity, then, is conceptualized in a way that challenges the idea of constitutional choice, suggesting that political institutions adapt quickly to changes in political purposes, understanding and power. This conceptualization also challenges environmental determinism,

22

Unity and diversity

suggesting that change in political institutions is driven by external social, economic and cultural forces, and reXects diVerences in the comparative (functional or normative) eYciency of alternative institutional forms. Instead, political institutions are assumed to have independent explanatory power. Shifting reform attempts and environmental conditions are observed, interpreted and reacted upon through institutional structures, traditions and dynamics, and processes of change, including competitive selection and rational adaptation, are mediated by institutions (March and Olsen 1989, 1995, 2006, a, b). The possible signiWcance of democratic actors and institutions for understanding change in political orders, therefore, has to be examined, and this book is based on four assumptions. First, diVerent political orders are constituted by diVerent ties and relationships. Second, actors may be motivated by instrumental concerns as well as constitutive identities, principles and rules. Third, political institutions can be tools for achieving immediate policy beneWt, as well as carriers of constitutive identities, principles and purposes providing resilience against reform attempts and external changes. Fourth, institutional dynamics, i.e. how quickly institutions arise, adapt and dissolve, depend on the kinds of ties on which the institutions are primarily based. Understanding the conditions under which politically organized entities are likely to enter into a new political entity and transfer political authority to it, and the consequences of diVerent degrees and forms of inter-unit integration for intra-unit organization and governance, therefore requires insight into the nature and sources of political unity and diversity. We need to examine the number and types of bonds that constitute and stabilize political entities and create coordination, consistency and coherence; and we need to examine the factors that keep the component units apart and create diversity. In brief, we need to take an interest in how integration and its consequences may depend on what type of entities the component entities are, how they are constituted and how strong their identities are; what type of entity the new unit is; how the relations and interactions between the new unit and the component units are organized; and whether their constitutive characteristics are compatible or irreconcilable.

BALANCING UNITY AND DIVERSITY The quality of democratic institutions depends on their success in balancing unity and diversity, system coordination and unit autonomy—that is, the ability to act in a coherent and purposeful way and at the same time respect and accommodate legitimate diversity and conXicts. Statecraft implies the

The possibility of political order

23

ability to make and enforce collective decisions and sustain a political community in the face of enduring diVerences (Selznick 1992: 369). Historically it has been argued that political order depends on social and cultural homogeneity. A polity composed of strangers and enemies who diverge on basic moral and religious precepts has been seen as unviable (Mill 1962[1861]: 309; Spragens 1990: 123). Contemporary democracies, however, legitimize social and cultural diversity and political opposition and conXict. Ordered rule is based on proper political institutions, not preexisting social and cultural homogeneity. Democracies are communities of rules and procedures more than communities of substantive goals. Institutions are assessed on the basis of their speciWc properties and consistency with basic principles of reason and morality in the community, and not solely as instruments for achieving immediate substantive beneWts (Olsen 1997c). The functionally best solution is not always politically or culturally feasible (Merton 1938). Yet, well-organized political institutions can make it possible to live peacefully together with enduring conXicts and also contribute to political community and social cohesion. They can help even deeply divided societies balance unity and diversity and be politically stable (Lijphart 1975).

Varieties of integrations and dynamics Integration is a process which turns previously separated units into components of a relatively coherent and consistent system. Integration as a condition consists in some measure of the density and intensity (number, kinds and strength) of relations among the constituent units: their interdependence, consistency and structural connectedness (March 1999a: 134–5; see also Deutsch 1968: 158–60; March and Olsen 1995: 66–72). Functional integration is a measure of interdependence and relevance, i.e. the degree to which decisions and events in one part of a system have an immediate and direct impact on other parts. Social integration refers to connectedness and a measure of linkages, such as contact, communication and trading. Cultural integration implies that the beliefs of a social group Wt together and make sense. Integration as political institutionalization refers to: (1) structures, rules, roles and practices specifying legitimate authority relations and codes of appropriate behaviour; (2) shared purposes, identities, traditions of interpretation and principles of legitimacy that explain and justify practices and provide a basis for activating moral and emotional allegiances and solidarity; (3) common resources which create capability and capacity to act in a coordinated way. A starting point for understanding political integration is the observation that, except for situations of extreme power asymmetry, changes in the

24

Unity and diversity

relations among organized units are linked to changes within units through a process of mutual adaptation and co-evolution rather than unilateral adaptation. As relatively autonomous units become integrated into a larger system of cooperative eVort, their internal structure and dynamics tend to change. The eVectiveness of internal leadership control may be reduced and the organization may lose coherence and unity.2 Therefore, most of the time, integration into a larger organized system competes with the desire for autonomy among the system’s components. It is diYcult to Wnd and maintain a proper balance between system integration and unit autonomy. System coordination and coherence tends to foster eVorts to protect the identity and distinctive character of the components. Likewise, diVerentiation of subsystems and integration of each component is likely to generate demands for system coordination and control, coherence and consistency (Aldrich and Whetten 1981: 401; Scott, Mitchell and Perry 1981: 141; Rosenau 1984: 256–7). Often a process of political integration carries the seeds of its own disintegration, producing simultaneous processes of fragmentation and fusion (Ferguson and Mansbach 1996: 39). Hence, all systems face the question of how much and what forms of integration the components can tolerate, and how much and what forms of diversity the system can tolerate. How then does system integration, and the extent to which becoming part of a larger system requires that component units give up constitutive characteristics, depend on features of the larger unit, the component units and their interrelations? Students of political organization have argued that a polity constituted solely on the basis of expediency, calculated expected utility and power balance, so that the legitimacy of the political order depends only on its contribution to achieving immediate (collective or diVerentiated) policy beneWts, will be too contingent on circumstance.3 Such a polity is likely to be unstable because institutional change will follow shifts in the comparative eYciency of alternative forms. If a polity is held together primarily by coercive means and diVerential advantage, changes in relative resources and alliances will be crucial. A polity is likely to be more stable if it is (also) cemented together by a collective identity, (i.e. a shared conception of who the citizens are and what community they belong to and are emotionally attached to), by shared habits and by shared conceptions of ‘good governance’, rights and obligations, appropriate behaviour and fair outcomes. For example, some conceptions 2 March 1953; March and Olsen 1995: 184; Brunsson and Olsen 1998: 31; Olsen 1998. 3 Wolin 1960: 88–9; Mill 1962[1861]: 31; Weber 1978: 213; Rawls 1985: 249; Rawls 1987: 11; Spragens 1990: 256; Habermas 1996: p. xi, 8, 26–9.

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25

of democracy see self-restraint and following common rules as part of being a member of a democratic community and of taking on roles like citizen, elected representative, bureaucrat, expert and judge (March and Olsen 1995). A spirit of citizenship then implies a willingness to think and act as members of the community as a whole and not solely as self-interested individuals or as members of particular interest groups (Arblaster 1987: 77). Political tradition may be unreXective. Then authority relations, a sense of identity and allegiance, rules of appropriate behaviour and fair outcomes which transcend immediate instrumental concerns and shifting goals are observed. Yet, the reasons and justiWcations of the principles on which institutions have developed have been (partly) forgotten. Usually, change in such polities follows from slow reinterpretation of tradition. However, under extraordinary conditions, such as a performance crisis, the principles are likely to be challenged. The result then may be a rediscovery and reconWrmation of the legitimacy of existing principles. On the other hand, the reconsideration may cause a refutation and replacement of traditional principles and institutions, possibly with unforeseen and unplanned eVects. The dynamics of change will be diVerent in a legitimate political order held together by a strong reXective collective identity and ethos. Then continuous public reXection and deliberation makes it likely that crises and breakdowns can be avoided and that change in basic principles will be incremental.

Varieties of consequences Faced with the possibility of integration into a larger unit, the challenge for the component units is least daunting in a polity constituted on functional expediency alone. No constitutive identity, commitments or emotions are involved. Whether or not to join is to be determined through the calculation of the comparative policy beneWts of joining and staying outside. The dilemma of maintaining an original unit’s identity will be more conspicuous when both the larger system and the component units are held together by strong constitutive identities and a loss of identity cannot be compensated by policy gains. Examples are polities with a strong sense of nationhood, language and culture, religious community, or political ideology. The challenge for the component units is also moderate when cooperation involves a limited substantive agenda and takes the form of common conferences, declarations, voluntary exchange, non-obligatory standards and legally non-binding rules. The challenge increases when the agenda is expanded and the new unit is based on joint policy-making, majority decisions, legally

26

Unity and diversity

binding rules, signiWcant budgets and staV, a common identity and competence to expand the system’s authority and resources. Finding an acceptable balance between unity and diversity is furthermore relatively easy when identities and constitutive characteristics are reconcilable, for example when they complement each other, and when a component unit desires changes following from integration, e.g. as part of the search for a new self-image or role identity (Deutsch 1968: 192). ‘Collision’ implies relatively irreconcilable diVerences which demand unwanted changes in the constitutive characteristics of the component units. An example is when an interventionist, welfare state faces integration into a market-based order. In a market order the main concern is to provide Xexibility by removing barriers to voluntary exchange based on calculated self-interest. The existence of relations other than the purely functional, e.g. a feeling of belonging and human bonding, trust and loyalty, is seen as hindering the mechanism of free exchanges. Therefore, integration into a market order will in particular provide a challenge to advantaged districts, social groups, industries and others whose rights or privileges have been protected by solidarity and the acceptance of political redistribution in the smaller unit. Collision can, however, also be caused by the smaller entity’s willingness to accept majority rule, government intervention and redistribution in the smaller and more homogeneous unit, but not within a larger and more heterogeneous entity. When a component unit as a whole becomes part of a larger unit, leaders and others with extended external contacts tend to strengthen their position. Their boundary-scanning functions provide them with information others do not have and they play a key role in interpreting what the external world is willing to accept and therefore what is politically possible. In contrast, if diVerent parts of a component entity are integrated into diVerent task environments, external units or networks, strain is put upon the component entity’s ability to continue as a unitary and coherent cooperative eVort, resulting in diVerentiated attention and exposure to information among subgroups. Previously shared goals and identities tend to be questioned or transformed. Boundaries become more ambiguous and internal control over resources is likely to be challenged. In particular, loss of coordination and coherence is likely if there are no other strong ties binding each of the component units together. An implication of the Enlightenment-inspired democratic and institutional perspective, then, is that it is necessary to reconsider the view that unity and diversity are always at the opposite ends of the same continuum and that coordination and autonomy always compete. Because institutions mediate between diversity and unity, the relationship may be more complex. The two may be uncorrelated or even positively correlated under some institutional

The possibility of political order

27

conditions. It is imaginable, for example, that reduced diversity does not necessarily trigger processes of integration and that increased diversity does not necessarily create disintegration. It is also imaginable that increased diversity generates speciWc forms of unity. For instance, diverse and interdependent entities may accept integration in terms of more common rules, even if they are not willing to transfer a great deal of discretion and joint decision-making to a single political centre. A successful reconciliation of diversity and unity probably also depends on the processes involved, and in particular how tensions and conXicts are dealt with. In the next section, these ideas about the balancing of political unity and diversity are used to examine the case of integrating 25 states with 455 million inhabitants into the European Union. The task is complicated by the fact that there are competing conceptions of European integration and its implications for the unity–diversity balance. Three stylized interpretations are discussed: Westphalia decaying, Westphalia rescued, and Westphalia transformed.

WESTPHALIA DECAY I NG Weber saw the territorial state as an end-point in political organization and governance: ‘In the end, the modern state controls the total means of political organization, which actually come together under a single head’ (Weber 1970: 82). Bendix, in contrast, saw ‘the state’ as a historically delimited term that implied ‘not only a transition in the early modern period but sooner or later a transition to new and yet unrealized or unrecognized institutional patterns in the future’ (Bendix 1968: 9). Some argue that now is the time that Europe is facing a break with the Westphalian principle for organizing political space based on state sovereignty and considerable overlap between political, legal, administrative, economic, social and cultural boundaries. European integration is seen to have a potential to provide a ‘pathway for leading mankind out of the era of the nation state’ (Deutsch 1968: 191). We may be entering ‘a new stage in the history of the Western European states’ (Wessels 1996: 58) and there may be ‘a new large-scale territorial diVerentiation characterized by the progressive lowering of internal boundaries and the slow rising of external new boundaries’ (Bartolini 1998: 48). European history has been characterized by eVorts to make territorial boundaries correspond with functional boundaries (Bartolini 2005). Now it is claimed that the old order is decaying because it is unable to cope with the most pressing economic, social, security and environmental problems.

28

Unity and diversity

A variety of boundary-exceeding forces, together with internal fragmentation, are seen as eroding the states’ external boundaries and internal authority, as well as national identities and loyalties. Political institutions and authority have lost support and legitimacy and a process of ‘unbundling territoriality’ into various functional regimes (Ruggie 1993) is replacing the reiWcation of state borders (Barkin and Cronin 1994: 126). The territorial state is withering and is being replaced by new institutional patterns of authority and social integration (Liftin 1997: 176; see also Schmitter 1996). One interpretation is that there is a general revolt against the Westphalian order and a return to an order with a variety of layered, overlapping, nested and competing polities, aYliations and allegiances (Appandurai 1996: 22–3; Ferguson and Mansbach 1996: 33–4, 417; Doornbos and Kaviraj 1997). The dynamics of change is society-driven and largely outside political control. Transnational actors are more important than democratically elected politicians and a grand supranational restructuring driven by functional interdependencies and economic, technological, demographic and social imperatives makes the state, the nation and existing borders obsolete and no longer viable.4 Global economic and technological interdependence, competition and rationalization are usually portrayed as the key drivers. But political development is also seen to reXect a global ecology, where nature knows no national boundaries (World Commission 1987) and a world of migrations and diasporas where ‘cultures that will not stay in place’ challenge the territorialization of culture (Pollock 1998). The claim that nation states are functionally obsolete and unable to cope with current challenges and opportunities, and that the cement that has held them together is no longer eVective, echoes the old idea that ‘the law of progress’ makes states and nations unviable and that they are doomed to disappear (Hobsbawm 1992). Modernization emphasizes instrumental eYciency and eVectiveness rather than territorial traditions and interests and the state has fallen victim to competitive functional selection and ‘an inescapable cycle of decay’, a development assessed as coming close to ‘a natural law’ (Ohmae 1995: 59–60, 141).5 Historically, claims of irrelevance and the tensions between functional, territorial and cultural boundaries have in particular been directed towards the smaller states. Now it is argued that 4 Bell 1987: 16; Beetham 1990: 219; Hobsbawm 1992: 191–2; Tassin 1992: 169; Liftin 1997. 5 The TINA (there-is-no-alternative) line of argument about the impossibility and undesirability of political intervention is well known. Hirschman (1991) observes three theses in what he calls the Rhetoric of Reaction. Perversity: intervention will create eVects opposite to those intended and will exacerbate the conditions reformers try to remedy. Futility: intervention will have no eVect. Jeopardy: intervention will endanger some previous, precious accomplishments and make the costs of the proposed changes too high.

The possibility of political order

29

the strength of market forces makes attempts to transform the EU into a statelike polity ‘ironic’ and ‘tragic’ (Ohmae 1995: 138). The claim of unviability often includes democratic politics and government and hierarchical organization in general. While the emerging nation-state implied a fusion into one compulsory association (Weber 1978: 666), a new type of society demands a new type of political governance, with a less central role for representative government and a more central role for non-governmental actors. Governance cannot be based on a single, territorial centre and territorial representation. The era of hierarchical government has come to an end as a logical consequence of the functional diVerentiation of modernity (Castells 1996; Mayntz 1997). Within this society-centred perspective, there is a ‘reconquest of political authority by societal actors’ (Andersen and Burns 1996: 228). Task-eVectiveness and technical imperatives presuppose depoliticization and professional competence and knowledge, as well as the participation of organized interests. Europe is moving towards a post-democratic or post-parliamentary order in which the inXuence of the people through territorial, representative democracy has only a marginal place. It is also ‘unlikely to be a reversal or regression toward a classical ideal of eVective representative democracy’ (Andersen and Burns 1996: 236–7, 242, 245). Of course, there are interdependencies and developments outside the reach of European political actors. Global economic and technological competition is aVecting both member states and the Union in important ways, inspiring the EU to become a stronger international political actor (Knodt and Princen 2003). Furthermore, while huge sums of money have been spent to keep all national languages oYcial languages of the EU, there has been a trend towards an ‘English-Only Europe’ (Phillipson 2003). Nevertheless, the idea that global environments and processes of modernization select precisely among competing institutional conWgurations on the basis of comparative functional eYciency, and that they favour diversity and market solutions and create political impotence and irrelevance, is problematic. It is not obvious that market-building and negative integration, in terms of removing barriers to trade and interaction, is the only adequate response to current functional interdependencies. The diVerent boundaryexceeding forces do not necessarily require the same institutional arrangements, in particular arrangements favouring less political unity, authority and coordination. Economic rationalization may destroy collective belongings and generate individualism and diversity. Yet large-scale diasporas indicate the enduring strength of cultural belongings. Cultural collisions, ecological interdependencies, border-crossing crime and international trade often generate demands for political rules and interventions.

30

Unity and diversity

The idea of environmental determinism and competitive selection favouring a speciWc institutional arrangement is also challenged by the limited convergence in institutions of government observed in European nationstates. European history has seen a dynamic interaction between unity and diversity, universalism and particularism, and centripetal and centrifugal tendencies. European states have followed diVerent trajectories and signiWcant intra-European diVerences have remained (Rokkan 1975; Flora 1983; Nedrebø 1986: 70). Democratic government has achieved some autonomy because it has not been seen solely as a mechanism for economic management in the service of prosperity or any other single policy objective. Political communities have been constituted as more than just economic groups and their value systems have extended beyond the satisfaction of economic needs (Weber 1978: 902, also 40–1). Nations are communities of people who have learned to communicate with and understand each other, beyond the mere interchanges of goods and services (Deutsch 1966a: 99, 174). In the context of the European Union, a variety of domestic political and administrative arrangements have turned out to be viable. Flexibility has been demonstrated in terms of reallocation of attention, contacts and resources. Yet such change has largely happened without fundamental changes in national institutions.6 There are elements of convergence in the ways in which European issues are coordinated, but there are also substantial diVerences and distinctive national characteristics persist (Kassim, Peters and Wright 2000; Kassim et al. 2001). In addition, there has been a resurgence of nationalism in Europe and a renewed scholarly defence of the unifying function of national identity. The nation is portrayed as an ethical community, maintaining solidarity among a group of people who see themselves as distinct and diVerentiated from outsiders, creating historical continuity, connecting individuals to a particular geographical place, and legitimating self-governance (Miller 2000). While nationalism has generated terror and destruction, the nation and nationalism is regarded as the only realistic socio-cultural framework for a modern world order, providing indispensable elements of cultural fulWlment, belonging and fraternity. In brief, ‘it would be folly to predict an early supersession of nationalism and imminent transcendence of the nation’ (Smith 1995: 159–60). These observations show that there is no unambiguous empirical support for a society-centred perspective which assumes that political boundaries and 6 Page and Wouters 1995; Gustavsson and Lewin 1996; He´ritier, Knill and Mingers 1996; Meny, Muller and Quermonne 1996; Hanf and Soetendorp 1998a; Olsen 2002c, 2003b; Cowles, Caporaso and Risse 2001; Goetz and Hix 2001; Knill 2001; Jacobsson, Lægreid and Pedersen 2004; Wessels, Maurer and Mittag 2003.

The possibility of political order

31

authorities are generally deinstitutionalized, and that changes in the unity– diversity balance are outside political control. The political restructuring of Europe has been inXuenced but not dictated by environmental forces. Functional interdependencies and social linkages have not automatically translated into political change. There have been elements of standardization and homogenization, but several institutional arrangements have turned out to be viable. The available data, however, invites preliminary, not Wrm, conclusions, and the decay-of-Westphalia hypothesis invites studies based on assumptions about how states are actually organized and function, rather than studies based on a legal construct of ‘the sovereign state’ and a state-based order. In Europe the development of a central-state capability and the nationalization of political, legal, administrative, economic, social, linguistic, religious and cultural boundaries have been uneven. There are huge variations in the degree to which states—through processes of state-building, nation-building, citizens’ participation in mass politics, legal protection of collective and individual rights, and social protection and welfare provisions—have developed a sense of collectivity and associative and emotional political bonds of belonging.7 As a result, ‘the state’ signiWes a variety of institutional conWgurations. Contemporary states are integrated to a greater or lesser degree, and they are integrated in diVerent ways. They are made up of a multiplicity of structures and rules, identities and belief structures, resources and capabilities. Several organizational principles have legitimacy. There are tensions and collisions between them, and integration along one dimension can create problems of integration along others. Such diVerences stabilize states and speciWc institutions in diVerent ways and to diVerent degrees. They are also likely to inXuence whether a state will voluntarily enter a larger political unit, state responses to cooperation and integration, and what happens to states as organized systems of action when they become part of a larger unit. While there is scant empirical evidence illuminating the consequences of such variations, observations of diVerences between prointegration ‘core’ (continental) states and the more reluctant Scandinavian states, strongly integrated along all the dimensions found in the state- and nation-building literature, suggest a possible pattern.

WE STPHAL IA RE SCUED In contrast to the emphasis on environmental determinism and political impotence, European integration has been interpreted as a strategy to 7 Eisenstadt and Rokkan 1973; Rokkan 1975; Doornbos and Kaviraj 1997; Chapter 2 below.

32

Unity and diversity

recapture national problem-solving capacity and ‘rescue’ the state (Milward 1992). The answer to the question ‘Why is it that Europe, the cradle of the state system, is now experimenting with a post-Westphalian order?’, is simply that Europe is not doing so. Maintaining a political order and a system of government does not imply the perpetuation of the status quo but rather a continuous ability to adapt institutions to changing circumstances. Institutional reforms and centre-building are a response to the crises and wars, failures and challenges of European states, including their loss of world hegemony. They represent a rational adaptation to new circumstances that strengthen the states and accommodate their interests. The intergovernmental perspective, in particular, portrays changes in the unity–diversity balance as a matter of political will, understanding, power and choice. The European Union is the most developed supranational institutional conWguration in the world. Yet it is not a political system of its own with general-purpose democratic legitimacy and it cannot become one against the will of the member states.8 The Union is, rather, the creature of, and controlled by, the member states. It is a successful case of inter-state cooperation in which the larger states are the prime movers. National elites act pragmatically on the basis of their relative bargaining power and national interests, primarily deWned as economic interests. Institutions are designed and reformed to improve functional performance. States bind themselves and reduce their day-to-day discretion by delegating authority to European institutions as a strategy for achieving long-term policy beneWts (Moravcsik 1998, 1999).9 As a result, European integration has been uneven, with primacy given to economic integration and a development from the common market, via the single market, to economic and monetary union, the common currency (Euro) and the European Central Bank. The market has become the institutional centrepiece of the Union and competition policy has achieved quasi-constitutional status. The focus has been on regulation and not on majority-based institutions, redistribution and attempts to modify constitutive identities (Majone 1996, 2005). While a key aspect of the EU is the importance of legal integration, the Union has only a modest capacity to govern, administer and redistribute resources. It has limited Wnancial 8 ‘The Union is not now, and will not soon be, a uniWed democratic polity, and it would undermine the bases of its own legitimacy if highly salient political preferences of its member states could simply be over-ruled by majority votes in the Council and the European Parliament’ (Scharpf 2003: 103). Scharpf, however, does not assume that member states are in (perfect) control. Rather, they are constrained by EU institutions and policies. 9 Moravcsik, however, sees governments as representing social interests (Moravcsik 1999). State actors are treated as proxies for the underlying social forces (Moravcsik 1998: 36 n. 29). In settings where organized interests are powerful and active, governments are then narrowly constrained.

The possibility of political order

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capabilities, with a ceiling of just above 1% of the GNP of the member states for its own Wnancial means, limited administrative capabilities of its own, limited law-enforcement capability and no independent military capability. The European Parliament has been comparatively weak. Integration has been an elite phenomenon with low levels of mass mobilization, and non-majority institutions have to a considerable extent been shielded from democratic accountability through elections and public discourse (Franklin and van der Eijk 1995). The Union, furthermore, is a polity based on instrumentalism and functionalism without strong cultural integration and popular allegiance. The states have been more concerned with protecting national languages than national currencies. In general, the Union has been given little control over socialization, education and cultural aVairs and it is obliged to respect the identities and cultures of member states. The aloofness of the EU is partly a result of experience. Interventions in identity-related matters have tended to focus attention on national distinctiveness and create conXict, as illustrated by cultural and media policies (Schlesinger 1993). Moravcsik, for one, sees the EU as a legitimate order with no democratic deWcit and he suggests that the true Europeans may be those who view the Union as ‘a stable form of pragmatic co-operation deliberately tailored to the enduring, increasingly convergent national interests of European Wrms, governments, and citizens’ (Moravcsik 1999: 176). Over the last decade the EU has moved toward a stable institutional equilibrium and a constitutional settlement. The Union lacks a large-scale integrating project, and ‘we may now be glimpsing the constitutional order that will govern Europe, barring a severe crisis, for the foreseeable future’ (Moravcsik 2002: 603–4).

Beyond intergovernmentalism Is the EU then merely an instrument for the political leaders of the (big) member states and has Union membership had no implications for change in state autonomy, coherence or identity? There are competing conceptualizations of the EU and disagreement about how to describe the Union and the causes and consequences of integration. There is no consensus about the relative importance of state, transnational and supranational (Europeanlevel) actors, institutions and processes. While some see member states as having been strengthened, others claim that states have lost parts of their formal sovereignty and real autonomy (Scharpf 1999a) and that there is a double democratic deWcit in the Union (Schmitter 2000). Some see preferences as being formed at the European as well as the domestic level and

34

Unity and diversity

veteran EU scholars hold diVerent opinions about how national identities and loyalties have been aVected (LaVan 1998: 242; Wessels 1998: 227). A variety of processes of change, often uncoordinated, are observed (Dehousse and Majone 1994; Marks, Hooghe and Blank 1995). In the midst of this complexity, the rescue theory may best capture intergovernmental bargaining on treaty reforms.10 Other students of integration, however, have called attention to non-state actors and institutional settings, as well as other consequences, and a rebalancing of European unity/diversity and coordination/autonomy. The Union has been interpreted, for example, as a supranational polity that is changing the member states (Sandholtz and Stone Sweet 1998; Stone Sweet, Sandholtz and Fliegstein 2001). Legal integration and the judges’ creation of the doctrines of the supremacy and the direct eVect of European law have transformed the Union (Weiler 1991, 1999) and the constitutionalization of the Treaty system has ‘progressively enhanced the supranational elements in the EU and undermined its intergovernmental character, federalizing the polity in all but the name’ (Stone Sweet 2003: 18). European law has created individual rights that constrain national governments, as citizens, associations and Wrms can take their government to the European Court of Justice (Leibfried 2005). Neo-functionalism has also emphasized the interaction of transnational actors and supranational (European-level) actors. Trading and other economic activities, together with social interaction and exchanges, have generated a demand for European rules, policies and institutions. Supranational actors, such as the Commission and the ECJ, have met these demands by building strategies and capabilities based on the functionality of particular policies, usually without public debate about the impacts on member states.11 While there has been a gradual strengthening of the European Parliament and more extended use of qualiWed majority voting, rather than unanimity, the EU has become a multi-level and multi-centred polity with blurred boundaries between levels of government and between the public and the private sector. There is a variety of multi-level and issue-dependent networks and bargaining systems organized along functional rather than territorial lines. The European legal order has become more diVuse and polycentric and it is not obvious where Wnal authority rests. In brief, the Union is an example of ‘governance without government’, that is, a system where no central authority or single group of

10 Moravcsik argues that ‘it is simply not my intention to oVer a comprehensive theory of European integration’. His focus is on the determination of which factors most strongly inXuence major intergovernmental bargains. The search for a single theory that can explain all EC politics at one go is ‘futile, even counterproductive’ (Moravcsik 1999: 174). 11 Weiler 1991, 1999; Stone Sweet and Sandholtz 1997; Stone Sweet and Brunell 1998.

The possibility of political order

35

actors can consistently impose their solutions on others, but rather have to work as mediators facilitating consensus formation.12 DiVerent EU instruments have diVerent eVects. The quasi-constitutional status of competition policy and the free movement of capital, goods, services and people reduce states’ capacity for self-governance (Scharpf 1999a; Leibfried 2005). In contrast, ‘soft law’, the Open Method of Coordination and standards giving access to the European market, provide rules of conduct that may have eVects without being obligatory and legally binding (He´ritier 2003). Such instruments are more compatible with state autonomy and diversity. Their increasing use may therefore reXect attempts to balance claims of national autonomy and power with Union ambitions to coordinate and control, while lacking adequate authority and resources to issue and enforce binding orders. ConXicts are also buVered by a division of labour, where the Commission gives substance to framework decisions taken by the intergovernmental Council, while member states play the major role in implementing EU decisions. European integration also matches diVerent institutions diVerently. While national parliaments have had their law-making capacities constrained, other institutions have been strengthened and their importance enhanced. Examples are the executive, courts of law and central banks. A quasi-symbiotic relationship is developing between the ECJ and national courts, the European Central Bank and national banks, and the Commission and national administrative entities. These relations are still in the making, yet they make domestic institutions part of both a national and European authority system (Slaughter, Stone Sweet and Weiler 1998; Egeberg 2003, 2004, 2006). Functional integration can generally be expected to change the balance between the power of sector experts and territorial, numerical democracy, and functional integration transcending territorial levels has challenged institutions coordinating across sectors at both the domestic and European level. As illustrated by the ECJ, there are cycles of rising levels of aspiration and renewed self-restraint at the European level (Joerges 1996a: 10). Aspirations of coherent national action also vary across states, but EU membership has put strain on the states’ ability to coordinate their actions both at the domestic level and in Brussels (Kassim, Peters and Wright 2000; Kassim et al. 2001). While both change and continuity are observed, policy convergence, standardization and homogenization have been more prominent than change in institutions and identities. Key institutions have shown resilience and limited 12 Kohler-Koch 1996, 1998; Rometsch and Wessels 1996; Wessels 1996; Joerges, Ladeur and Vos 1997; Teubner 1997; Kohler-Koch et al. 1988; Kohler-Koch and Eising 1999; Jactenfuchs and Kohler-Koch 2003; Kohler-Koch 2003.

36

Unity and diversity

convergence in spite of the single market, common legislation and high degree of interaction among elites (Cowles, Caporaso and Risse 2001; Olsen 2003b; Wessels, Maurer and Mittag 2003). Nor has it turned out that identities have changed easily. Stronger European institutions have not consistently produced a stronger European post-national identity. Large minorities of Europeans, however, carry multiple identities (Hooghe and Marks 2001: 66; Risse 2004) and even reluctant Europeans such as the Danes have come closer to perceiving themselves as ‘European’ (Goul Andersen 2003). Bureaucrats and experts participating in EU networks also carry multiple roles and identities. Their main loyalty is to national institutions, but in addition they have a sense of belonging to the committees in which they participate. Furthermore, national belonging is evoked in some institutional settings more than others, that is, more in the intergovernmental Council committees and in comitology committees implementing community law than in committees under the (supranational) Commission (Egeberg 1999, 2006; Egeberg, Schaefer and Trondal 2003; Trondal and Veggeland 2003). Yet, existing knowledge about the causal pathways of identity-formation–such as the relative importance of functional success, education and socialization, and deliberation and persuasion–does not invite Wrm conclusions (Risse 2004). Has the Union, then, reached an institutional equilibrium and a balance of unity and diversity? Or is the European political order being transformed? If so, how would we know—what are the key indicators of whether the Union has fostered a new order beyond Westphalia?

WESTPHALIA TRANSFORMED A political order characterized by coherent and sovereign nation-states and international anarchy with rivalry among states is problematic as a baseline for interpreting transformations. This is so, Wrst, because international anarchy historically has been modiWed by various forms of cooperation and interlocking relations among European states (Wallace 2001) and, second, because the division of political space into states and the state’s claim on citizens’ loyalty has competed with a variety of other divisions, identities and loyalties (Rokkan 1975). For a long time the nation-state has been the key political framework and actor in Europe and nationality has proved to be a principle of exceptional force as justiWcation for and mobilization of political action (Tilly 1992). Nevertheless, political and national boundaries have never been perfectly

The possibility of political order

37

congruent (Navari 1981: 13) and it has been seen as a ‘pernicious postulate’ that the world divides into distinct societies, each having its more or less autonomous government, culture and solidarity (Tilly 1984: 11). Because state sovereignty and integration have often been in conXict with national sovereignty and integration, there has been a tendency towards oscillation between the two principles (Barkin and Cronin 1994: 108). From an institutional perspective transformation through integration can be measured along two dimensions: the degree of institutionalization beyond the national level and the principles on which European institutions are primarily organized and legitimized. First, transformation can be measured by the emergence of European institutions for joint policy-making. The signiWcance of European institutions increases as decisions are made by qualiWed majority, rather than consensus. Their importance also increases the more competencies, autonomy and capacity for action they achieve and the less member states give Europeanlevel actors binding instructions. Second, transformation can be measured by the degree to which European-level institutions are organized along, and legitimized by, principles other than state, territory and nation. Such institutions provide channels for representation of a multi-dimensional conXict structure (Egeberg 2004, 2006; Marks and Steenbergen 2004). This, in turn, encourages domestic institutional adaptation and gives incentives for groups to organize themselves on the basis of allegiances other than state and nation, even when political parties, interest groups and mass media remain primarily nationally organized. Transformation then takes place to the degree that there is a loosening of the links between state, nation, democracy and citizenship (Habermas 1992), and oYcials and citizens develop a notion of shared European identity and emotional aYliation. A further step is suggested by the UN Secretary General KoW Annan, who looks forward to ‘the day when Europe rejoices as much in diversity within states as it does in diversity between them’ (Annan 2004). Identifying exactly when a transformation of the European political order is taking place is diYcult, however, because developments along the two dimensions have taken the form of incremental change and not a sudden break. Therefore, rather than making an attempt to identify an exact point of transformation, we should ask whether the enlargement to 25 member states, the politicization of integration and demands for democratization, and the Convention on the Future of Europe, producing the Draft Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe (Convention 2003a), have contributed to a transformative development?

38

Unity and diversity

Enlargement The likelihood of a stable European equilibrium and unity–diversity balance has been reduced by a steady arrival of new member states (Redmond and Rosenthal 1998) and it has been frequently claimed that there is an inherent contradiction between enlarging and deepening the Union. The Amsterdam Treaty (1997) institutionalized mechanisms of Xexible integration and introduced as a basic principle that some member states can cooperate more closely than others. The demand for Xexibility was presented as a response to the problems of managing the increasing diversity and heterogeneity of the Union (Stubb 1998). The 2004 enlargement, involving ten new members, has introduced more heterogeneity and power asymmetries in the Union. Does this imply that equilibrium is less likely? Is disintegration, rather than further integration, to be expected? The belief in a contradiction between widening and deepening the Union implies a negative correlation between increased diversity among the component units and integration in the relations between them. This belief lies behind the assumption that convergence and reduced diversity creates integration, and that integration, with stronger institutionalized relations between the component units, reduces diversity and produces convergence among the units. However, earlier EU enlargements illustrate that system integration in terms of common formal institutions, identities and policies, and diversity among component entities, is not necessarily negatively correlated. The relation may be neutral. The diversity among units may be reduced, for example, by ‘the religion of modernity’ (Andersen and Burns 1996: 247) without formal institutional integration. Empirical studies also show that the relation can be positive. Historically, widening and deepening have occurred together. Candidate countries have adjusted to the EU in order to improve policy eYciency (Sverdrup 1997) and in order to ‘be considered a responsible and capable candidate for EU-membership’ (Caddy 1998: 89). Yet new members have also brought new concerns and demanded policies that have strengthened, not weakened, integration. Enlargement decisions have been based on principled action and ideas about identity and belonging and not solely on utility calculation, and member states have accepted widening even when it has been seen as threatening to their interests (Sjursen 1997).13 In brief, the long-term consequences of enlargement for the reconciliation of unity and diversity are not obvious, even if the most likely short-term

13 For diVerent perspectives on EU enlargement, see Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2002.

The possibility of political order

39

implication is increased stress on the Union’s common decision-making, coordination and consistency.

Politicization and democratic dynamics When a transformation of the political order is on the agenda, there is often an unusual amount of both public debate and demands for better justiWcation of existing institutional arrangements and reform proposals. In the European Union, however, justiWcation of integration and cooperation has for some time primarily been functional and apolitical. The claim has been that integration creates only winners and legitimacy has been based on practical results, consensus-seeking, expertise and indirect democracy derived from the member states. The apolitical rhetoric, the assumption of a shared project and the claim that ‘united in diversity we will be stronger and better equipped to Wnd solutions to common problems’ are present in EU documents, speeches by Union leaders, and in the 2003 draft Constitution (Convention 2003a; Prodi 2004: 2). Yet, over the last decade the apolitical conception has been challenged, the ‘permissive consensus’ assumed by political elites (Lindberg and Scheingold 1970: 4) has been weakened, and the legitimacy of the Union has been contested. In a way, the Union may be returning to the conception held by its founders. For them integration was a genuine political project, not an artefact of functional requirements or solely the pursuit of economic eYciency and prosperity. Their aspirations were to prevent war, tame nationalism, create a legal order and make Europeans discover their belonging together. In that spirit it has been claimed that ‘to understand European integration, one must understand its irreducible political character’ and how it is shaped by struggles about how to organize political life in Europe (Hooghe and Marks 2001: 141, also 51). Improving democratic legitimacy became a key issue when the Maastricht euphoria and establishment of the political Union (European Union 1992) gave way to criticism and a loss of public conWdence. It was observed that citizens held high expectations but distrusted Union institutions and it was concluded that the Union’s system of governance required more direct democratic legitimacy and popular involvement. Institutions had to be brought closer to citizens and the role of citizen-based institutions and public opinion had to be strengthened. It was also asked whether further development of the Union required a greater sharing of mentality and identiWcation. Yet it was accepted that building trust and cohesion would take time (Commission 1992: 8, 82; Commission 1995b).

40

Unity and diversity

These developments may illustrate that when priority has been given for some time to technical-functional concerns, then a counterforce in terms of politicization is likely to be activated. Then it is discovered once again that there is no clear line between ‘technical’ and ‘political’ issues and that few goals are so absolute and autonomous that they justify complete protection in the long run against democratic politics and popular accountability (Gustavsson 1998). Rationalized, specialized functional systems are also discovered to be ‘blind’ when it comes to their broader societal eVects (Teubner 1997). Generally, the more the Union has moved from being a special-purpose organization with limited tasks, responsibilities and powers towards a full-blown institutionalized polity, the more visible the limits of the principle of governance for the people based on functional legitimacy and indirect democratic legitimacy. Is then politicization, with more democratization and citizens’ involvement, likely to cause Europe to transcend the framework of the sovereign state? Is a politicized EU, more than a Union emphasizing functional legitimacy and the eYcient aggregation of state preferences, likely to move towards a post-Westphalian order and a new unity–diversity balance? Predicting future patterns of (dis)integration is complicated because there is no shared vision of how political authority is to be organized and legitimized in Europe, and because it is uncertain what unity–diversity balance an enlarged Union can live with. While some want integration to continue, others see it as having gone too far. For federalists committed to a polity-building project, the aim is an ‘ever closer Union’, with more integration and stronger European-level institutions, giving the EU state-like features. As Euro-sceptics and believers in a stateless market (Kapteyn 1996) see it, further integration eVorts are likely to drive the member states apart, not closer together. Predictions of the consequences following from politicization also depend on how democratic politics is understood and the time perspective used. Democratic politics can be seen as aggregating predetermined preferences. Since there are huge and enduring gaps between rulers and ruled in their attitudes towards European integration, with citizens consistently more Euro-sceptical, increased citizens’ involvement is in an aggregative perspective likely to halt, or slow down, further integration. Democratic politics has a larger transformative potential when it is seen to impinge upon peoples’ preferences and conceptions of themselves and others through processes of will-formation, deliberation, justiWcation and struggle (March and Olsen 1986, 1989, 1995; Eriksen and Fossum 2000). European dynamics may then provide an example of change in political-cultural communication and self-understanding as independent causes and not artefacts of technological and economic imperatives (Pollock 1998). Change

The possibility of political order

41

involves discourse on what it means to be European, the kinds of community, normative principles and institutions one is willing to observe, and the meaning of core concepts such as democracy, sovereignty, federation, citizenship, human rights and accountability. Rather than having an agreed and static meaning, such concepts appear as multi-dimensional and ambiguous phenomena in Xux (Liftin 1997: 171, 195) and in the long run, enlightened and engaged citizens may provide a more solid base of legitimacy for the political order in Europe—be it intergovernmental or federal. The Convention on the Future of Europe provided a venue for examining some aspects of such processes.

The Convention on the Future of Europe The Convention was established to prepare the Wfth treaty reform in less than twenty years. The Convention had its Wrst meeting on 26 February 2002 and presented its almost unanimous draft on 20 June 2003. There were 105 members, 103 alternates, and several observers. Twenty-eight countries, with more than half a billion citizens, were present: the 15 member states, the ten countries that became members on 1 May 2004, and the applicant countries of Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey. A variety of political ideologies and positions were represented. National parliaments were for the Wrst time directly taking part in a Treaty reform and the 56 national parliamentarians were by far the largest group (Convention 2003a). The Convention used an institutional-engineering language, discussing what the Union is for and which institutions would be the best tools for common purposes. Discussions, nevertheless, involved both instrumental concerns and constitutive identities and principles, and the aspiration was to represent something new in the series of Treaty revisions. In the opening speech the president, former French President Vale´rie Giscard d’Estaing, argued that a successful drafting of a European Constitution required a process beyond the aggregation of predetermined national and institutional self-interests. What was needed was a ‘Convention spirit’ with a European focus and a willingness to test existing preferences and positions, to examine national and institutional belongings and explore a European perspective (Giscard d’Estaing 2002). He has also portrayed the Convention as part of a process in which Europe was ‘returned to politics, to citizens, to public debate’ (Giscard d’Estaing 2003: 14). The Convention had no direct popular mandate as a constitutional assembly (Closa 2004) and it took place in the shadow of the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC), which made the Wnal decisions, and the ratiWcation by national parliaments or referendums. The big member states had a privileged

42

Unity and diversity

role and national, institutional and other interests were defended. The democratic life of the Union was discussed with modest popular engagement and throughout the process only a third of EU citizens were reported to have heard about the Convention (Petersson et al. 2003). Still, the Convention was more representative and transparent than earlier Treaty reforms. The participants reasoned in principled terms about the future architecture of the EU and deliberated about the terms of political community and union (Eriksen, Fossum and Mene´ndez 2004). Given the history of EU Treaty reforms, it was no surprise that there were confrontations over the institutional architecture and the distribution of authority and power. A variety of lines of conXict were observed. Some conXicts were territorial, for example, between smaller and larger states. But the participants were also divided according to diVerent attitudes towards the future balance between European unity and diversity. This conXict surfaced as one between federalists and intergovernmentalists, and to a lesser degree an outright Euro-sceptic line between net contributors and net receivers, and between participants adhering to diVerent political ideologies. This cleavage, however, had competition from a variety of other issues dividing the Convention: the left–right dimension and attitudes toward the role of politics in regulating markets; providing social security and redistributing resources; divisions according to institutional belongings; the desire to mention the importance of Christianity; the attitude toward the Iraq war and relations to the United States; and conXicting positions on other speciWc policy issues. The Convention undoubtedly illustrated that European-level conXicts are not limited to confrontations between member states. In most respects, the Draft Constitution did not represent a fundamental break with Union practices. The most radical, but not seriously contested, proposal was the principle of a citizens’ Europe, as distinct from the traditional Europe of states.14 Emphasizing the principle was consistent with a long-term development in which the Union’s identity increasingly has been linked to liberal-democratic values. The Maastricht Treaty (1992) for the Wrst time explicitly said that the Union was founded on the principles of democracy and fundamental human rights. Since then, these aspects have been strengthened and the Draft Constitution, in its Wrst paragraph, refers to ‘the will of citizens and states’. The section on ‘The democratic life of the Union’ prescribed that the Union, in all its activities, shall observe the principles 14 A statement suggesting important implications of the Draft text, but not much debated or contested, was made by the president of the ECJ, M. Gil Carlos Rodrı´guez Iglesias, who asked whether the constitutional status of the four freedoms was weakened, or the freedoms and the internal market would continue to enjoy the status of ‘principles of economic constitutional law’ (Convention 2003b: 6).

The possibility of political order

43

of the equality of citizens, representative democracy and participatory democracy (Convention 2003a). If the principle of a citizens’ Europe becomes central in the governance of the Union, making the individual citizen the key component unit, it would contribute to a transformation of the European political order: Wrst, because competition and conXicts between states would increasingly be supplemented by a variety of other belongings and cleavages; second, because in a Union of 25, where six countries have 74% of the population, power relations would also be quite diVerent from a Union where all states are supposed to have a veto in decisions which threaten their fundamental interests. In the Convention, constitutional law was the common language and frame of reference and the signiWcance of the Constitution was emphasized throughout the process. However, the real importance of the legal text, accepted with some modiWcations by governments on 18 June 2004 and formally signed four months later, depended on several factors: Wrst, whether any version of the draft text, after the Dutch and French ‘no’, will ever be ratiWed; second, how long it takes before the Constitution is revised again; and third, the degree to which the Constitution de facto comes to govern future behaviour and developments in the Union. Weiler, for example, expresses some degree of scepticism: It is a matter of legal hubris to imagine that constitutions really constitute. All these issues are just bends and dykes in the river which can channel somewhat, retard somewhat but not truly aVect the course of human aVairs. The future of Europe will not be decided in the true, profound sense by the Convention or the IGC. (Weiler 2002: 578)

The signiWcance of the Convention, however, does not depend solely on the legal text it produced. The Convention model, as a new method of Treaty reform, is likely to be used in the future. The Convention also generated cultural (causal and normative) learning that is relevant for the Union’s unity–diversity balance, and that may have an impact independent of the constitutional text. For example, one participant argued that the most valuable aspects of our Community adventure are unwritten: the habit of working together, the fabric of trust woven day by day, the habit of listening to others, the quest for a lasting compromise, the method of collective debate conducted in several languages, the exhausting practice of marathon negotiations, the emergence of new forms of solidarity to be superimposed on national forms, the amazing discovery that the output of this inevitably complex machinery is generally better than the most brilliant decision etc. In other words, the art of living together. (Lamassoure 2002: 14–15)

In the EU there have been complaints that new members have ‘not so far developed the culture of compromise’ (Landaburu 2004: 1), as well as reports that even sceptics found participation in the Convention interesting and that

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they modiWed their perceptions and attitudes (Petersson et al. 2003). The Convention had transformative elements and it has been observed that its outcome cannot solely be understood by studying governmental preferences and power and the ‘classical intergovernmental dynamics’ (HoVmann and Verge´s Bausili 2003: 129). Still, it is not obvious that the Convention modiWed the identities of participants. Firm conclusions are discouraged by scant empirical evidence and modest understanding of the sources and mechanisms of identity change and the role of European institutions in such processes (Hooghe and Marks 2001; Risse 2004). Some, in particular those who believe in the instrumental rhetoric of the EU, may be disappointed by the diYculties involved in specifying precisely the consequences of enlargement, politicization and the Convention. For others, the problems may suggest that the Union is increasingly committing itself to democratic-constitutional institutions and principles, in spite of obvious diYculties in calculating substantive implications. Balancing unity and diversity, then, is not only a question of functional expediency, calculated utility, pragmatic cooperation and the balance of power. It is also a question of constitutive principles and collective identity–of long-term processes of building trust, cohesion, allegiances and a politically organized community. Arguably, European integration illustrates that the latter type of concern has gradually become more important, complementing concerns of expediency and economic advantage.

LESSONS FROM THE EU European integration is an ongoing, contested, open-ended and reversible process. The process generates uncertainty and fear as well as optimism and hope for the future. There are political disputes over how the Union is to be organized, staVed, Wnanced, described, explained and justiWed. There is also scholarly disagreement about what kind of order has developed, about the key causal mechanisms and consequences of integration, and the signiWcance of democratic institutions and actors. Often the EU is described as a unique and almost mysterious system of governance and the literature oVers a collection of questions, approaches, assumptions, Wndings and interpretations, rather than Wrm, accepted and well-documented conclusions. Like other political systems, the EU is struggling to Wnd a balance between the whole and the parts, between unity and diversity, coordination and autonomy. It is contested how much unity and how much diversity the Union can live with. Yet, in spite of uncertainty and disagreement, the Union’s

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system of governance has changed in a consistent direction. Independent of the Union’s current problems, three tendencies are clear: the EU and its forerunners have continually attracted new members, its agenda has expanded, and stronger institutional capabilities have evolved at the European level. The European Union has moved beyond mere market-building and economic integration. It has become more than a problem-solving system based on expediency and calculated expected utility. The Union has developed towards an institutionalized political order that modiWes the importance of state, group and individual interests and resources. Yet, it is an order based more on a community of rules than on a community of shared purposes, or on a community of strong popular allegiances and emotional belonging. Does the European case, then, provide any general lessons for students of politics and government institutions? Since each of the three perspectives on Westphalian dynamics, granting diVerent institutions, actors and consequences diVering weights, seems to capture some aspects of the integration process, a Wrst lesson is that it is doubtful that in the foreseeable future there will be a single comprehensive theory of European integration or similar large-scale and complex political experiments. That is, students of peaceful change in political orders are unlikely to succeed if they try to understand a political world characterized by a variety of institutional settings, behavioural logics and processes of change by using models assuming a single universal type of institutional setting, behavioural logic and process of change. Instead, theory-builders must take into account that actors try to calculate expected utility as well as to follow rules of appropriate behaviour derived from constitutive identities and principles they regard as deserving of respect. They also have to observe that new institutional layers and spheres of government have been added to old ones rather than replacing them, creating an increasingly complex ecology of structures and processes, organized on the basis of diVerent principles not easily reconcilable. Furthermore, they need to accommodate the fact that political change takes place through a variety of processes which are not necessarily coordinated (March and Olsen 1998; Olsen 2001a). More than half a century ago, Dahl and Lindblom (1953) provided elements of a research programme for coping with such complications. Dahl and Lindblom resolved systems of governing into a set of basic elementary processes. Hierarchy, voting systems, bargaining and markets and price systems were portrayed as supplementary, rather than alternative, institutional mechanisms for governing society and providing understanding, social control and the dynamics of change. Unity and diversity, then, is balanced through a changing mix of institutions and processes, and the scholarly challenge is to understand the scope of conditions and the interaction of the

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diVerent forms, as well as the factors that drive systems of government toward one mix, rather than another. A second lesson is that democratic actors and institutions can play a role in large-scale transformation of political orders. The European dynamics of change have to a considerable extent been political and not solely technicalfunctional or driven by environmental imperatives. Believers in the Enlightenment concept of democratic government, that society can be understood and inXuenced, need not despair. Nevertheless, will-formation, understanding and control have been less than perfect. Major policy achievements, such as the common currency (Euro) and enlargement, have been realized remarkably fast, to the surprise of both participants and onlookers. Still, the European case reaYrms that ‘historical moments’ can be awfully long (Herzog 1989: 39). Domestic politics and policies have been inXuenced by European-level institutions, decisions and events, but national institutions and identities have shown considerable resilience in spite of the single market, common laws and a high degree of interaction among elites. An implication of this is that understanding change in entrenched institutions and identities requires extended time-scales, and adjusting mindsets may be even more diYcult than reforming formal institutions. In major transformative processes, carriers of public authority are more likely to look like constitutional and institutional gardeners than engineers (March and Olsen 1983; Olsen 2000; see also Chapter 8 below). Third, the politicization of institutional reform in the EU illustrates that there are limits to technocratic and executive legitimacy when change in the political order is at stake. It cannot be taken as given that there is agreement about the details of the order that is desirable—that all actors are committed to a sense of direction and what constitutes ‘progress’, or that they believe that everyone will gain from the proposed change. For example, up to Maastricht 1992 the EU exhibited similarities with what Frederickson (1999) found in a US metropolitan area. Frederickson observed high interdependence among territorial entities, porous borders and reduced salience of formal jurisdictions, and erosion of individual problem-solving capacity. He found fusion of administrations across levels of government and jurisdictions, for example through a complex committee system. Executive and administrative adaptation and institutionalization, largely based on functional legitimacy, was far ahead of the integration of legislatures, political parties, social movements and a common public space. Still, reforms took place ‘in the shadow of ’ political institutions and power relations. In comparison, the European Union came out of the shadow during the 1990s. A focus on market building was supplemented with a growing interest in democracy, citizenship, human rights, social cohesion, employment, welfare and a variety of other issues. It

The possibility of political order

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was observed that integration had created winners and losers and that there was a democratic deWcit. EU developments, therefore, raise questions about the conditions under which institutional reform is a fairly autonomous process primarily involving executives and experts, and the conditions under which such processes are overwhelmed by wider political processes and popular mobilization. DiVerent institutions and actors are likely to have diVerent time-scales of adaptation and majority-based institutions are in some circumstances slower in adapting to new circumstances. Yet, it may be hypothesized that reforms involving possible system transformations are likely to generate a quest for democratic legitimacy. Fourth, developments in the EU raise questions about the abilities democracies have to learn from experience and adapt to new circumstances, and the degree to which such abilities make institutional disintegration and breakdown less likely. There is a need to enquire into what makes some political systems, or parts of a political system, able to rethink, learn and mobilize authority, resources and popular support for restructuring the political order. In democracies it is often assumed that the capacity for learning and adaptation depend on the degree to which citizens form a community of enquiry and communication which legitimates criticism and opposition, makes actors continuously re-examine established ‘truths’ based on collective experience, and makes them accept the force of reason and impartial principles. In the European Union this democratic ideal has so far been realized only to a limited degree. The lessons participants and onlookers have drawn, however, may depend on how conXicts and diVerences in resources are being handled. Part of the explanation of the European success in institutionalized cooperation may be an extended use of a style of compromise and consensus-seeking rather than an adversarial style driven by power diVerences. Of course, bargaining and deliberation have taken place in the shadow of existing power asymmetries. But the balancing of unity and diversity has also been characterized by a search for consensus and compromises, rather than majority decisions and winners taking all. Integration has been Xexible and uneven, generating a multi-tiered and multi-centred order. Legal integration and rules have been key characteristics, and the EU has accepted the co-existence of a diversity of models of governance and administration across member states. ConXict resolution has also been supported by the emerging common institutions, criss-crossing cleavages and appeals to a common cultural heritage, and (one may hope that) Europeans have learnt the hard lesson that institutionalized cooperation is to be preferred to war and violence when it comes to dealing with the problems of living together—a theme that is developed in the next chapter.

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A possible implication is that what is sometimes labelled indecisiveness and lack of leadership may reXect the aspiration to reach broad agreements in order to maintain or develop political community, trust and a culture of compromise. Peaceful and voluntary transformation of political orders and avoidance of destructive conXicts and system breakdowns may depend on whether there are predictable and legitimate institutional routines for dealing with critical situations, as well as institutional mechanisms for everyday learning that forge a sense of unity and belonging amidst recognized diVerence and diversity.

2 The legacy: nationalization of political life THE DY NAMICS OF TERRITORIAL POLITICAL ORDERS In contrast to studies of European integration that identify institutionalism with strong European-level institutions (Puchala 1999), the institutional approach used here assumes considerable robustness and resilience in the constituent institutions at the domestic level as well. Faced with such standard issues in the study of political development as how territorial systems of government arise and disintegrate, how diVerent types of political order are fostered, maintained and lost, and which factors structure political life, institutionalists expect well-entrenched institutions and identities such as the modern territorial state to change slowly. Existing institutional arrangements and how they have emerged and evolved are also believed to inXuence the direction and pace of change. Nevertheless, an institutional perspective assumes, in addition, that the consolidation, autonomization and permanence of EU institutions such as the Commission, the Court of Justice, the Parliament and the Central Bank over time are likely to modify the explanatory power of yesterday’s institutional arrangements. This perspective calls attention to Europe’s institutional legacy and how it may inXuence, and be inXuenced by, current cooperation and integration. In particular it calls attention to the fact that supranational integration has been strongest in Europe, the birthplace of the modern state and what is often called the Westphalian state order.1 Lessons to be learnt from insights into the uniWcation of political-territorial entities at the national level include what tied the territorial state together, how national integration was balanced with subunit autonomy, and what was the relative importance of eliminating diversity and strengthening the ability to live with enduring heterogeneity. 1 For a caveat on the term ‘Westphalian order’, see Chap. 1 n. 1 above. The problematic distinction between an ‘old’ Westphalian state order and a ‘new’ European political order is also illustrated by the fact that the welfare state in several European countries was fully developed only after post-war European integration had started. Yet, as already observed, the co-existence of elements of new and old orders is a main theme in this book.

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Furthermore were boundary-drawing and institution-building the outcome of calculated utility, an expression of socio-cultural community, or a commitment to speciWc constitutive political principles? This chapter takes its point of departure from the state- and nationbuilding literature and especially Stein Rokkan’s many attempts to model the historical development of the modern territorial state, a process that generated national uniWcation and European diVerentiation. It then observes some recent modiWcations of the Westphalian state system, before key characteristics of integration ‘European-style’ are outlined. The rest of the chapter explores how insights from the Rokkanian tradition and an institutional approach may complement each other and inform contemporary interpretations of European dynamics of change. While the European institutional legacy in terms of structural characteristics at a speciWc point in time both constrains and provides resources for integration, European integration is primarily understood as part of a long-term historical process of interpretation, learning and adaptation, involving both the disasters and the successes of the Westphalian system.

NATIONALIZATION OF POLITICAL LIFE Rokkan was fascinated with the comparative analysis of macro-sociological historical change and the institutionalization and de-institutionalization of political authority over a territory and population. He warned against the tendency to reify political units and boundaries and called for studies of the dynamics of boundary-building and institutional diVerentiation. He focused upon the territorial coincidence of diVerent types of boundaries (political, legal, administrative, economic, social and cultural) and diVerentiation across Europe, in developmental paths as well as in outcomes. Yet he also saw European developments in a larger comparative context: I have tried, in a variety of contexts, to work out schemes for the exploration of the extraordinary contrasts confronting us when we compare political systems across the world: Why are some large, others very small? Why are some highly centralized, others studded with a variety of centers, fulWlling diVerent functions in the total territory? Why are some highly homogeneous in language and religion, others built up of several distinctive cultural communities? Why do some of them allow extensive traYc of people, commodities, and messages across their borders while others impose stricter measures of economic and/or cultural autarky? (Rokkan 1973: 73)

The formation of the modern state represented a nationalization of politics, where unity was achieved and the importance of (internal) territorial

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51

cleavages was reduced or replaced by functional cleavages (Caramani 2004). National unity emerged from processes of de-institutionalization and reinstitutionalization: the breakdown of an old order, i.e. the disintegration of the Western Roman Empire, the development of a multiplicity of petty powers and competing jurisdictions, and the rise of the modern territorial state as the dominant political institution and actor. Variations in political uniWcation and the development of a territorial system of government were described along four dimensions (Eisenstadt and Rokkan 1973; Rokkan 1975, 1999; Flora 1999): (1) State-building, with an organized capacity for territorial penetration and control: common institutions with a unitary and coherent military and administrative apparatus under the authority of a sovereign political centre, securing jurisdiction over the territory and the population; an institutionalized, legally based, capacity to regulate and adjudicate internal disputes, extract resources and defend external borders; and the development of a Rechtsstaat with constitutional rules and rights that give direction to, and constrain, the use of public and private power. (2) Nation-building, providing a cultural basis for governing: group formation through cultural standardization and homogenization within national borders and diVerentiation from the outside; institutions for socializing citizens and encouraging the development of a shared identity in terms of loyalty to the territory, nation and culture—a Nationalgefu¨hl. (3) Democratization: development of shared beliefs in principles of popular sovereignty, political equality, representative democracy and political accountability, with a cumulative inclusion of all social groups in mass politics; the extension of political citizenship through institutionalized participation and representation; votes as decisive in policy-making, legitimization of public debate, criticism and organized opposition, and making leaders accountable to the electorate. (4) Socio-economic citizenship: development of the ideology that citizenship includes social and economic rights; the institutionalization of class compromises in corporate arrangements, with participation of organized interests in public policy-making; and the welfare state as the guardian of distributive justice and the social security of all citizens and a device for balancing political intervention with capitalism and markets, and social protection with economic growth. Attempts to reduce diversity by fashioning ‘new citizens for a new society’ through, for example, mass schooling (Boli 1989) came together with attempts to improve the ability to live with diversity. The concept of citizenship

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gradually expanded and merged with a territorial identity (Rokkan et al. 1987: 19) and the most developed states came to combine a capacity to control their territory and boundaries with nation-feeling, democracy and social solidarity. Nevertheless, the correspondence has never been perfect. The disintegrations of political, legal, military, administrative, economic and cultural boundaries in the Western Roman Empire were non-simultaneous and incomplete. There was political-administrative-military collapse but considerable continuity in economic and cultural infrastructure, law, elite language and religion (Rokkan 1973: 77). The coincidence of boundaries has also varied across modern states and over time. Institutions achieved diVerent degrees of consolidation, autonomy and permanence and they did so via diVerent trajectories. The scholarly challenge was to map and account for variation in the time-sequencing, trajectories and outcomes of the four processes of territorial state integration. How did external boundary-drawing inXuence internal structuration? What were the conditions for, and the consequences of, diVerent sequences, i.e. that some states had the time to build institutions and cope with one challenge or crisis before the next arrived, while other states faced an accumulation of challenges and crises (Rokkan 1975, 1999: 130, 143; Flora 1999: 14)? How, then, are national uniWcation and European diVerentiation to be accounted for? The language of state- and nation-building suggests an actorfocused perspective and Rokkan (1975) assumes that polity-building and boundary-drawing are purposeful behaviours. There are centre-building elites mobilizing resources and building coalitions and there is active defence of the periphery. However, while some interpretations give prominence to the strategies of identiWable actors (Bartolini 2005), Rokkan has also been seen to reconcile a structural and an institutional approach, emphasizing the relationship between social structure and political institutions as a two-way process (Allardt and Valen 1981: 25; Berntzen and Selle 1992).2 Arguably, Rokkan interprets the modern state primarily as the product of centuries-long societal developments (Eisenstadt and Rokkan 1973; Rokkan 1975; Flora 1999). In the latter perspective, variations in political borders, unity and order are primarily derived from structurally rooted economic, social and cultural cleavages and long historical developments where structural tensions are translated into groups, boundaries and institutions. The ‘initial conditions’ go back to the fall of the Western Roman Empire (Rokkan 1975). The ‘master variables’ are secular-religious diVerentiation, linguistic distinctiveness and 2 Tilly, furthermore, argues that state structures took shape and grew largely as unintended by-products of other activities, such as war, tax collection and capital accumulation (Tilly 1984: 141–2). Actors, then, are seen to be purposeful but their concerns are not necessarily building states and nations.

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uniWcation, diVerentiation and independence of city networks and concentration/dispersal of landholdings (Rokkan 1973: 89–90). For example, the alphabet and the city are seen to decide the fate of Europe, and Vo¨lkerwanderung in the Middle Ages produced very diVerent conditions for linguistic uniWcation in the territories of Europe (Rokkan 1973: 80, 83). Political institutions, however, are assumed to have some autonomy even in the face of large-scale societal transformations. Cleavages are not automatically translated into politics and they have not become politicized to the same extent in all countries (Flora 1999: 45). Institutionalization happens at historical junctures when foundational ideas, institutions and boundaries are challenged and new ones emerge and are possibly ‘frozen’, for example, into party systems.3 An implication of the partly autonomous role of political institutions is that one has to take into account the institutional legacy of the various polities. Change is path-dependent and has to be seen in the light of the preceding phases in the development of the European political order. For example, continuity is observed between medieval forms of representation and modern parliamentary government: ‘The stronger the inherited traditions of representative rule, the greater the chances of early legitimating of opposition and the slower, and the less likely to be reversed, the process of enfranchisement and equalization’ (Rokkan 1970: 82–3). The old city- and trade-belt generated more positive attitudes towards federal solutions, while the strongest unitary states emerged in the periphery of the Empire (Rokkan 1973: 79; Flora 1999: 57, 80). State- and nation-building, democratization and redistribution are potential sources of tensions and political struggle as well as unity—for example, counter-mobilization of the periphery to defend economic interests and cultural loyalties and to preserve local character and autonomy against penetration from the centre: The centre–periphery relationship in each element is reciprocal. For each process of centralization there is a corresponding eVort of boundary accentuation, of attempting to preserve peripheral distinctiveness: juxtaposing the process of cultural standardization, for instance, is the peripheral concern for maintaining a separate identity. (Rokkan and Urwin 1983: 14)

3 Lipset and Rokkan (1967) focused on how political parties in Western Europe emerged and stabilized around basic social cleavages. They viewed social alignments as responses to major social transformations such as the national and industrial revolutions. While the cleavage structure was considered to be relatively Wxed, the political salience of the various cleavages and patterns of party coalitions could Xuctuate in reaction to contemporary events (Lipset 2001: 6–7). Mair, however, argues that the freezing hypothesis is ambiguous and that interpretations of the freezing from the early 1920s and the unfreezing in the late 1960s sometimes assume a freezing of cleavage structures, sometimes a freezing of party structures and voter alignments (Mair 2001; see also Karvonen and Kuhnle 2001; Caramani 2004).

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How, then, do political actors cope with disputes and what is the explanatory power of the motives, resources and performance of identiWable actors? In contrast to eVorts to understand change in political orders as a result of consequential action and deliberate design, Rokkan’s focus on the longue dure´e has been claimed ‘to guard against overestimating the signiWcance of actors involved in the long-term development of political systems’ (Flora 1999: 16). Rokkan also observed that ‘the Western emphasis on the supremacy of the political dimension of human life was alien to much of mankind’ (Rokkan 1969: 97). As already mentioned, Rokkan takes interest in the uniWcation strategies and alliances of state- and nation-builders, and institutional variation is partly seen as a result of choices and strategies far back in time. Rational actors are assumed to Wght for positions, interests and identities when socioeconomic and cultural structures change. It is, nevertheless, primarily societal dynamics that creates actors, interests and resources. Constellations of competing forces in society and institutional arrangements generate spaces of opportunities available to diVerent groups of actors, but political action and the content of politics recede into the background. The conditions under which motivated and capable actors are available to perform the acts demanded of them by changing structures are not speciWed. Rokkan does not go into detail when it comes to who the state- and nation-builders are, why they want to build diVerent kinds of states and nations, and the microprocesses through which alternative actions are discovered, assessed and chosen (Tilly 1984: 141; Berntzen and Selle 1990: 140, 146; Berntzen and Selle 1992: 293, 302–3; Flora 1999: 34, 81). As argued by Berntzen and Selle (1990, 1992) there is a need to disentangle (1) when and why an action is possible and (2) under what conditions, how and why available opportunities are actually exploited. Preferences and behaviour are not self-evident, nor do they emanate directly from structure. They must be explained. Furthermore, when actors are studied, the emphasis is upon mass politics, with a concern for increased mass apathy about public aVairs (Rokkan 1970). Rokkan asked how diVerent social groups are brought into politics and how the organization of electoral systems, party systems and access to government aVect politics. Less attention was given to how elected representatives, bureaucrats, judges and experts use governmental authority and power and how political life is aVected by the organization of government and public administration. Berntzen and Selle also suggest that Rokkan’s focus on explaining structural variations, his retrospective style of analysis and his structural-functional and modernization perspective may presume evolution and competitive selection and therefore drive political action and the substance of politics

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into the background (Berntzen and Selle 1990: 139). Rokkan, however, rejected simple-minded determinism. He provided complex historical accounts involving a large number of variables with explanatory power (Tilly 1984: 129–43). The political structuring of Europe was the product of a multitude of processes, and it was not the characteristics of a single institution that were important, but the conWguration and interaction of institutions (Flora 1999: 90).4 Rokkan, for example, rejected the idea that the location of a territorial unit within a larger system determined its structural features and his work has been seen as ‘a bastion for all those skeptical of overestimating the role of ‘‘global systems’’ in the development of individual nations’ (Flora 1999: 12, 13, 27). Rokkan, however, has also been criticized for paying insuYcient attention to the international context and the crystallization of a system of states—for treating each case in isolation, neglecting links between national histories, the interactions among contenders for power and the role of wars and war settlements as the shapers of Europe’s political organization (Tilly 1984: 132, 138, 143).5 Finally, while Rokkan’s main focus was upon processes of national uniWcation and the diVerentiation of the territorial political organization of Europe, there was also another, less-developed theme. Rokkan viewed Western Europe as a unit, a speciWc region with a unique development and experience. It could be treated as a speciWc context and a system with Wxed boundaries vis-a`-vis the outside world because its countries had much in common (Berntzen and Selle 1992: 298). How relevant then are the questions, assumptions and answers of the stateand nation-building literature for understanding recent change in the territorial organization of Europe an government? Is Peter Flora right when he claims that Rokkan’s framework ‘oVers a key to understanding the latest development in Europe’ (Flora 1999: 91)? And what is the signiWcance of

4 Like many other leading Wgures during the ‘behavioural revolution’, Rokkan was sceptical of the formal-legal interpretation of politics’ emphasis on constitutions, laws and formal-legal institutions. He was concerned with how the impacts of formal-legal rules were modiWed by the resources and interests of societal groups and he concluded that votes and formal arrangements count but resources decide (Rokkan 1966: 105). Political science was seen to be concerned primarily with central decision-making processes, while sociology was seen as concerned with the interaction between diVerent institutions, norms and roles in society. Rokkan had a preference for the latter and aimed at placing politics in a wider setting (Rokkan 1958: 5–6). 5 In the introduction to a volume of essays titled The Formation of National States in Western Europe, Tilly aired such issues as general concerns (Tilly 1975: 44–5). Nevertheless, he wrote: ‘Rokkan calls attention more directly than any of our other authors to the interaction and interdependence of the changing European states, to the sense in which they formed an operating system’ (68).

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some post-war global modiWcations of the ‘anarchical’ aspects of the Westphalian system?

W E S TP H A L I A M O D I F I E D The Westphalian state order assumes a distinction between domestic political spheres characterized by institutional density, hierarchical relationships, shared interests, and strong collective identities, and an international political sphere characterized by a lack of strong institutions, few rules, conXicting interests, and conXicting identities. The state imposes unity and coherence on domestic society, a coherence based on a national identity that suppresses or subordinates competing identities and belongings and on an elaborate set of rules, laws and institutions. National identity and other political identities, and institutions associated with those identities, are fundamental to structuring behaviour by providing rules of appropriate behaviour. They also infuse the state with shared meaning and expectations and provide political legitimacy that facilitates mobilization of resources from society.6 International political life, on the other hand, is seen as much less institutionalized, much more anarchical. Although some understandings are common within the international community and some rules are recognized, norms and institutions are weaker, less widely shared, and less taken for granted than they are within individual states. International institutions are generally seen as requiring explicit rationalization in terms of the current interests of current states in order to secure their force and eVectiveness and they are primarily the realm of executives and diplomats. ‘The Westphalian system’, however, has been dynamic and not a static endstate of territorial political organization. The historical tensions between boundary-transcending actors and forces on the one hand, and political attempts at boundary closure and locking-in of actors and their resources, rights and obligations on the other are well known. Recently, institutional barriers to interaction across nation-state boundaries have been weakened or removed as part of a general trend towards liberalization. There has also been a considerable increase in the number and importance of international institutions, regimes, laws, organizations and networks making recommendations or decisions binding for both states and individual citizens. The Westphalian principle of non-intervention in internal aVairs has been eroded, and state sovereignty and autonomy have been compromised by interventions 6 This and the following two paragraphs draw on March and Olsen 1998: 944–6.

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in the name of dispute resolution, economic stability and human rights. This has happened in fundamental areas such as security, capital regulation, migration, ecology, health, culture and language. Somewhat surprisingly from an institutional perspective, these developments have been strongest in Europe, the birthplace of the modern state and the Westphalian order. Today, the European Union is the world’s most extensive example of regional political integration based on voluntary cooperation. Also surprisingly from a unity–diversity point of view, the widening and deepening of the Union and its forerunners have come together. While continuous enlargements have increased the diversity of the Union, uniWcation has taken place in terms of both an expanded agenda and a stronger institutional capacity for joint policy-making. These facts are all the more puzzling the more one emphasizes that (1) for a long time Europe has been characterized by national uniWcation, strong boundaries, and diVerentiation among states, with diVerent institutional arrangements and developmental paths; (2) the European democratic state has functioned well in international comparison; and (3) the EU is developing a political and cultural identity of its own, beyond calculated utility and expediency. It is less of a puzzle the more one emphasizes that (1) European states share many causal and normative ideas, traditions and institutions; (2) European states have initiated some of the worst atrocities in history; and (3) the EU is Wrst and foremost a successful utility-oriented unit where member states can pragmatically calculate their relative costs and beneWts. Scholars in the Rokkanian tradition have asked what kinds of political order can develop out of the European Union’s conWguration of boundaries (Bartolini 2005: 387) and it has been suggested that Europe is so heterogeneous that she ‘can probably tolerate only a highly decentralized constitution’ (Flora 1999: 91). The state- and nation-building literature suggests several sources of political unity and diversity. It emphasizes that there are diVerences in the institutional arrangements, histories, size and power of European states that can be expected to constrain and hamper political integration. Yet, there is also the less-developed theme: Europe as a political unit—a speciWc region with a unique development and experiences. States to some degree share institutional traditions, norms and understandings linked, for example, to democracy, the rule of law, human rights, science and the Enlightenment’s demand for critical debate and rational argumentation, and these are factors that can facilitate and provide resources for European uniWcation. Is then the state- and nation-building literature of any help for students of political institutions in accounting for the European style of integration?

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Unity and diversity INTEGRATION EUROPEAN-STYLE

From an institutional perspective integration is least problematic when entities constituted solely on functional expediency, with no strong identities, commitments and emotions involved, are entering a larger entity also constituted purely on utility calculations (see Chapter 1 above). In sovereign states integrated through processes of centre-building with organized problem-solving capacity, nation-building, democratization and welfare provisions, however, both utility and identity concerns are likely to arise. Possible tensions also become increasingly urgent the more the larger entity develops beyond a pragmatic problem-solving unit and achieves a political and cultural identity of its own. Questions of interest and comparative eYciency are then supplemented by questions of how easily European and diVerent national institutions and identities can be reconciled. Arguably, the ways in which European integration has been justiWed, the processes through which it has taken place, the speciWc forms integration has taken, and its eVects on member states reXect struggles to create unity in diversity. Integration has primarily been justiWed instrumentally. The Union has deWned itself in terms of (1) geography, (2) utility concerns (states become part of a larger system because together they can solve some problem better, or with less eVort and expense, than they can each for themselves), (3) shared cultural identity (political integration is the expression of a socio-cultural community with a distinctive collective identity that diVerentiates clearly between members and non-members), and (4) a commitment to political principles, proper institutions and rules of political cooperation and association. Yet, justiWcation of cooperation has mainly been functional, portraying the Union as an eYcient instrument for achieving shared goals such as peace and prosperity. Integration has been alleged to create only winners, with no threatening implications for member states. Legitimacy claims have been based on practical results, voluntary cooperation, consensus-seeking, expertise, and indirect democracy derived from the member states. Integration has been based on consent more than on coercion or threats. Like other polities, the Union is struggling to reconcile unity and diversity, the whole and the parts, coordination and autonomy. The apolitical rhetoric is part of coping with diversity and building trust and loyalty among former enemies and competitors, but to some degree the rhetoric also reXects actual processes. Integration has taken place in a context of voluntary cooperation and norms prescribing unanimity and compromises rather than through majority decisions, and member states have observed positive consequences of being part of the Union.

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Integration, nevertheless, has also taken place in the shadow of power diVerences between member states, with populations varying from 400,000 to more than 80 million. Integration has also been vulnerable to conXict. European countries have been aware of their interdependencies and limited capabilities to control their destiny and they know that cooperation can provide mutual beneWts. However, they have also been aware of their diversity and they have been concerned that cooperation and integration could jeopardize their sovereignty, autonomy, national interest and identity. Some unresolved conXicts and disputes are territorial; others are non-territorial. Europeans, and not only states, divide over attitudes to integration, to the proper role of democratic politics in the economy and society, to socio-economic rights, and to modernity and the role of Christianity. While it has been claimed that the Union is an elite project, EU leaders, compared to state- and nation-builders, have had limited possibilities for reducing diversity by socializing citizens. Competing claims have had to be worked out in everyday politics as well as in the context of Treaty revisions. This has been done through specifying procedures, rules and timetables rather than developing a shared political philosophy, clear-cut goals and a shared vision of what kind of polity the EU is becoming or should become. Integration has been uneven, with primacy to economic and legal aspects. The Union is a large-scale, heterogeneous, multi-tiered and multi-centred polity where boundaries are still open and institutional arrangements are in Xux. There are diVerent structural arrangements and mixes of system unity and component autonomy in diVerent institutional spheres and policy areas. The distribution of authority is unsettled and there is a constant struggle to achieve unity in diversity in each policy Weld (Kohler-Koch 2005: 14). In spite of all the arguments about how the institutional arrangement of the EU can best be described, there are elements of consent. To apply Rokkan’s four dimensions of political integration: centre-building has been held at bay; while multilevel networks organized around speciWc policies have Xourished, federal solutions have had limited approval among governments and even less among citizens; relatively small staV and budgets have made the Union dependent upon member states and constrained its capacity to govern and administer; opposition to integration has in particular been strong in the small, fairly homogeneous and tightly integrated Protestant states in the North. Economic integration and the internal market are well developed and legally embedded in courts of law and the doctrines of the primacy of EU law and of direct eVect. The same is true for civil rights, in particular producer and consumer rights. As already argued, the EU is in many ways a legal

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community of rules, procedures and adjudication more than a community of common purposes. Institutions for cultural integration and identity-building are less strongly developed at the European level. Member states have been more concerned about protecting their language than their currency, and interventions in cultural and identity-related matters have tended to focus attention on national distinctiveness and create conXict (Schlesinger 1993).7 The EU may still be seen as a ‘union of deep diversity’, accepting and institutionally protecting a plurality of ways of belonging (Fossum 2004). The Commission wants a minimum of European coordination but also the protection of diversity in language and culture.8 Linguistic uniWcation in terms of an ‘English-Only Europe’ (Phillipson 2003) has been governed by forces outside the reach of EU policies aimed at counteracting the trend. No shared European identity with a strong emotional foundation has developed, even if many Europeans carry multiple identities (Hooghe and Marks 2001: 66; Risse 2004; Checkel 2005).9 Neither is the EU a political community with strong popular commitments, participation, a vivid civil society and a public communicative sphere. The European Parliament has not had the powers usually associated with parliaments (Neunreither 1994). The (Maastricht) Treaty on European Union (1992) explicitly stated for the Wrst time that the Union was to be founded on the principles of democracy and fundamental human rights. It was observed that there was a need felt to counteract the image of an elite project with limited popular information, debate and involvement (Commission 1992). Now, democratic legitimacy is stressed. As the Union’s agenda has grown (Pollack 1994), democratic concerns have increasingly challenged existing arrangements based on functional legitimacy or indirect democratic legitimacy derived from the member states (Commission 1995b). Maastricht has also been presented as ‘the last gasp of the technocratic method of constructing 7 The Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe, for example, balances between expressing the will to protect cultural, religious and linguistic diversity, praising the common cultural heritage, and aspiring to transcend existing diVerences. Nevertheless, cultural identity and Europe’s Christian heritage turned out to be divisive and the draft Constitution does not privilege Christianity. It only says that the Union will draw inspiration from the cultural, religious and humanist inheritance of Europe. 8 Toggenburg argues that the EU is primarily concerned about diversity amongst member states and protecting national identities against excessive integration and that the Union is less concerned about diversity within each member state (Toggenburg 2004). 9 Some have claimed, however, that in order to function as a viable and vital polity, the EU needs a Wrmer foundation than expediency. The old forces of cohesion, the desire for peace and prosperity, and external threats are losing their eVectiveness. The forces of unity and cohesion are to be found in the common culture; in the values, morals, customs and expectations of Europeans (Biedenkopf, Geremek and Michalski 2004: 5–8).

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Europe’ (Micossi 1995: 129). There is, however, no general agreement about what ‘democracy’ and ‘citizenship’ can, and should, mean at the European level and what the institutional implications are. OYcially, the Union has aspired to promote ‘balanced and sustainable’ economic and social progress. As part of raising the standard of living and quality of life, the EU has promised to help member states and individuals to overcome tensions and disruptions caused by economic competition and technological change (Commission 1992: 2). The modest budget and the restrictions on mobilizing resources directly from society, however, have limited the Union’s possibilities for playing a central role in social protection and improving (some) citizens’ life chances through redistribution (Bulmer 1994: 375), with the Common Agricultural Policy and regional policies as the exceptions. The institutional infrastructure for assuming collective responsibility for social protection and welfare has not been strongly developed and the issue of a Social Europe has created conXict. Social and economic rights have often been discussed in a context of counteracting market failure, not as a constitutive principle in European society-building (Leibfried 1992, 2005; Streeck 1993). The eVects of integration on member states have been signiWcant but not fundamentally threatening. On the basis of Rokkan’s observation of the relation between external boundary-building and internal structuring, scholars have explored how the ongoing territorial de-diVerentiation disjoins the state’s coinciding borders and challenges its unity, action capacities and power balances (Flora 1999: 8–9; Ferrera 2003, 2005; Bartolini 2005). For example, mobile persons and resources have achieved better protection against national regulations and more inXuence upon European regulations. The less mobile have not achieved these opportunities to the same degree and therefore power balances have changed (Bartolini 2005). The quasi-constitutional status of competition policy and the free movement of capital, goods, services and people have in particular been seen to reduce the states’ capacity for self-governance. It has made possible judicial activism, with consequences for other policy sectors far beyond what has traditionally been the domain of competition policy in Europe (Scharpf 1999a; Leibfried 2005). In the long run there may be a de-nationalization and de-territorialization of European identities, cleavages and politics, as functional and ideological cleavages (e.g. left vs right) replace territorial cleavages (Marks and Steenbergen 2004), similar to what happened during the nationalization period (Caramani 2004).10 Likewise, common institutions and the integration 10 EU-party families, however, are deeply divided on constitutive EU issues and attempts to take a clear stand on these problems would tear them apart (Bartolini 2005: 348). National parties derive their historical cohesion from conXicts other than those constituting the EU.

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of parts of national public administration, central banks and courts of law may contribute to converting a political order dominated by states and cleavages between states into an order involving a variety of non-territorial cleavages and patterns of cooperation (Egeberg 2001, 2006). A tentative conclusion is that there have been important changes in Europe’s territorial political organization. Westphalian arrangements, both intraand inter-state relations, have been modiWed, but there has been no grand disintegration. While both change and continuity are observed, policy standardization, regulation and convergence have been more prominent than change in basic institutions and identities. Domestic politics and policies have been inXuenced by European-level decisions and institutions, as well as by other border-transcending actors and forces. National institutions and identities have nevertheless shown considerable resilience in spite of the single market, common laws and a high degree of interaction among elites.11 Territorial states are still key political actors and institutions. They have been deprived of parts of their governing capacity. Yet, in some respects they have also increased their reach by pooling resources, and nations are still capable of arousing powerful expressions of belonging (Smith 1995; Delanty 2003).

LEARNING PROCESSES Integration ‘European-style’—the way integration is justiWed, the processes used, the integration achieved, and the eVects produced—generates a pattern with clear traces of a Westphalian era, when cooperation across national boundaries was governed by current national interests and identities. Yet, inXuences of Westphalian structures upon contemporary dynamics are not mechanical. Making sense of the puzzles over integration and the possible explanatory power of the Westphalian legacy require attention, not only to the structural conWguration at a given point in time, but also to the processes through which national institutional arrangements emerged and evolved,

Often their leaders, members and voters have diVerent European preferences. If these diVerences are pronounced, they may jeopardize internal party unity and generate new anti-EU parties. Opposition lines that were historically bridged and integrated successfully at the national level by party organizations may become source of internal problems in relation to the integration process (Bartolini 2005: 310, 324–5). 11 Cowles, Caporaso and Risse 2001; Olsen 2003b; Wessels, Maurer and Mittag 2003; KohlerKoch 2005.

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how conXicts were dealt with, and the experiences and memories they produced. Understanding current integration requires insight into how the past is interpreted and acted upon in contemporary political processes and how institutional change may be driven by gradual shifts in meaning, following from (re)interpretations of the experiences, memories, identities and institutions which European countries have in common and those which keep them apart. The account given by the state- and nation-building literature of national political uniWcation is itself part of Europe’s collective memory and it is a narrative that above all emphasizes the need for a long-term historical perspective on the dynamics of territorial political orders. Transformation or replacement of foundational institutions usually takes time, centuries rather than decades, and comprehending contemporary non-coercive change therefore requires an extended time perspective. While it is important not to reify political units and boundaries, history matters and there is pathdependency. The time perspective aVects the perceived role of political actors. Actors are not heroes. Rather, political leadership reXects society and its cleavages and we are warned not to overestimate the signiWcance of identiWable actors. Political institutions matter but they have limited capacities for problemsolving and conXict resolution. Polities have problems when they have to cope with several cleavages and crises simultaneously, rather than in a sequence (Rokkan 1975, 1999). Probably, Rokkan would have found that the main determinants of European uniWcation in large-scale processes weaken national boundaries—such factors as economic and commercial expansion and increasing interdependencies, new technologies facilitating communication, the growing hegemony of the English language, mass migration and cultural collisions, individualization and the breakdown of social collectivities. Political outcomes would not have been traced back to a single institutional sphere and group of actors. Causal arrows would have been seen to go in several directions and the explanatory power of a large set of variables and a multitude of processes would have been explored. As the following chapters will show, an institutional approach shares several of these views, in spite of diVerences in deWnitions of problems, in theoretical and conceptual foundations, in time perspectives and in the historical situations studied. An institutional approach somewhat more explicitly accentuates the fact that functional and normative environments allow diVerent political institutions and policies. Nevertheless, institutionalists are aware of the limited capacity of political actors and institutions. Political actors are assumed to be purposeful, yet with limited power, understanding and control. Political leaders often tend to become

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institutional gardeners, capable only of piecemeal reform, more than grand architects of new political orders (March and Olsen 1983; Olsen 2000; Chapter 8 below). When a multitude of issues are aired simultaneously, rather than treated incrementally in separate institutional spheres and with diVerent schedules, overload and breakdown tends to result (see Chapter 9 below). For example, in Wfteen years the Union’s Treaties have been revised four times. It has been diYcult to secure agreement on such occasions: there have been unresolved issues and problems of ratiWcation. Sometimes Treaties have also primarily codiWed altered practices or decisions made elsewhere. An implication is that while ‘historical junctures’ are important for understanding transformations of political orders, a focus solely on historical junctures, constitutional moments and ‘freezing’ processes may underestimate how incremental steps with a consistent direction can produce transformative results (Streeck and Thelen 2005). Institutionalists also see policy-making as an occasion for developing meaning and vocabularies as much as for making substantive decisions (March and Olsen 1976). Lessons from experience go beyond learning about available opportunities, incentives and strategies. They involve forming people and modifying their belongings, identities and preferences. Actors may be socialized into understanding their identity and unity in terms of expected utility, socio-cultural belonging, or democratic political principles. They may learn to see multiple loyalties and identities as reconcilable or exclusive. Democratic politics, then, has a larger transformative potential when it is seen to aVect people’s conceptions of themselves and others than when politics is conceived as the aggregation of predetermined preferences, beliefs and resources (March and Olsen 1986). The basic logic of a learning model is that there are eVorts to protect and repeat successes by encoding the experiences of glorious moments into rules and institutions. Likewise, eVorts are made to avoid repeating failures and traumatic events and the rules and institutional arrangements that are seen to have caused them. Institutions inXuence experiential learning by the way they promote or hinder interaction and communication, by their emphasis on exploitation of established routines or exploration of new options, with exposure to and search for new information, and by their impact upon interpretation, memory-building, retrieval of information and adaptation (March 1991; March, Schulz and Zhou 2000). While the European public sphere is inchoate, over time the Union has generated organizational and material resources around a variety of institutionalized meeting places for interpretation, experiential learning and action. Accounts of comparative eYciencies and foundational identities are part of eVorts to make sense of the historical tragedies and the glorious

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moments of the Westphalian system. Collective memory, for example, has been mobilized around the never again lesson: the need to avoid the tragedies and bitter experiences of rivalry, genocide, wars, nationalism, Nazism, fascism, Communism, and the inability of international organizations, such as the League of Nations, to prevent atrocities. Collective memory has also been mobilized around the recapturing of former glory lesson: the need to counteract the loss of international status and power and generally strengthen Europe politically, economically and culturally on the international scene. Can the integration puzzles, then, be understood in terms of how institutions have mediated between diversity and unity through interpretation of and learning from the Westphalian legacy? Arguably, both lessons have contributed to a belief in the need for peaceful cooperation and willingness to compromise across national borders, and at the core of interpretation processes are questions such as what kind of European centre-building is possible and desirable (Kohler-Koch 2005). Can a common culture be constructed on the basis of universalism, tolerance and accommodation of diVerences, and what might a post-national democracy look like (Eriksen and Fossum 2000; Eriksen 2005)? What kind of welfare system is viable in instrumental terms and as an expression of moral concepts and values (Ferrera 2005; Kildal and Kuhnle 2005)? Consider this hypothesis. A politically organized cooperative community has emerged in Europe, in spite of considerable diversity, because no one has tried to impose a coherent political philosophy with clear, consistent and stable substantive goals and strategies. Integration has succeeded because it has been consensus-oriented and has taken place on the basis of a Xuid and loosely-coupled order with Xexible rules of coordination, consistency and coherence. European-style integration has Xourished with ambiguity, local rationality, sequential attention and incremental adaptation even in foundational questions. It has done so consistent with these observations: that ambiguity is a decisive part of organizational decision-making (March and Olsen 1976); that several buVering mechanisms such as sequential attention, local rationality and slack resources enhance the ability to live with diversity and conXict (Cyert and March 1963); and that contemporary democracies thrive with tensions between principles and institutions, partly by separating them into diVerent institutional spheres (Walzer 1986; Orren and Skowronek 2004; Olsen 2005b). What has been seen as useful, legally prescribed, culturally appropriate, and politically feasible has been an independent constraint on available options. Economic, legal, democratic and cultural concerns have both generated and constrained change. Together they have deWned a space of viable unity–diversity and institutional balances. Disputes have been worked

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out through political processes in an organized context of political ideologies, cleavages, historical battles and compromises, political parties, voluntary associations, mass media, and institutions of government. These are institutional settings that reXect lessons of past attempts to cope with unity and diversity, and an important part of the lessons has been that piecemeal change based on partly competing principles and logics of action makes it possible for democracies to accommodate diversity and maintain political community and authority. Consent-oriented, uneven and Xexible integration, the principle that some member states can cooperate more closely than others, opt-out arrangements, the pillar system, the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality, the many and complex procedures in use, and the diVerent timescales and rhythms of change can all be seen as ways of balancing unity and diversity in a polity with limited community and shared purposes. Partly as a consequence of increased diversity and experiences with legal integration, the Union has also been seen to rely less on law and instead to take an interest in how policy coordination and desired eVects can be achieved through non-legal, ‘soft’ instruments such as the Open Method of Coordination (He´ritier 2003). These are methods that may accommodate competing claims of system unity and member state diversity and autonomy better than obligatory ‘hard law’. Their use may therefore reXect attempts to reconcile claims of national autonomy and power with Union ambitions to coordinate and control while lacking adequate authority and resources to issue and enforce binding legal rules. While this hypothesis is more consistent with the Union’s practice than with its rhetoric of ‘Wrst formulate political goals, then design the optimal institutional instruments’, the following chapters present some observations which suggest that it may be worthwhile to explore the hypothesis further. Appeals to what may be imagined to be shared institutions, identities and traditions, for example, in the Convention on the Future of Europe, have illustrated both the potential and the limitations of appeals to common ideas about public law, democracy, competitive markets, social solidarity, the Enlightenment heritage, and religion as means to deepen the integration process further.

C O- E X I ST E N C E A N D C O- EVO LU T I O N Europe is involved in an open-ended search for a political order. Change takes place through a variety of processes and there is no Wnal answer to what explanatory power the Westphalian legacy will have for future political developments. In a long-term perspective a new kind of political order may

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emerge, but the integration project may also break apart, or the EU may be transformed into some kind of federal state, with the conWrmation and reinforcement of Westphalian principles as a result. Most likely, there will be a fairly long time period where elements of the Westphalian order will co-exist and co-evolve with a variety of supra-, inter- and transnational elements (see Chapters 10 and 11 below). The territorial political organization will be modiWed and the institutional balance will change, but a completely new political order is unlikely to appear. From a methodological point of view, it may be observed that the more international dependencies and interactions there are, and the more the basic institutions of individual territorial states are nested in cooperative arrangements, the more problematic it becomes to treat each state as sovereign and autonomous. Current political developments therefore challenge approaches which assume that the nation-state is a basic concept and unit of analysis and comparison (Ferrera 2003; Schmitter 2005). These developments call into question the idea that government and politics can be fully understood solely by studying single states in isolation, by comparing states, or by studying their interaction. However, as the next chapter will show, making sense of a development from the nationalization of political life to a Europeanization of politics is complicated because ‘Europeanization’ has come to mean very diVerent things to diVerent people.

3 ‘Europeanization’: a fashionable and contested term A POPULAR TERM, BUT I S I T USEFUL? ‘Europeanization’ is a fashionable but contested concept. Measured by the number of titles using the term, research on Europeanization is an academic growth industry. But questions have been raised as to whether ‘Europeanization’ is useful for understanding contemporary European transformations, whether we are in danger of misunderstanding European transformations because the term is misused (Wallace 1999: 2), and whether the term is so unwieldy, and so lacking in precise and stable meaning, that it is futile to use it as an organizing concept (Kassim 2000: 238). Certainly, the term is applied in a number of ways to describe a variety of phenomena and processes of change. No shared deWnition has emerged and deWnitions are often limited to a speciWc article or book chapter.1 Possibly, the term should be abandoned because it is as disappointing as it is fashionable. Still, such a conclusion may be premature. This is because most studies are of recent origin and there have been few systematic attempts to map and compare diVerent uses.2 EVorts to model the dynamics of ‘Europeanization’ are scarce and the empirical evidence uneven and often contested. Therefore, rather than rejecting the term outright, I make an attempt to create a little more order in a disorderly Weld of research. The issue is not what Europeanization ‘really is’, but whether and how the term can be useful for understanding the dynamics of the evolving European polity—that is, how it eventually may help us give better accounts of the emergence, development and eVects of a European, institutionally ordered system of governance.

1 Bo¨rzel 1999: 574; Bulmer and Burch 2001: 75; Checkel 2001a: 180; Featherstone and Radaelli 2003. 2 A search in various databases revealed few occurrences of the term prior to the 1980s. Since then ‘Europeanization’ has become increasingly popular and from the end of the 1990s the term has been widely used.

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The current debate over ‘the future of Europe’ is to a large extent about how Europe should be governed, how the basic institutions of governance should be organized and how authority and power should be distributed, exercised and controlled. A working assumption of this book is that the transformation of the European political order may be fruitfully studied as changes in and among key institutions.3 Furthermore, it is assumed that Europeanization is not a unique process and a sui generis phenomenon. Rather, Europeanization is conceptualized in a way that makes it (in principle) possible to compare European dynamics with the dynamics of other systems of governance. Radical and durable changes in the constitutive characteristics and basic principles of the political organization of Europe are seen as important examples of how systems of governance originate and how they are maintained and changed. With the primary aim of suggesting a way of thinking about such dynamics, I proceed by Wrst separating Wve uses of ‘Europeanization’; that is, conceptions of what is changing.4 Then I suggest some processes of institutional change that may be helpful for understanding how Europeanization takes place. Further, an institutional perspective is used in an attempt to approach the why question and to suggest some research challenges. Connecting the diVerent phenomena called Europeanization to the diVerent mechanisms by which Europeanization is possibly brought about is a major challenge for those aspiring to theorize about European institutional dynamics. I suggest some small steps in that direction. The argument is that the diVerent conceptions of Europeanization complement, rather than exclude, each other. They refer to diVerent but related phenomena. It is also argued that the dynamics of Europeanization can be understood in terms of a limited set of ordinary processes of change, well known from other institutionalized systems of governance (March 1981).

3 A focus on institutions does not imply a lack of interest in how studies of policy-making and implementation and political identities may help us understand Europeanization. Limited space, time, energy and competence are my reasons for not giving these aspects the attention they deserve in this book. For the same reasons and with the same regrets, I pass over the subnational level and variations across European subregions (Morlino 2000; Goetz 2002). In general, the aspiration is not to take stock of the literature on the relations between the EU and its member states (see for example Featherstone and Radaelli 2003; Wessels, Maurer and Mittag 2003; Bulmer and Lequesne 2005). 4 At the current stage of Europeanization studies it may be useful to keep deWnitions parsimonious. That is, we should not pack too much into deWnitions–for instance, we should not deWne Europeanization as an ‘incremental process’ (Ladrech 1994; albeit in Ladrech 2001 this element of the deWnition is removed). In this chapter it is assumed that the exact nature of the processes of change and their end-results should be determined by empirical studies rather than by deWnition.

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The European case also illustrates how mundane processes can produce an extraordinary outcome. One conclusion is that while it may be premature to abandon the term ‘Europeanization’, its usefulness may be somewhat more limited than its widespread use might indicate. Another conclusion is that the empirical complexity and conceptual confusion should lead not to despair, but to renewed eVorts of modelling the dynamics of European change. An immediate challenge is to develop partial, middle-range theoretical approaches that emphasize domains of application or scope conditions and that are empirically testable. A long-term challenge is to provide a better understanding of how diVerent processes of change interact and make institutions co-evolve through mutual adaptation.

EUROPEANIZATION: WHAT, HOW, WHY? A Wrst step towards understanding Europeanization is to separate the diVerent phenomena referred to by the term, that is, what is changing. I distinguish Wve possible uses: (1) Changes in external boundaries. This involves the territorial reach of a system of governance and the degree to which Europe as a continent becomes a single political space. For example, Europeanization is taking place as the European Union expands through enlargement. (2) Developing institutions at the European level. This signiWes centre-building with a collective action capacity, providing some degree of coordination and coherence. Formal-legal institutions of governance and a normative order based on some overarching constitutive principles, structures and practices both facilitate and constrain the ability to make and enforce binding decisions and to sanction non-compliance. (3) Central penetration of national systems of governance. In this use, Europeanization involves the division of responsibilities and powers between diVerent levels of governance. All multilevel systems of governance need to work out a balance between unity and diversity, central coordination and local autonomy. Europeanization, then, implies adapting national and subnational systems of governance to a European political centre and European-wide norms. (4) Exporting forms of political organization. Europeanization as exporting forms of political organization and governance that are typical and distinct

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for Europe beyond the European territory focuses on the relations with non-European actors and institutions and how Europe Wnds a place in a larger world order. Europeanization signiWes a more positive export–import balance as non-European countries import more from Europe than vice versa and European solutions exert more inXuence in international fora. (5) A political uniWcation project. The degree to which Europe is becoming a more uniWed and stronger political entity is related to territorial space, centrebuilding, domestic adaptation, and how European developments aVect and are aVected by systems of governance and events outside the European continent. A complication is that there is not necessarily a positive correlation between the four types of Europeanization mentioned above, or between each of them and a politically stronger Europe. The next step, then, is to suggest a possible way of understanding institutional change and continuity in the current European context. Here, institutional change is seen as depending on a limited number of ordinary, complementary processes that produce a variety of outcomes under shifting circumstances (March 1981). Political institutions, and the agents embedded within them, respond in routine ways to changing opportunities and challenges. For example, change may be a result of rule-following and the application of standard operating procedures to appropriate situations. It may be an outcome of problem-solving and calculating expected consequences, or of conXict resolution and confrontations. Change may also be produced through experiential learning or competitive selection, contact and diVusion, or turnover and regeneration.5 An account of how Europeanization takes place therefore requires an understanding of the structure and dynamics of each process of change. For analytical purposes models can be kept separate. In the real world, however, there will be complex mixes of processes. While one mechanism may Wt a particular phenomenon or situation better than the others, there is no reason to expect a one-to-one relationship between a phenomenon and a mechanism of change. Still, for each of the Wve phenomena called Europeanization above I suggest—in hypothetical form—one or two processes that may be fruitful as an analytical starting point, before attending to some complications of 5 This discussion of models of change is highly inXuenced by Lave and March 1975; March 1981; and March 1994a. As correctly suggested by one anonymous reviewer, the list is not exhaustive. I have limited the discussion to some models that have consistently turned out to be useful in studies of the dynamics of formal organizations and political institutions. An example of a model that could have been added is change through turnover and regeneration, illustrated for example by Cram’s concept of ‘banal Europeanization’ (Cram 2001).

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invoking them. For example, changes in territorial reach and Europeanization as enlargement is interpreted as rule application. The development of institutions of governance at the European level is understood as purposeful decision-making. Changes in domestic systems of governance are examined within the framework of two basic processes of adaptation: experiential learning and competitive selection. Furthermore, Europeanization as the export of European models is interpreted as a process of diVusion. Finally, it is suggested that Europeanization as political uniWcation involves institutional mutual adaptation. A multitude of institutions and actors co-evolve as they adapt to each other. They change the organizational setting for each other’s adaptation as they Wnd a place in the changing political world order. Identifying processes and mechanisms useful for understanding Europeanization is a step towards identifying conditions that make each frame of interpretation more or less relevant. This chapter has modest aspirations when it comes to exploring why various processes of change may be useful. However, the institutional perspective used highlights the signiWcance of existing institutional structures, histories and dynamics for understanding political transformations.6 Institutions are relatively stable elements of political life. Within the Westphalian political order, for example, territoriality and peoplehood have for quite some time been two basic principles of political organization, group formation and identiWcation in Europe (Borneman and Fowler 1997). Concepts like ‘historical ineYciency’ and ‘path-dependence’ also suggest that established institutions do not always adapt quickly to changes in human purposes and external conditions (March and Olsen 1989; North 1990). Yet an institutional perspective does not imply stasis. Enduring institutions can be remarkably adaptive, responding to volatile environments routinely, though not always optimally (March 1981). Major change in the relations among key institutions is likely both to reXect and aVect power relations, in Europe as well as globally. Post-war European cooperation was initiated by a devastating war and major European powers lost their world hegemony. Now, Europe is in a period of exploration and innovation. Talk of Europeanization, like talk of Americanization (Jacoby 2001), is likely to occur when there are possible shifts in relations of dominance—that is, when there is willingness and possibly an ability to

6 An institution is viewed as a relatively stable collection of practices and rules deWning appropriate behaviour for speciWc groups of actors in speciWc situations. Such rules are embedded in structures of meaning and schemes of interpretation as well as resources and the principles of their allocation (March and Olsen 1998: 948). It is not possible here to discuss alternative institutional approaches to European dynamics (Schneider and Aspinwall 2001; Stone Sweet, Sandholtz and Fliegstein 2001).

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challenge an established hegemony and win back a more central role at the global scene. This suggests that the consensus- and eYciency-seeking frame often found in EU documents has to be supplemented by an interest in the power aspect of European transformations. However, attention to power also includes attention to the limitation of purposive, arbitrary intervention in the existing order. In complex and dynamic contexts like the European one, purposeful actors inXuence the processes and structures within which change takes place. Yet, no single group of decision-makers has the insight, authority and power to design and reform institutions at will and achieve pre-speciWed objectives. I am interested in how existing institutional arrangements aVect two key dimensions of institutional change (March and Olsen 1995; Olsen 1997a, 2001). The Wrst dimension is changes in political organization: the development of an organizational and Wnancial capacity for common action and governance through processes of reorganization and redirecting of resources. The second is changes in structures of meaning and people’s minds. That is, the focus is on the development and redeWnition of political ideas—common visions and purposes, codes of meaning, causal beliefs and worldviews—that give direction and meaning to capabilities and capacities.

THE CHANGING B OUNDARY O F ‘EURO PE’ A discussion of the ways in which European space may be politically organized and governed presupposes that Europe as a geographical concept, the external boundary of Europe as a space or territory, can be delimited and deWned (Jo¨nsson, Ta¨gil and To¨rnqvist 2000: 7). In the literature, however, ‘Europe’ is used in a variety of ways. Recently it has become common to use ‘Europe’ with reference to the European Union and its member states.7 Certainly, European transformations are not limited to the EU and its member states or to Western Europe. Cross-border relations have been, and are, managed through a variety of transnational regimes and institutions besides the EU (Wallace 2000a). There are many examples of institutionbuilding at the European level. Furthermore, there has also been an increase in 7 Older debates focused on the exact dividing line between Europe and Asia and raised questions such as whether Britain ‘is European’ (Garton Ash 2001). These two issues are diVerent. The Wrst is a question of territory and space. The latter concerns (as Helen Wallace has pointed out to me in conversation) the empirical question, whether the British are tied into mainstream continental European ways of thinking and behaving as distinct from an insular, trans-Atlantic or international orientation.

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non-territorial forms of political organization, and the meaning and importance of geographical space has changed with the growth of functional networks without a centre of Wnal authority and power (Stone Sweet and Sandholtz 1998; Kohler-Koch and Eising 1999). Therefore, an adequate understanding of the ongoing transformations requires attention to other European transnational institutions, regimes and organizations as well as non-member states. Still, the European Union has been the most successful in terms of institutionalizing a system of governance that includes a large, and increasing, part of the continent. The EU is currently the core political project in Europe and the example most often analysed in the literature. The Union will also be the main frame of reference for this chapter. For the European Union and its forerunners, enlargement has been a recurrent process. The Union has turned out to be attractive for most European states and the list of applicant countries is long. How, then, can we account for the dynamics of expansion? More speciWcally, why have the member states accepted new members (Sedelmeier 2000; Schimmelfennig 2001; Sjursen 2001b)? Consider rule-following. Change is normatively driven. Action is obligatory, derived through a process of the interpretation of an identity, codes of conduct and the obligations and rights following from them in diVerent situations (March and Olsen 1989). Change may be seen as quasi-mechanical, that is, as following from the routine application of stable criteria for entry and the execution of standard operating procedures to pre-speciWed situations. If an applicant country meets the criteria of membership, it is admitted. If not, the door is closed. In less automatic situations the underlying process may be one of arguing and persuading. Actors appeal to a shared collective identity and its implications. They evoke common standards of truth and morals and change follows as normative or factual beliefs change. Part of the research challenge is to account for why some identities and obligations are activated and others are not. For example, criteria of access to the EU may be liberal-democratic, implying that the Union will admit countries that reliably adhere to some universal and impartial criteria in their domestic and international conduct (Schimmelfennig 2001). Criteria may be institution-speciWc and related to the principles on which an institution is founded, such as the Copenhagen Declaration of 1993. Or they may take the form of a moral imperative based on a general sense of ‘kinship-based’ duty, that is, belonging to a speciWc political community (Sjursen 2001b). This way of reasoning is illustrated when actors argue that Europe has a historic opportunity to ‘reunify Europe’ after decades of artiWcial separation (Notre Europe 2001). Furthermore, interpretations of

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obligations may also be history-speciWc. For example, Sedelmeier argues that, during the Cold War, EU policy-makers constructed a speciWc role which implied a responsibility for the EU towards the Central and Eastern European countries (the CEECs). Such commitments were unevenly distributed across policy-makers, yet they had important eVects on the enlargement process (Sedelmeier 2000). It is commonplace to observe that the EU agreed to enlargement without precise calculation of the consequences, including the costs and required changes for member states. There was no guarantee that the long-term beneWts of each member state would outweigh their costs. In brief, enlargement cannot be seen purely as the result of a strategic choice where member states are maximizing their expected utility. However, it is also commonplace to observe that participants in the enlargement process are concerned with costs and beneWts and that they bargain in the defence of self-interest and economic and security gains. What, then, are the mechanisms through which identities and norms have an impact? Do actors use identities and norms genuinely or instrumentally? Schimmelfennig (2001) argues primarily within a logic of self-interested calculation rather than a logic of appropriateness. The enlargement process is characterized by strategic use of norm-based arguments and appeals to democratic identities and values. Member states have been rhetorically entrapped and have to support enlargement in order to save their reputation as Community members. Strategic behaviour is constrained by the constitutive ideas of the Community and the actors’ prior identiWcation with the Union. In comparison, Sedelmeier (2000: 184) is more open to the possibility that identities and norms are used genuinely or instrumentally. He observes that there are simultaneous processes of enactment and deWnition of the EU’s identity. Finally, Sjursen (2001b) emphasizes the genuine role of internalized norms. Norms constitute the identity of actors and do not merely regulate their behaviour. Decisions are made as actors reason together and assess the moral validity of arguments. Many EU documents portray enlargement as consistent with liberaldemocratic principles and Community values, as well as the interests of existing members and applicant countries (Commission 2001c). Scholars aspiring to theorize on Europeanization cannot assume such harmony. It is important to understand the relations and possible tensions between a logic of appropriateness and norm-driven behaviour and a logic of calculation and expected utility under varying circumstances. Actors often follow rules. Yet they are also often aware of the consequences of rule-driven behaviour. And sometimes they may not be willing to accept the consequences of following rules. In some situations one identity and norm-set may be dominant and

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provide clear normative imperatives. In other situations there may be many competing identities, giving vague guidelines for action. Likewise, interests and means–end understandings may be clear or obscure. One possibility is that a clear logic of action will dominate a less clear logic. Another alternative is that learning over time will produce rules and norm-driven action, while highly unfavourable consequences will make existing rules suspect and activate a logic of calculation (March and Olsen 1998). A third possibility is that diVerent logics are relevant for diVerent issues. For example, enlargement may be decided through application of basic norms, while the distribution of the costs of enlargement may be decided through self-interested calculation and bargaining.

DEVELOPING EUROPEAN-LEVEL INSTITUTIONS Some scholars portray Europeanization as the institutionalization at the European level of a distinct system of governance with common institutions and the authority to make, implement and enforce European-wide binding policies. This view is illustrated by Risse, Cowles and Caporaso, who deWne Europeanization as: the emergence and development at the European level of distinct structures of governance, that is, of political, legal, and social institutions associated with the problem solving that formalize interactions among the actors, and of policy networks specializing in the creation of authoritative European rules. (Risse, Cowles and Caporaso 2001: 3).

Europeanization here includes both the strengthening of an organizational capacity for collective action and the development of common ideas, such as new norms and collective understandings regarding citizenship and membership (Checkel 2001a: 180).8 A possible frame for understanding the dynamics and outcomes of European-level institutional development is purposeful choice. Within this frame, which is used by intergovernmentalists in particular, a group of actors has a choice among alternative forms of organization and governance. They have preferences that make it possible to discriminate between available alternatives and their outcomes on the basis of predetermined normative criteria. They choose the one that is assessed as most valuable, according to its inherent 8 Jim Caporaso has reminded me that in their study Europeanization was deWned as institution-building at the European level, yet the dependent variable was the impact of European institutions on domestic institutions.

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properties or expected eVects. Institutional developments, then, are seen as reXecting the will, power and understanding of identiWable actors. The research challenge is to identify the actors and the motivations and forces that determine their choices. In a problem-solving mode, objectives are shared and institutional change is the outcome of voluntary agreements among the relevant actors. The challenge for institutional architects is to discover or design forms of organization and governance that make all participants come out better than they could do on their own. For instance, the European Union is assumed to be involved in a continuous search for ‘the right formula for building lasting and stable institutions’—to improve the functionality, legitimacy and credibility of the institutions of governance (Patten 2001). In this perspective, the participants Wrst have to agree upon common objectives and substantive political programmes. Then they have to develop institutional arrangements as organizational tools for their policies. In a conXict-resolution mode, change reXects the interests and beliefs of the most powerful actors, as they bargain and build coalitions, based on their political, military or economic power. There is an explicit focus on the competing conceptions of European unity and forms of political organization. Likewise, there is a focus on power, that is, how Europeanization reXects and modiWes the ways in which political power is constituted, legitimated, exercised, controlled and redistributed. Like other political orders, the emerging European order has to cope with tensions between unity and integration and disunity and disintegration (see Chapter 1 above). So, even when EU oYcials emphasize norms of consensus and voluntary cooperation and argue that ‘power politics have lost their inXuence’ (Prodi 2001a: 3), this perspective assumes a need to understand the power relations and cleavages shaping the new order as much as the Westphalian state order in Europe (Rokkan 1999). While there is agreement to a large extent that the Union is ‘an extraordinary achievement in modern world politics’ (Moravcsik 1999: 1), there is less consensus when it comes to the nature of the Union and the causes of its development. For instance, the importance of explicit intervention and choice in the development of European-level institutions has been contested. Intergovernmentalists emphasize institutional choices made by the governments of (the major) member states (Moravcsik 1998). A competing view is that systems of supranational governance have their roots in the European-wide transactions, group formation and networks of transnational society, while governments primarily play a reactive role (Stone Sweet and Sandholtz 1998). An institutional approach, with an emphasis on ‘historical ineYciency’, focuses on how the element of willed change is

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inXuenced and constrained by existing institutional arrangements (March and Olsen 1989; Olsen 1997a, b). From this perspective it is expected that the signiWcance and nature of deliberate choice depends on existing institutional conWgurations and that the importance of purposeful choice will change as the degree of institutionalization at the European level changes. One possible source of improved understanding of the scope of purposeful institutional choice in contemporary Europe is to compare diVerent European institution-building eVorts, such as the EU, EFTA, NATO, the Nordic Council and the Council of Europe. Another option is to compare attempts at institution-building within the EU. The EU has been characterized as a ‘non-state’ and a ‘non-nation’ (Schmitter 2000) and as ‘a relatively incoherent polity in institutional terms’ (Caporaso and Stone Sweet 2001: 228). The Union’s capacity and legitimacy for institution-building has varied across institutional spheres such as competition policy, monetary aVairs, external and internal security, and culture, and the ongoing development from (primarily) marketbuilding to polity-building creates a need to attend to the diVerent dynamics of various institutional spheres and policy sectors. The four dimensions suggested by the state- and nation-building literature (Rokkan 1999; Chapter 2 above) are relevant both for comparing institutional spheres within the EU and for comparing the Union with other European institution-building eVorts. Comparison of the diVerent dynamics of institutional spheres and policy sectors is particularly required when institution-building is seen to involve changes in action capabilities and in identities, codes of meaning and normative criteria which give direction to capabilities. Like other political systems, the EU makes eVorts to justify its institutions, to develop a sense of belonging and to create emotional identiWcation with the system among citizens. Aspirations of governance, then, include not only changes in behavioural regulation, opportunity and incentive structures, but also the moulding of individuals and changes in mentality, causal and moral beliefs, and ways of thinking. For example, EU institutions, including the Council, have taken an interest in the democratic and European dimensions of education, hoping to make young people more conscious of European ideas and of being Europeans (Beukel 2001: 131). Member states, however, have been reluctant to give the Union authority to shape the institutional framework for education and socialization. Control over educational institutions—including changes in universities (Dineen 1992; H. Olsen 1998; Olsen 2005a) and in national history writing (Geyer 1989)—is a sensitive issue precisely because it is closely linked to national and subnational identities. An implication is that students of European institutional dynamics, for theoretical as well as practical reasons, need to supplement their interest in decision-making and decision-

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implementing institutions with an increased interest in the dynamics of educational and socializing institutions at the European level.

DOMESTIC IMPAC TS OF EUROPEAN-LEVEL INSTITUTIONS The third conception of Europeanization focuses on change in core domestic institutions of governance and politics, understood as a consequence of the development of European-level institutions, identities and policies. This is at present the most common use of the term ‘Europeanization’ (Bulmer Forthcoming) and forms a branch of the literature that has moved into a ‘secondgeneration’ phase of analysis with an increasingly coherent intellectual agenda (Goetz 2002). In ‘Wrst-generation’ studies, in particular, European-level development is treated as the explanatory factor and changes in the domestic systems of governance as the dependent variable. The research tasks are therefore to account for variations in European impacts and to explain the varying responses and robustness of domestic institutions against pressures from the European level. The bulk of the empirical literature concerns the eVects of the European Union on the member states. Most often these studies focus on impacts on domestic policies and behaviour. Yet, there are also studies of the scope and mode of change in domestic structures and practices, in resources, and in principles of legitimating collective understandings and codes of meaning.9 Through what processes and mechanisms do European-level developments penetrate the domestic level and produce change? Two basic frames for analysing Europeanization as adaptive processes are experiential learning and competitive selection. In experiential learning institutions change on the basis of experiences with, and interpretations of, how relevant actors in the environment respond to alternative forms of domestic organization and governance. Environmental actors may be indiVerent to the focal domestic institution or may be actively promoting speciWc forms. They may dictate prescriptions or allow considerable discretion and local autonomy. In all cases, forms and actions assessed as successful are more likely to be repeated and developed. Likewise, unsuccessful forms are more likely to

9 Me´ny, Muller and Quermonne 1996; Rometsch and Wessels 1996; Hanf and Soetendorp 1998b; Radaelli 2000; Sverdrup 2000; Andersen and Eliassen 2001: 233; Bo¨rzel 2001; Bulmer and Burch 2001; Cowles, Caporaso and Risse 2001; Goetz and Hix 2001; Knill 2001; Ladrech 2001; Bo¨rzel and Risse 2003; Featherstone and Radaelli 2003; Wessels, Maurer and Mittag 2003; Bulmer and Lequesne 2005.

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be avoided. We need to understand which experiences actors are exposed to, how they interpret and assess what has happened and why, and to what degree they are able to store, retrieve and act upon such information. In models of competitive selection, environmental imperatives are seen as driving the process of change, and there is a need to understand the mechanism of variation, selection and retention. Institutions and actors are Wxed and their survival and growth rates depend on their performance, their comparative advantages and how well they ‘match’ their changing functional and normative environments. Only the most eYcient institutions survive. The others disappear. What, then, are the factors that inXuence patterns of adaptation? Which European-level institutions and actors matter? Why do some states and institutions undergo more profound change than others? What determines the responses, adaptability and robustness of domestic institutions, including their ability to ignore, buVer, redeWne or exploit external European-level pressures? From an institutional perspective we should not expect processes of experiential learning and competitive selection always to be perfect, making adaptation automatic, continuous and precise. Often adaptation takes place in a world not easily understood or controlled. The rate of adaptation may be inconsistent with the rate of change in the environment to which the institution is adapting, and there may be no single optimal institutional response to changes in the environment (March 1981). The most standard institutional response to novelty is to Wnd a routine in the existing repertoire of routines that can be used (March and Olsen 1989: 34). External changes are interpreted and responded to through existing institutional frameworks, including existing causal and normative beliefs about legitimate institutions and the appropriate distribution, exercise and control of power. DiVerentiated responses and patterns of adaptation and institutional robustness can in particular be expected in political settings like the European one. First, because European institution-building and policy-making are unevenly developed across institutional spheres and policy areas, the adaptive pressures on states and institutions vary (see Chapter 10 below). For instance, Jacobson suggests some hypotheses relevant for the impacts of the EU and other supra-, inter- and transnational institutions, regimes and organizations. They are more likely to have an impact and be complied with: the more precise their legal foundation; when they are based on hard law rather than soft law; when the aVected parties have been involved in developing the arrangement; the greater the independence of their secretariat; if the secretariat is single-headed rather than multiple-headed; and the greater the Wnancial autonomy of the institution or regime (Jacobson 2001: 20).

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Second, diVerentiated responses are likely because the (West) European political order is characterized by long, strong and varied institutional histories, with diVerent trajectories of state- and nation-building, resources and capabilities (Rokkan 1999; Chapter 2 above). However, while some domestic actors are proud of their historic achievements and do their best to protect them, others are eager to get beyond ‘the burdens of the past’ (Zielonka 2001). As a result, extensive penetration of domestic institutions by European developments is taking place in some spheres, while there are also protected spaces, stubborn resistance and non-penetration in other spheres (Wallace 1999: 3, 2000: 371). An implication is that we have to pay attention to how institutional spheres are aVected diVerently and how they attend to, interpret and respond to European developments diVerently and in non-synchronized ways. Therefore, we also have to attend to how Europeanization might have diVerent impacts on the relations and balance between the major institutional spheres of the nation-state (Olsen 1996). In spite of a considerable number of empirical studies, there is limited agreement on the degree to which Europeanization as the development of institutions at the European level creates Europeanization in the sense of changing domestic institutions. For instance, a veteran student of European integration asks: ‘Why is it that we are so ill-equipped to make compelling generalizations about how the European arena, as constituted by the European Union (EU), impacts on the member states in terms of the politics of the countries? . . . Why are our eVorts to compare countries’ experiences of EU membership so feeble’? (Wallace 1999: 1) European-level arrangements have been seen as strengthening the territorial state and the state-based order and as creating more national government rather than less (Milward 1992; Metcalfe 1994; Moravcsik 1994). They have also been seen as negatively aVecting the substantive problem-solving capacity of the state and reducing the role of democratic politics in society (Scharpf 1999a; Leibfried 2005). Furthermore, they have been seen as transforming, rather than strengthening or weakening, the territorial state or the state system (Wessels 1996; Kohler-Koch 1999; Kohler-Koch and Eising 1999; Hooghe and Marks 2001). As will be elaborated in Chapters 10 and 11, students of government and administrative institutions observe a signiWcant and persistent shift of domestic attention, resources and personnel to European-level institutions and their decision-making cycles. There is also some convergence in patterns of attention, behaviour and policy. Yet, a main Wnding is that there has been no radical change in any of the national systems and no signiWcant convergence towards a common institutional model which homogenizes the

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domestic structures of the European states.10 No new harmonized and uniWed model of dealing with Union matters has emerged. EU arrangements are compatible with the maintenance of distinct national institutional arrangements and there is even reconWrmation and restoration of established national structures and practices. In sum, structural diversity persists among the core domestic structures of governance in spite of increasing contact and competition between national models. Established national patterns are resistant but also Xexible enough to cope with changes at the European level.11 While European developments have been presented as an important reason for administrative reforms (Raadschelders and Toonen 1992a, b), and as creating a need for improved domestic coordination (Kassim 2000: 236), governments and administrative systems have adapted diVerently to European pressures on their own terms. That is, adaptation has reXected institutional resources and traditions, the pre-existing balance of domestic institutional structures, and also ‘the broader matrices of values which deWne the nature of appropriate political forms in the case of each national polity’ (Harmsen 1999: 81).12 Likewise, a study of ten smaller West European states—both member and non-member states—concluded that adaptations to the EU were inXuenced by existing institutional arrangements and traditions (Hanf and Soetendorp 1998b). Europeanization as domestic impacts is not limited to structural and policy changes. European values and policy paradigms are also to some (varying) degree internalized at the domestic level, shaping discourses and identities (Dyson 2000a, b; Checkel 2001a, 2005). Europeanization of foreign policy has produced shared norms and rules that are gradually accumulated, rather than being a process where interests have been Wxed (Sjursen 2001a: 199–200). 10 Kaelble (1989), studying primarily social institutions, concluded that there had been considerable convergence in Europe in the period 1880–1980. Gary Marks (personal communication) holds that at the level of subnational regionalization there has been both convergence and divergence. Where there has been change over the past several decades, it has been towards strengthening regions. Yet the extent of variation in the strength of regions is still at least as great as in 1950 or 1960. Countries have similar slopes of change, but the slopes tend to diverge over time. As a result, the direction of change is convergent, but the outcome is greater divergence. 11 Page and Wouters 1995; Christensen 1996; Rometsch and Wessels 1996; Egeberg and Trondal 1999; Harmsen 1999; Bomberg and Peterson 2000; Kassim, Peters and Wright 2000; Radaelli 2000; Sverdrup 2000; Bulmer and Burch 2001; Cowles and Risse 2001; Goetz 2001a; Jacobsson, Lægreid and Pedersen 2001; Ladrech 2001; Trondal 2001; Ugland 2002; Wessels, Maurer and Mittag 2003. 12 Harmsen observed that the Netherlands was more occupied with the perceived threat to the autonomy of civil society, and the balance between state and society, than the sovereignty of the state. In contrast, France was more interested in buVering the state against EU norms (Harmsen 1999: 105). See also Kassim, Peters and Wright 2000; H. Wallace 2000a: 369–70).

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Likewise, common concepts of appropriate Wscal behaviour, taxation and ‘sound’ money and Wnance have developed at the elite level (Radaelli 1997; Dyson 2000b; Sbragia 2001: 80). Simultaneously, among ordinary citizens, national identities are reaYrmed and there has been a revival of nationalism and ethnic-based identities which possibly represents a major source of potential resistance to Europeanization (Schlesinger 1993; Hooghe, Marks and Wilson 1999). While there are relatively few studies of how Europeanization contributes to moulding public opinion and changing the role and signiWcance of civil society in such processes (Schlesinger 1992, 1993; Venturelli 1993), new boundaries of solidarity have been drawn within and among organized interests (Dølvik 1997; Macey 1998; Ferrera 2005). Even churches and spiritual associations have come under pressure to adapt their structures and state–church relations to the changing European context. They have been asked to ‘help to interpret and give meaning to the process of European uniWcation’ and their responses have been aVected by diVerent privileges and national arrangements (Jansen 2000: 103, 105). Likewise, there have been a limited number of studies of the adaptation of the polity at large, including changes in domestic politics, political cleavages, voting behaviour, elections, political parties and party systems. The conclusions of such studies seem to support rather than contradict studies of governmental and administrative systems.13 In sum, European-level developments have not dictated speciWc forms of institutional adaptation but have left considerable discretion to domestic actors and institutions. There have been signiWcant impacts, yet the actual ability of the European level to penetrate domestic institutions has not been perfect, universal or constant. Adaptation reXects variations in European pressure as well as domestic motivations and abilities to adapt. European signals are interpreted and modiWed through domestic traditions, institutions, identities and resources in ways that limit the degree of convergence and homogenization. As students of European dynamics are beginning to understand better the conditions for interactions between European and domestic factors, more nuances in conclusions can be expected. So far, however, institutional learning across national borders is limited (Kassim 2000: 242; Wessels, Maurer and Mittag 2003). Competitive selection on the basis of comparative eYciency is a signiWcant process in some sectors, like telecommunications (Schneider 2001: 78; Levi-Faur 2004). Yet competitive selection does not in general secure convergence towards a ‘best practice’ and optimal institutional forms across Europe (Harmsen 1999: 84). Goetz concludes that the literature ‘casts some 13 Mair 2000; Goetz and Hix 2001; Ladrech 2001; Anderson 2002; Bartolini 2005.

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doubt over the explanatory power of ‘‘European integration’’ as major force driving domestic executive change’ (Goetz 2001: 220). He Wnds no straightforward connection between adaptive pressure and adaptive reactions and he prescribes caution in treating European integration as a major independent source of change. European-level changes are just one among several drivers of domestic change. Generally, a major challenge is to trace changes at the domestic level back to European-level institutions, policies or events.14

E X P O RTING E U ROP E AN INSTITUTIONS Inward-looking deWnitions of Europeanization, that is, Europeanization of the continent itself, are a twentieth-century phenomenon (Mjøset 1997). Historically, Europeanization has been understood as the spread of forms of life and production, habits of drinking and eating, religion, language, and political principles, institutions and identities typical for Europe and unknown in the rest of the world beyond European territory.15 The global extension of the territorial state system is just one outstanding example of European models of polity and society spreading throughout the globe, making European development a key to understanding the rest of the world (Geyer 1989: 339). A basic frame for understanding such diVusion processes is borrowed from epidemiology. When studying the spread of a form of political organization and governance through a territory and a population, the focus is on questions such as the following: What is the pattern of diVusion? How fast, how far, and to whom does it (Wrst) spread? Does it persist, or fade away and disappear? What are the political processes through which forms of organization and governance spread? Why does a form spread? Which factors determine the rate and pattern of diVusion? In particular, what are the properties of forms that make them more or less likely to spread? Does it make a diVerence whether transmission happens through networks of individual contact, or through ‘broadcasting’ and exposure to organized eVorts of argument, persuasion or indoctrination? An institutional perspective suggests that diVusion will be aVected by the interaction between outside impulses and internal institutional traditions and historical experiences. DiVusion processes are unlikely to produce perfect

14 Radaelli 1997: 572, 2000; Bulmer and Burch 2001: 76; Levi-Faur 2004; Chapter 10 below. 15 Kohn 1937; Weber 1947: 208, 215; Zimmer 1990; Mjøset 1997.

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clones of the prescriptions oVered. What is diVused is likely to be transformed during the process of diVusion.16 In practice, the spread of European models has sometimes taken the form of colonialization, coercion and imposition. European institutions have penetrated and destroyed the traditions and institutions of other continents. They have disrupted and undermined the coherence of established polities and societies and created political counter-mobilization and confrontations. However, diVusion has also taken the form of imitation and voluntary borrowing from a successful civilization. The recipients have copied European arrangements because of their perceived functionality, utility or legitimacy. Because the major European states have lost their world hegemony, hierarchical command and coercion is currently less likely to be the most important process for spreading European institutions outside Europe. DiVusion patterns may depend more on exposure to and perceived attractiveness of European forms. The issue then is how distinct and attractive are European forms among the many, competing ideas about exemplary or appropriate political organization and governance available on the global scene? There is scant empirical documentation of external diVusion processes during the last few decades and the new institutionalism in sociology denies that there are distinct European models of organization and governance. The lack of diVerence between Europe and the rest of the world, rather than the uniqueness of European solutions, is emphasized (Meyer 2001: 238).17 The focus is on the diVusion of global prescriptions—templates and standards of universal rationality and validity—spread through a global system of cultural communication (Powell and DiMaggio 1991; Meyer 1996; Andersen 2001). The attractiveness of European prescriptions and normative standards has also been questioned. For instance, Garton Ash argues that the UK looks to the United States for inspiration. There is a fascination with American solutions and ‘idealized America trumps idealized Europe’ (Garton Ash 2001: 12). Furthermore, the attraction of American enterprise, innovation and Xexibility is hardly limited to the UK (Dyson 2000b). Currently, Europe Wnds itself in a new period of experimentation and innovation. The continent is in search of an identity and new political and social models (Beck et al. 2001). While Europe has limited power, it is still the world’s major producer of ideology and a normative area that can contribute good ideas (Therborn 2001). For instance, the Lisbon process 16 March 1981; Czarniawska and Sevo´n 1996, 2005; Olsen and Peters 1996; Christensen and Lægreid 2001. 17 See however, Strang 1991. Of course, a successful diVusion of European forms of organization and governance, such as the territorial state, has over time made Europe less unique.

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emphasizes the need to formulate, defend and spread globally a European model of society, partly through a competition among diVerent existing member-state models. There is an increasing attention to European identity and to civilizational diVerences between Europe and the United States, illustrated by debates over federalism, the desire to combine improved economic eYciency with social justice and responsibility, the use of the death penalty, resistance to treating language and culture as commodities, new conceptions of security, environmental issues like the Kyoto agreement, etc. Possibly, new forms of organization and governance are in the making, forms and processes of change that may inspire regional integration in other parts of the world (Telo` 2001). Furthermore, European states are increasingly making attempts to assert themselves on the international stage through the EU. For instance, one dimension of the development of a common foreign and security policy relates to the status and role of the EU in the international system (Sjursen 2001a: 199). Aspirations include making the Union an inXuential actor in the development of a new international order through the WTO, NATO and the United Nations, as well as in bilateral negotiations. One goal is to make the Union’s political power better reXect its economic power. The power aspect is also observed when the Union is seen as ‘Europe’ and the focus is on diVusion of institutions, standards and identities within the continent. Borrowing between European states has a long history (Barker 1944). Yet, in enlargement negotiations with eastern and central states, phrases like ‘catching up’ with the West, the conditionality of aid, and the need to accept EU standards and forms as part of becoming member states, indicated diVerences in status and power. Yet, it has also been observed that leaders in the former Communist states in Eastern and Central Europe are improving their ability to diVerentiate between those aspects that are useful for their own political purposes and those that are not. Imitation has followed a political logic distinct from faddish mimicry (Jacoby 2001). While coercion is not the main process of change, diVusion of forms of political organization are unlikely solely to reXect the attractiveness of European templates. DiVusion processes involve the distribution of power and status. They also take place within a framework of resources and capabilities, incentives and sanctions. Resources can be used to give voice to ideas and practices, to make them more visible and to make them look more attractive. Forms supported by the resourceful are ceteris paribus more likely to spread. Therefore, we have to attend to the resources mobilized for promoting European forms in other parts of the world, as well as the resources available for non-Europeans to resist unattractive forms. In sum, students of Europeanization as the diVusion of European forms of

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organization and governance beyond the region have to understand the distinctiveness, attractiveness and legitimacy of European models, as well as the resources backing or opposing their diVusion. The shifting long-term European export–import balance of forms is one possible indicator of whether Europe is becoming a more or less important entity in its interaction with the rest of the world.

THE POLITICAL UN IFICATION O F EUROPE The Wfth conception deWnes Europeanization as a political development: making Europe a more distinct, more coherent and stronger political entity.18 Sovereign states are uniWed into a single political space and system of governance, a functional whole and a purposeful and resourceful actor. Coherent structural arrangements provide a strong organizational basis for concerted action inwards and outwards. The development of a European sphere for public will- and opinion-formation contributes to common conceptions of legitimate political organization and a shared feeling of belonging, giving direction to action capabilities. Internal borders and barriers fade or are removed. External borders and barriers are strengthened. There is a clear discrimination between members (citizens) and nonmembers. In sum, a fragmented European state system is uniWed as the boundaries of political space are extended. Europeanization in the sense of (strong) political uniWcation is not a fait accompli. As an aspiration, it is partly present in some reform programmes.19 Europe has a long history of unsuccessful attempts at uniWcation (Heater 1992) and currently there are competing ideas about what political organization and system of governance is feasible, desirable, and likely to make Europe a stronger entity. 18 It has been argued that there is no need for ‘Europeanization’ in this sense because it is synonymous with ‘integration’ and does not add anything to explaining uniWcation (Bomberg and Peterson 2000; Kohler-Koch 2000; Radaelli 2000). I disagree. This meaning of Europeanization involves enlarging territory, developing new institutions of political governance, and adapting existing domestic institutions into a larger coherent order, as well as exporting European models beyond the region. Furthermore, the concept of integration has problems of its own. Integration among a set of elementary parts may refer to structures of interdependence, interaction and sociometric connectedness, and meaning and consistency, in terms of shared normative and causal beliefs, emotional identiWcation and shared political projects (March 1999a: 134–5). These dimensions are not necessarily strongly correlated, even if they are often assumed to be so in the literature. 19 Habermas 1998; Fischer 2000; Commission 2001a; Notre Europe 2001.

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At present, there are also few accepted indicators of Europeanization as political uniWcation. A strong Europe does not simply imply maximizing territory, centre-building, adaptation of national and subnational systems of governance and export of European models. Rather, the institutionalization of political borders, authority, power and responsibility is a delicate balancing act. For example, EU enlargement will increase the Union’s territory, population and resources. Yet it will also create more heterogeneity and put stronger demands on the Union’s institutions of governance. A stronger centre and a single hierarchical control-and-command system may under some circumstances make it possible to act in a more coherent way and play a more signiWcant role in global developments. Yet, strong adaptation pressure will also generate protest and resistance from member states and others disagreeing with common policies. Likewise, vigorous adaptation of domestic systems without adequate respect for local autonomy, diversity and protection of minorities will provoke conXict and obstruction. Export of European solutions may indicate success. Yet successful European development will also depend on imports from other parts of the world. Such a balancing act is unlikely to take the form of a single, typical and dominant process of change. Rather, a crucial aspect of Europeanization has been the dissemination of a network mode of governance characterized by complex interactions between levels and sectors in a multilevel and multicentre polity (Kohler-Koch 1999; Hooghe and Marks 2001). In order to understand European dynamics it is therefore likely that we will need a basic framework allowing several diVerent types of simultaneous processes of change and a pattern of mutual adaptation among co-evolving institutions.20 In this framework the processes of institutional change discussed so far— rule-application and argument, choice, adaptation through experiential learning or competitive selection and diVusion—are seen as complementary rather than exclusive. In varying combinations they are likely to be helpful in understanding contemporary ecologies of co-evolving institutions. This complexity may also explain why students of European transformations have often observed that the dynamics of change takes the form of mutual adaptation among co-evolving institutions at diVerent levels and sectors of 20 Please observe that I speak of co-evolving institutions and not institutional co-evolution. The latter concept, as used in biology and evolutionary economics, opens a theoretical can of worms, i.e. the relationship between institutional change, development and evolution. Institutional development implies that change has a direction—that there are consistent and durable changes in political institutions and the institutional balance (Orren and Skowronek 2004). In addition, institutional evolution suggests that change tends to improve the adaptive value of institutions in terms of performance and survival. Processes of development and evolution, however, should be documented empirically rather than assumed in models of European institutional dynamics.

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governance; still, they have tended to ignore this observation in their model-building eVorts. On the one hand, it has been observed that change is not unilateral. Global, European, national and subnational processes interact in intricate ways. Typically, there is no single dominant and deterministic causal relation. Causal chains are often indirect, lengthy and complex. EVects are diYcult to identify and disentangle. Interactive processes of feedback, mutual inXuence and adaptation produce interpenetration between levels of governance and institutions.21 On the other hand, the observed complexity is often bracketed. For example, Risse, Cowles and Caporaso (2001: 12) write: ‘Although the causality between Europeanization and domestic structure runs in both directions, we have chosen to emphasize the downward causation from Europeanization to domestic structure’. The dilemma is obvious. A focus on unicausal relations and the language and logic of Wxed dependent and independent variables can become a straitjacket preventing an adequate theoretical and empirical analysis of the dynamics of European change. However, no coherent empirical research programme is possible if everything is seen as endogenous and in Xux. Current European developments may illustrate an elementary property of human beings: that they are capable of producing behaviour and institutions more complex than they are capable of understanding (Lave and March 1975: 6). A world where many actors are adapting to each other simultaneously, and are therefore changing the context in which other actors are adapting, is a world that is diYcult to predict, understand and control by any single actor or group of actors. It is diYcult both to infer the proper lessons from experiences and to know what action to take (Axelrod and Cohen 1999: 8). Political leaders facing a situation in which institutions evolve and unfold through an unguided process with pallid elements of shared understanding and control may trust processes of natural selection, for instance competitive markets. Then the task of prospective leaders is to establish simple rules of fair competition and to harness complexity by protecting variation, exploration and innovation. A complementary position is to try to make institutional change a more guided process by improving the elements of shared understanding and coordination and reducing complexity. Examples would be institutional actors monitoring each other, exchanging information, introducing arrangements of consultation before decisions are made, developing shared statistics and accounts, making explicit eVorts to reduce incompatibilities and redundancies, and deliberately developing networks of 21 He´ritier, Knill and Mingers 1996: 1; Rometsch and Wessels 1996; Kassim 2000: 257; LaVan, O’Donnell and Smith 2000: 84, 85; H. Wallace 2000a: 370; Bulmer and Burch 2001: 178; Ladrech 2001: 4; Bulmer and Lequesne 2005.

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contact and interaction, joint projects and common rules and institutions. An increasing density of institutions and regimes in Europe and globally suggests that competitive markets and reforms aiming at more deliberate coordination are both parts of a changing world order. For students of institutional dynamics, Europeanization as uniWcation makes it necessary to rethink the question of what research strategies are fruitful. In simple models of institutional change, action is often assumed to be a response to a Wxed environment, i.e. the environment is not aVected by institutional action. This assumption is convenient, but often inconsistent with institutional realities (March 1981; Nystrom and Starbuck 1981b). Assuming that institutions create their environments in part—that they are part of an ecology of interaction, control, cooperation and competition, with organized units responding to each other—complicates the model-building task considerably. One strategy is to design research projects that aim at specifying the scope of conditions for speciWc processes of change, i.e. under what conditions each process is likely to be most signiWcant for understanding European transformations. Another research strategy—and an even more challenging one—is to focus on how institutional transformation may be understood as an ecology of mutual adaptation and co-evolving institutions, including a (varying) number of interacting processes of change. Empirically, the latter research strategy implies studying how non-European, European-level, national and subnational institutions and actors may change at the same time and in association with one another, as they try to Wnd a place within a complex multi-layered and multi-centred system.

A MODEL-BUILDING, NOT A DEFINITIONAL, CHALLENGE Where does all this leave us? Is ‘Europeanization’ generally a disappointing term to be abandoned, or is it useful for understanding the ongoing transformation of the European political order? Is it useful to subsume a variety of phenomena and mechanisms of change under one term? Research on European transformations need not be hampered by competing deWnitions as long as their meanings, the phenomena in focus, the simplifying assumptions behind the deWnitions, the models of change, and the theoretical challenges involved are clariWed and kept separate. Europeanization may, however, turn out to be less useful as an explanatory concept than as an attention-directing device and a starting point for further exploration. Possibly, Europeanization as political uniWcation will turn out to be of most interest, because this conception combines internal and external aspects of European

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dynamics and includes the other four meanings. It will certainly be the most challenging for those wanting to theorize about European institutional dynamics. Students of European transformation disagree when it comes to the importance of change, what the future is likely to bring, and how we may best understand institutional transformations. One reason may be that the European political order has not settled down into a new, stable equilibrium. There has been signiWcant change since the Treaty of Rome was signed in 1957. Yet Europe is still in a transition period. The continent is moving towards a new form of political organization and it is experimenting with the procedures by which the political order itself is to be changed, as illustrated by the European Convention. How, then, are changes in the European political order to be analysed? An institutional approach predicts considerable robustness and resilience in the constituent institutions. Domestic institutional structures, and the values, norms, interests and power distributions they are embedded in, are monuments of historical battles, joint problem-solving and peaceful conXict resolution. Institutions should not be expected to change easily and rapidly except under extraordinary conditions. Historically, the territorial state has also shown itself highly adaptive when facing radical change in its environment. Compared to other forms of political organization it has been successful, for instance when measured by its survival rate (Weiss 1998). The territorial state’s adaptive capabilities are once again being tested and so the observation of domestic structural continuity and behavioural change is not devoid of interest. While conceptual clarity is also of great importance in the European context (Featherstone and Radaelli 2003), the research challenge is not primarily one of inventing deWnitions. Questions of the properties, mechanisms and explanation of European transformations should not be turned into deWnitional issues. The challenge is to model the dynamics of change in ways that make the simplifying assumptions behind various deWnitions accessible to empirical tests. The way ahead lies in integrating perspectives on institutional dynamics, rather than choosing among them. There is no single grand theory of ‘Europeanization’ that can help us understand how institutions co-evolve through processes of mutual adaptation. Nor is there a single set of simplifying assumptions about change, institutions and actors that will capture the complexity of European transformations. Nevertheless, there exists a limited repertoire of (middle-range) models of institutional change that may be helpful for capturing European dynamics. Exploring the scope conditions of each model is a beginning. Understanding their interaction is the longterm and diYcult challenge.

4 A prelude to an institutional account THE SEARCH FOR A THEORETICAL AGENDA For half a century, Europeans have (again) explored the possibility of new forms of political order and unity. This time change has been non-violent and there have been comprehensive and possibly lasting changes in European institutions of governance. Still, students of European political integration face a partial and emerging polity, with institutions of governance in change and not in a stable equilibrium. Accounting for the dynamics of political integration requires attention to four questions. First, what is meant by ‘political integration’—how are such processes to be conceptualized and what are the reliable indicators of changing levels and forms of integration? Second, on what basis is the new polity—the European Union, as a political organization and system of governance—being integrated? Related to this, what ties members of the EU together and separates them from non-members, and to what extent? Third, what are the consequences of various levels and forms of integration? What are the most signiWcant eVects of changing levels of integration, including implications for the constituent units? Fourth, what are the determinants of political integration and through what processes does change take place? Why are there variations in the levels and forms of integration across institutional spheres and policy sectors? Why are there changes over time? In particular, what is the integrating power of shifting system performance in terms of eYcient problemsolving and service delivery? What is the integrating power of shared, relatively stable constitutive principles, institutions and procedures of good governance? This chapter is a prelude to answering such questions, and only a prelude, because it primarily catalogues some issues, controversies and research challenges that need clariWcation before a coherent theoretical approach to (European) political integration can be developed. This chapter starts with the observation that institutional change is a theme attracting attention from both practitioners and researchers. It argues that a European-speciWc agenda should be closely linked to a more general theoretical agenda. Two complications are attended to: the lack of adequate

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concepts to capture political integration and the limited agreement on the nature of existing European institutional arrangements. The focus is on two types of change that are important for the formation of legitimate democratic governance: the processes through which legal institutions are turned into ‘living’ institutions, and incentive-based orders are replaced by orders based on authority and informed consent. Three frameworks for understanding institutional change are sketched. In contrast to much conventional wisdom, it is argued that an institutional perspective implies a dynamic, not static, view of political life. Major sources of change are inherent in institutional ideals that are strived for but never reached, and in tensions and collisions caused by competing ideals and principles built into single institutions and polities. The chapter ends with a metaphor and some remarks about realistic theoretical ambitions.

THE R ELEVANCE OF INSTITUTIONS: THREE AGENDAS For some time, it has been commonplace for practitioners to argue that comprehensive institutional reform is indispensable and should be a top priority for the European Union. The practical political agenda refers to: (1) the past: European cooperation has been ‘deepened’ and ‘widened’. Formal institutions, it is claimed, are to a large extent the same. They lag behind due to the stagnation of EU reforms; (2) the current situation: the need to respond to the recent (perceived) institutional crisis and restore the credibility of EU institutions; and (3) the future: existing institutions are portrayed as hopelessly inadequate in a Union of 25 to 30 members. Future enlargements of the EU, with new types of applicants, require prior institutional reform. There are disagreements, however, concerning the scope of desirable reforms and whether ‘major surgery’ is needed. Moreover, there is no unanimity when it comes to the methods for preparing institutional reform, e.g. the use of a small independent committee of experts (Dehaene, von Weizsa¨cker and Simon 1999), intergovernmental diplomacy, or broadly representative Conventions. There is more agreement that institutional reform requires a long-term process, rather than an ad hoc, short-term intervention. The European-speciWc research agenda portrays the EU polity as sui generis. The key question is what competing analytical approaches and interpretations can contribute to a better understanding of the speciWc EU dynamics and continuities, i.e. institutional formation and change in the particular European socio-economic and historical-cultural context.

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The intrinsic importance of the emerging European institutions of governance is a suYcient reason for researchers to devote their attention to it. However, there is also a general theoretical agenda. This agenda goes beyond understanding the ways in which the EU polity is developing. It aspires to give an account of institutional change and reform that captures developments outside the Union and Europe at large. While the EU system of governance has some unique properties, it also shares important features with other complex polities. For instance, the metaphor that the EU system of multilevel governance is like a ‘marble cake’ rather than a ‘layer cake’ was used more than two decades ago to describe inter-governmental relations in the United States (Sharkansky 1981). The key issue on the general theoretical agenda is how European studies may help us develop more advanced theories of governance, political organization and institutional change. Taking into account the signiWcance of shifting contexts, are there any general lessons to be learnt about how polities develop, are maintained and change? Are there lessons that require us to revise or replace basic theoretical ideas, concepts, methods, techniques and normative standards? A basic assumption of this book is that a successful follow-up of the three agendas is more likely if they are considered together. For instance, all three depend on some serious conceptual homework. The task of analysing the dynamics of European integration is complicated by the limitations of available conceptual tools. The claim that ‘despite the seeming importance of the EC institutional components, with few exceptions institutions have played a scant role theoretically in accounts of European integration’ (Caporaso and Keeler 1995: 49) has not been made obsolete.1 The next section gives an illustration of some elementary conceptual challenges facing students of European institutions of governance and political integration in general.

POLITICAL INTEGRATION AS INSTITUTIONALIZATION In order to speak about diVerences in the level and form of political integration, as well as institutionalization as an indicator of political integration, we need a metric for political integration and institutionalization. Only then can we recognize possible enduring changes towards a ‘higher level of European integration’. Only then can we know whether Europe is moving toward an 1 See, however, Bulmer 1994; Olsen 1996; Armstrong and Bulmer 1998; Jupille and Caporaso 1999; Schneider and Aspinwall 2000; Cowles, Caporaso and Risse 2001.

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‘ever closer union’, and whether we are facing ‘a new stage in the process of European integration’. ‘Integration’ signiWes some measure of the density, intensity and character of the relations among the constitutive elements of a system. Integration may refer to causal interdependence among the parts, consistency—the degree of coherence and coordination among the parts—or structural connectedness— a sociometric or network vision of integration (March 1999a: 134–5). The three aspects of integration are not necessarily strongly correlated, and political integration is primarily seen here as changes in structural connectedness, i.e. inter-institutional relations. Falling back on integration as institutionalization, however, is of limited help, because the concept of ‘institution’ is also contested. Institutionalized government is ‘conducted in the light of some socially standardized and accepted code’ (Finer 1970: 12). Still, ‘institution’ may refer to an abstract regulatory prescription that is supposed to govern a certain sphere of conduct, and it may also refer to speciWc, imperfect historical attempts to put such abstract ideas into practice (March and Olsen 1989). We may distinguish three dimensions of processes of institutionalization (March and Olsen 1995; Olsen 1997b): (1) Structuration and routinization: the development of impersonal rules, roles, and repertoires of standard operating procedures, as well as switching rules between pre-structured responses (March and Simon 1958: 170). Institutionalization, then, implies routinizing some kinds of behaviour and change as well as routinizing resistance to others. (2) Standardization, homogenization and authorization of codes of meaning, ways of reasoning and accounts (March and Simon 1958: 165): practices and procedures become valued beyond their technical-functional properties (Selznick 1957; Eisenstadt 1964) and one has to know institutional practices in order to make concepts intelligible (Marmor 1994: 48–9). (3) Binding resources to values and worldviews (Stinchcombe 1968: 181–2), i.e. exploiting the capabilities of staV, budgets, buildings and equipment in order to achieve goals such as the enforcement of rules in cases of noncompliance. Authority and power are depersonalized. The oYce replaces the individual as the source and focus of power and legitimacy (Weber 1978: 246) and what individuals can do depends on their distance from the command posts of major institutions, positions which give control over large budgets and staV (Mills 1956). A perspective on international integration as structural connectedness suggests that a polity has a low level of institutionalization and integration

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if the constituent units just observe, inform, and adapt to each other through processes of autonomous adjustment (Lindblom 1965). The level of institutionalization and integration increases as the constitutive units: . coordinate their policies in an ad hoc and pragmatic way, based on selfinterest or unit-speciWc norms; . remove internal barriers to interaction and exchange, and develop common rules and standards, rights and obligations through inter-unit processes; . develop distinct supranational institutions of governance and routinized joint decision-making at the system level, allowing various mixes of supranationality, majority voting and veto power for the basic units; . develop common administrative and military institutions, with staV and budgets and therefore capabilities for analysis, planning, decision-making, implementation and enforcement; . give supranational institutions the right to change their own competence (kompetenz-kompetenz) and the competence of the basic units; and . develop a common public space, civic society and institutions able to educate and socialize individuals into informed citizens with a shared political identity and culture. A caveat is in order. Historically, European political developments have followed complex and varying trajectories (Rokkan 1999). There is no reason to believe that the foregoing list implies a perfect unidimensional or cumulative scale of ascending degrees of structural interconnectedness, or an obligatory pattern of integration and institutionalization. There may be a high level of integration based on informal codes of conduct, soft law and policy cooperation, without supranational institutions (Wallace 1999: 13). In addition, supranational formal-legal institutions are no guarantee of strong integration. For instance, establishing formal institutions for a common European security and defence policy without adequate resources may provide less integration than an informal coordination of national defence capabilities. Ceteris paribus, however, each step of institutionalization is likely to increase the level of integration. In sum, integrated polities are ‘organized around well-deWned boundaries, common rules and practices, shared causal and normative understandings and resources adequate for collective action’ (March and Olsen 1998: 943–4). In this perspective, processes of institutionalization and de-institutionalization include: (1) reorganizing and rewriting institutional forms, rules, roles and standards; (2) reinterpreting principles and doctrines, frames of understanding and justiWcation, including who is to be accepted as authoritative interpreters of principles, rules and situations; (3) reallocating resources and changing principles for allocating resources.

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A speciWc measure of institutionalization can be related to changes in the use of coercion and material incentives in regulating human behaviour. An indicator of institutionalization, then, will be the use of less coercion or fewer material incentives in order to make people follow formerly questioned rules and practices. Under some conditions, institutionalization may also be reXected in decreasing demands for participation, as beliefs in the appropriateness of existing structures and political authority are strengthened. This leads to a focus on the normative quality of political orders. In particular, attention is directed to how formal-legal institutional arrangements may be turned into ‘living institutions’—that is, how organizational charts are translated into collective practices based on legitimate authority, deWning appropriate behaviour and ways of reasoning for speciWc types of actors in speciWc types of situations.

FROM LEGAL TO ‘LIVING’ I NSTITUTIONS The architecture of the European polity, i.e. its basic institutions and their powers and relationships, has been contested since the original EC design and throughout subsequent reforms (Wallace 1996a: 37). The current institutional conWguration is complex, ambiguous and changing. It is multi-tiered, multi-structured and multi-centred, characterized by networks across territorial levels of governance, institutions of government, and public–private institutions (Kohler-Koch and Eising 1999; Jachtenfuchs and Kohler-Koch 2003). The evolving European political order is often portrayed as diYcult to analyse and describe and analysing the dynamics of European integration is complicated by the fact that there is limited agreement when it comes to what kind of polity the EU is. It is also uncertain what kind of political integration is possible and likely in a multi-cultural and pluralistic region organized politically on the basis of nation-states. According to Jacques Delors, the EU is an ‘objet politique non-identiWe´’. The EU has come a long way from a bargained agreement among nationstates, to a quasi-federal polity (Stone Sweet and Sandholtz 1998: 1). Still, the EU is neither a fully-Xedged polity (Joerges 1996b: 117; Wallace 1996a: 39) nor an integrated political community (Mayntz 1999: 8). Rather, it is an ‘experimental union’ (LaVan, O’Donnel and Smith 2000), an ‘unWnished polity’ and a ‘journey to an unknown destination’ (Weiler 1993b). The uncertainty of the future is highlighted by the Wve scenarios in Europe 2010 developed by the Commission’s Forward Studies Unit (Bertrand, Michalski and Pench 1999).

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For behavioural students of governance a challenge is that EU institutions are usually discussed in formal-legal terms, i.e. institutional powers formalized in treaties and law. This reactivates old issues like the relationship between legal and ‘living’ institutions and the political implications of formal institutions and rules. In the study of political life, legislation—binding for both rulers and ruled—was long believed to be the most striking manifestation of political power (Friedrich 1950: 268). In this perspective, government is about ‘the formation and application of law through public institutions’ (Peters 1999: 5). To understand institutions of government, it was necessary to know their history (Finer 1999). For instance, understanding Western legal institutions required tracing their roots and routes back centuries (Berman 1983). Furthermore, a legal description of political life, where political institutions are understood by their legal codes and where changes in formal-legal institutions and laws are supposed to change human behaviour, has been seen as ‘a typically European way of looking at politics’ (Easton 1964: 154). The American-led ‘behavioural revolution’ in political science in the 1950s and 1960s rejected this approach to the study of political life as formalistic, legalistic and old-fashioned. There was a need to penetrate the formal surface of constitutional charters, formal governmental institutions and laws, and to describe and explain how politics ‘really worked’ (Eulau and March 1969: 15–16; Drewry 1996). A result was increasing cynicism about the explanatory power of law, constitutions and judicial institutions. In a world of Realpolitik, such factors were seen as policy instruments. Less emphasis was put on law as a distinct method of social control based on the normative quality of rules, principles and processes. The main tendency was to ignore law as a revolutionary cultural force in Europe—one that could change concepts, identities and collective understandings. An implication was that behavioural students often ignored historical development, where an instrumental view of law as externally imposed order and discipline was supplemented with a theory of law as justice: an interpretation of law as rules with a defensible normative content, deWning appropriate behaviour and generating pressure for compliance (Berman 1983; Koh 1997; Habermas 1998). In contrast, the EU represents a renewed trust in governance by law and the legal integration of polity and society. While the EU uses a variety of policy modes, it is to a large extent a regulatory polity (Majone 1996). Therefore, the European context invites students of integration to reconsider the lessons of the behavioural revolution. What are the relationships between, on the one hand, formal-legal institutions, legal concepts, categories and ways of reasoning, formal decisions, and legally binding rules, and, on the other hand, ‘living institutions’, rule-implementation, actual political conduct and

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outcomes? For instance, is it possible to build ‘a genuine European political and administrative culture’ by rewriting treaties and formal institutional designs?2 What actually happens after the great (formal) bargains are made and the treaties are written? A key Wgure in the behavioural revolution maintains that ‘most of the basic problems of a country cannot be solved by constitutional design’. The signiWcance of constitutions and institutions—if it really matters whether they are well-or badly designed—depends on whether the underlying social and economic conditions are favourable, unfavourable or mixed (Dahl 1998: 127–8, 139). Some lawyers have also reduced their expectations of the eVectiveness of legislation (Joerges 1996b: 123), yet both lawyers and political scientists want to ‘analyse the Community constitutional order with particular regard to its living political matrix’ (Weiler 1999: 15).3 Weber observed that every system tries to establish and cultivate belief in its legitimacy. Some are more successful than others, and Weber deWned the constitution of an organization as ‘the empirically existing probability, varying in extent, kind and conditions, that rules . . . will be acceded to’ (Weber 1978: 50). Both legal and other rules present more or less precise binding behavioural claims on more or less speciWed groups of actors in more or less speciWed situations. Rules vary in terms of clarity, pertinence, stringency, adaptability, coherence and consistency (Koh 1997; Zu¨rn and Joerges 1999). Furthermore, actors—individuals (Tyler 1990) as well as states (Koh 1997; Checkel 2001b)—sometimes comply with rules and at other times disobey them. Under some conditions formal-legal institutions have binding authority, so that formal and ‘living’ institutions coincide. Under diVerent conditions the gap between formal-legal arrangements and practices is huge. Actors show great caution in exercising their authority, powers and rights, or they lack the capacity to do so. There is no straight line from structure to outcome (Caporaso and Keeler 1995: 47), and institutional continuity and policy change go hand in hand (Eising and Kohler-Koch 1999a; Sverdrup 2000). Sometimes rules lose their binding authority. They are ignored, contested, changed or replaced. Sometimes legal rules become a ‘mask’ hiding the political eVects of legal integration and a ‘shield’ insulating legal rules from political inXuence (Burley and Mattli 1993).

2 Jacques Santer, quoted in European Commission Press release no. IP/99/143 (3 Mar. 1999), available at Internet URL: see NTT for guidance (enter ‘IP/99/143’ in ‘Reference’ Field). 3 See also Armstrong and Shaw 1998; Slaughter, Stone Sweet and Weiler 1998; Craig and de Bu´rca 1999.

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A staggering feature of the EU has been the rather high level of compliance with rules and the development of legitimacy via judicial processes and legal integration (Sverdrup 2004). Therefore, a challenge for students of political integration is to provide a better understanding of the legitimacy and authority of European rules, including the mechanisms of change between types of rules and motivations for following them. Which factors aVect the probability of acting in accordance with rules of appropriate behaviour? How can we understand variations in compliance across rules, actors and situations? There is no reason to expect simple answers. Rather, a variety of reasons for following and breaking rules can be observed.

TURNING I NCENTIVES INTO AUTHORITY An institutional perspective assumes that rule-following is a more fundamental logic of action than action based on the continuous calculation of expected utility (March and Olsen 1989, 1995). Still, it is necessary to diVerentiate between reasons for rule-following. Rules may be obeyed out of habit and ‘traditional unreXective reverence for pre-existing authority’ (Finer 1970: 104). Compliance may be governed by rational calculation of the expected utility of alternative behaviours. Rules may also be followed due to an identity-derived internalized feeling of a moral obligation to do so, e.g. a law-abiding mentality. Or compliance may be based on interaction and argumentation, that is, rules are followed because of the causal and normative reasons given for the rules and the processes and institutions by which rules are formed and enforced. Often, the legitimacy of political institutions is understood in functionalinstrumental terms (Finer 1970: 19; Stinchcombe 1997). Institutions are purposeful, organized arrangements. Structures and procedures are supposed to promote speciWc tasks, purposes and goals. Legitimacy and support are based on technical performance, i.e. eYciency in problem-solving, service delivery and the capacity to achieve desired social purposes. Another possibility, however, is to see the legitimacy of a polity as depending on the degree to which structures, procedures and rules conform with societal beliefs about legitimate institutions and behaviours (Meyer and Rowan 1977; Scott and Meyer 1994). Competing conceptions of political institutions are closely linked to diVerent conceptions of the major institutional impacts (March and Olsen 1998; Peters 1999). When institutions are interpreted in functionalinstrumental terms, emphasis is usually on policy eVects. Political behaviour

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is seen as interest-driven and calculative and as externally governed by material incentives and coercion. A supplementary claim is that political institutions constitute, authorize and publicly legitimize actors who are supposed to be pursuing collective goals within a system of rules and due process (Jepperson and Meyer 1991: 206). Institutions, then, are seen as having the potential to form and transform actors, their mentality and identity and change logics of actions, e.g. from expected utility calculation to identity-based, rule-oriented behaviour. As a consequence, self-control is added to, or replaces, external controls. Compliance is based on the consent of actors who have internalized the belief that they have a normative obligation to accept certain institutions and policies under certain conditions.4 Institutional rules are followed because they are accepted as normatively right and not because of a hope of realizing predetermined ends by doing so (Habermas 1996: 153). Change and continuity are justiWed by appeals to the moral purpose and inherent value of alternative institutional arrangements and organizing principles, rather than their immediate consequences and functional eYciency (Reus-Smit 1997: 583). In this perspective, political and economic obligations of EU membership are (eventually) fulWlled because they are seen as reasonable and just. The latter conception is reXected in an important development in European political history: the gradual subjection of human conduct to due process and the rule of law (Elias 1982, 1988; Berman 1983). Students of international politics, however, have emphasized the diYculty of getting beyond ‘anarchy’ and cooperation based on calculated alliances and power balances in international relations. While some also see the transformation to legitimacy and authority as ‘the essence of governance’ in the international context (Ruggie 1998), the pursuit of justice and virtue is generally not seen as possible in the state’s external relations (Curtin 1997). This view is also common in the European context, i.e. the EU as a ‘benign technocracy’. Legitimacy and further integration depend on functional performance, comparative problem-solving eVectiveness and the ability to satisfy relevant policy interests (Wallace 1996a: 44). For instance, Scharpf claims that students of European integration have become more aware of some ‘lasting limitations’ of European political integration. The legitimacy of the EU in the foreseeable future will depend on its problem-solving capabilities and its institutional safeguards against the abuse of European power. There is no pre-existing sense of collective identity, and a shared identity is not to be expected, given the lack of a European-wide discourse 4 Weber 1978; Elias 1982, 1988; March and Olsen 1989, 1995; Habermas 1996.

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and an institutional infrastructure that could ensure the political accountability of oYce holders to a European constituency. Adding new member states from Central and Eastern Europe would increase heterogeneity and make the development of a common identity even more unlikely (Scharpf 1999a: 4, 187–8). Others see European political and legal institutions as having a larger potential for transforming mentalities, identities and logics of action. They argue that processes of opinion- and will-formation, through a communicative logic of argumentation and justiWcation, can cultivate citizens’ character and identity to some degree and build solidarity beyond the level of the nation-state (Habermas 1996: 506).5 Furthermore, in its self-presentation the EU adheres to several fundamental principles of governance common to the member states and independent of the single policy issue at hand. As formulated in the Treaties, the European Union is founded on the principles of liberty, democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and the rule of law. Decisions are to be taken as openly as possible and as closely as possible to the citizens and the Union shall also deepen the solidarity of its peoples, while respecting their history, culture and traditions. A challenge, then, is to specify the degree to which, and the conditions under which, the main foundation of a polity’s legitimacy represents superior functional performance and continuous utility-calculation. Likewise, what is the signiWcance of historically developed and fairly stable internalized codes of appropriate behaviour and principles for living together politically? For instance, to what degree does the eVectiveness and legitimacy of legal integration depend on a historic, underlying political culture in Western Europe? When and how is the legitimacy basis of a system of governance transformed from functional performance to internalized codes of appropriateness, or vice versa? What is the explanatory power of discourses and arguments? That is, to what degree, and under what conditions, does legitimacy depend on the defensible normative content of the Leitide´en, principles and forms presented in debates over what kind of European order is desirable? The long-term interaction between legitimacy based on performance and on normative principles and institutional forms is not well understood (March and Olsen 1998). There is no reason to believe that the two are either completely independent or perfectly correlated. However, one hypothesis is that if polities are unable to inXuence citizens’ identity and mentality and base their legitimacy on continuous performance, they tend to be unstable. If everyone takes an external calculative approach, so that legitimacy is based solely on performance, rewards and punishments, change is driven by shifting 5 See also Habermas 1998; Checkel 1999; Eriksen 1999; Eriksen and Fossum 2000; Risse 2000.

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distributions of incentives and coercion, and institutions will not last (see Chapter 1 above). In comparison, polities where legitimacy is based on shared political identities, and collective understandings and emotions are likely to change more slowly, change is likely to be a result of stepwise reinterpretations or major external shocks. One type of cultural shock is when a polity with a lawabiding culture is extended to countries and groups without a similar respect for law and due process. Possibly, the argument is relevant for some candidates for EU membership. Yet, the eVect may be modiWed because these new members may emphasize a diVerent legitimacy basis, e.g. the value of becoming part of a modern and democratic Europe. If, however, participation in discourses over the aims and justiWcations of European institutions and policies is important for awarding legitimacy to the system, one possible development is towards an increasing legitimacy gap between those taking part in discourses and interactions and the bystanders. The bystanders are aVected, but because they are not taking part in argumentation over the future of Europe, they are less prone to give legitimacy to the new polity. An institutional perspective assumes that institutional change will depend on both the level of integration and the basis on which a polity is integrated (Brunsson and Olsen 1998; Olsen 1998). Other frameworks for understanding institutional dynamics, in contrast, tend to see institutions as primarily an epiphenomenon, reXecting competitive environments or the will and power of identiWable actors.

F R A M EWO RK S F OR U ND E RS TA N DI N G I N S TI T U T I O NA L DY NA M I C S The history of the EU is consistent with the view that all political arrangements are contingent and malleable, yet not necessarily in a voluntaristic way (March and Olsen 1989, 1995). EU developments reXect a history of founding acts and deliberate institution-building as well as informal and gradual institutional evolution. It is a history where desired policy outcomes and preferred institutional development have not necessarily coincided. It is also a history of diVerent dynamics in diVerent policy areas (Wallace 1996a: 38–9). Here, I distinguish between three frameworks for understanding the determinants of institutional change and the processes through which change takes place: (1) environmental accounts highlighting competitive selection, (2) strategic agency accounts featuring human will, calculations and power, and (3) institutional accounts privileging the signiWcance of

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institutional structures and histories (March and Olsen 1989, 1995, 1998, Olsen 1992). Environmental accounts begin with society and portray institutional change as reXecting shifts in the political institutions’ functional or normative environments. Each institutional form has its comparative advantage, in terms of functional performance or how well it ‘matches’ normative environments. In cases where processes of diVusion and rational adaptation do not secure good ‘matches’, a process of competitive selection governs which institutional forms evolve, Xourish, decay or disappear. Both structures and policies are largely determined by environmental forces. Therefore, tinkering with institutional arrangements will have little independent impact as long as the underlying environmental forces remain constant (Dye 1975: 20–1). This view is dominant when European developments are seen as reXecting the imperatives of international competition, technological and economic globalization and mass migration. It is supported by market metaphors emphasizing competitive selection in an increasingly interdependent world.6 Economic and social integration, in the sense of causal interdependence among parts, dictate political integration, in the sense of structural connectedness and institution-building. One complication is that it is notoriously diYcult to specify an optimal political-democratic space (Dahl and Tufte 1973). Another complication is that environmental accounts seldom specify exactly which changes in institutional forms are required by shifting task environments and through what mechanisms environmental pressure brings about change (Oliver 1991). For instance, does global competition dictate the size of the European polity? Is territorial enlargement a functional necessity and, if so, which countries have to be included? Do global functional imperatives dictate what Europeans are going to have in common? A single market? A common currency? A defence and security policy? A common defence capability? An integrated public sphere and civic society? A shared language? A collective identity? If a widening and deepening of European cooperation is a functional requirement, through which processes will this happen? The same questions challenge accounts that assume a necessary adaptation to a normative environment of universally legitimate principles and forms. Here, one task is to explain why some principles and forms in a culture attract attention and get support, while others are ignored or rejected (Risse-Kappen 6 Ruggie claims, with a reference to Etzioni (1966), that ‘the boldest variant of functionalism actually posits the existence of evolutionary trends: that in reacting and adapting to its environment, humanity will build for itself ever-higher forms of socio-political organization, from tribes to baronies, from national states to global authorities’ (Ruggie 1998: 46).

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1994: 187). For instance, how can we better understand the changing mobilizing power in Europe when it comes to concepts like the market, democracy, the welfare state, human rights, civil society, the federal state, governance by experts, etc.? Another task is to specify what each principle, or speciWc combinations of various principles, requires in terms of institutional design. Strategic agency accounts understand institutional change in rationalinstrumental terms, as reXecting the will, calculations and power of an identiWable group of actors. Institutional design and choice are solutions to perceived problems (March and Olsen 1983; Olsen 1997c). This view is shared by intergovernmental interpretations of European institutional developments as the outcome of bargaining between the major member states (Moravcsik 1998), as well as by accounts emphasizing supranational or transnational actors (Sandholtz and Stone Sweet 1998). DiVerent scholars emphasize diVerent collective actors, but the main focus is on human intention, understanding and power. This is an account that entails two assumptions: Wrst, that institutional form is a signiWcant determinant of performance, and second, that human choices are important determinants of institutional forms. The former represents a view of institutions as part of modern technology, as illustrated by mechanical metaphors of institutions as ‘instruments’, ‘tools’, ‘apparatus’, and pieces of the ‘machinery’ of democratic governance (Olsen 1988b: 2). The latter conception is supported by a democratic emphasis on having a ‘hypothetical attitude’ towards existing institutions, so that citizens can choose the institutions under which they want to live together (Habermas 1996: 468). In this view, democratic politics is an important source for changing long-lasting political relations (Shapiro and Hardin 1996: 5–6). For rational-instrumental accounts it is puzzling that reformers are not more eYcient in establishing stable institutional arrangements. Institutional reforms do not seem to reduce the demand for future reforms; rather, the opposite appears to be the case (Brunsson and Olsen 1993). One simple reason may be that deliberate reform assumes motivation, understanding and social control, prerequisites often missing (among other places) in the context of comprehensive European reforms. In the EU it is often diYcult to attribute institutional developments to speciWc actors. Multiple and conXicting goals are pursued. There is no shared vision of a future Europe and how the EU should be governed, i.e. the ‘nature and ultimate goals of the integration process’ (Majone 1998). There is no shared understanding of institutional requirements and possibilities, and no single central reorganization authority. A task within this perspective is to specify what actors are trying to make comprehensive reforms, under what conditions they

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are able to achieve planned organizational change, and under what conditions institutional reforms are producing expected and desired substantive results. Institutional accounts do not deny that changing environments and reform strategies can be signiWcant for understanding institutional dynamics. The main assumption is that processes of competitive selection and rational design are less than perfect, and that change cannot be understood on the basis of knowledge about environments and actors alone. Concepts like ‘historical ineYciency’ and ‘path-dependency’ suggest that institutional change is not always fast and frictionless. The match between environments, reforms and institutional structure and performance is not automatic, continuous and precise. An institutional account portrays institutions as having lives and deaths of their own, sometimes enduring in the face of apparent inconsistencies with their environments, sometimes collapsing without obvious external cause. Processes of change depend to a large extent upon the internal constitutive characteristics of existing institutions. Institutions authorize and enable, as well as constrain, change. Therefore, there is a need to understand how institutions may transform, modify, redirect and integrate, and not only aggregate, the preferences and resources of actors (March and Olsen 1986).7 A common criticism of institutional accounts, however, is that they highlight continuity and have little to say about change. To avoid this criticism, institutionalists have to explain ‘dramatic and unexpected’ changes (Keohane and HoVmann 1990: 277), including why major reform agreements sometimes are reached quickly and often to the surprise even of those involved. More generally, institutionalists have to specify how internal constitutive characteristics of existing institutional arrangements (i.e. what integrates a polity) aVect the change–continuity mix and the form that change takes. They have to explain why institutions under some conditions adapt smoothly so that there are incremental mutual modiWcations of internal structures as well as environments (Nystrom and Starbuck 1981b), as institutions codify their changing experience, wisdom and morality. Yet, under other conditions institutions are rigid in spite of changing environments and deliberate attempts at reform. Institutions outlive their functional eYciency as well as 7 In attempts to typologize institutional approaches, this interpretation is often placed together with ‘the new institutionalism’ in organizational sociology. Such typologies overlook the fact that the two take opposite views on the importance of internal factors. The ‘new institutionalism’ in sociology argues that ‘[m]ost of the institutional change now occurring in any given polity can be predicted more readily from knowledge of the wider world environment than from an understanding of internal structure’ (Jepperson and Meyer 1991: 226). This approach, emphasizing the spread of a general world culture, is closer to Weberian ideas of a general rationalization and ‘disenchantment of the world’ (Gerth and Mills 1970: 41).

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their normative support. They are outdated; they promote superstition and allow exploitation. Change may then take the form of great leaps, rather than small steps. For instance, as crises have accumulated, there have been critical junctures and exceptional moments in state-building and nation-building processes in Europe (Rokkan 1999). The EU, with its multiple overlapping centres for policy-making, provides a site for studying institutional impacts on institutional change (see Chapters 7–9 below). Developments in the EU system of governance have taken place within a strong nation-state-based order, and not in an institutional vacuum. From an institutional perspective, properties of this order, characteristics of the basic units as well as their relations, are assumed to have an impact on institutional dynamics. Such properties are expected to have consequences for both the development of new institutions at the European level, and for how member states adapt to patterns of change across nation-states and across institutions within the same polity. An institutional perspective also suggests that the relative explanatory power of domestic and European institutions will change with changing levels and forms of European integration and institutionalization. Therefore, the EU polity is also well suited for studying key issues in political integration. For instance, what are the relations between changes in, on the one hand, the level and form of polity integration and, on the other, changes in the component units of the system? Do changes in the number and types of institutional bonds among the component units of a polity depend on how the component units are constituted and how they ‘match’ each other? What impact do variations in the levels and forms of integration at the polity level have on the component units? Do polities based on diVerent institutional principles make diVerent requirements on their constitutive units (Brunsson and Olsen 1998; Olsen 1998)? Do diVerent types of international orders strengthen or weaken diVerent types of states (Ikenberry 1998: 163; Schmidt 1999)? The research task includes exploring the impact of varying levels and forms of state-building and nation-building, producing states with variable internal cohesion, legitimacy and resources (Rokkan 1999; Chapter 2 above). Given variations in state institutions, traditions, and bonds of mutual loyalty and obligations, we should expect diVerent attitudes towards the level and forms of European integration. Moreover, we should expect diVerent patterns of institutional adaptation and not rapid and strong convergence in institutional forms. Finally, since the level and form of institutionalization vary across policy sectors, we would expect institutional dynamics–the key actors involved, the patterns of change, and the explanatory power of institutional factors–to vary across policy areas. For instance, patterns of integration can be

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expected to be diVerent in policy areas like security and defence compared to market-building processes. In the latter area, supranational institutions have over time won a key role which they are not likely to achieve in the foreseeable future in, for instance, CFSP. Better-speciWed expectations, however, will depend on detailed knowledge about institutional variations across sectors. As a further response to the charge that institutional approaches have little to say about change, the next section focuses in more detail on some internal sources of dynamics, often ignored by static conceptions of institutions: the dynamics caused by the fact that institutional orders are never perfectly integrated.

T H E DY NA M I C S O F I M P E R F E C T LY I N T E G R AT E D POLITICAL ORDERS A major historic development in Europe is the emergence of diVerentiated and partly autonomous institutional spheres with distinct logics of action, meanings and resources. Each sphere legitimizes diVerent participants, issues, and ways of making, implementing and justifying decisions. Weber observed that institutional orders are never perfectly integrated and that modernization inevitably produces imbalances, tensions and collisions between institutional spheres.8 An implication is that, in a multi-tiered, multi-structured and multicentred polity with partly autonomous subsystems, a key to understanding institutional dynamics may be to study how institutions relate to, balance, collide with and penetrate each other. If integration, seen as coherence among the parts, is never perfect, striving for coordination also becomes a potential source of institutional change, at least in political cultures favoring consistency and order. The French institutionalist Georges Renard observed that institutions are built around foundational principles and organizing ideas that provide ‘themes of development ’ (Broderick 1970: p. xxiii). Institutions strive to achieve ideals without ever being able to reach them, i.e. there is a potential for change because there are always discrepancies between ideal, abstract regulatory prescriptions and actual implementation. In addition, the potential increases because single institutions, as well as institutional orders, are less than perfectly integrated. Institutions have built-in competing and

8 Gerth and Mills 1970: 328–57; Weber 1978; see also Walzer 1986; Orren and Skowronek 1994, 1996, 2004.

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conXicting organizing principles, imperfections and conXicts (Broderick 1970). All this suggests a dynamic, not a static, concept of institutions. In general, it is diYcult to keep institutions constant by deliberately reproducing and sustaining patterns of appropriate behaviour. There are continuous interpretations and reinterpretations of what the rules of appropriate behavior are, how concrete situations are to be understood, and how to map rules onto individual cases. Change may follow as rules are diVerently understood and as resources are reallocated so that actors become able to follow rules diVerently. Here attention is focused on processes of reinterpretation. Under some conditions, change results from a ‘reality test’ and a process of rational learning. For instance, Europeans may learn about international interdependencies and the loss of national control over their own fate. If so, they may avoid wishful thinking and concentrate on alternatives eVective under current international interdependencies. Improved knowledge may also make them reconsider the balance between, and justiWcation of, the maximization of market competition and other social and political goals. Furthermore, actors may adapt collective aspiration levels, and internalize dependencies and the interest of other member states. As consequence, they may—in the long run—develop a European ‘we-feeling’ (Scharpf 1999b: 283–6). In brief, according to Scharpf, Europeans may come together to cope with common practical problems, in search of common gains. Yet, the process may in the long run foster a sense of community. This view is consistent with the idea that identity formation has a strong cognitive component (March and Simon 1958). But learning processes are not necessarily rational and interpretations of history are seldom inherent in the events themselves. Interpretations and their eVects are inXuenced by institutional contexts (March and Olsen 1995: 44). Most of the time, learning in densely institutionalized contexts produces stepwise reinterpretations. Still, in polities encompassing a large repertoire of institutional forms, forms are typically attended to sequentially or separately, rather than simultaneously and in a coordinated way (Cyert and March 1963). Shifting attention among forms, or a focus on their relations, may therefore also trigger major change. In polities where legitimacy is largely based on habit and unreXective tradition, processes of reXection and consciousness-raising can also produce sudden, dramatic and unexpected change. In the EU, generalized institutional forms shared by member states compete with each other and with particular national forms of governance and organization (Andersen 1999). Which of several legitimate forms are appealed to and evoked has signiWcant implications. For instance, an emphasis on the

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freedoms derived from the market-building project, compared to a focus on ‘a shared commitment to freedom based on human rights, democratic institutions and the rule of law’ (European Council 1999), legitimizes and activates diVerent participants, arguments, problems and solutions, and institutional forms. Therefore, they ‘bias’ decision-making processes diVerently. The dynamics of change will also depend on how proposals are framed, typically an institution-dependent process. For instance, a suggested transition of the EU to a democratically constituted federal state, where German federalism ‘might not be the worst model’ (Habermas 1998: 161), can be discussed in terms of the system’s problem-solving capability (Scharpf 1999a, b). It can also be discussed in the context of power—the future of the realm of majority political institutions, and the power implications of winning popular elections in democratic societies (Rokkan 1966). Furthermore, the proposal can be discussed in terms of the development of democratic beliefs and practices, public deliberation and decision-making based on the best arguments (Habermas 1996). While all are legitimate standards of assessment, they typically suggest diVerent institutional designs. Change and stability are linked to deWnitions of the self and the situation (March and Olsen 1998: 959), and Union enlargement has been related to normative, and not only functional, deWnitions of the EU. By formulating its policy toward the Central and Eastern European candidate countries (CEECs), the EU developed the constitutive normative principles of the European political order. By deWning the fundamental norms and operational criteria of eligibility for membership or for assistance programmes, the EU discovered or deWned important aspects of its self-image and collective identity. Likewise, EU policy-makers developed a speciWc role, identity and rules of appropriate behaviour for the EU towards the CEECs. Examples are the notion of an EU responsibility for the integration of the CEECs, the attempts to delegitimize (or limit) narrowly self-interested behaviour towards the CEECs, and the duty to accommodate the interests of the CEECs in EU policy (Sedelmeier 1998, 2000; Schimmelfennig 1999).9 A step-by-step commitment to enlargement as a moral obligation took place—in spite of vigorous opposition and hard bargaining over the distribution of costs, yet with no thorough debate about the EU interests involved or detailed cost–beneWt analysis (Schimmelfennig 1999; Sedelmeier 2000). EU policy-makers were afraid that current institutions would not be elastic enough for a major enlargement, but they did not develop shared expectations about the institutional requirements of enlargement. It is often 9 I am grateful to Ulrich Sedelmeier and Helen Wallace for helping me formulate this point.

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argued that the EU will work better with a small number of willing and similar members (Wallace 1996a: 65). On the other hand, enlargement to 12 members set in motion processes that strengthened Community institutions (Keohane and HoVmann 1990: 277). The lesson of history was also uncertain because several of the new candidates were diVerent from the former ones, for instance in terms of inadequate institutional capabilities of action, including a capacity for deliberate institutional reform (Nakrosis 2000). One possibility was that the EU, facing candidate states with at best weak democratic state traditions, would be more able to demand institutional reforms than it has been so far in relation to current member states (see Chapter 11 below). Most of the time, institutional actors take each other into account. They routinely observe formal or tacit boundaries to their legitimacy and an established institutional balance. What happens, then, when the ideals and the rival conceptions of political order embedded in diVerent institutional spheres come into conXict with one another (Broderick 1970: pp. xv–xvi)? Such institutional collisions may, for instance, take place when institutional striving leads to ‘overstretching’ one ideal and imposing principles and codes outside their traditional legitimate sphere of activity. The European context provides a laboratory for studies of institutional collisions. This is because the EU represents a new type of combination of institutions with no dominant centre of authority and power (Wallace 1996a, b; Sand 1998: 285; Jachtenfuchs and Kohler-Koch 2003). Therefore, imbalances, collisions and dynamics are likely. First, they are likely because of the lack of agreement on the fundamental normative principles and ends according to which the European polity is to be integrated and governed. Secondly, they are likely due to the lack of a clear and stable allocation of powers between levels of governance and institutions (Curtin 1997; Kirchhof 1999; Weiler 1999). For instance, the European Union is a polity where functional performance depends heavily on national agencies, budgets and staV (Wallace 1999). Tensions between levels of governance, as well as between territorial integration and functional integration, are also built into the major European institutions. The EU provides a meeting place for actors with diVerent institutional aYliations interacting within a variety of institutional contexts, emphasizing territorial and functional concerns diVerently (Egeberg 1999, 2006). Is the Westphalia system of spatial organization then seriously challenged by European functional organization? The dilemma is well known in organizational research. As each part of an organization adapts to its speciWc task environment, there is an increasing demand for coordination across functional sectors. At the same time, functional diVerentiation and integration makes such coordination diYcult (Brunsson and Olsen 1998).

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Functional specialization and diVerentiation and institutional ‘fusion’ between levels of governance make coordination diYcult at both the European and the domestic level (Rometsch and Wessel 1996). So far, however, there is no agreement that EU functional networks have produced territorial disintegration, making the nation-state less unitary, or weakening the power of majority-based institutions as well as coordinating agencies (Knodt 1998; Lange 1998). Institutional collisions, including the relations between legal and ‘living’ institutions, can be better understood through studies of how institutions, after they are formally and legally established, learn their place in an institutional order. For example, the European Court of Auditors, as a new institution, had to ‘chart the diYcult waters of inter-institutional relations’ (LaVan 1999: 255). DeWning its tasks, methods and organizational forms was an important part of the learning process. It had to establish its credentials, discover opportunity structures, deWne ground rules for interactions with other key institutions, and establish trust and appropriate relations. Search and learning processes took place in a changing normative and cognitive climate, with increasing concern for Wnancial management and fraud, and changing formal institutional responsibilities, legal status and resources. Learning its place, Wnally, meant coping with its dependence on the resources of national audit oYces and the need to develop cooperation and partnership with domestic institutions jealous of their independence (LaVan 1999: 256–8, 265). The likelihood and consequences of institutional collisions depend on properties of the polity. In tightly integrated polities, characterized by high causal interdependence, coordination and consistency among the parts and structural connectedness, collisions may not be very likely. However, if an external shock causes collisions, change in one part of the system produces rapid and precise changes in other parts. In loosely integrated polities, with modest causal interdependence and separation of tasks, powers and responsibilities, and with slack resources buVering the various parts (Cyert and March 1963), consequences tend to be local, with system impacts more modest and less precise.10

T H E TR EAT Y O F RO ME AN D ST PET ER’ S B A SI L I CA Historically, Europe has been a key site of innovation when it comes to forms of governance and political organization (Finer 1999: 14). At present, the 10 Thelen suggests that collisions are likely to be most consequential when they interfere with the reproduction mechanisms of institutions (Thelen 1999: 400).

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region is again experiencing a period of political experimentation, innovation and transformation. Building European institutions of governance may be compared to building St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. Some trace its history back nearly two thousand years and even the current basilica took generations to build. There have been many builders, popes and architects, as well as artists and workers. Plans have been made, modiWed and rejected. There have been conXicts over designs and over the use of resources. Economic and political conditions have shifted and cultural norms have changed, including religious beliefs and fashions of architecture. Such factors have aVected both the motivation and the ability to develop the basilica. Yet, as parts have been added, modiWed and even demolished, the project has had dynamics of its own, constraining the physical development, use and meaning of the basilica. I beg indulgence from those who know the history of St Peter’s in detail. The point of using the metaphor is simply to suggest that the processes underlying European integration are not well understood. Furthermore, it simply may not be possible to develop a single, coherent theory of a complex historical phenomenon like the European Union. As has often been the case historically, change in the European political order seems to be an artefact of a complex ecology of processes and trajectories, rather than the result of a single dominant process. Again, it may be concluded that ‘the historical processes by which international political orders develop are complex enough to make any simple theory of them unsatisfactory’ (March and Olsen 1998: 968). Still, the evolving European polity provides much empirical evidence for those interested in political development. Studies of the EU may help us understand political integration and disintegration as universal phenomena unfolding somewhat diVerently in diVerent territorial, historical-cultural and socio-economic contexts. Studies of a polity with some special features, like the EU, may improve our ability to diVerentiate between forms of political organization and their key dimensions and characteristics. They may also make it easier to compare political and governmental structures. In addition, such studies may shed light on the consequences of institutional form—that is, whether, under what conditions, how, and through what mechanisms institutional form matters. For instance, when and how do institutions fashion agency, so that constitutive institutional principles and identities make actors follow a ruledriven logic of appropriateness? When and how do institutions have an impact upon policies, performance, power relations, and the democratic quality of governance? Studying the co-evolving processes of institution formation and adaptation at the European and the domestic level may also improve our understanding of institutional continuity and change. It may help us understand shifts

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between periods of radical change and periods of stability and, thus, the shifting basis for periodization of political development. It may also shed light on variations in developmental trajectories. Under what conditions do institutions (and actors) gain and lose legitimacy and support, or see their basis of legitimacy change? Under what conditions are existing institutions overwhelmed by environmental forces, for example shifting social and economic interdependencies? Under what conditions are diVerent types of actors able deliberately to form and reform institutions and achieve desired and intended results? And the key issue for an institutional approach: under what conditions do institutions, and diVerent levels and forms of political unity, modify the change-potential of environmental forces and reform strategies? This chapter has been a prelude to answering such questions. Exploiting the research potential of the changing European polity may contribute to more interesting theories of governance, political organization and institutional change. In turn, such theories may give us a better understanding of the signiWcance of Europe as a speciWc context for political integration and disintegration and for exploring the possibilities of supranational democratic citizenship.

Part II Citizens and their helpers

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5 What role for Euro-citizens? A C ITIZENS’ EUROPE Since Maastricht, democratic issues have increasingly preoccupied citizens, politicians and academics. Democratic themes have become a more central part of the EU agenda and it is commonplace to assume the existence of a democratic deWcit. A former president of the Commission, Romano Prodi, has even spoken of ‘the democratic malaise that the Union is suVering’ (Prodi 2001b: 3). It is observed that many citizens feel alienated from the Union, that the current disenchantment has to be counteracted, and that the Union has to be brought closer to its citizens (Commission 2001a, b; Prodi 2001b; Commission 2005). According to the Commission, the Union ‘will no longer be judged solely by its ability to remove barriers to trade or to complete an internal market; its legitimacy today depends on involvement and participation’ (Commission 2001a: 18). There is a need for direct democratic legitimacy and therefore a stronger role for citizen-based institutions in the governance of the Union. EYciency has to be supplemented by making rulers accountable to European citizens. Improved legitimacy also requires more transparency and a European sphere of public debate. The Union needs informed citizens with better access to policy-makers—citizens who are able to inXuence, reject or reverse decisions (to be) made in their name (Schmitter 2000). There is, however, no consensus on whether it is necessary, possible and desirable to democratize Europe, or on the meaning, signiWcance and application of democratic standards in the governance of the Union.1 From a democratic perspective, the citizen is the most central actor and institution and the standards used to assess legitimate participation should reXect what European citizens want Europe to be, what they want to possess together as Europeans and how they want to be governed. The legitimate role for Euro-citizens in the governance of Europe therefore depends on how the 1 See, for example, Beetham 1994; Habermas 1996, 1998; Føllesdal and Koslowski 1997; Gustavsson 1998; Majone 1998; Scharpf 1999a; Chryssochoou 2000; Eriksen and Fossum 2000; Schmitter 2000; Moravcsik 2002; Lord 2004; Eriksen 2005.

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Union’s future political order is envisioned.2 The more the Union moves away from a special-purpose organization with limited tasks, responsibilities and powers, and transforms itself into a full-blown polity, the more important it is to analyse the democratic quality of its political organization and system of governance and the role of its citizens. A key aspect is to what degree citizens on an equal basis can inXuence their life-chances and the development of the Union through participation in the governance of common aVairs. Nevertheless, in a large-scale and multi-tiered polity such as the EU, individual citizens cannot rely solely on their own direct participation. They have to trust institutions, intermediary organizations and agents that routinely, and with integrity, follow rules of appropriate behaviour and take care of citizens’s concerns, without continuous citizen’s participation. Democracies require institutions that make participation eVective as well as institutions that make direct participation redundant. One implication is that we need to understand better how diVerent institutions of governance— hierarchical, specialized and open structures—mediate demands for political participation, actual participation and outcomes. Are, then, European citizenship and participation likely to enhance democracy and provide remedies to alienation and disenchantment? Is participation a way to improve the legitimacy of European institutions and policy-making? Is it a way to build a knowledge-based innovative society? This chapter presents elements of a framework for thinking about a legitimate role of citizens in European governance and it explores some factors that may enable or constrain political participation in the Union. The aspiration is to generate some research questions and hypotheses as a starting point for further exploration and possible empirical validation, and an assumption is that the role of Euro-citizens depends on how the Union’s future political order is envisioned. The more the Union moves away from a special-purpose organization with limited tasks, responsibilities and powers, and transforms itself into a full-blown polity, the more important it becomes to analyse the democratic quality of its political organization and system of governance. The rest of the chapter is divided into Wve parts. First, a democratic framework for analysing legitimate participation is presented. Second, the 2 One anonymous reviewer found it curious to ask what legitimate role there might be for Euro-citizens and thereby suggest that the role had to be justiWed. However, all contemporary democracies diVerentiate between institutional spheres and roles that give diVerent signiWcance to elected representatives and citizens, as compared to judges, administrators, scientists, experts, etc. In the EU, the relationship between majoritarian and non-majoritarian institutions and forms of participation is of special relevance because some want the Union to derive its democratic legitimacy from the member states and not from democratization of Europeanlevel institutions.

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chapter looks at how participation is mediated by various institutions. Third, it is observed that trust in institutions and agents varies across social groups and changes over time. Fourth, some research challenges are presented. Finally, the question is raised whether democratic participation is likely to become a more signiWcant aspect of EU governance.

A DEMOCRATIC PERSPECTIVE ON PARTICIPATION Democratic citizenship is an institution—a set of rules and practices—that organizes the relationship between rulers and ruled, and between individual citizens and the agents and institutions of governance to which they are subject. Democratic citizenship prescribes principles and standards for assessing other institutions and their relationships, for example, by specifying legitimate distributions of tasks, objectives, procedures, citizens’ rights, freedoms and obligations, as well as universal human rights, economic rights and allocations of substantive goods and burdens. One basic principle of democratic citizenship is that those aVected by decisions should be able to inXuence common aVairs on equal terms. They should see themselves as the authors of the law and also be treated with equal respect and have their concerns treated equally. What Eder and Giesen (2001: 267) call the modern myth of free and equal citizens is based on the assumption that all adult members of a society are equally competent and aVected by political decisions and therefore should have equal right of participation in the governance of common aVairs. However, when analysing the legitimate role of Euro-citizens, it is important to take into account that citizens in fact do not have equal capabilities and resources, and that they usually denote limited time, energy and attention to politics. For example, limited citizen interest in public issues, low voter turnout and low prestige for politicians and politics are common in contemporary democracies. Therefore, a focus on the struggle for participation should not be allowed to overshadow the reality that participation is sometimes conceived as a duty or as uninteresting and irrelevant and that citizens need trustworthy helpers (Olsen 1976, 2004a). Observing that citizens have other objectives than political participation, Dahl (1987: 203) suggests that citizens are able to assess the conditions under which standards of parliamentary democracy, majority governance and the principle of equal participation should be applied, and the conditions under which public authority should be delegated to non-majoritarian institutions and agents—bureaucrats, judges, scientists, experts, representatives of

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organized interests or business leaders. Likewise, citizens are seen as able to assess the conditions under which objectives and concerns can be better achieved by keeping them oV the public agenda and free from public intervention. One aspect of citizenship, then, is participation. Others are public services, freedoms and immunities. These aspects reXect two principles of democratic legitimacy: government by the people and government for the people. They reXect legitimacy and accountability by input and output, by participation and procedure and by results and problem-solving capacity (Majone 1998; Scharpf 1999; Schmitter 2002). In modern democracies, collective identity is a symbolic marker of belonging together (Eder and Giesen 2001). Yet modern society is often more oriented towards functionality and instrumental task-eYciency than local traditions and stable belongings (March and Olsen 1995). In a largescale, multilevel, polycentric, complex and dynamic polity such as the EU, individual citizens clearly cannot rely solely on their own direct participation to inXuence their life-chances and societal developments. Rather, they have to rely on institutions, intermediary organizations and agents that routinely and with integrity take care of their rights, interests and concerns, without continuous citizens’ participation. A tentative hypothesis is that the more a single, shared and stable objective, such as winning a war or improving economic competitiveness, has a privileged position in a polity, the more likely it is that problem-solving and decisionmaking will be left to non-majoritarian (guardian) institutions and experts. The main criterion of good governance is based on achieving predetermined goals and the ability to solve problems and deliver services in an eYcient and coherent way. Likewise, in situations where there is agreement on stable rules for coping with enduring conXicts, tasks and competences are likely to be delegated to non-majoritarian institutions and agents. Hence, conXicts, and even crises, are dealt with in routine, predictable and acceptable ways. In general, Wrm trust in institutions, organizations and agents tends to reduce the demand for citizen participation. As a corollary, the more tasks and powers that are transferred to the Union level, the less agreement there is on tasks, objectives, procedures, and rules; and the less trust there is in institutions and agents, the more likely there will be demands for representation and participation, or for a reduction of the public agenda and protection against political intervention. In particular, such demands can be expected in situations where previously shared objectives and expectations are threatened. For example, if aspirations for a knowledge-based and innovative society are seen as primarily a question of eYcient markets and improved economic competitiveness, some actors may rightly claim that they can contribute more to goal achievement than can others. When, however, the challenge of a future

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Europe is seen as a question of balancing economic concerns (eYciency, growth, competitiveness, wealth) with social concerns (inclusion, cohesion, solidarity, avoidance of social unrest), ecological sustainability and politicaldemocratic concerns (transparency, accountability, participation and representation), it is less obvious who the experts are and how to adjudicate the necessary trade-oVs involved. Institutions of governance then have to cope with competing visions and priorities and with enduring diVerences, tensions and cleavages and have to mediate between unity and diversity. Actually, democratic governance requires several well-known yet diYcult institutional balancing acts. How to guarantee majority governance without the tyranny of the majority? How to achieve political eVectiveness and secure constitutional rights and freedoms? How to make political leaders responsive to public opinion and avoid shallow populism? How to use neutral experts and secure professional integrity and avoid technocracy? How to secure the rule of law without excessive formalism? How to ensure that specially aVected interests are heard without giving privileges to strongly organized interests? How to use markets and price mechanisms without producing social inequality and unrest? These are basic political questions without correct, optimal or expert answers. The use of a functional-instrumental language, emphasizing good governance and improving EU institutions and working methods, is unlikely to remove conXict over the continent’s political organization and institutional power balance. Indeed, such language may well exacerbate disputes. We are then back to the old democratic idea that both problem-deWnitions and answers should arise out of democratic processes and that citizen participation is the best guarantee for making rulers address in an informed way the issues that concern citizens. Democracies thus need to develop institutional arrangements that make participation eVective as well as institutions that make direct participation redundant.

I N S T I T U T I O N S A N D PA RTI C I PAT I O N Political orders provide diVerent, and partly competing, concepts of political, social, economic and cultural citizenship. They also provide diVerent repertoires of institutionalized channels or opportunity structures for citizen access and participation (Nentwich 1998). Institutions discriminate in diVerent ways between legitimate participants and resources. They have diVerent access rules regulating who can participate in which decisions, in what contexts and in what ways. They also provide diVerent incentives for and obstacles to

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participation. They regulate which individual and group resources can legitimately be used in an institutional context and they socialize and form participants diVerently (March and Olsen 1989; Olsen 1997b, 2001a). Therefore, diVerent institutional power-balances imply diVerent patterns of legitimate or privileged involvement by citizens and agents. One implication of this is that we need to understand how institutions of governance mediate demands for political participation and actual participation. Such understanding can be developed in relation to speciWc institutions, like the European Parliament, the Council, the Commission, the Court of Justice, the Central Bank or comitology committees. In this section, however, the legitimate role of EU citizens is related to three current stylized Union developments—hierarchical, specialized and open institutional structures (Cohen, March and Olsen 1972, Forthcoming).3

Hierarchy and parliamentarization Parliamentarization of the Union leads to majority government based on representative democracy, hierarchical and legally-binding public authority and legitimate coercion, legislatures, political parties and competitive elections for the institutional centrepieces. Wessels and Katz (1999: 3) argue that ‘if the emerging European political order is to qualify as democratic in any meaningful sense, parliaments as representative institutions will have to play a central role’. They observe a consensus: that democracy requires parliaments to play a major role but there is disagreement about the proper role of national parliaments and the powers of the European Parliament (Wessels and Katz 1999: 4, 3). Still, both national parliaments and the European Parliament may be strengthening their positions, as reXected in new competences for the European Parliament and the national parliaments’ central position in the Convention on the Future of the European Union. Elements of federalization may also lead to a clearer demarcation of their respective spheres of authority, a development reXected in attempts to constitutionalize and charter Europe (Eriksen et al. 2001; Mene´ndez 2002). Likewise, a ‘responsible party model’ is envisioned in the Maastricht Treaty and seems to be evolving gradually. The criteria of legitimate citizen participation are therefore like those of domestic representative democracies. Participation is primarily 3 In practice, of course, there will always be a question of institutional mixes and conWgurations, and not stylized, puriWed types. The important role of domestic referendums in the EU (Kaufmann 2002), recently illustrated by the Dutch and French ‘no’ to the Draft Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe, will not be dealt with here.

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linked to electing representatives and indirectly inXuencing speciWc policy outcomes. As observed by Hix, the post-1999 European Parliament operates much like domestic parliaments in Europe. Voting behaviour and coalition formation is primarily structured by the traditional left–right cleavage, dividing the EP along party aYliation more than national lines, with diVerent coalitions forming around diVerent issues (Hix 2001).

Specialized structures and autonomous institutions A European development towards (partly) autonomous institutions is part of an international trend of transferring tasks and powers from elected to non-elected decision-makers and moving agencies farther away from direct political inXuence and control. It is assumed that citizens trust institutions and agents to act with integrity for the common good. Institutions are organized around fairly speciWc and stable tasks, objectives and roles, and on the basis of publicly known principles and rules and predictable and legitimate results. Agents are trusted not to act on the basis of institutional egoism, self-interest or the interest of speciWc groups. Historically, the principle of autonomy has been applied at institutions such as courts of law, public bureaucracies, statistical agencies and universities. In the EU, examples are the European Court of Justice, the European Central Bank, regulatory commissions and autonomous agencies. The Commission has also suggested that the EU administration in general should be based more on framework directives, leaving additional room for policy execution to administrators and scientiWc experts (Commission 2001a; see also Egeberg 2006). What, then, are legitimate citizens’ roles in relation to autonomous institutions, that is, non-majoritarian institutions partly removed from the direct control of elected agents and representative institutions? Autonomous structures sometimes have an element of citizen representation. Yet, a key democratic concern is to ensure institutionalized guarantees for transparency, so that citizens can monitor how institutions work, discuss how they should work, and sanction deviations from legitimate behaviour and misuse of public power. Rather than focusing on electing rulers or inXuencing speciWc decisions, attention is focused on issues of a constitutional nature, such as under what conditions various institutions and agents deserve autonomy. That is, citizens’ attention is directed towards the legitimate tasks, objectives, principles, rules, workings and outcomes of various institutions, the balance of power between them, and how to prevent institutional egoism, encapsulation, capture and misuse of public authority.

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Open structures and network-building An alternative development is a Union dominated by fairly open and loosely coupled functional networks, involving bargaining among a variety of actors from diVerent levels of governance and across the public–private divide. The Union has seen a networking revolution (Prodi 2001b) and has developed ‘a tremendous variety of European and international networks focused on speciWc objectives’ (Commission 2001a: 33). The White Paper on the future political organization and governance of Europe also suggests that the policymaking process should be opened up in order to get more citizens and organizations involved in shaping and delivering EU policies (Commission 2001a). In the scholarly literature, network governance has been portrayed as a new systematic understanding of governing and a special way of balancing unity and diversity (Eising and Kohler-Koch 1999b: 13). The champions of network governance have seen it as a remedy against the failures of markets and the hierarchical, interventionist administrative state. As a policy instrument, it is often assumed to combine rich horizontal information with central reXection and coordination and to ensure system learning and adaptability (Overdevest 2002). In contrast to markets, networks structure relations between public authorities and civil society. In contrast to representative government based on law and hierarchy, governance through networks is a non-hierarchical and voluntary, non-coercive mode of governing where soft coordination replaces ordinary legislation and hard law. It is seen as Xexible, open, self-organizing, issue-oriented and deliberative, and sometimes involving elements of market-like mechanisms. Networks are producing a changed balance of power between government, organized societal groups and business Wrms. It is a form of multilevel and polycentred ordered complexity, rather than a form based on a single dominating centre with the authority and resources to command and make compulsory legal rules.4 Leaders use persuasion and inducements and suggest standards of behaviour and outcomes. Legitimate citizen participation is based on roles such as stakeholders, aVected groups, users, clients, customers and knowledge-holders. Participation is primarily focused on inXuencing speciWc policy outcomes. The ‘Open Method of Coordination’, developed around the Lisbon process and the Lisbon Council in March 2000, has been seen in particular as an example of this new mode of governing. The open method is characterized by voluntary agreements on the challenges facing the EU, shared analysis and 4 Rhodes 1997b; Bo¨rzel 1998; Eising and Kohler-Koch 1999a; Kohler-Koch 2002; LaVan 2002; Overdevest 2002.

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consensus on objectives, guidelines and timetables for reaching targets, and learning through systematic monitoring, benchmarking, peer reviews, scoreboards, identiWcation of best practice and shaming (LaVan 2002). He´ritier, however, questions the importance and novelty of the open method. She observes that it is used in a limited number of policy areas and primarily in areas where the Union does not have a clear mandate and where its competence is contested. Usually there are elements of bargaining over targets and indicators, taking place in the shadow of government, hierarchy and legislation. He´ritier observes that there is a selective involvement of private actors that does not allow all those aVected to have a voice in shaping policies. Furthermore, the Commission used this mode of governing earlier when it moved into new policy areas where its competence had been problematic, often as a Wrst step towards legislation (He´ritier 2002; see also Dehousse 2002b; de la Porte 2002). All three stylized decision-making structures have an element of deliberation, yet deliberation is organized primarily around elected representatives, professions or epistemic communities, and aVected parties. From a democratic perspective, however, deliberation needs to be supplemented by free public discourses involving civil society at large. Only then can citizens be involved in an open debate about what principles, norms and codes should be governing common aVairs, the appropriate tasks, powers and responsibilities of speciWc institutions and agents, and the legitimate role of Euro-citizens in the governance of the Union.

S H I F TI N G T RU S T IN I N S T I T U TI O N S , AGE N T S A N D C I T I Z E N S Assessments of institutions and agents in the EU are fairly predictable and reXect institutional belongings. For example, social partners and other organized interests want more participation. The Commission is arguing for a strong role for itself and the Community method. The Commission also wants to develop a transnational public sphere and give regional and local authorities and civil society a more important role in giving voice to the concerns of citizens and the delivery of services (Commission 2001a: 28, 40). Not surprisingly, the European Parliament Committee on Constitutional AVairs (2001) is arguing for a parliamentarization of the Union, ‘because only institutions with democratic legitimacy can take accountable legislative decisions’. Representatives of civil society cannot be regarded as having democratic legitimacy of their own, given that they are not elected by the

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people and cannot be voted out by the people. Furthermore, the Committee wants strict limits of horizontal delegation of powers to autonomous EU regulatory agencies and vertical delegation of powers and tasks directly by the Union to regional or local organs. Autonomous agencies should only be used if speciWc scientiWc expertise is required or in purely technical decisions with no political dimension. Autonomy should not reduce judicial scrutiny. Framework directives must be accompanied by adequate mechanisms for democratic control. European citizens have not developed shared views on the normative authority of institutions and agents and on which institutions and agents deserve trust and conWdence. To the degree that they have an opinion at all, they tend to disagree about legitimate standards of assessment, as well as how well diVerent institutions and agents express, implement and shape the will and mentality of the people. Likewise, political ideologies express trust in, and fear of, diVerent institutions, agents and political resources. They express diVerent views about the desirable balance of power between institutions and whether and how diVerent resources should be regulated. They place diVering degrees of trust in the common (wo)man and elected representatives, bureaucrats, judges, experts, leaders of organized interests and business people. Some are afraid of majority-based institutions, numbers and majority power. Others are afraid of markets and monetary power, administrations and bureaucratic and technocratic power, courts and the power of judges, science-based institutions and expert power, or corporative arrangements and organizational power. They have diVerent opinions about how individual and group resources may be legitimately used and often such convictions are rather unaVected by new empirical evidence. Still, the normative climate and trust in institutions and agents do change over time. How, then, do EU authorities see the relative importance of citizens’ participation in the governance of the Union? Measured by the frequency of words like ‘democracy’ and ‘a citizens’ Europe’ in speeches, democratic aspects are currently given high priority in the Union. Still, European citizenship is more a sketch than an accomplishment. The concept of European citizenship introduced by the (Maastricht) Treaty on European Union of 1992 granted few legal rights, and its importance was seen by some to lie in its symbolic value and its potential as a dynamic programme towards a stronger European citizenship (Rosas and Antola 1995). Those dynamics do not impress everybody. We are warned that the citizen is usually quickly forgotten (Neunreither 1994: 1), and that ‘the Union is still predominantly a market and most of its freedoms to move are of interest only for property and commodity owners’ (von Beume 2001a: 80). The European Ombudsman

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also complains that major achievements, such as new rules on access to documents and good administration as a fundamental right of citizenship, are implemented in a less than perfect way (European Ombudsman 2002a, b). In the White Paper on the future of Europe, connecting the European Union to its citizens seems to mean identifying clear policies and objectives within an overall vision of where the Union is going. People need to understand better the political project that underpins the Union. The Union needs clear principles identifying how competence is shared between the Union and the member states (Commission 2001a). The Commission directs attention more towards delivering policies and ‘government for the people’ and persuading citizens about the beneWts of the Union, than towards citizen participation and ‘government by the people’. The Commission’s new e235 million proposal for 2007–13—its Plan D for democracy, dialogue and debate—also represents a new attempt of revitalizing democracy in the Union. The ambition is to create debate, inject more democracy in the Union, mobilize ‘citizens for Europe’, create more conWdence in EU institutions, bridge the gap between citizens and the Union, forge a European identity and feeling of belonging, and build a new consensus (Commission 2005). The Commission, however, notes ‘the current atmosphere of disillusionment’ and arguably, high aspirations may again be dwarfed by available instruments and a government-for-the-people perspective. Of course, Union authorities know a lot about the opinions of European citizens. The EU has been monitoring public opinion for more than 25 years, in particular the shifting public support for, and knowledge about, the EU. A recurrent theme has been citizens’ attachment to and identiWcation with the Union (Commission 2001b). European citizens are concerned about the Union’s ability to ‘deliver’ on substantive issues such as employment, environmental issues, crime and drug traYcking. They are afraid of losing jobs and social beneWts, and they emphasize the need to maintain peace and security. Yet, they are also concerned about not being well informed about the EU. They give priority to guaranteeing the rights of the individual and respect for the principles of democracy in Europe. On average only four out of ten EU citizens are satisWed with the way democracy works in the Union (Commission 2001b). In brief, European citizens in principle want government for the people as well as government by the people. Such survey data are relevant, but they are only a limited part of a systematic eVort to analyse the democratic quality and developments of the Union and the principles for political participation in the EU. There are limited traces in public documents of scholarly attempts to clarify what democracy means, and how it functions, in the European context. This includes the academic development of theoretical ideas, normative standards,

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methodologies and answers to the question of how diVerent institutions and forms of participation may contribute to the democratic quality of the Union. It also includes work on developing systematic indicators of the democratic quality of European governance (Beetham 1994; Lord 2004).5 Compared to the number of institutionalized monitoring systems, surveillance exercises, indicators of progress, established databases and routine production of statistics developed in other Welds, the situation is not impressive when it comes to indicators of the Union’s democratic development and citizens’ participation. As an illustration, Euro-stat has developed a website with 42 structural indicators agreed upon at the European Council meeting in Laeken (Euro-stat, continuous). The indicators include general economic background, employment, innovation and research, economic reform, social cohesion, and the environment. But there is not a single indicator of the Union’s democratic deWcit and whether the democratic quality of the Union is decaying or improving.

RESEARCH CHALLENGES Will the European Union, then, win public support and improve integration through citizenship and political participation? The stakes are high. While the intention of introducing Union citizenship may have been to reduce discrepancies between current EU institutions and normative theories of democratic legitimacy and to enhance trust in EU governance, it may also produce mistrust and destabilize the European political order. This would occur if citizens come to expect democratic standards of governance and participation and there is limited political will, understanding and resources to satisfy such standards in the Union (Føllesdal 2001: 322, 338). The general mechanism is well known—disappointment and backlash often follow if improvements in performance lag seriously behind increases in aspirations. What, then, can the social sciences contribute? Better-informed answers to the question of what is the legitimate role for Euro-citizens require several kinds of research. There is a need for normative theories of democratic legitimacy— theoretical ideas that prescribe indicators of democratic quality beyond the nation-state framework and that provide a basis for a critical perspective on 5 There are several examples of indicator-building, for example the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research’s ‘Cross-National Indicators of Liberal Democracy’, summarized at, For a general discussion see Lord 2004.

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European government and society. There is also a need for empirical studies of Europe’s ‘living institutions’, inspired by, and inspiring, normative democratic theory. A challenge for such studies is to show how single institutions, or conWgurations of institutions, work in practice and how they empower citizens or hinder their participation. Do they eVect what kind of European development citizens want, the diVerent ways in which citizens act individually, or how they organize for collective action? Do they inXuence the degree to which citizens are well informed about the visions, preferences and decisions of leaders and experts? Do they have an impact on the degree to which citizens are able to inXuence the election of leaders, the selection of experts, speciWc substantive policies, the organization and reorganization of institutions, and processes of public will-formation? Only a few illustrations can be provided here. A trend towards parliamentarization makes it important to examine the elections to the European Parliament and ask why they fail adequately to perform the functions that democratic elections are generally expected to perform: representing citizens’ interests, legitimizing power, and holding politicians accountable for how they use that power (Van der Eijk and Franklin 1996). Another key issue is how the role of representative institutions and the division of their powers and responsibilities across levels of governance may inXuence, and be inXuenced by, the development of European political parties. For example, one challenge is to study the substantive (policy) implications of the party-politicization of the European Parliament along the traditional left–right cleavage documented by Hix (2001). Hix suggests that policy-making in the EP will not necessarily be dominated by pro-integration concerns. Rather, the EP, like domestic European parliaments, will over time reXect shifting public opinion, electoral results and the support given to diVerent parties and ideologies, as well as the coalitions formed around issues such as economic competitiveness, political regulation, social welfare and redistribution, environmental sustainability, etc. Likewise, studies of the impact of European integration on domestic politics, including voters and voting behaviour, parties and party systems, interest mediation, political communication, executive–legislative relations, national executives, and judicial politics, are only just beginning (Goetz and Hix 2001; Bartolini 2005). Furthermore, there is a need for comparative studies of the European Parliament, the Council, the Commission and the Court in terms of transparency and access for various groups of citizens, as well as studies of auxiliary institutions, such as the European Ombudsman.6 6 In 2001, the European Ombudsman reported 1,874 complaints, 91% of them from individuals (European Ombudsman 2002a).

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A trend towards more institutional autonomy from majority institutions, the electoral process and public opinion (Majone 2005) sometimes reXects the ideal of competitive markets and accountability primarily for results, eYciency and the economic bottom line. At other times, autonomy is legitimized with reference to the value of a rule, rights and a role-bound public sector, the importance of due process, general public service ethics, codes of professional behaviour and ordinary human honesty. Specialized and autonomous institutions, then, are legitimated by their results, impartiality and eVectiveness. One research task is to specify the conditions under which they live up to such ideals. This task also involves analysing the conditions under which specialized and autonomous institutions operate without clear goals, rules, procedures or indicators of good results and instead conceal basic political choices, including some with major redistributive eVects, as questions of ‘eYciency’ and ‘technical matters’. Furthermore, the increasing number of autonomous institutions in the Union makes it crucial to study the systems implications of such arrangements. From a systems perspective, it is important to understand how decomposable the tasks and activities of various autonomous institutions are, the degree to which their interdependence requires coordination in time and across institutions, and the consequences of dealing with interdependent issues which are diYcult to decompose, through a loosely coupled system of partly autonomous institutions. Studies of the long-term destiny of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, and the development of human rights more generally in the Union (Eriksen, Fossum and Mene´ndez 2001), may also add to our understanding of how institutional autonomy and individual autonomy are related. Network building and ‘governance’ are sometimes portrayed as a functional necessity as well as normatively desirable (LaVan 2002). Nonhierarchical and non-specialized forms of governance are seen as normatively desirable because they allow for more participants. They are seen as a functional necessity because no single institution or agent is able to extract, concentrate and control the resources required for solving problems and to make and implement binding decisions in contemporary volatile and complex polities. Institutions and agents do not have the trust or authority to dominate other actors, and weak political systems cannot rely on authority, commands and coercion. They have to use softer means of inXuence—giving information and advice, establishing a forum for dialogue, providing material incentives, etc. Another research question, then, is under which conditions the democratic quality of relatively open structures will contribute to more, rather than less, egalitarian citizen participation and inXuence. Even if such structures open

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up for more participants, their democratic quality is by no means obvious. Rather, no formal constraints on participation will make individual and group resources and the ability to mobilize the resources of others more decisive for actual participation. Therefore, open structures can in practice contribute to unrepresentative patterns of participation (Olsen and Sætren 1980; He´ritier 2002). This will particularly be the case when participation makes strong demands on individual and group resources and capabilities, and when the distribution of resources relevant to participation is highly skewed.7 Furthermore, bargaining in networks creates an accountability problem by making it diYcult to identify who has been inXuential and therefore who should be held accountable. In a heterogeneous polity such as the EU, funding special groups in order to make resources more equal can reduce disparities in participation and power only under certain conditions. For example, in a system where resources are distributed in a totally equal way and participants act on the basis of calculated self-interest, individuals and minorities whose preferences deviate greatly from the average will still end up as losers (March 1988). Nevertheless, constituting agreed rules, rights and roles can protect minority concerns (see Chapter 6 below). Such concerns can also be protected by deliberation in public spaces, a process in which current preferences and beliefs are tested against universal or community-wide norms (Eriksen 2005). Such concerns can in particular be studied in the context of enlargement and the more heterogeneous Union citizenry that has resulted. For example, champions of the Open Method of Coordination are challenged to specify the conditions under which open and non-hierarchical network organization will help solve problems better than hierarchies and markets. This challenge includes patterns of participation and representation, as well as general coordination and learning capabilities. It also includes the ability to promote social inclusion, to combat poverty and to encourage a willingness to sustain welfare provisions and redistribution—policy areas where expectations in relation to the open method of coordination are high (Overdevest 2002). In general, the European Union seems to face a dilemma. On the one hand, democratic theory suggests a need to develop and sustain informed and capable citizens with democratic values, beliefs and integrity. Democratic theory also holds out the promise that political participation, interaction and debates may help transform individuals into democratic and law-abiding citizens. The research task, then, is to go beyond models focused solely on securing eYcient aggregation of given (exogenous) preferences into a 7 Neo-liberal marketization of citizenship (Crouch et al. 2001) also illustrates that open structures do not meet the democratic criterion of equal participation and inXuence.

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collective choice (March and Olsen 1986, 1995). The challenge is to improve our understanding of the conditions under which citizens and their preferences, expectations, beliefs and identities can legitimately be changed through political interaction. On the other hand, it has been asked whether deliberative democracy and communicative rationality is at all possible outside nation-states cemented together by a national identity and solidarity (Petersson et al. 1997; Scharpf 1999a; Weiler 1999). Democracy and citizenship are concepts strongly linked to the framework of the nation-state and current transformations of the European political order make their meaning, signiWcance, application and implications less obvious. Nevertheless, changes in mentality—the ‘hearts and minds’ of citizens (Cepl 2000), including the development of shared conceptions of legitimate principles and the appropriate role of institutions, agents and citizens (Habermas 1996, 1998; Weiler 1999)—are likely to be important parts of the ongoing transformations of the European political order. Therefore, another research challenge is to understand whether, how and within which institutional arrangements European citizens are learning to become more committed to common rules, codes of civic virtue and concepts of common good.

‘A N EW B E L IE F IN THE C OM M ON MAN’? In 1942, Friedrich, observing the historical ups and downs of trust in the ability of ordinary citizens to take part in public governance, concluded that the war and the need to mobilize citizens in the war eVort had created a ‘new belief in the common man’ (Friedrich 1942). The European Union is now a laboratory for new ideas about political organization and governance, including the possibilities of supranational democracy and the eventual role of ordinary citizens. It has been suggested that ‘Laeken has launched a new constitutional phase in the building of Europe’ and that Europe is at a ‘historic turning point’. Among political leaders there is a perceived need to get Euro-citizens more involved, to ensure direct democratic legitimacy and to reduce the democratic deWcit of the Union (Commission 2001a; European Council 2001b, 2002; Prodi 2001d). Is it likely, then, that citizen participation on an equal basis and majoritybased institutions will become more signiWcant parts of EU governance? What legitimate roles are there for Euro-citizens in the future Union? This chapter has not been an exercise in normative democratic theory, prescribing criteria for the legitimate roles of Euro-citizens. Rather, the

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aspiration has been to suggest a framework for thinking about possible roles and how such roles are mediated diVerently by diVerent institutional arrangements. It has been assumed that a key aspect of democratic citizenship is that citizens are the authors of the normative criteria according to which the democratic quality of EU governance and participation is assessed and democracy is given meaning in the Union beyond the member state level. A democratic sceptic will drive home Neunreither’s observation that citizen involvement tends to be quickly forgotten in the Union, and will interpret the current emphasis on citizen participation as rhetoric and cheap talk. Growing individualism and an increasing role for market forces in the governing of political and administrative institutions are unlikely to strengthen norms of equal participation based on citizenship. From a path-dependency perspective the EU, as an elite project primarily focused on economic concerns and legitimized by functional performance, will not change its identity overnight. Furthermore, greater attention to external and internal security, areas where democratic concerns have seldom had top priority, is also unlikely to promote citizen participation. Neither is enlargement likely to do so, as it has created a heterogeneous and complex Union of nearly half a billion people. Even a successful rights movement may reduce, rather than enhance, participation, simply because institutionalized freedoms and rights, which ensure acceptable outcomes without direct involvement, can easily make participation in everyday politics less attractive. A democratic optimist will argue that the introduction of Union citizenship, the use of an open Convention in preparing the revision of the Treaties, and the EU’s emphasis on a ‘citizens’ Europe’ with transparency, participation and accountability will make a turnaround diYcult without serious loss of legitimacy. Institutions can no longer be seen solely as part of an expediency project and as tools for eYcient policy achievement. Institutional developments are also part of a normative project symbolizing a collective identity and constitutive democratic norms beyond immediate functional eYciency. Since the EU has already developed into a virtually full-blown polity, direct democratic legitimacy will be required. Furthermore, since there is no consensus on a single dominant political project or objective, it will be diYcult to argue that there are ‘right decisions’ to be detected or developed in an apolitical and technocratic way. Rather, more tensions and politicization are likely. For the democratic optimist, a strengthening of the European Parliament and national parliaments, together with the development of European political parties, will provide clearer alternatives to Euro-citizens and make them more motivated to participate. Enlargement will make traditional bargaining behind closed doors, with a veto for member states, less viable. This method

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will reduce the Union’s eVectiveness and eYciency and over time it will become obvious that an increasingly heterogeneous Union cannot be based solely on the aggregation of existing national preferences. Governing the Union will require the development of some degree of constitutional patriotism, civic virtue and duty, and a logic of appropriateness, as well as an increased willingness to redistribute resources. Such developments, if achievable at all, can only occur through politicization and citizen involvement. This chapter has suggested some factors that are likely to determine whether the democratic sceptic or the democratic optimist will be right. One argument has been that much will depend on what Europeans want to have in common, and how they want to be governed, in the future. Furthermore, the outcome will depend on the trust that citizens and leaders have, or are able to develop, in a variety of institutions, intermediary organizations and agents, including their beliefs in the abilities of citizens to participate in the governance of common aVairs. It is not obvious which beliefs about democracy, citizenship and participation will win the day. For example, Euro-citizens have to work out how their lack of trust in political institutions and their high demands upon those same institutions are to be reconciled. A possible contribution from the social sciences is to provide better analyses of how diVerent institutional arrangements may help ensure or hinder participation, transparency, public debate, accountability and socially acceptable policy outcomes—that is, how, and to what degree, they: (1) create institutionalized options for citizen access, insight, participation and inXuence; (2) motivate citizens and make participation attractive; (3) empower citizens with relevant resources to make participation possible; (4) shape citizens into law-abiding democrats; and (5) make continuous citizen participation redundant. Several complex balancing acts are involved—between participation and policy eYcacy, between majority-based and non-majority-based institutions, and between hierarchical, specialized and open structures. In a polity such as the European Union, there will not be any choices of an either/or character. A diversity of institutional arrangements and mechanisms of participation and accountability have to be expected. The challenge is to understand their interactive dynamics in the European Union as well as in other complex polities. The next chapter, then, explores to what degree and under what conditions the organization of public administration is likely to make direct participation redundant.

6 ‘. . . to serve the citizens of Europe’ THE RIGHT TO GOOD ADMINISTRATION If citizens need the help of professional administrators with specialist qualifications, under what conditions is it likely that public administration will work in ways that increase citizens’ trust and reduces the perceived need for citizens’ participation? Do different ways of organizing public administration influence the mediation between citizens and their helpers and therefore the degree to which public administration and government are seen to function well, to be legitimate, and to make direct and continuous citizens’ participation redundant? In the European Union, good public administration is claimed to be a core part of good governance and a well-functioning Union, and the EU aspires to develop a ‘world class administration’ in order to ‘serve the citizens of Europe’. The Charter of Fundamental Rights and the Draft Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe present the ‘right to good administration’ on par with a citizen’s right to vote and to stand as a candidate in Union elections, and the European Ombudsman has developed a Code of Good Administrative Behaviour that specifies what citizens can expect from Union public administration.1 Nevertheless, modernization and an administrative culture based on service and continuous improvement are claimed to be necessary.2 Is there in the EU then, a dominant administrative ‘vision’, ‘philosophy’, ‘theory’ or ‘doctrine’—that is, a set of fairly coherent ideas specifying what organizational forms are likely to make public administration work well and make citizens’ participation redundant? If so, what kinds of structures and processes are perceived as decisive? Is trust in public administration seen to depend on the continuous achievement of substantive results and efficient

1 The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the Union was proclaimed at the Nice Summit in December 2000 and included in the Draft Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe. See also European Ombudsman 2002b. 2 Commission 2000b and 2001a. See also, for example, several Progress Reviews of Reform given by the Vice-President of Administrative Reform, Neil Kinnock, (Commission 2004), as well as Metcalfe 1998; Joerges and Dehousse 2002; Kassim 2004.

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services, or on the public administration reliably following legitimate rules and procedures? A tentative observation is that the Union is still in search of an administrative order. The EU is not organized in accordance with a single coherent doctrine, and it is also difficult to identify a coherent and operational set of ideas that prescribes what organizational forms will best serve European citizens. The Code of Good Administrative Behaviour specifies general principles shared by public administration in contemporary democracies, for example, the rule of law, objectivity, impartiality and the absence of discrimination, proportionality between the measures taken and the aims pursued, courtesy, access to information, replying to letters in the language of the citizen, the right to be heard, and the duties to give reasons for decisions, to answer within a reasonable period of time, and to compensate for damages caused by Union personnel on duty. Likewise, the Commission wants an independent, permanent, high-quality, efficient, accountable, responsive and transparent European civil service. The European Court of Justice frequently refers to the ideal of ‘good or sound’ administration, yet generally the term is used very vaguely (Kadelbach 2002: 186). One possible reason for this state of affairs is that the EU is a meeting place for different national administrative traditions and doctrines. Questions of the best way to organize public administration involve not only technical efficiency but also procedural rationality and the political viability of different models. Administrative organization is then linked to battles over what normative criteria are to be used to assess the attractiveness of organizational forms, the institutional power-balance, and the old question: ‘Whose public administration is it anyway?’ There are good reasons for using Max Weber’s analysis of ‘the bureaucracy’ as the starting point for exploring these issues in the EU. First is the importance of legal integration, the rule of law, and adjudication in the Union, together with the continental tradition’s emphasis on constitutional and administrative law and the formal-legal organization of public administration. Second is that Anglo-American-inspired private management ideologies have for decades been proclaiming the demise of bureaucracy, hierarchies and rules, and the inevitable and irreversible victory of resultoriented market and network administration. This, together with the strongly negative overtones of ‘the big and powerful bureaucracy in Brussels’ rhetoric, invite a discussion of what Max Weber’s analysis of public administration may contribute in the Union context, compared to more recent administrative doctrines. As a prologue to the following chapters on institutional reform and change in the EU, this chapter examines the general international debate on admin-

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istrative organization and how public administration may mediate between rulers and ruled. Is ‘bureaucracy’ an organizational dinosaur in its death struggle? Is it an unattractive and unviable form of administration developed in a legalistic and authoritarian society and now inevitably withering away because it is incompatible with complex, individualistic and dynamic societies? And, therefore, is the term ‘bureaucracy’ and the theoretical ideas and empirical observations associated with it irrelevant or deceptive when it comes to making sense of public administration in the European Union and in contemporary democracies in general? Or, on the other hand, is the mobilization of anti-bureaucratic sentiments and the claim that it is time to say goodbye to bureaucracies and bureaucrats just another round in a perennial debate and ideological struggle over what forms of administration and government are desirable—that is, a contest for control of the size, agenda, organization, competences, moral foundations, staffing, resources and outcomes of the public sector? If so, how helpful is the literature on ‘bureaucracy’ in analysing current administrative challenges, compared to the diagnoses and prescriptions presented by reformers over the last 25 years? There have been important changes in public administration and, even more so, in the way administration is portrayed. Yet, this chapter questions the fashionable ideas that bureaucratic organization is obsolescent and there has been a paradigm shift from (Weberian) bureaucracy to market organization or network organization. In contrast to decades of bureaucracy-bashing, this chapter argues that contemporary democracies are involved in a struggle over institutional identities and institutional balances. It also argues that for those who are interested in how contemporary public administration is organized, and how it functions and changes, it is worthwhile to reconsider and rediscover bureaucracy as an administrative form, an analytical concept and a set of ideas and observations about public administration and formally organized institutions. The argument is not that bureaucratic organization is a panacea that will always serve citizens well and ensure legitimacy. Rather, bureaucratic organization is part of a repertoire of overlapping, supplementary and competing administrative forms co-existing in contemporary democracies, and so are market organization and network organization. The argument is developed in the following way. First, some characteristics of bureaucratic organization are outlined. Second, claims about the unattractiveness of bureaucracy are discussed in relation to competing criteria of success/failure and assumptions about the performance of bureaucratic organization. Third, aspects of administrative dynamics and the viability of bureaucratic organization are investigated, and fourth, the chapter returns to the EU’s search for administrative order.

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BUREAUCRACY, BUREAUCRATS, BUREAUCRATIZATION ‘Bureaucracy’ is often used as a pejorative slogan, as well as a label for all public administration, or any large-scale formal organization. Max Weber, however, made bureaucracy an analytical concept, decoupled from the polemical context in which it had emerged (Albrow 1970); and here the term signifies, first, a distinct organizational setting, the bureau or office: formalized, hierarchical, specialized, with a clear functional division of labour and demarcation of jurisdiction, and standardized, rule-based and impersonal. Second, bureaucracy refers to a professional, full-time administrative staff with life-long employment, organized careers, salaries and pensions, appointed to office and rewarded on the basis of formal education, merit and tenure. Third, bureaucracy implies a larger organizational and normative structure where government is founded on authority, that is, the belief in a legitimate, rationallegal political order and the right of the state to define and enforce the legal order. Binding authority is claimed through a fourfold rule-bound hierarchical relation: between citizens and elected representatives, democratic legislation and administration, within administration, and between administration and citizens as subjects (as well as authors) of law. Bureaucratization, then, refers to the emergence and growth of bureaucratic forms and not to the perversions and illegitimate extension of the power of bureaucrats.3 ‘Bureaucratic theory’ connotes a set of theoretical ideas and hypotheses concerning the relations between organizational characteristics and administrative mentality, behaviour, performance and change.4 One key assumption 3 This theme has been discussed at some length in the literature. Lynn has criticized the way in which the ‘bureaucratic paradigm’ is portrayed in the literature (Lynn 2001). Bureaucracy has been assumed to survive because it is essential to good administration and because representative democracy requires the use of hierarchy and needs the bureaucratic ethos (Dahl and Lindblom 1953: 511; Goodsell 1983; Aucoin 1997; Meier 1997; du Gay 2000; Peters and Pierre 2003a). It has also been argued that many reform proposals are ‘repackaged versions of ideas that have been in public administration since its beginnings’ (Hood 1996a: 268) and that ‘new’ approaches frequently rehash old ideas (Kettl 1993: 408). In particular, the propagation of private business administration as an exemplary model for the public sector is hardly new (Waldo 1948). Furthermore, Rhodes predicted a return to bureaucracy a decade ago (Rhodes 1994; see also Davis and Rhodes 2000) and Peters (1999: 104–5) sees a possible return to Weber’s organizational archetypes as a tool for comparative purposes. On the basis of comparative analysis Suleiman (2003) provides a strong defence of bureaucracy, and Pollitt and Bouckaert (2004: 63) share the spirit of this chapter when they write: ‘The idea of a single, and now totally obsolete, ancien re´gime is as implausible as the suggestion that there is now a global recipe which will reliably ‘‘reinvent’’ governments’. 4 The term ‘theory’ is used here informally. The claim, made more than fifty years ago, that ‘it would be premature to refer to ‘‘the theory of bureaucracy’’, as though there existed a single, well-defined conceptual scheme adequate for understanding this form of organization’ (Merton et al. 1952: 17), still holds true (Peters and Pierre 2003a).

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is that rationality and control are attributes of organizational structure and that it matters how public administration is organized. Another assumption is that organizational form can be deliberately developed. Yet, the interpretation of these assumptions depends on whether bureaucracy is conceived as an instrument or institution and as an ‘ideal type’ or its empirical approximations.

Instrument and institution Bureaucracy can be seen as a rational tool for executing the commands of elected leaders. In this perspective it is an organizational apparatus for getting things done, to be assessed on the basis of its effectiveness and efficiency in achieving predetermined purposes. Bureaucratic structure determines what authority and resources can be legitimately used, how, when, where and by whom. Commands and rules are followed because they are given by officeholders as trustees of an impersonal rational-legal order. Administrative legitimacy is based on the idea that the tasks are technical in nature–a logically correct solution can be identified by interpreting rules and facts or by applying expert causal knowledge. Administrative dynamics is subject to deliberate design and reform by legislation through procedurally correct methods. Bureaucracy can also be seen, however, as an institution with a raison d’eˆtre and organizational and normative principles of its own. Administration is based on the rule of law, due process, codes of appropriate behaviour and a system of rationally debatable reasons. It is part of society’s long-term commitment to a Rechtsstaat and procedural rationality for coping with conflicts and differences in power. Bureaucracy, then, is an expression of political and cultural values and a form of governing with intrinsic value. Rationality and justice are characteristics of the procedures followed to reach an outcome and not the outcome itself. Bureaucrats are supposed to obey, and be the guardians of, constitutional principles, the law and professional standards. They are imagined to use their professional expertise and experience to illuminate all aspects of public policies and ‘speak truth to power’. They are also supposed to have autonomy in applying the law to individual cases without the involvement of elected politicians and organized interests. As a partly autonomous institution, bureaucracy has legitimate elements of non-adaptation to leaders’ orders and environmental demands.5 5 For Weber ‘institution’ referred to compulsory associations (Anstalten), in contrast to formal organizations (Verband), and one key example of each was the state and the Church (Weber 1978: 1380).

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Ideal type and practice As an ideal type, bureaucracy has clear characteristics, preconditions and effects. Practice at best approximates the ideal type and public administration is never a fully developed bureaucracy. There are fluid and overlapping organizational principles and the functioning, emergence, growth and consequences of bureaucracy depend on a variety of factors.6 Weber observed the possibility that beliefs in a legitimate order will govern organized action but also that human behaviour can be guided by utility, affinity and traditions. Domination based on authority and the validity of an order was defined as questions of degree and probabilities. Orders could be interpreted differently. There could be contradictory systems of order and the key questions were: how often and under which conditions do bureaucrats actually comply with rules and commands, and how often are rules and commands enforced? Bureaucratization was stimulated by the quantitative and qualitative expansion of administrative tasks, but its direction and the reasons that occasioned it could vary widely (Weber 1978: 971). Weber saw the bureaucrats’ willingness and capacity to follow rules and orders as depending on a variety of mechanisms. Motivation was a result of material incentives inherent in life-long careers, as well as socialization and habituation in educational and bureaucratic institutions. The bureaucracy’s capacity to follow formal rules or ethical codes depended on the bureaucrats’ own qualifications and orientations but also on the leaders’ ability to give direction and the continuous availability of resources.7 Yet, incentives and socialization mechanisms could not be expected to be perfect and elected leaders could lack the knowledge and authority to direct and control administration.8 They could promote contradictory or morally dubious objectives or be unable or unwilling to extract adequate resources. Citizens could express their concerns through channels other than the electoral one. 6 ‘One must keep one’s eye on the fluidity and the overlapping of all these organizational principles. Their ‘‘pure’’ types, after all, are to be considered merely border cases which are of special and indispensable analytical value, and bracket historical reality which almost always appears in mixed forms’ (Weber 1978: 1002). 7 Weber observed that ‘bureaucracy as a permanent structure is knit to the one presupposition of the availability of continuous revenues to maintain it’ and that ‘the bureaucratic structure goes hand in hand with the concentration of the material means of management in the hands of the master’ (Weber 1978: 968, 980). 8 ‘The question is always who controls the existing bureaucratic machinery. And such control is possible only in a very limited degree to persons who are not technical specialists’ (Weber 1978: 224). According to Weber, there is an enduring struggle between political leadership and bureaucratization and the political ‘master’ always finds himself, vis-a`-vis the trained official, in the position of a dilettante facing the expert (Weber 1978: 991).

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Bureaucrats had interests and power of their own and the distinction between politics and administration could be hard to uphold in practice. As a result, there was a potential tension between elected officials, bureaucrats and citizens and the causal chain from a command to actual compliance could be long and uncertain.9 Bureaucratic organization could produce multiple and contradictory outcomes and authority-based behaviour could lead to disastrous consequences. In individual cases the consequences depended on the degree to which various spheres of life were bureaucratized, the direction which those controlling the apparatus gave to it, and the distribution of economic and social power in society. Given this complexity, which criteria are used to assess success and failure when it is claimed that bureaucracy is an attractive or undesirable organizational form? And what are the implications of a de-bureaucratization of public administration?

AT T RACT I V E NE SS Weber emphasized the technical superiority and the procedural rationality of bureaucracy, in contrast to the assertion that bureaucratic organization is undesirable and should be replaced by competitive markets or cooperative, power-sharing (inter-organizational) networks.10 Bureaucracy is assessed instrumentally, based on its expected contribution to the realization of predetermined goals, and deontologically, based on the validity of the behavioural codes and the principles of reason, morality, organization and governance on which bureaucracy as an institution is founded (Olsen 1997c).

Criteria of success and failure In an ideal-type bureaucracy, bureaucrats are responsible for following rules with regard to their office with dedication and integrity and for avoiding arbitrary action and action based on personal likes and dislikes. They are not responsible for adverse consequences stemming from the execution of 9 ‘The final result of political action often—no, even regularly—stands in completely inadequate and often even paradoxical relation to its original meaning’ (Weber 1970: 117). 10 ‘The fully developed bureaucratic apparatus compares with other organizations exactly as does the machine with non-mechanical modes of production. Precision, speed, knowledge of the files, continuity, discretion, unity, strict subordination, reduction of friction and material and personal costs—these are raised to the optimum point in the strictly bureaucratic administration, and especially in its monocratic form’ (Weber 1978: 973).

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appropriate rules in proper ways. Nevertheless, bureaucracies are in practice assessed on the basis of a variety of criteria, depending on the social group doing the complaining. For example, in 1847, a professor in political science at Heidelberg, Robert von Mohl, observed that ‘The privileged classes complained of loss of privileges, the commercial classes of interference in commerce, artisans of paperwork, scientists of ignorance, statesmen of delay’ (Albrow 1970: 29). Weber also foresaw an insoluble conflict between formal and substantive justice. Equality before the law, legal guarantees against arbitrariness and recruitment based on merit would reduce feudal privileges and have a levelling effect on social and economic differences. Nevertheless, the property-less masses could be expected to prefer an equalization of economic and social life-chances rather than formal-legal equality. A distinction has to be made between the criticism that public administration is not bureaucratic enough, and that it is excessively bureaucratic. In the first case, public administration does not meet the ideal model because a hierarchical, rule-based and professionally staffed bureaucracy has not been set up. Or the formal organization is just a fac¸ade and bureaucrats are not acting in accordance with the institution’s ethos and codes of conduct. The staff is corrupt and unreliable, incompetent, inefficient, lazy, rigid and unresponsive, self-regarding and uncontrollable. Administrators misuse their position and power. Laws are not executed in a competent and fair manner, the commands of superiors are not followed, and bureaucrats are not responsive to, or accountable to, elected political leaders or the constitution. The second type of criticism is that rules are followed too slavishly, or that public administration should be organized and staffed according to nonbureaucratic principles, administrators should act according to a different ethos and code of conduct, or there should not be public intervention at all. Complaints that a law is badly administered are then mixed with criticism of the content of the law and a principled opposition to the primacy of representative government. Such criticism is often part of a conflict over organizational and normative principles, worldviews, symbols and legitimacy, where the aim is to change the institutional identity and power of public administration (Merton 1938; Brunsson and Olsen 1993; Bienefeld 2001). Recent criticism of public administration has elements of both types but the latter has been predominant. What started as an attack on ‘bureaucracy’ and its inefficient, costly and rigid internal organization and operations has since the late 1970s developed into a criticism of the role of public administration, the possibility and desirability of government shaping society, the balance of power between institutions and between actors, and the relevance and functionality of jurisdictional boundaries, including those of the territorial state (Olsen 2004a). Key arguments have been that the ‘traditional’ way

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of governing society is ill suited to cope with the tasks and circumstances. A paradigm shift, from administering and governing through bureaucracies and hierarchies, to competitive markets and cooperation in partly autonomous policy networks, has been diagnosed or prescribed (Dunleavy and Hood 1994). The special nature and criteria for success of public administration has been denied and dichotomies such as state–society, public–private, politics–administration and expert–layman have become blurred. Reforms based on neo-classical economic ideology and private management ideology have prescribed privatization, deregulation, market competition and commercialization. Public administration is a supermarket delivering a wide variety of public services, disciplined by market competition (Olsen 1988a). Management by contract and result replaces management by command. Citizens are a collection of customers with a commercial rather than a political relationship to government, and legitimacy is based on substantive performance and cost-efficiency and not on compliance with formal rules and procedures. Administrative change is portrayed as improvement, ‘best practice’, ‘rightsizing’, better value for money, and serving predetermined (usually economic) goals better.11 The power aspects and the ethical and moral dilemmas involved are rarely made explicit. Rather, reform efforts are guided by a strong trust in competitive markets, a hope for ‘the final demise of central planning’ (Camdessus 1999), and the old quest for reduced state paternalism and a more ‘adequate and realistic theory on the role and limits of government intervention’ (de Oliveira Campos 1967: 287). The network criticism of bureaucracy has appealed to democratic ideology and has explicitly raised issues of authority and power.12 It has prescribed cooperation and consensus-seeking in ‘flatter’ and more flexible types of organization, including inter-organizational power-sharing networks, and it has emphasized participation in, rather than freedom from, administrative 11 For example, one OECD report (1991) was titled Serving the Economy Better, and another report summarized the key thrusts of reform: ‘A greater focus on results and increased value for money, devolution of authority and enhanced flexibility, strengthened accountability and control, a client- and service-orientation, strengthened capacity for developing strategy and policy, introducing competition and other market elements, and changed relationships with other levels of government’ (OECD 1995: 25). Within the New Public Management perspective, change follows from efficient adaptation to environmental dictates, or from competitive selection. Superior organizational forms are believed to surface in a system characterized by diversity, overlapping units and competition. Interestingly enough, large parts of the NPM also assume that hierarchy is possible and that actors can be divided into principals and agents. 12 Powell 1990; Kickert and van Vught 1995; O’Toole 1997a, b; Rhodes 1997a, b; Frederickson 1999; Kickert, Klijn and Koppenjan 1999; Kickert and Stillman 1999; Peters and Pierre 2000; Koppenjan and Klijn 2004. Students of networks usually see tensions between markets and networks; for example, they claim that competition tends to ruin trust-based networks. For a recent review, see Rhodes 2006.

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decision-making, implementation and enforcement. Public administration is to be disciplined, but also enabled, by citizens’ empowerment and social partnerships. Interdependent public and private actors need to cooperate, persuade, bargain and build trust. They also need to pool legal authority, financial resources, expertise and organization in order to improve results. This criticism is usually principled and systemic. It is presented as a corrective to the conventional view of politics and government as centred on formal-constitutional institutions (Marinetto 2003: 598–9). It is argued that no single political centre can legitimately claim to represent the public and the common good, issue commands and expect compliance. Attempts to command are likely to provoke withdrawal of cooperation, non-compliance, and a loss of trust, whereas a defining activity of administration is building support and mobilizing resources. Popular elections and majority government are not the only source of legitimacy. Demands and support are not channelled solely via the institutions of representative democracy, and citizenship involves more than voting. A new institutionalized moral vision synthesizing public and private ethical principles and standards is needed because of ‘the charade of democratic accountability given by the current electoral system’ (Brereton and Temple 1999: 466). It has been argued that public administration was never designed to maximize efficient service delivery, customer friendliness and flexibility and that these criteria are an irrelevant yardstick (Peters and Pierre 2003b: 6). Still, von Mohl’s observation is relevant. Public administration is likely to be assessed in terms of whatever is perceived as important problems by vocal groups in society. This is the case whether the concern is fostering democracy, constitutionalism and the rule of law, securing economic growth and competitiveness and fighting inflation, budget deficits and indebtedness, providing social equity, justice and the reduction of poverty, inequality, illiteracy, and child mortality, or a variety of other values, norms, interests and goals. Making sense of contemporary public administration, then, requires an understanding of the complex ecology of institutions, actors, rules, values, principles, goals, interests, beliefs, powers, and cleavages in which it operates. Administration—in the EU and elsewhere—is rarely provided with clear and stable criteria of success and failure. Politicians, judges, experts, organized groups, mass media and individual citizens are likely to hold different and changing—not coherent and stable—concepts of ‘good administration’. They are likely to want administration to serve a variety of changing and not necessarily consistent principles, goals and interests. Each concern is a possible source of legitimacy as well as criticism. As the mix of concerns changes, so do conceptions of good administration and good administrators (Kaufman 1956; Jacobsen 1960).

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In democracies, however, citizens’ confidence in their institutions of government is a core criterion and a challenge is to develop institutions and actors that survive and flourish in the face of changing environmental pressures while maintaining commitment to the primacy of democratic values (March and Olsen 1995: 192). What implications, then, can be expected from a (de-)bureaucratization of public administration?

Impacts of bureaucracy An ideal bureaucratic structure is assumed to contribute to unity and coordination, precision and speed, predictability, obedience and loyalty, impartiality, reduction of friction and of material and personal costs, knowledge of files and an institutionalized memory, and continuity across changes in government. Yet, there is a conspicuous discrepancy between the enthusiasm for organizational design and reorganization and the lack of systematic knowledge about organizational impacts. In spite of decades of evaluation there is little understanding of what consequences different forms are likely to have in different contexts (Wollmann 2001). While it is documented that it matters how public administration is formally organized, and that administrators are influenced by the rules and structural settings in which they act, stateof-the-art reviews have so far had relatively little to say about the relationships between organizational structure and administrative behaviour (Egeberg 2003: 120). The nature of these relationships is contested. Formal structure can be highly consequential but also a fac¸ade or empty shell, overwhelmed by informal structures and external resource distributions (Bendix 1962: 488). Organizational structure is not the only factor at play and administrative organization can provide a framework rather than an ‘iron cage’ determining administrative mentality, behaviour and outcomes. Formal organization charts and procedural manuals have variable explanatory power and manipulating formal organization can be a more or less precise instrument that gives different results in different contexts (Blau and Meyer 1971; Aucoin 1997: 305). Possibly, there has been little need felt to examine assumptions about the consequences of administrative reform because many reforms have been driven by strong ideological convictions, or even a doctrinaire faith in what is the ideal organization and role of public administration in the economy and society. As argued by Hood and Jackson (1991: 199), administrative doctrines ‘usually rise and fall in social favor through some processes other than conclusive ‘‘hard data’’ demonstration’. In practice it is also difficult to

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identify the exact effects of organizational structures, and a weak factual and theoretical basis leaves room for strong ideological convictions. Since it is commonplace to focus on the negative effects of bureaucratic organization, and since the main complaints are well known, attention is turned here to some potentially positive implications of bureaucratic organization. Consider, for example, the impact of rules. Subjecting human conduct to constitutive rules has been portrayed as part of the processes of democratization and civilization (Elias 1982, 1988; Berman 1983). Rules tend to increase action capabilities and efficiency (March and Olsen 1989). They make it possible to coordinate many simultaneous activities in a way that makes them mutually consistent and reduces uncertainty, for instance, by creating predictable time-rhythms through election and budget cycles (Sverdrup 2000). Rules constrain bargaining within comprehensible terms. They enforce agreements and help avoid destructive conflicts. Rules provide codes of meaning that facilitate interpretation of ambiguous worlds. They embody collective and individual roles, identities, rights, obligations, interests, values, worldviews and memory, thus constraining the allocation of attention, standards of evaluation, priorities, perceptions and resources (March and Olsen 2006b). Rules, furthermore, do not necessarily imply rigidity and inflexibility (March, Schultz and Zhou 2000). Rules may prescribe change and they allow behavioural flexibility. For example, in the European Union, with its strong emphasis on legal integration and formal rules, changing patterns of attention, behaviour and resource allocation have taken place within fairly stable structural frameworks (Olsen 2003b; see also Chapters 10 and 11 below). Bureaucracy can also be positively related to important economic, social and political criteria. For example, merit-based bureaucracy fosters economic growth in developing countries (Evans and Rauch 1999) and contributes to poverty reduction (Henderson et al. 2003).13 Bureaucracy is associated with low corruption, partly because a longer time-horizon makes quick returns from corruption less likely (Evans and Rauch 1999: 757; Kaufmann, Kraay and Mastruzzi 2004). General rules and welfare services, and not tailor-made solutions intended to serve a special group or interest, create trust in institutions of government and among citizens, when implemented in an impartial and uncorrupt way (Rothstein 2003). Bureaucratic rules, furthermore, contribute to democratic equality because they are (relatively) blind to the wealth and other resources of the citizens they 13 Evans and Rauch studied 35 developing countries in the period 1970–90. Henderson et al. used the Evans–Rauch data set in a study of 29 developing and middle-income countries for the same time period.

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serve. In comparison, market ‘efficiency’ is efficiency in arranging trades that are mutually acceptable, given initial resources; and the democratic quality of networks depends on their accessibility for groups with different values, interests, resources and capabilities.14 The current emphasis on bureaucracy as the instrument of the legitimately elected government of the day permits sympathy for a bureaucracy that sabotages the intentions of Frederick the Great, the Russian Tsar, or Hitler, and derails their reforms (Brecht 1937), but there is less understanding for a bureaucracy that critically questions or opposes the reforms of democratically elected government. Nevertheless, bureaucratic autonomy is an organizational principle rooted in constitutional democracy and the principle of separation of powers. The ongoing de-professionalization and politicization of public administration in many countries, with more emphasis on political affiliation, loyalty and commitment to the current government, has its costs in terms of administration’s ability to serve future governments and society at large (Suleiman 2003). Still, rules may be a mixed blessing. Rules may have positive effects up to a point, but then, if they proliferate, the effects become negative (Evans and Rauch 1999). Detailed rules and rigid rule-following might under some conditions make policy-making, implementation and enforcement more effective, but a well-functioning system may also need rules that allow discretion and flexibility. Consequently, short-term and long-term consequences of rules may differ: for example, standard operating procedures may increase short-term efficiency and at the same time reduce long-term adaptability. Rules might make public debate obligatory, but rule-following may also hamper reason-giving and discourse (March and Olsen 2006b). Rules are in varying degrees precise, consistent, obligatory and legally binding and they provide more or less clear prescriptions of appropriate behaviour in different settings and situations. There are also more or less specific exceptions to the rules and varying agreement about who is the authoritative interpreter of a rule. Bureaucracies may be more or less ‘autonomous’ or ‘instrumental’, with different degrees of freedom from political government and executive leadership (Knill 1999, 2001). Knowing what the rules demand and what is the common good, then, is problematic. The fact that orders are not always obeyed, that rules are not always followed, and that the content of public policy is modified on its way through the administrative apparatus (Merton et al. 1952) may reflect administrative complexity, and not bureaucratic power. Kaufman, for examples, observes: 14 Hierarchical authority, market competition and cooperative networks provide different mechanisms of accountability (Goodin 2003). All three depend on rules, but on different kinds of rules and in different ways.

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A simple command or a single new statute sometimes has little effect because there is such a large body of existing law and practice, and such a strongly established set of rights and privileges and obligations, that it is not possible for government officers and employees to respond to the latest instruction without violating others and without infringing on the legitimate interests of a good many people. Bureaucrats may respond sluggishly to new directives not because they are willfully disobedient or obstructive, but because they cannot ignore the accumulation of prior directives about which the authors of the new ones know nothing. A bureaucracy that scrupulously discharges its responsibilities may for that very good reason appear arbitrary and high-handed to some observers. Conscientious attention to the entire body of relevant law thus makes public servants look like villains to some people. (Kaufman 1981: 7, italics in original)

The degree to which rules and a logic of appropriateness guide administrative behaviour depends on the competition from other behavioural logics, such as the logic of consequentiality and utility maximization. While the problems of rules are often exhibited, it is also difficult to specify precise, consistent and stable goals, and both goals and rules can pervert behaviour. In goal-driven systems there is, for example, a tendency to concentrate on measures of performance rather than on performance (March and Olsen 1995: 159). Neither are single-purpose agencies likely to be a panacea. Even when there are efficiency gains with regard to a single objective, actors are likely to externalize their costs to the detriment of the general public. The ‘hidden hand’ of the market mechanism cannot be expected to compensate reliably for such externalities and there may be a loss of political accountability and control (Christensen and Lægreid 2004; Wollmann 2004). Strong vertical linkages between social groups and single-purpose agencies also make effective coordination and horizontal linkages within government difficult (Peters 1998: 302). Administrators, then, regularly face situations where the clarity and consistency of rules, (self-regarding) interests and preferences vary and give more or less clear behavioural guidance (Egeberg 1995, 2003). One hypothesis is that the comparative prescriptive clarity of a behavioural logic will determine which one will dominate other logics (March and Olsen 1998). The impact of rules also depends on whether rules are internalized or represent external incentives and constraints. While some see good administration solely as a question of the right organizational incentives, others argue that properties of administrators, as well as structures, rules and resources make a difference. In public administration there have been oscillations between trust in control of behaviour through manipulation of incentive structures and individual cost–benefit calculations, and trust in an ethos of internal-normative responsibility and willingness to act in accordance with

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rules of appropriateness. Historically, the two have interacted and their relative importance has changed over time and varied across institutional settings (DeLeon 2003). Weber, on the one hand, deplored the bureaucrats that the routines of bureaucracy were seen to select and form (Gerth and Wright Mills 1970: 50) and usually the bureaucratic method and the moral atmosphere it spreads are assumed to hamper initiative (Merton 1940) and exert a depressive influence on creative minds (Schumpeter 1996: 207). Yet, Weber also underlined how important it is that administrators are socialized into an ethos of rulefollowing—that is, that they are governed by internalized codes of exemplary behaviour, right and wrong, true and false, legal and illegal, organized into the bureaucracy as an institution (March and Olsen 1989, 2006b). Hence, the impact of rules is linked to how well bureaucracies solve the ‘perennial problem of preserving character and judgment’, i.e. the ability to maintain ethical reflection, give good reasons, distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate demands and ‘ensure responsible action even when no one is watching’ (Jos and Tompkins 2004: 256, 276).

The disentanglement problem While it is relatively easy to monitor whether rules and procedures are followed, it is more difficult to attribute causal effects to specific organizational properties or actors, in particular in multi-tiered and multi-centred systems such as the EU (see also Chapter 10 below). A disentanglement problem appears when ‘good administration’ is defined by several competing criteria and performance depends upon the organization of public administration as well as the qualities, orientations and capabilities of the personnel. The problem is extended because administrative success also depends on the performance of several actors and institutions organized on different principles, and with different cultures, resources, histories and dynamics; and on the degree to which officials and citizens are able and willing to mobilize resources that match tasks and goals and give administration autonomy to apply its expertise. The challenge of specifying the implications of bureaucratization and de-bureaucratization, therefore, is formidable and the value of the ideal type of bureaucracy for this task is questionable. Its structural characteristics do not necessarily occur together in practice (Hall 1963) and it has been suggested that each dimension could be regarded as a variable (Friedrich 1952). Usually, however, analysts make no attempt to include all relevant features of a

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bureaucratic structure.15 Neither is it obvious how the organization of postbureaucratic administration can best be characterized and typologized and what the likely effects of de-bureaucratization are. Market organization and network organization come in many guises and hybrid forms (Thompson et al. 1991; Thompson 2003). There are quasi-markets and quasi-networks, as well as quasi-hierarchies (Exworthy, Powell and Mohan 1999) and ‘it is the mix that matters’ (Rhodes 1997a; Davis and Rhodes 2000). From a democratic point of view there are good reasons to reconsider the possible positive impacts of bureaucratic organization, as a supplement to the well-known story of its perversions. The claim that there is too little bureaucracy is as relevant as the criticism of excessive bureaucracy and assessments of public administration need to make explicit the normative criteria used, and not reduce administrative (re)organization solely to a technical question involving the efficient implementation of predetermined goals. So, if bureaucracy is to some degree, and under some conditions, attractive, is it also viable? Or, like the dinosaur, is it doomed to disappear?

VIABILITY In contrast to recent reformers who have predicted the necessary demise of a centrally organized and rule-bound public administration, Weber argued that bureaucracy would be the dominant organizational form in the modern world.16 Several lines of thought are involved, however. Weber saw the growth of bureaucratic organization as the inevitable product of a long historical development towards rationalization of human organization and cooperation, but he denied that history follows a general law of development and can be constructed in terms of ‘unilinear’ evolution or ‘cycles’ (Gerth and Wright Mills 1970: 51). Weber viewed bureaucratic structure as malleable—a rationally designed tool, deliberately structured and restructured in order to improve the ability to realize externally determined goals. Yet when fully developed, 15 For example, Evans and Rauch (1999) created a ‘Weberianness Scale’ based on the degree to which administrative agencies used meritocratic recruitment and offered predictable, longterm careers. They observed that other researchers stress other features, and that a comprehensive appraisal of all features of the ideal bureaucratic form was beyond their capacities and available data. 16 ‘The development of modern forms of organization in all fields is nothing less than identical with the development and continual spread of bureaucratic administration. This is true of church and state, of armies, political parties, economic enterprises, interest groups, endowments, clubs, and many others . . . The choice is only that between bureaucracy and dilettantism in the field of administration’ (Weber 1978: 223).

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bureaucracy was indispensable, powerful and difficult to control or destroy even in the face of radical changes in society.17 Nevertheless, there would be changes in the control of bureaucracy and beliefs in its legitimacy would be modified through human deliberation, reason-giving and political struggles. In sum, the dynamics of bureaucratization resulted from many forces and Weber wondered how far the development of bureaucratic organization was subject to political, economic and other external determinants or to an ‘autonomous’ logic inherent in its technical structure (Weber 1978: 1002). Reformers tend to treat change as a master value, but the challenge is twofold: first, to clarify how malleable are administrative organization and practices, mentalities, cultures and codes of conduct, and what are the conditions under which administrative forms can be deliberately designed and reformed; and second, to balance stability and flexibility. Democracies value order, continuity and predictability as well as flexibility and change and usually there are attempts to balance the desire to keep the basic rules of government stable and the desire to adapt rules to new experience. Democratic institutions create some degree of order and thereby elements of rigidity and inflexibility. Yet they are arranged both to accelerate and decelerate learning from experience and adaptation to changing circumstances. A distinction is made here between administrative reforms aimed at improving practical problem-solving within fairly stable institutional and normative frameworks, and reforms aimed at changing such frameworks. The focus will be on the latter, where an institution’s external relations—its pact with society—are at stake. Transformation from one institutional archetype to another requires de-institutionalization and a subsequent re-institutionalization (Eisenstadt 1959; Peters 1999). The legitimacy of an institution’s mission, organization, functioning, moral foundation, ways of thought and resources are thrown into doubt, and a possible outcome is the rise and fall of institutional structures and their associated systems of normative and causal beliefs. The key issues are of a constitutional character. What kind of public administration and government should there be for what kind of society? What are to be the core institutions and auxiliary institutions? How is the preferred solution to be achieved?

Historical necessities? New Public Management reformers have claimed that the era of hierarchical and rule-bound administration is over. Usually, their language is apolitical 17 ‘Once fully developed, bureaucracy is among those social structures which are the hardest to destroy . . . Where administration has been completely bureaucratized, the resulting system of domination is practically indestructible’ (Weber 1978: 987).

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and administrative development is subject to fate more than choice. There is an ‘inevitable shift’ toward a more advanced administration and a convergence in administrative forms globally or at least among OECD countries (Osborne and Gaebler 1992).18 Market enthusiasts are inspired by neo-classical economic theory. Public administration has to adapt to a globalized economy and a paradigm shift to markets and management has been presented as a universal medicine (World Bank 1991: 38). While network enthusiasts, emphasizing horizontal links and power-sharing between government and society, call attention to attempts to change existing balances of power through political processes (Kettl 1996: 16), elements of environmental ‘necessities’ are also present. Network organization, for example, is interpreted as a logical consequence of the functional differentiation of modernity (Mayntz 1997), a reflection of changing powerrelations in society (Kettl 1996) and the ‘reconquest of political authority by societal actors’ (Andersen and Burns 1996: 228). The increasing number and importance of multi-centred networks bring about a loss of central authority and political guidance and elected officials and administrative leaders have limited capacity deliberately to design and reform public administration.19 The holistic visions of market organization, network organization and bureaucracy share a well-known conception of change: existing institutions and organizations survive because they work well and provide better solutions than their alternatives (Goodin 1996b; Stinchcombe 2001). Each vision assumes that a single, context-free set of principles for organizing public administration is functionally and normatively superior. Over time the superior form replaces the others. It spreads independent of characteristics distinctive and specific to a region or country, resulting in convergence on a single organizational model. The inevitability of this convergence hypothesis is not supported by empirical observations. While globalization is exerting pressures on administrative systems around the world, they have not created convergence and a common pattern (Welch and Wong 2001). Nor has the internal market, common legislation and intense interaction among administrators in the

18 There are variations among Anglo-Saxon versions of NMP and continental European versions and Rod Rhodes has reminded me of Antipodean exceptionalism among the former (see also Olsen and Peters 1996; Christensen and Lægreid 2001; Pollitt 2003). 19 For references, see n. 12 above. However, comparisons over time cannot assume as a baseline that at some time in the past all authority and power was concentrated in one centre (Pollitt 2003). The role of the political centre has been precarious and the authority and power resulting from winning democratic elections (Rokkan 1966) and occupying administrative positions have varied.

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European Union produced structural convergence. Member states continue to organize their administrations differently both at home and in Brussels.20 The European Union also illustrates the fact that market-building and network-building do not exclude bureaucratic organization. The strengthening of markets and networks has produced more, not fewer rules in the EU. The search for a constitutional order, the writing of a draft Constitutional Treaty and the emphasis on human rights have further strengthened this tendency. A trend towards rules and institutions is also observed in world politics (Goldstein et al. 2000). Generally, there has been a rule explosion (Ahrne and Brunsson 2004), a rights revolution (Sunstein 1990) and a global expansion of judicial power (Tate and Vallinder 1995), and the conviction that professions such as medical doctors and teachers have not been effectively subjected to public accountability has created an audit explosion and new rules (Power 1994). Scandals in both the private and the public sector, from Enron in the USA to the demise of the Santer Commission in the EU, have also triggered demands for legal and ethical rules and an ethos of responsibility. Arguably, increasing diversity might be conducive to the quest for rules. In heterogeneous polities such as the EU, governance can rarely assume a community of shared objectives. Such polities can at best develop and maintain a community of shared institutions, principles, rules and procedures that makes it possible to rule a divided society without undue violence (March and Olsen 1995). In the absence of accepted, clear and stable goals and with uncertain relations between ends and means, administrative organization becomes a problematic policy instrument and deontological concerns are likely to become more important. Citizens may not accept centralized discretion and power, but they may want common rules. Therefore, what recent reformers present as universal diagnoses and prescriptions for public administration are in fact partial, time- and space-bound interpretations. Each perspective highlights specific components of the system of public administration found in democratic polities, reflects a development in a specific time period, or is associated with a particular reform ideology. The institutional centrepiece in one order, period or reform ideology is an auxiliary institution in other orders, periods and ideologies (Olsen 2004a; Chapter 1 above). Rather than a paradigm shift and global convergence, there is open-ended re-examination of and argument over institutional identities and institutional balance.

20 Kassim, Peters and Wright 2000; Kassim et al. 2001; Olsen 2003b; Chapter 11 below.

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Democratic learning? Criticism of public administration and government is part of democratic dynamics. The democratic vision is that when immediate experience with bureaucratic institutions cannot be reconciled with democratic values, bureaucracy becomes a political issue and the bureaucratic system loses legitimacy (March and Olsen 1995: 192). Up to a point, recent reforms illustrate such a pattern. Reform programmes have been part of a re-examination of ideals constitutive of democracy. They have involved attempts to modify interinstitutional relations and the balance between the roles of the state, market and civil society, as well as the role of different professions, organized interests and citizens. The bureaucracy-bashing of the New Right and the neo-liberal administrative reforms in the 1980s branded the public sector a problem and not a solution (Savoie 1994). The ‘reinventing government’ movement was a reaction, presenting a partially alternative vision of the role of government and a third way between bureaucracy and market. It proposed ‘better government’ rather than ‘less government’, with a state supporting civil society and markets, rather than ‘steering’ society (CLAD 1999; Rhodes 2006). Political and organizational factors were critical in the process. The ‘reinventing government’ movement, for example, gained ascendancy in political circles in Washington, DC and spread through a network of a globalized, US-dominated management consulting firms (Saint-Martin 2001). Understanding administrative change therefore requires an examination of how reforms are borrowed or imposed from outside the national political framework. International organizations such as the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) have been important for diffusing ideas of administrative reform. As observed by Nef, administrative reform, externally induced or assisted, is nothing new for recently independent and developing states. Transplanted administrative forms from Europe and North America, with their visions of rationality, efficacy and impersonality, have been the measuring rod of ‘modernity by imitation’ and the supremacy of the bureaucratic model has been followed by reforms inspired by neo-liberal ideology (Nef 2003). Reforms imposed on developing countries have often been justified by crises, but the standard prescription is also used when such problems do not exist. For example, the OECD observes that Norway’s economy and society, measured against that of its OECD peers, are very strong (OECD 2003). Nevertheless, the arguments for radical public sector reform are seen as compelling and greater reliance on markets and greater competition is

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‘urgently needed’. State ownership must be reduced and the wage-settlement system made more flexible. What is needed is a break with the Norwegian reform style of consensus-based incrementalism. Social harmony is put at risk without any explicit analysis of the normative aspects involved or the system’s historical ability to adapt to shifting national and international circumstances. The Norwegian example gives support to those who question the degree to which international organizations are able to learn from past successes and failures.21 Nevertheless, the enthusiasm for a universal (NPM) cure, and the institutionalized pressure for global administrative convergence, has weakened since the early 1990s. It has been discovered that complaints about public administration have not disappeared after decades of reform. A good public administration is no longer a minimalist one and states have a role to play beyond protecting property rights and enforcing contracts. The need for in-depth understanding of the specific situation in individual countries is emphasized. There are few answers that are right under all circumstances and no one-size-fits-all recipe will do. Administrative reform must be matched carefully with the needs, traditions and resources of each political system (World Bank 1997, 2000; also OECD 1997, 2002). After some enthusiasm for NPM principles, the relevance of administrative context has also been rediscovered in former communist states in Europe. It has been concluded that each country has to recognize its own potential and find its own way, and not copy business methods and the NPM reforms from the West. Adopting Anglo-Saxon prescriptions and cultures are likely to have ‘detrimental’ and ‘disastrous’ consequences, in particular when reforms are made within tight budgetary constraints and a short time-frame. Part of the advice is to go ‘back to basics’, that is, Weberian bureaucracies (Fournier 1998: 129, 135; Hesse 1998: 176; Metcalfe 1998: 61). Furthermore, the possibility of maintaining a modernized neo-Weberian state in Europe has been suggested, as a continental European and Scandinavian alternative to the largely AngloSaxon New Public Management (Bouckaert 2004; Pollitt and Bouckaert 2004). Within a Weberian perspective the issue of viability extends beyond changes in rules and structures. It requires insight into the processes through which a sense of administrative identity and role is learnt, lost and redefined and the conditions under which administrators are likely to develop and internalize democratic, constitutional and professional norms.22 For democratic 21 For example: ‘The IMF is fairly dogmatic and ideological. It never praises, or learns from, countries—no matter how economically successful—if they diverge from its doctrines’ (Vaknin 2003: 8). 22 Not all approaches to public administration accept that institutions provide a framework for fashioning actors by developing and transmitting specific cognitive and normative beliefs and developing a common identity and sense of belonging. Many rational-choice approaches take human nature as constant and universal. All individuals are utility maximizers, whatever institutional context they act within.

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governments it is more legitimate to change formal administrative structures than moral structures and mentalities that influence whether people voluntary accept binding authority and comply with rules of conduct. The ethical question is what kind, or kinds, of administrators are wanted (Dahl and Lindblom 1953: 523)—rule-followers, competitive actors or cooperative personalities, and with what kinds of skills? Among the empirical questions are: to what degree are administrators malleable and administration a site of learning where civic-minded, public-spirited identities might be developed? How, and through what processes and institutions, are individuals transformed into office-holders and rule-followers with an ethos of self-discipline, impartiality and integrity, or self-interested, utility-maximizing actors, or cooperating administrators oriented towards the policy networks they participate in? There are still no conclusive answers to these questions.

Beyond a single principle Bureaucratic, market and network organization are usually portrayed as alternatives, based respectively on hierarchical authority, competition and cooperation. From an analytical point of view, these are different mechanisms for achieving rationality, accountability and control, mobilizing resources and compliance, and organizing feedback from society. In modern, pluralistic societies with a variety of criteria of success and different causal understandings, it is, however, unlikely that public administration can be organized on the basis of one principle alone. An administration that simultaneously has to cope with contradictory demands and standards and balance system coordination and legitimate diversity organizationally (Olsen 2004b) and technologically (Peristeras, Tsekos and Tarabanis 2003) is likely to require more complexity than a single principle can provide. One possibility is to see polity and society as consisting of dependent but partly autonomous institutional spheres of thought and action. Within a common set of values and morals in society, modernity involved an extensive differentiation between spheres with different organizational patterns, norms and values, roles, vocabularies, resources, and dynamics, and the institutionalization of bureaucracy was part of this large-scale institutional differentiation (Eisenstadt 1959; Weber 1978: 489). The political-administrative systems can then be resolved into partly supplementary and partly competing administrative forms and mechanisms of governing—including hierarchies, voting systems, price systems and competitive markets, and cooperative networks (Dahl and Lindblom 1953). During certain periods the different institutions are in balance, yet at transformative points in history institutions can come into direct competition (Gerth and Wright Mills 1970: 330–57).

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Typically, an institution under serious attack re-examines its pact with society and its rationale, identity and foundations, its ethos, codes of behaviour and primary allegiances and loyalties (Merton 1942). Such a re-examination has lately been going on in public administration and there has been a rebalancing of the core institutions of modern society. Available observations do not, however, support the prediction that administrations converge on a single form and that bureaucratic organization is unviable—that it is disappearing because it is being outcompeted by market and network forms of administrative organization. Rather, bureaucratic organization may become more important in increasingly heterogeneous societies, as part of a public administration organized on the basis of several competing principles.

IN SEARCH OF ADMINISTRATIVE ORDER So why bother with bureaucracy, bureaucrats, bureaucratization, bureaucratic theory and their critics in the context of the European Union? One reason is that the deterministic dinosaur scenario, emphasizing the undesirability and non-viability of bureaucracy and an inevitable and irreversible paradigm shift towards market or network organization, is wrong or insufficient. Bureaucratic organization and the criteria for success in which it is embedded are still with us, and these are relevant in particular in legalistic settings such as the European Union. Bureaucracy has a role as the institutional custodian of constitutive democratic principles and procedural rationality, yet in competition with other institutions embedding competing criteria of success. Bureaucracy also has a role as a tool for legislators and representative democracy and is positively related to substantive outcomes that are valued in contemporary democracies. Juridification of many spheres of society, human rights developments, increased diversity, lack of common overriding goals and renewed demands for public accountability may further contribute to a rising interest in the legal-bureaucratic aspects of administration and governing. While Weber’s analysis of bureaucratic organization is likely to enrich our understanding of public administration, the argument is not that bureaucratic organization, or any other single organizational form, is the answer to how public administration can be made to serve citizens well and make direct and continuous citizens’ participation redundant. Public administrations face different challenges, command different resources and are embedded in different political and administrative traditions. Bureaucratic organization, therefore, is not the only way to organize public administration, for all kinds of tasks and under all circumstances. It is part of a repertoire of overlapping,

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supplementary and competing forms co-existing in contemporary democracies, and so are market organization and network organization. While simple diagnoses and prescriptions often ‘win’ political-rhetorical battles over administrative organization, and ‘the big and powerful bureaucracy in Brussels’ rhetoric usually drowns out available knowledge about the actual working of the Union administration, simple answers are unlikely to be true. Making sense of public administration requires insight into the complexity of its organization and the different ways in which different forms mediate between governors and governed. Because administrative theory and practice is contextual and closely linked to the history and culture of specific states and regions, and as long as definitions of ‘good administration’ and ‘good government’ hinge on specific definitions of ends, purposes and values, there can be no truly universal generalizations about public administration without a profound knowledge about the varying political, social, cultural and economic characteristics that impinge on the administration.23 Contemporary administrators are involved in the application of law, policy preparation, policy-making, the giving of expert advice, service provision, support-building and resource mobilization. Administrators are rule-driven bureaucrats and also managers calculating expected utility. They are problemsolving servants as well as powerful masters. Administrative arrangements are sometimes fac¸ades, sometimes efficient organizational tools for implementing the policies of elected leaders, or institutions with an ethos and procedural rationality that temper the self-interested pursuit of power. Public administration is organized on the basis of authority as well as competition and cooperation. Several organizational forms co-exist, but the mix changes over time. Different organizational patterns may perform well, facing similar tasks and contexts. Administrations deal with the population as subjects, civicminded citizens, clients and self-interested customers, who expect different things in different contexts from government and differ in their ability and willingness to provide administration with resources. Administrative development involves change and continuity, convergence and divergence, and a variety of not necessarily coordinated processes. The politics of administrative design and reorganization includes deliberations and struggles over organizational forms but also over symbols, legitimacy, and the ethos and identity of public administration. Within this perspective, and given that the Union’s territorial reach, agenda and institutional order are still unsettled, it is not surprising that phrases such as ‘to serve the citizens of Europe’, ‘the right to good administration’, etc. do 23 Dahl 1947; Olsen and Peters 1996; March 1997; Olsen 2001b, 2003b, 2004a; Arellano and Castillo 2004; Wollmann 2004.

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not have a stable, clear and accepted meaning. Nor is it surprising that no single, coherent doctrine or organizational practice of ‘good administration’ has been developed. Several criteria for success, principles, and organizational forms co-exist, partially separated in different institutional spheres and professions, as the Union oscillates between its rules and procedure-oriented public-law language and its claim that public administration may be organized in any way as long as results are achieved and common goals are met. Von Mohl’s observation is also still relevant in the EU. Public administration operates in an environment of many competing and shifting success-criteria. It is sometimes assessed as an institution embodying Rechtsstaat values embedded in administrative and constitutional law, sometimes as an instrument for implementing an assumed coherent and stable preference function defined by current political authorities, and sometimes as a general problemsolver and service provider. Such observations indicate that the Union is still in search of administrative order (see also Chapter 11 below). The Commission (2002b), for example, portrays itself as serving the citizens of Europe by giving effective answers to issues which affect the quality of their daily life. The Commission also portrays itself as the guardian of the founding Treaties, ‘the European idea’ and the Community as a whole, as independent of national authorities, as well as being accountable and responsive to elected political authorities and various other institutions and groups. Different success-criteria are evoked in different institutional settings and situations. The European Parliament and the Council have been interested in transparency and how public administration can be controlled by parliamentarians. Market-builders have emphasized modern management principles, efficiency and substantive results. The Court of Auditors has called attention to traditional bureaucratic virtues and rules. Fraud and financial mismanagement and the need for improved auditing, accountability, responsibility and control were also central issues for the Committee of Independent Experts (1999a, b) in the wake of the demise of the Santer Commission. It is unlikely that the many concerns and success-criteria can equally well be met by an organizational recipe based on a single principle. ‘Weberian bureaucracy’ and ‘the New Public Management’ are each clusters of ideas that are difficult to make internally consistent. Labelling the first ‘oldfashioned’ and the second ‘modern’ is part of the ideological battles over the size and form of the Union’s administration, but in practice both are part of the organizational repertoire in the EU and the member states. However, neither the EU nor public administration as a discipline has much to say about the interaction and mixes of different organizational principles and practices.

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The Commission’s Reform Strategy White Paper—presented as a ‘once-in-ageneration programme’ (Commission 2000b: 26) and assessed as successful modernization (Kassim 2004)—did not formulate a coherent, overarching perspective based on a discussion of foundational principles. Rather, the reform programme listed 98 different measures focused on practical improvements. As often before in the EU, good administration was defined primarily in terms of rules and processes, and not directly related in a means–end way to desired policy outcomes, as assumed by EU rhetoric. Nor is the actual impact of such rules and processes well understood. Kadelbach (2002: 184), for instance, argues that the Code of Conduct concerning public access to Council and Commission documents has the character of an inter-institutional agreement and does not confer any rights on individuals. Because the challenge facing the EU involves technical efficiency as well as procedural rationality and political acceptance, the political viability of organizational forms requires striking a balance between competing successcriteria, causal ideas, and groups. Yet, because the Union is a meeting place for different national administrative traditions, bringing in multiple and competing administrative doctrines and traditions, the possibilities for a unitary European administrative doctrine and practice are constrained (Metcalfe 1998; Kadelbach 2002). As a consequence, the term ‘good administration’ often gets its meaning simultaneously and in interaction with the development of organizational practices and forms. So far, no actor or institution has had the power to impose a unified set of normative and causal ideas or a single organizational form upon the Union. Administrative competence, capability and enforcement have to a large extent remained within the purview of the member states. This is reflected in the modest legal competence and actual influence European-level institutions have regarding the organization of public administration,24 and the constraints are visible in particular when reformers aspire to work on peoples’ minds and create ‘a culture of service and continuous improvement’, and not only to manipulate external incentives and opportunities.25 The Commission, however, has gradually strengthened its position through capacity-building and networking, and Egeberg concludes that a multilevel, 24 In 2005 the Commission had 17, 571 permanent and 366 temporary administrative posts, and 3,705 permanent and 50 temporary research posts. Furthermore, there were 1,981 permanent and 147 temporary posts for offices attached to the Commission, and 2, 224 and 100 posts in decentralized bodies and executive agencies respectively (Commission 2006: 22). 25 For example, the European Parliament, Council, Commission, Court of Justice, Economic and Social Committee, Committee of the Regions, and Ombudsman have established a European Administrative School (Official Journal of the European Union, 10 Feb. 2005). There is also a ‘European Diplomatic Training Initiative’ (<www.edti.org>) with 17 institutions providing training in diplomacy, aimed at developing a ‘European approach’.

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genuine Union administration may be emerging. The Commission has developed elements of autonomization, sectorization, and party politicization. ‘Double-hatted’ agencies are part of both the European system and a national administrative system, and there are a multitude of committees and networks linking EU-level and national administrations. These developments in turn tend to change patterns of administrative cooperation and conflict and reduce the dominance of the territorial and intergovernmental dimension (Egeberg 2006). Complaints about ‘the big and powerful bureaucracy in Brussels’ are often part of rhetorical contests only distantly related to how Union public administration is organized and how it works in practice. Nevertheless, it is implausible to argue that existing administrative arrangements have mediated successfully between citizens and governors, created much trust in administrative institutions, and eliminated demands for direct citizen participation. The ambition of a world-class administration serving the citizens of Europe, the European Code of Good Administrative Behaviour and the right to good administration notwithstanding, successful mediation is still an aspiration and not an achievement. This conclusion leads to the questions of how the Union’s institutions change and are reformed, and whether current developments are likely to improve the institutions’ ability to mediate between citizens and their helpers and also between institutional design and historical drift.

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Part III Democratic design and historical drift

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7 Institutions of governance: can democracies choose them? COMPREHENSIVE INSTITUTIONAL REFORM Institutional reform has for quite some time been a salient issue on the political agenda of the European Union. The allegation has been that the EU institutions of governance have major weaknesses, that they lack eVectiveness and legitimacy, and that comprehensive reform is needed. The claim covers single institutions, as well as the relationships and balance among institutions. Therefore, the basic principles and rules for constituting, distributing, controlling and legitimizing power in the European polity are involved. The focus in this chapter is on comprehensive reform of the European political order and the prospects for a deliberate rearrangement of the relations among key institutions. What can students of political institutions contribute to a better understanding of reform in a complex, dynamic, multi-cultural and pluralistic setting such as the EU? How useful are existing theoretical ideas about institutional dynamics, that is, how political orders are established, maintained, changed and abandoned? What do these ideas tell us about the processes through which a new European order is being established, to what degree institutional engineering is feasible, and what can be achieved through deliberate reform? There is no generally accepted theory of institutional dynamics that explains how and when institutions of governance change, and with what implications. Neither is there agreement on the signiWcance of deliberate intervention in processes of change. There are diVerent ways of understanding reform, based on competing conceptions of political institutions, actors and processes of change. An engineering perspective, very popular in the European Union, emphasizes the role of political agency and the attributes of identiWable and autonomous actors—such as their will, understanding and power. The working assumption of this chapter, however, is that an adequate understanding of comprehensive design and reform in the EU presupposes that actors and their will, understanding and power vary and that they may also change during

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reform processes. The institutional perspective that will be used also assumes that existing institutional arrangements mediate between deliberate institution-building (design, reform) and informal and gradual institutional evolution and drift and therefore inXuence the relative signiWcance of institutional engineering. Treating actors and their normative and cognitive beliefs and power as endogenous, rather than treating them as predetermined and exogenous, complicates our models of institutional change. However, this starting point may also deepen our understanding of how formally organized political institutions change and how they may be deliberately improved. The chapter starts with the demands for comprehensive reform in the EU. Next, a simple model of institutional engineering is sketched. Then, the complications of seeing actors, political will, understanding and control as endogenous to reform processes are introduced. Finally, the chapter returns to the prospects of institutional engineering in complex and dynamic settings such as the EU.

TH E DEMAND F OR COMPREHENSIVE R EFORM The assertion that European institutions are not working properly—that they are unable to cope with major social and economic problems, to do what they are intended to do, and to adapt to a rapidly changing world—is hardly new. Nor is the demand for comprehensive reform completely without precedent. Still, at the end of the 1990s the contested legitimacy of European institutions was portrayed by some as part of a constitutional crisis (Cowles and Smith 2000: 3). It was argued that the Union had to rethink and reshape the way its institutions were organized, governed and changed. The EU needed to reform its institutions as well as the ways in which institutions were being revised. Demands for reform had a threefold basis. First, policy reforms, and an expanding social and economic agenda leaving few spheres of life unaVected by EU policy, had already created a need for parallel institutional reforms. Second, enlargement was seen to increase the size and heterogeneity of the Union and would have a signiWcant impact on the functioning of institutions. Finally, the need for reform was reinforced by changes in the world economy and geopolitics, and by the EU’s desire to strengthen Europe’s role in the world and harness globalization. The demand for comprehensive institutional reform has been aired from Maastricht through Nice to the Convention, as well as in the Commission White Paper on governance in Europe (Commission 2001a). According to the President of the Commission of the time, Romano Prodi, Laeken implied

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‘launching a new constitutional phase in the building of Europe’ and the Convention model was a ‘deliberate break with the past’ and a radically new approach to change. The Convention was expected to ‘take the European project forward’ and reveal the weaknesses of other approaches to change (Prodi 2001b, d). According to Prodi, the issue was nothing less than ‘the grand project of creating a European Union’ and the fundamental nature of the Union in the future. Comprehensive reform involved building a political union and not only a trading bloc, improving the Union’s external power and internal solidarity, and protecting and aYrming the values of democracy, social cohesion and justice (Prodi 2001e). Reform aspirations have been reXected in the instrumental language used. Reformers have aspired to ‘build Europe’ by changing ‘the European institutional architecture’ and the ‘institutional machinery’. Institutions have been portrayed as tools for implementing policies and visions of a better society. According to the Treaties, the Union has been presumed to endow itself with the appropriate institutional instruments and other means necessary to attaining its objectives and carrying through its policies. The credo has been that ‘the Union shall be served by a single institutional framework which shall ensure the consistency and the continuity of the activities carried out in order to attain its objectives’ (European Union Consolidated Treaties, 1997: art. 6.4, art. 3). This rhetoric expresses a belief in the possibility and importance of governing through deliberate, comprehensive institutional reform. Institutional engineering is seen as a possible strategy to achieve an intended social development.1 Nonetheless, there have been disappointments. The Union does not seem to be capable of reform through a one-oV Treaty revision specifying the constitutive principles of political organization (see Chapter 9 below). For enthusiasts of reform, for example, the achievements reXected in the Amsterdam Treaty, and the Treaty of Nice and the Convention, were seen as inadequate. While comprehensive reform has been diYcult to achieve, the institutional balance of the Union is dynamic, not static. In the words of Romano Prodi: ‘Since 1981, Wrst the Community and then the Union have been going through a continual process of adjustment, restructuring, enlargement and adaptation’. There has been a constant seismic shock, shaking the institutions

1 Prodi’s ‘The State of the Union in 2001’ speech illustrates the claim that reform should start with substance, that is, what the European peoples want in terms of common substantive agenda, common policies, etc., and therefore the ultimate purposes of the Union. The institutional implications should then be drawn and a ‘coherent and durable design for our enlarged Union’ developed. Consistent with this ‘tool’ view of institutions, Prodi makes a distinction between the ‘eminently political’ issues of substance and institutional issues (Prodi 2001e).

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and making the general public less sure ‘what Europe is all about or whether it is headed in the right direction’ (Prodi 2001e: 5). Over the years there has nevertheless been a consistent development towards institutionalized cooperation, more so than in any other region of the world (Katzenstein 2005). Member states’ authorities have become an integral part of European governance (Commission 2000a: 13). The EU has been transformed from a bargained agreement among nation-states to a quasi-federal polity (Stone Sweet and Sandholtz 1998: 1).

A S IMPLE MODEL OF INSTITUTIONAL ENGINEERING Institutional design and reform involve how institutions might be, and ought to be, adapted to human purposes in order to function well and create improvement (Simon 1970). Institutions are seen as organized arrangements created and run by purposeful people (Stinchcombe 1986, 1997; Egeberg 1987; Goodin 1996b). Institutions are supposed to govern systems of activities, raising the question of how and to what extent they are capable of coping with the problems they are supposed to solve and produce substantive results (Underdal 1995). Institutional engineering suggests an understanding that focuses on changes in the will (intention), knowledge (intelligence) and power (resources and control) of identiWable political actors. An institution represents a solution to a shared problem in a consensus system, or an imposed, coerced solution from a winning coalition or a conqueror. Institutions arise and are maintained or transformed as a function of the degree to which they serve the purposes of the relevant actors (March and Olsen 1995, 1998; Olsen 1997c). A simple model of institutional engineering suggests that institutions can be deliberately designed, chosen and reformed by actors: . who know what they want. Reformers have clear, consistent and stable objectives or normative criteria over the time period studied. These criteria deWne tasks, goals, performance failure, improvement and progress. . who know what it takes to achieve their objectives. Organizational form is a signiWcant determinant of performance and the actors understand how alternative institutional forms aVect performance. Claims for comprehensive reform follow from a perceived major performance failure or unexploited potential for improvement. . who have the resources and power to do what is needed in order to achieve desired results. Choices made by political actors are the most important determinants of institutional form.

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In sum, in the simple version of institutional engineering, rational leaders with clear objectives develop policies and then design or reform institutions as rational organizational instruments for implementing their policies. Political institutions are conceptualized as malleable organizational instruments. Legitimacy is functional-instrumental, that is, understood in terms of costeVective technical performance and improved substantive results. This view is basically consistent with the EU reform rhetoric and with the democratic idea that citizens, collectively and as equals, should determine how they may live together and organize politically (Dahl 1989). The winners of elections should have the authority and power to shape and reshape political and administrative institutions. The view is also consistent with large parts of organization theory, seeing formal organizations as ‘consciously planned, deliberately constructed and restructured’ (Etzioni 1964: 3). Furthermore, it is consistent with mainstream international relations theory. Neo-liberal institutionalists see international institutions and cooperation as rational attempts to counteract the inadequacy of one’s own resources and discover Pareto improvements (Keohane 1982, 1984). Realists also portray international institutions as tools. Structures reXect the interests of victorious states and are the outcome of strategic interaction, alliances, coercion, competing interests and relative power. Changes in order result from changing powers and material capabilities (Strange 1983; Grieco 1988; Mearsheimer 1994).

D EV E LO P I N G P O L I T I C A L W I L L , U N D E R S TA N DI N G AND CONTRO L Sometimes reformers have precise preferences, perfect knowledge and full control. More often, however, they have a host of motives and concerns. The criteria for what makes one set of institutions more desirable than others are ambiguous, inconsistent or changing over the period studied. Likewise, the understanding and control of institutional dynamics may be more or less perfect. Reformers are not omnisciently rational. They do not necessarily know all possible institutional alternatives and their implications for the relevant objectives and principles. Neither are reformers omnipotent, controlling perfectly all factors having an impact on institutional change. An implication is that political will, understanding and power may be seen as endogenous, not exogenous, to processes of comprehensive institutional reform. We need to understand goal-formation processes, how information is obtained, interpreted and used, and how power, resources and capabilities are inXuenced by reform processes. Both the perceived need for comprehensive

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reform and the ability to implement reforms are inXuenced by the institutional context and the processes of interaction within which reform takes place. What, then, are the implications for institutional engineering in the EU?

Processes of will-formation What do EU reformers want? What do they expect from their institutions? What criteria (values, principles, norms, preferences, interests) do they use when trying to improve institutions? First, institutional reform reXects the predetermined and stable policy preferences of the reformers. Actors have preferences over outcomes, but not over social relations. There are no intrinsically valuable forms of association and cohesion (Lake 1996: 12, 13). Second, reformers have predetermined and stable preferences over institutional arrangements. They may adhere to durable general principles of political organization, only loosely connected to speciWc policy choices. Practices and procedures may become valued beyond their technicalfunctional properties (Selznick 1957). Moreover, institutions are not solely organizational tools for the policy achievements of one group of actors. They are part of a political order making it possible to live peacefully together with enduring tensions and conXicts. Legitimacy depends on the degree to which structures, procedures and rules conform to societal beliefs about appropriate institutions (Meyer and Rowan 1977). For instance, representative democratic government is not deWned by particular actions at a particular moment, but by long-term systemic arrangements and how they function (Pitkin 1972: 234). A complication is that institutional legitimacy and policy eYciency do not necessarily coincide. There are illegitimate but technically eYcient means, as well as legitimate but ineYcient means (Merton 1938). Third, objectives, preferences, interests, norms, principles and values may change over the period studied. This may be the case both in terms of the attention they are given and how their content, consistency and signiWcance are interpreted. The motivations of EU reformers are complex and shifting. They want many, diVerent and not necessarily consistent things. Like other reformers (Nystrom and Starbuck 1981a: xiii; Goodin 1996b: 9), political leaders in the EU try to make institutions more rational and eYcient, more humane, representative, responsive, transparent and accountable. They also try to make them more useful to societies, more proWtable for owners, more submissive to top managers, more stable, predictable and robust, or more Xexible, adaptive and able to learn.

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Purposes and objectives include substantive policy criteria as well as maintaining and developing democratic institutions and processes. As the social and economic agenda has expanded, so has the number of relevant policy goals. In addition, in its self-presentation the EU adheres to several fundamental principles of governance, independent of the single policy issue at hand (see Chapter 6 above). Examples are democracy, transparency, subsidiarity, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, the rule of law, and a competitive market economy. The complexity of the Union’s normative criteria makes it less likely that reformers can act on the basis of a single normative principle, or maximize a single objective or a consistent and stable utility function. They are likely to attend to a variety of partly competing and changing normative criteria. Consequently, students of institutional dynamics need to understand which criteria are attended to, when they are attended to, and how tensions among them are resolved. ConXicts between states and adherents of competing visions of European cooperation are well known. Here, attention is directed to two less familiar complications. First, sometimes two diVerent types of reform create problems for each other—namely, reform focused on adapting institutions to desired policy outcomes and improved eVectiveness, and reform focused on system improvement according to general organizational principles. Policy-driven reform typically adapts institutions to a speciWc task- or policy-environment. As each part of a system of governance adapts to its immediate task-environment in a more or less myopic manner (Levinthal and March 1993), the system as a whole may become incoherent and ineVective. There is an increasing demand for coordination across functional sectors. Yet, functional diVerentiation and integration, as well as institutional ‘fusion’ between levels of governance, make system-wide coordination diYcult (Rometsch and Wessel 1996; Brunsson and Olsen 1998). Comprehensive institutional reform, in particular at the ‘constitutional moments’ in the history of a polity (Ackerman 1991), has a diVerent focus. Here the main concern is to develop a coherent order according to general principles of political organization and governance. Such processes, constitutional in nature, tend to create problems for speciWc policy sectors because they rarely attend in any detail to policy- or sector-speciWc characteristics that aVect performance. Second, reformers may face a dilemma in reconciling short-term eVectiveness and long-term adaptation and survival. A major institutional problem in sustaining adaptive capability is how to balance processes of exploitation of existing standard operating procedures which have proven eVective in the past with the exploration of new institutions and procedures that may improve long-term survival (March 1991, 1994a).

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For instance, Peterson and Bomberg (2000: 39) argue that risk-aversive behaviour is a prime characteristic of EU decision-making. If so, political leaders are likely to give priority to improving eVectiveness in the short run at the cost of long-run adaptation and survival. They will be exploiting the status quo of established arrangements, rather than exploring the potentials of experimenting with new forms, in terms of both empowering European supranational institutions and decentralizing power already transferred to the Union level. Since reformers face a balancing problem, there is no neat solution. Achieving balance, however, depends on the ability to ensure simultaneously that experiments in new possibilities, are stimulated, that these experiments are carried through, and that the lessons of experiments are diVused across time and space (March 1991, 1994a). The Open Method of Coordination in the EU, involving score cards, benchmarking and dissemination of best practice across member states, may make diVusion processes more eYcient. Simultaneously this method may produce more homogenization across domestic systems and therefore less experimentation and variation, which in the long run may inhibit learning and adaptation. In a Europe of complex and dynamic preferences, sustaining institutional adaptive capability, rather than implementing predetermined objectives and principles, may be the principal challenge. For the EU, then, the challenge is not necessarily to make comprehensive reforms possible, but to foster the continuous learning and adaptation that makes great leaps unnecessary (Olsen 1997c). This approach is illustrated by the former Finnish Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen, who has argued that if the EU were Wrst to deWne what is wanted, it might be easier to establish how it can be achieved. However, in a changing world this may be an impossible task. Reformers have to develop a Union that is responsive to change and challenges as a continuous process (Lipponen 2000). An implication of this is that a simple model of institutional engineering, assuming a predetermined, coherent and stable political will, is unlikely to provide an adequate understanding of comprehensive reform in the EU. Institutional engineers cannot assume a shared vision of the future Europe, providing clear normative criteria of institutional improvement. Instead, a variety of competing visions and normative criteria are seen as relevant. Reform goes beyond designing or reforming institutions to Wt them for implementing exogenous objectives or normative principles. To a great extent, the reform debate in the EU involves what type of Europe and European governance is desirable and what democracy may imply in the EU context (Eriksen and Fossum 2000). If it cannot be assumed that reformers take all relevant normative concerns into account, that through exchanges, deliberate trade-oVs and side payments

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they organize their preferences into a consistent and stable utility function, and that they act on the basis of these preferences, an alternative understanding of the role of human purpose and political will in institutional change is needed. One possible approach is suggested by Cyert and March (1963). They argue that the multitude of relevant preferences, purposes and principles can be understood as independent, aspiration-level constraints on reform processes. That is, each constraint deWnes a standard that an acceptable institutional solution must meet. Understanding reform, then, requires detailed studies of a variety of processes and mechanisms including: . institutional identiWcation, where decision-makers are socialized into giving priority to speciWc normative criteria; . ‘local rationality’, where diVerent institutions attend to and protect diVerent goals; . selective and sequential attention to goals, where shifting attention over time may change the reference group of social comparison and the normative criteria of good performance; and . the signiWcance of slack resources in buVering competing normative claims, suggesting that reduced slack may produce demands for more coordination and institutional reforms.

The search for knowledge Cognitive beliefs about institutional change, like normative beliefs, are not always predetermined, reliable and stable. A comparative institutional analysis specifying the short- and long-term consequences of reforming an institutional order is no trivial task. It is often diYcult to form rational expectations about the future. Nor is it always easy to interpret collective and individual experience and the lessons of the past (March and Olsen 1975, 1976). This task is also complicated by the many possible functions institutions may have—as instruments of command and coercion, arrangements for regulating and facilitating exchange, tools for collective problem-solving, vehicles for the redistribution of resources and power, and as frameworks for constructing meaning, deWning appropriate behaviour, constructing individual and collective identities and building a political culture. Impacts, then, include how institutions may aVect policy substance, as well as the sense of political community, identity and shared purposes, concepts of right and truth, a shared political vocabulary, and the distribution of institutional resources and capabilities (March and Olsen 1995; Chapter 8 below).

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The idea of bounded rationality suggests that reformers act on a simple model of a complex reality. A theory of choice is to a great extent a theory of search. Information has to be obtained and exposure to and search for information is selective (Cyert and March 1963). Instead of assuming a choice between available institutional arrangements with known consequences, it is necessary to understand how reformers get information about institutional alternatives and, their implications, and what can be achieved through reform. Reformers may, or may not, share beliefs about institutional eVects. Sometimes there are ‘reality checks’, like a performance crisis or obvious performance diVerentials convincing everyone that rethinking and reshaping institutions is called for. For instance, Pe´rez-Dı´az portrays Spain’s exposure to Western Europe as a meeting with institutions and a culture which were far more eYcient in achieving some of the traditional Spanish objectives, as well as other objectives which Spaniards were rapidly learning to appreciate. They learned from, imitated and came to identify with the peoples of Western Europe, their institutions and their way of life (Pe´rez-Dı´az 1993: 13). Scharpf also argues that Europeans may learn through a reality check about international interdependencies and the loss of national ‘control over fate’, so that they adapt levels of aspiration, internalize dependencies and the interests of others, avoid wishful thinking and concentrate on alternatives eVective under current international interdependencies (Scharpf 1999a: 283–6). Often, however, rational expectations of the future are uncertain and interpretations of history are not inherent in the events themselves. The meaning of principles and interests in concrete situations has to be interpreted. The indeterminacy of facts, norms, interests and situations makes it diYcult to conclude what they imply, how they are going to be applied, and whether they correspond to a speciWc organizational form (March and Olsen 1995: 44; Habermas 1996; Kohler-Koch 2000). In the EU the struggle over future forms of governance and organization is to a great extent a struggle over competing cognitive frames (Kohler-Koch 2000). Increased interdependence and extended interaction and communication are crucial elements of the shared experience of member states. Shifts in cognitive frames may then become a main vehicle for system transformation (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998: 254). Yet, such shifts may involve shifting fashions as much as new knowledge. Interpretations are inXuenced by both the institutional context and the normative environment in which they take place. Therefore, adequate comprehension requires studies of the mechanisms by which external inXuences combine with endogenous processes to produce change (Pe´rez-Dı´az 1993: 13). One aspect is the role experiential learning may have for the emergence of common understandings and identities.

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All institutions develop experience-based standard responses for dealing with changing circumstances. As a result, institutions may be transformed through mundane processes of learning and incremental adaptation (March 1981). Institutions adapt smoothly as they codify their changing experience, wisdom and morality. Yet, in practice, there are many impediments to learning and adaptation. In most organized settings, experiential learning is complicated by limited experience, limited capability to draw conclusions from experience, limited ability to act on the basis of new knowledge, and limited memory and capability of retaining information (March and Olsen 1995: 206–23). An additional complication is that often several actors are learning simultaneously (March 1991, 1994). One implication is that students of institutional dynamics need to understand the main sources of ineYciency in routine institutional processes of learning and adaptation.2 On the one hand, a well-functioning democracy— based on representative and accountable government and a well-developed civil society with strong voluntary associations, social movements and free public debate—is supposed to facilitate continuous learning and adaptation. The expectation is that experience will improve the intelligence, eVectiveness and adaptability of governance. Governments are supposed to detect and counteract failures, and to improve their performance as well as the polity’s Wtness for the future. Likewise, citizens are supposed to adapt their aspirations. Therefore, in an ideal democracy, equilibrium institutional solutions are assumed to be common. That is, no actors are likely to act so as radically to challenge existing institutions (March and Olsen 1995; Olsen 1997c). On the other hand, ineYciencies in institutional learning and adaptation are integral and planned parts of governance in constitutional democracies. Constitutional rules both institutionalize orderly change and constrain change. In practice, it is also diYcult for democracies to live up to the norms, expectations and claims of experiential learning. Causal and normative beliefs, behavioural patterns and institutional designs do not easily change in light of experience (March and Olsen 1989, 1995; Rose 1993; Olsen and Peters 1996). Disenchantment with public institutions and their ability to learn and adapt has made it commonplace to suggest market mechanisms and 2 As argued in earlier chapters, concepts like ‘historical inefficiency’ and ‘path-dependency’ suggest that the match between reforms, environments, and institutional structure and performance is not automatic, continuous, and precise. Processes of change depend to a large extent upon the internal constitutive characteristics of existing institutions. Institutions authorize and enable change, as well as constrain it. Therefore, we need to understand how institutions may transform, modify, redirect and integrate, and not only aggregate, the demands, interests and powers of societal actors and forces (March and Olsen 1989, 1995).

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competitive pressure as a panacea. Institutions incapable of rapid adjustment to changing circumstances are assumed to be eliminated by competition. However, the vision of an ideal self-regulating market society has to be held together with a practice of more or less perfect markets and with public and private organizations more or less able and willing to adapt to their environments (Nystrom and Starbuck 1981b). There is no guarantee that competition will drive out ineYcient institutions or Wrms (North 1990). Sometimes institutions are rigid in spite of changing environments and deliberate reform attempts. They outlive their functional eYciency as well as their normative support. They are outdated, promote superstition and allow exploitation. Transformations may then be radical or revolutionary and characterized by conXict, crisis and institutional breakdowns. Change in a system can fail so badly that it generates change of the system itself (Kochanek 1971: 319). Understanding change, then, requires understanding how the need for deliberate comprehensive reform may depend on how routine processes of institutional learning and adaptation are working (Olsen 1997c). Improving transparency, participation and other democratic mechanisms in the EU, for example, may improve processes of learning and adaptation and make comprehensive reform less important. For behavioural students a challenge is that the dynamics of the EU institutions are usually discussed in formal-legal terms, that is, in terms of the powers formalized in treaties and law. The Union is a project of legal integration, representing a renewed trust in governance by law and the legal integration of society. The EU is inspired by a continental European legal culture and mentality emphasizing the importance of abstract constitutive principles, a political-legal order and generalized codes of conduct. Citizens are assumed to accept the obligations and rights following from membership in a political community, decided through positive law-making and legitimized by the principles on which the form of government is founded (Friedrich 1951: 34–5). Understanding European institutional dynamics, however, requires a better grasp of how the formal-legal institutions set up by the Treaties are exercised and translated into practices and behaviour. Political scientists have been sceptical of the importance of constitutional and institutional design and reform (Dahl 1998: 127–8, 139). Likewise, lawyers have warned against ‘excessive legalism’ and asked for a better understanding of how the formallegal constitutionalism corresponds with the ways in which power is actually exercised. The assertion is that there is little correspondence between how institutions are supposed to function according to the Treaties and how they operate in practice (de Bu´rca 1999: 61–6). An implication is that both reformers and scholars have to go beyond the judicial realm, the Treaties and the formal-legal institutions. Empirical studies

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are called for. There is a need for knowledge about the relationships between, on the one hand, formal-legal institutions, legally binding decisions, and authorized texts, and, on the other hand, rule-implementation, ‘living institutions’ and actual political conduct and outcomes.

Developing support and capabilities In his Discourses, Machiavelli (1950: 138) concludes that ‘to found a new Republic, or to reform entirely the old institutions of an existing one, must be the work of one man only’. Machiavelli was right in observing that comprehensive reform requires strong organizational capabilities to stabilize attention, provide adequate analyses, mobilize resources and cope with resistance. In contrast, democratic reformers under normal circumstances have a limited capability for comprehensive design and reform. In practice, political institutions are usually set up in a piecemeal way and they cannot be changed into any arbitrary form (March and Olsen 1983). Institutional developments are seldom driven by overarching conceptions of the preferred design of the polity as such. There is typically no single design or designer, but rather a process involving several competing designers and localized attempts at partial design (Goodin 1996b: 28). As a consequence, reformers and students of institutional dynamics have to attend to the power and conXict dimensions of reform and how resources and capabilities may develop within the process itself. The conXict–consensus mix aVects the legitimacy of comprehensive reform. Heterogeneous societies, in particular, demand strongly qualiWed majorities to change the power of diVerent branches and levels of government or the relative power of public authorities and citizens (Weaver and Rockman 1993: 464). A structural argument is that large-scale heterogeneous polities, like the European Union, will by necessity have a diVerent political organization and system of governance to small, homogeneous polities. Gemeinschaft is a property of small, simple and stable societies. A development from Gemeinschaft to Gesellschaft, and an erosion of a collectivist mentality, is an inevitable consequence of a more diVerentiated, heterogeneous, mobile and better-educated society (Reykowski 1994: 244). In large-scale heterogeneous polities there are few shared moral and causal beliefs. The absence of normative and cognitive integration reduces the signiWcance of informal, cultural coordination, and increases the importance of market exchange and legal rules. The number of joint decisions will be limited, and an intervening and redistributing (welfare) state unlikely. If we assume that political agendas and institutions depend on the scale of the polity and the composition of the demos, the observed tendencies are likely to be ampliWed.

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The integrative power of democratic politics then depends on the ability to rally broad public support for institutions and policies. Experiences from how conXicts of comprehensive reforms are resolved are therefore likely to have an impact on future reforms. The ability to reconcile adaptiveness and system identity and integrity is likely to make future comprehensive reform more acceptable. In the European Union, governance takes place in polycentric, multi-tiered policy networks of public and private actors (Kohler-Koch and Eising 1999; Hooghe and Marks 2001; Jachtenfuchs and Kohler-Koch 2003). Reformers are not omnipotent. There is no single sovereign centre with authority and power to change the political order fundamentally, and many other factors than reformers’ choices inXuence change. Furthermore, reform capabilities are often developed as an inherent part of the reform process, a key issue in many applicant countries (Nakrosis 2000). Comprehensive reforms also tend to be highly divisive and European reformers face enduring diVerences that cannot be hidden behind an apolitical rhetoric. The challenge is to make binding collective decisions while preserving the social fabric of the Union. Support has to be mobilized or created. Reformers have to convince political leaders and organized interests that reform is possible and desirable. Furthermore, harnessing public support has become a key issue in the EU (Commission 2001b: 4). Over the last few years, the EU has invested more attention and resources in institutionalizing institutional reform. This has made such work more continuous rather than ad hoc and episodic. It has become somewhat easier to buVer short-term Xuctuations in attention. It has also become easier to divide large-scale reform into deliberate, incremental and consistent reforms which the political system of the Union can handle. Still, the Union is in search of an institutionalized process for changing its political order. The Union has become involved in some kind of semipermanent IGCs focused on institutional reform. Ad hoc committees have been used frequently (see e.g. Dehaene, von Weizsa¨cker and Simon 1999). As illustrated by the responses to the German foreign minister Joschka Fischer’s Humboldt Lecture on the future organization and governance of Europe, the EU also lacks a shared vocabulary and shared concepts and cognitive frameworks for dealing with comprehensive reform (Joerges, Me´ny and Weiler 2000; Kohler-Koch 2000; Chapter 8 below). This openness may be seen as a liability. However, the future organization of Europe involves a struggle over peoples’ minds, their identities and their normative and causal beliefs, and the future distribution of power depends on the outcome of the struggle. As Aristotle (1962: 299), observed, ‘one needs to learn to be a citizen as much as a craftsman needs to be trained’, and debates

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over the nature of political community are rhetorical events with a potential for educating and socializing Europeans. In periods of transformation what should count as appropriate institutional arrangements is a most contested issue. Standards of evaluation are made more visible and concepts such as democracy, equity and justice may change (Yack 1985), as may trust in contestants for authority and power and consequently the actual distribution of resources and capabilities. A challenge for European institutional engineers, then, is to establish processes of change which nurture and develop good settings for reXective processes where participants can critically examine their own normative and causal beliefs and identities (March and Olsen 1995; OVe 1997), and many saw the Convention’s proposal at the Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe as a step in this direction. Another challenge is to regulate the access of issues and participants to such processes. Consider, for example, a development from the rather closed participation and limited transparency of many earlier IGCs, to an arrangement based on more extensive participation and public debate, like the one used in the development of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and, even more so, the Constitutional Convention. The latter model, which brought together representatives of governments, national parliaments of member states and candidate states, Union institutions, and civil society, made the reform process more unwieldy. Empowering new participants can under some circumstances lead to a stalemate, but strengthening participatory democracy may under other circumstances provide legitimacy and help reframe issues so that normative and causal beliefs converge. For the Union, however, it is thought-provoking that the Convention was able to build consensus around a reform proposal while the reXection period after the Dutch and French ‘no’ to the draft Constitution did not generate much public debate and popular involvement. Reformers may also be helped by the ongoing dynamics of imperfectly integrated political orders. A major historic development in Europe is the emergence of diVerentiated and partly autonomous institutional spheres with distinct logics of action, meaning and resources. Each sphere legitimates diVerent participants, issues, and ways of making, implementing and justifying decisions. While the concept of a ‘political system’ suggests an integrated and coherent institutional conWguration, institutional orders are never perfectly integrated and modernization inevitably produces imbalances, tensions and collisions between spheres (Gerth and Wright Mills 1970: 328–57). For that reason, students of institutional dynamics need to examine the patterns and tempos of separate institutions, including the conXicts around them, and analyse the interaction of diVerent spheres (Orren and Skowronek 1996: 121).

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The political order of the European Union makes inter-institutional tensions and collisions likely. They are likely, Wrst, because of the lack of agreement on the normative principles and ends according to which the European polity is to be integrated and governed, and second they are likely due to the lack of a clear and stable allocation of powers between levels of governance and institutional spheres.3 Consequently, a key to understanding the changing patterns of power in the emerging European polity is to study how institutions collide and penetrate each other and how reformers may exploit such institutional dynamics. Large-scale collisions may take place when institutional striving leads to ‘overstretching’ one ideal (like competitive markets, democratic politics or judiciary power) and imposing principles and codes outside their traditionally legitimate sphere of activity. The signiWcance of collisions can also be understood through studies of how institutions, after they are formally and legally established, learn their place in a political order. While institutions may be terminated through a formal decision, or starved through reduced resources, ‘living institutions’ cannot be imposed on the world full-blown by decree. Enduring practices, understandings and resource allocations evolve as actors learn from experience and adapt to their environments (Olsen 1997b: 175; LaVan 1999).

INSTITUTIONAL ENGINEERING IN COMPLEX A ND DY NA M I C WO R L D S The history of the European Union illustrates the fact that institutions evolve and change in a number of ways. It is a history of founding acts and deliberate institution-building as well as informal and gradual institutional evolution where common practices have been codiWed into formal-legal institutions. This development is consistent with the view that institutional arrangements are contingent and malleable, yet not necessarily in a voluntaristic way. Like many democratic systems, the EU has combined a belief in institutional engineering with the experience that comprehensive reform is diYcult to achieve. Still, the long-term development has been in a consistent direction. There has been a gradual increase in the powers of common European institutions and in intergovernmental cooperation across an expanding

3 Curtin 1997; Maduro 1997; Sand 1998; Weiler 1999; Sverdrup 2000.

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agenda. The EU has moved towards ‘an ever closer Union’, in spite of periods of European sclerosis. The Union has also been able to agree on innovations, such as the Convention model of change. A simple model of institutional engineering, assuming predetermined political will, understanding and power, will be most relevant in fairly stable, coherent, comprehensible and controllable worlds. The model is less likely to capture processes of comprehensive reform in complex and dynamic political orders like the EU. This is not to deny that human will, understanding and power are important for understanding institutional dynamics and that developing political institutions of self-governance is a Wrst-order political process. Setting up new formal-legal institutions, in particular if they are well funded and staVed, is likely to provide routinized attention and support for speciWc concerns, interests and principles. However, comprehensive formallegal reforms are not likely to produce precise and stable policy outcomes. Many factors intervene between institutional form and substantive results, leaving the precise nature of the inXuence to be determined. Over time institutions tend to gain some autonomy. They also adapt to other sources of power as they try to Wnd their place in the larger order. Reformers may be successful in implementing legitimate principles such as democratic participation, transparency, or the rule of law. An appropriate task for democratic governance may be to maintain and develop the conditions for various institutional spheres and to inXuence the mix of institutional structures and processes in order to avoid perversions of democracy (March and Olsen 1995). The nature of the principles on which a polity is founded is important for the identity of the political community, but again the precise impact on behaviour and substantive results is uncertain. Still, an institutional approach suggests that there are several options for deliberate intervention in existing structures. Confronted with demands for comprehensive reform due to an expanding agenda, territorial enlargement and globalization, EU reformers may both reduce the need for reforms and make reform more feasible. The need for comprehensive reform may be reduced by improving ordinary processes of learning and adaptation. Somewhat paradoxically, the need for comprehensive reform may also be reduced by strengthening reform capabilities. This is because institutionalized capabilities will make it easier to break up large-scale reform into smaller consistent reforms, digestible by the political system. As will be elaborated in the next chapter, successful reform is more likely if a shared reform vocabulary evolves in the EU and there is a convergence in causal and normative beliefs and identities. A precondition for such a

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development is that reform is understood as occasions for interpretation and opinion formation as much as decision-making. Finally, comprehensive reform will become more feasible if institutional engineers, including the members of the ongoing Convention, understand ongoing inter-institutional collisions and learn to use their dynamics intelligently.

8 Reformers as pawns, engineers and gardeners E U RO P E A N F E D E R AT I O N : V I S I O N O R UTO P I A ? Ordinary language makes a distinction between the utopian dreamer and the visionary political leader. The utopian offers an ideal system of governance and community. Yet, he presents no clear ideas about how and under what conditions the polity can be moved towards the ideal. Or, if he does, the ideas, together with the prescribed institutional arrangement, are generally viewed as impractical or impossible fantasies. The visionary leader has a better understanding of the relationship between human action, institutions and the flow of history. The prescribed political order can be imagined to work in practice, and there is enough understanding and control of institutional dynamics to move the polity in a consistent and desired direction. The scholarly literature, however, suggests that the distinction is less clear than assumed in everyday language. As already observed, there is no general theory of institutional dynamics that explains how and when institutions of governance change and what is the role of deliberate intervention in processes of comprehensive institutional change. Scholarly assessments of the possibility of transformative leadership through institutional change seem to depend on both the time-frame and the theoretical perspective employed. In this chapter, these ideas are explored in the context of Joschka Fischer’s scheme for a new European political order, as expressed in his Humboldt University speech.1 In that speech, it was proposed that the existing political order, based on intergovernmental cooperation and a union of states (confederacy, Staatenverbund), should be replaced by a European Federation. Key characteristics of the Federation would be a constitutional treaty centred around basic human and civil rights, shared sovereignty and a clear definition of competences between the European and the nation-state level of

1 Joschka Fischer, ‘Vom Staatenverbund zur Fo¨deration—Gedanken u¨ber die Finalita¨t der europa¨ischen Integration’, speech delivered at the Humboldt University in Berlin, 12 May 2000; <www.auswaertiges-amt.de/6_archiv/2/r/r000512b.htm>. Quotations without references in this chapter are from this speech.

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governance, and a division of powers among the European institutions, including full parliamentarization and a European Parliament with two chambers, a European Government and possibly a directly elected president ‘with far-reaching executive powers’. The scheme presented an end-state, the finalite´ and ‘the last brick in the building of European integration’. Comprehensive institutional reform was seen as necessary in order to maintain the Union’s capacity to act effectively in the face of its coming enlargement and increasing heterogeneity. The reform was also supposed to improve transparency and democratic control and achieve a better balance between economic and political integration and power. The perceived alternatives were further integration, or stagnation and even erosion of the EU. The aim of the chapter is not to discuss the suggested scheme in great detail, or to make a normative assessment of the desirability of a European federation. Instead, the focus will be on understanding what kind of processes might produce radical institutional transformation, of the kind suggested by Fischer. His speech is interesting not because of its practical political consequences, but because it illustrates an important class of reform initiatives and the processes governing their outcome. The basic questions are well known. What are the processes through which political orders are established, maintained, changed and abandoned? In what ways, and under what conditions, is it possible to initiate and carry out deliberate comprehensive changes in the political order? In particular, when is it possible to create a discontinuity in the political organization of societies characterized by considerable political, socio-economic and cultural diversity, or in international political orders? The chapter contrasts three theoretical perspectives on institutional dynamics which give quite different roles to political leadership. The first portrays leaders as impotent pawns—the victims of the functional or normative imperatives of environmental change or internal processes beyond their control. The second portrays leaders as omnipotent political engineers, solving problems and resolving conflicts on the basis of stable preferences and powers. The third, an institutional perspective, portrays leaders as institutional gardeners. They are neither impotent nor omnipotent and, if patient, they may give some direction to institutional developments. The institutional perspective used in this book emphasizes the role of institutions—their origins, history, internal structures and dynamics—in the understanding of human action. Since institutions are rules and practices embedded in structures of meaning and resources, change in a political order involves not only reorganization and reallocation of resources but also reconceptualization and change in expectations, preferences, aspirations,

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mentalities and identities.2 Yet, institutions are seen as relatively resilient against environmental changes and deliberate reforms. The rest of the chapter is divided into five sections. First, Fischer’s view of the process of change is briefly presented. Second, the three theoretical perspectives, describing political reformers as pawns, engineers and gardeners, are developed in a bit more detail. Third, these perspectives are used to discuss whether Fischer’s plan is utopian or visionary. Fourth, some non-heroic options for transformative political leadership are suggested, and fifth, the uncertain borders between utopian dreams and visionary leadership are revisited.

B US I N E S S A S U S UA L W I L L N OT D O Fischer maintains that in order to implement a federation, Europe has to ‘move forward courageously’. Business as usual will not do. Full political integration cannot be achieved through the Monnet method of integration, an incremental process with no blueprint of the final state. This method worked well with a handful of member states and a focus on economic integration. It is of ‘limited use for the political integration and democratization of Europe’. According to Fischer, the Monnet method is in a crisis that cannot be solved according to the method’s own logic.3 Fischer is well aware that his plan for reorganizing power in Europe is contested. Implementing the reforms involves huge challenges, procedural as well as substantive, and some will view the plan as utterly unworkable. Fischer is also aware that he is up against strong institutional traditions. The European political order has long been constituted on the principles of state sovereignty and national self-determination. Europe, as he says, is a continent ‘full of different peoples, cultures, languages and histories’. The region is torn between competing visions of possible political communities and forms of governance. There is deep divergence of opinion over the proper role of the European Union vis-a`-vis the nation-state and the proper role of politics vis-a`-vis the economy and society. Many currently call the integration project into question, finding it irrelevant or dangerous. So the balancing of unity and diversity is problematic. Moving towards a Federation may drive European states apart rather than closer together. There 2 Fischer does not present any ideas on desirable changes in financial arrangements, so this aspect is also left out here. Of course, this does not imply that financial and reallocation aspects are not highly significant for the institutional future of Europe. 3 Of course, the EU uses a variety of methods of policy-making (H. Wallace 2000b).

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may be a loss of European identity and internal coherence. Yet the EU acquis should not be jeopardized, the Union should not be divided and the bonds holding the EU together should not be damaged: ‘It would be historically absurd and utterly stupid if Europe, at the very time when it is at long last reunited, were to be divided once again’. Fischer’s answer is a stepwise political development. First, cooperation would be enhanced between those willing and able to cooperate more closely, as in the Economic and Monetary Union and Schengen. Second, a centre of gravity would be established around a European framework treaty—the core of the Federation’s ‘constitution’. On this basis, the Federation would develop its own institutions and establish a government through which the EU could speak with one voice on as many issues as possible. Furthermore, there would be a strong parliament and a directly elected president. An avant-garde of member states would from the start comprise all the elements of the future federation. Third, the political integration into a European Federation would be completed. The unanswered questions, in Fischer’s view, are these. Within the next decade, will a majority of the member states take the leap into full integration and agree on a European constitution? If that does not happen, will an avantgarde emerge? When will this happen? Who will be involved? Will the core emerge within or outside the framework provided by the treaties? In Fischer’s opinion, the completion of European integration will depend upon the alliance between France and Germany. No country will be forced into a level of integration it does not want. Yet the reluctant countries will not be allowed to prevent others from further integration outside the treaties. The hope is that the avant-garde will work as ‘a magnet of integration open to all’, like the EC and the EU have done historically. To make the federal scheme workable, the states, with their national institutions, traditions and identities, have to be involved in the process of change. The nation-states also ‘will retain a much larger role than the La¨nder have in Germany’. Furthermore, subnational units, such as the German La¨nder, will not accept the weakening of their competencies as a result of further political integration in Europe.4

HOW, THEN, DOE S ONE GE T THE RE? The dynamics of European integration reactivate unresolved questions studied by practitioners and theoreticians for centuries. What are the ‘driving 4 Agence Europe, no. 7726 (27 May 2000): ‘German La¨nder repeat to Prodi that ratification of revised treaty will be difficult if their powers are not preserved’.

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forces’ forming and changing political orders? What is the role of human intention, reflection and choice in the development of political institutions and good government? Do we know how to achieve reform in institutional matters? How, and under what conditions, can political actors rise above, and get beyond, existing institutional structures (Mill 1962[1861]: 1; Hamilton, Jay and Madison 1964[1787]: 1; Sartori 1997: p. xi)? Students of institutional dynamics have given very different answers to these questions. In particular, they have disagreed about political agency, the relative importance of environmental imperatives and intrinsic dynamics beyond the comprehension and control of political actors; and historical processes of gradually evolving systems of meaning and incremental change. Therefore, different perspectives will suggest different answers to what kind of processes are likely to produce radical change in the European polity of the kind suggested by Fischer.

Pawns, organic development and imperative processes Political actors are sometimes portrayed as largely impotent pawns. They are captives of imperative processes in their environments (technological, economic, demographic, normative, etc.), or of intrinsic institutional dynamics beyond their comprehension and control. They may codify, through formal reorganization, change that has already happened, but they are unable deliberately to structure future institutional developments. The key processes of change are external competitive selection or internal organic processes of institutional birth, growth, stagnation and death. In the first case, only comparatively efficient institutions and political orders survive. The others lose support and disappear. In the second case, all institutions have their heydays. Then they wither and die, whatever reform plans political leaders attempt (Kimberly and Miles 1980; Olsen 1992).

Engineers, design and choice In contrast, the concept of governance is about how differently, over any given period of time, our social and political life can be purposefully shaped (Dunn 1990: 161). An institutional reform policy is about deliberately changing social and political life through new institutional arrangements. A constitutional reform policy is about changing the basic institutions and principles of governance in order to change the identity and character of the polity. Portraying political leaders as institutional engineers and institutions as malleable is consistent with a democratic ethos of governance. Democracies

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are supposed to be able to design and choose institutions in order to improve the welfare of citizens. The key questions involved in explaining institutional dynamics, then, are: Who are the significant actors? What do they want an institutional arrangement to accomplish? What do they believe different arrangements will accomplish? What resources can they mobilize? Under special circumstances, ‘We the people’ can form a constitutional convention and deliberately rearrange the whole political order (Ackerman 1991). Under normal conditions, political intention, will and power secure rational adaptation of institutions functioning poorly. Institutional dynamics becomes a question of bargaining and building winning coalitions among competing interests. In a short-term perspective, however, constitutive institutions and rules limit the legitimate space of institutional design—what can be changed, how fast, and in what ways. Heterogeneous societies in particular demand strongly qualified majorities to change the power of different branches and levels of government or the relative power of public authorities and citizens (Weaver and Rockman 1993: 464). To understand the dynamics of European integration, however, we have to go beyond institutional change as a simple reflection of differences in the comparative functional efficiency of alternative forms. That is, we have to question the idea that political institutions normally adapt fairly quickly to changes in external conditions and human purposes through processes of competitive selection and rational adaptation.5 The pawn and engineering perspectives lead to different assessments of reform plans. Consider, for instance, the aspect of constitution-writing. In a period of flux, uncertainty and ambiguity, an engineering approach suggests that the time is ripe for deliberate intervention, in order to give more structure to current developments. The pawn perspective suggests the opposite. A period of flux, uncertainty and ambiguity is definitely not the right moment for codification and constitution-writing. Both perspectives, however, suppose that the comparative efficiency of forms of governance and organization is the key factor determining their chances of survival.

Gardeners, incremental reforms and meanders Studies of comprehensive institutional reform in large-scale, complex and dynamic systems with unresolved conflict suggest that reorganization of the 5 March and Olsen 1989; North 1990. Brennan and Buchanan also criticize the hidden-hand assumption in economic theory: ‘great damage has been and is being done by modern economists who argue, indirectly, that basic institutional change will somehow spontaneously evolve in the direction of structural efficacy’ (Brennan and Buchanan 1985: 149).

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polity under a single scheme is unlikely to be politically digestible. Change is not well understood and controlled and actual reforms are usually incremental rather than comprehensive. Governance is less a matter of engineering than of gardening (Szanton 1981: 24; March and Olsen 1983: 287). Existing institutional configurations usually are the result of long historical processes, involving conflicts, victories, defeats and compromises, as well as processes of interpretation, learning and habituation (Eisenstadt and Rokkan 1973; Rokkan 1975, 1999; Pierson 1996). It is difficult to subject institutional evolution to tight control, so history meanders (March 1994b). In this perspective, reforms are influenced by environments and political actors. Yet, institutions do not adapt instantaneously or efficiently to minor changes in will, power or circumstances. Institutions cannot be changed into just any arbitrary form and comprehensive reform requires strong organizational capabilities to stabilize attention, mobilize resources and cope with resistance (March and Olsen 1983, 1989). Change does not start with clear definitions of problems and objectives leading to tailor-made institutional designs, as suggested by instrumental-functional approaches and EU institutional rhetoric. Often change takes the form of deliberation and ‘sounding-out’ processes, involving the use of ambiguity, ‘soft laws’ and tacit agreements.6

UTOPIA? VISION? The idea of competitive selection is consistent with the traditional instrumental-utilitarian justification of the European Union. The raison d’eˆtre of the Union is its presumed superiority in problem-solving and conflict resolution compared to other forms, and in particular, the functional utility of the nation-state. Likewise, increasing international interdependence and globalization is seen to require further European integration.

6 Blichner and Sangolt 1994; Sverdrup 2000. Sounding out, in contrast to Habermasian force-free deliberation, involves the systematic use of ambiguity. It is important for each participant to avoid taking an early stand. While the participants will try to reveal the trend in their beliefs and preferences, and attempt to move the final outcome toward a desired endresult, they will avoid very accurate indications of beliefs and preferences. They will always retain some degree of counter-argument and contradiction in their statements. The process is timeconsuming. The outcome is the result of more and more participants accepting a certain alternative as the best solution, while other alternatives ‘fade away’ (Olsen 1972: 273). This behaviour is purposeful, yet it reflects what in a culture is defined as appropriate behaviour and process, not strategic calculation.

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In the current situation, however, there is no guarantee that characteristics of the objective environment, through processes of competition and selection, will dictate by functional necessity specific forms of organization and governance. Moreover, it is not at all obvious that such processes will drive out existing institutional arrangements and replace them with Fischer’s vision of a European federation. Instead, a common economic-technological deterministic perspective sees political leadership as irrelevant and portrays attempts at European integration towards a state-like polity as ‘ironic’ and ‘tragic’. This is because such efforts work against the overwhelming forces of a global, borderless economy of competitive markets (Ohmae 1995: 38). More trust has been invested in the idea that the European Union already has intrinsic dynamics of integration. For instance, the Treaty of Rome (1957) asserted a determination ‘to lay the foundations of an ever-closer union among the peoples of Europe’. The Maastricht Treaty (1992) was presented as ‘a new stage in the process of creating an ever-closer union among the peoples of Europe’. Furthermore, the Charter of Fundamental Rights in the Union, which later was included in the Draft Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe, claims that ‘The Peoples of Europe, in creating an ever-closer union among them, are resolved to share a peaceful future based on common values’. In this perspective, existing internal dynamics are seen to lead inevitably to a closer union. Fischer, however, is not a utopian in the sense that he expects an internal or external ‘hidden hand’ to produce a European Federation. Quite the opposite: he sees the internal dynamics of the EU, as well as global changes, as demanding political leadership. The steps toward a constituent treaty, a precondition for full integration, ‘require a deliberate political act to re-establish Europe’. Institutional reforms are supposed to help the EU both to cope with enlargement and increasing internal complexity, and to make Europe’s voice better heard throughout the world. Nor is Fischer a utopian in the sense that he expects his reform plans to be accepted by all significant actors. Traditionally, institutional reforms in the EU have been presented as Pareto improvements, that is, changes where some gain and no one loses. This image has become problematic as European integration has become more politicized. And as might be expected, the Fischer plan was received with scepticism or hostility by many actors. For instance, it was argued that from an East European point of view, the Fischer plan and enlargement could not be combined, because it would doom the Eastern members to second-class status, permanently excluded from the core (Zielonka 2000). For a British opponent, the reform plan looked like ‘a Franco–German plot to destabilise the Union’. The French and the Germans were seen as wanting a directorate of larger member states, at the expense of

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the Treaty-based inter-institutional system.7 Creating a secretariat for an avant-garde outside the EU institutions got little support from the Commission President at the time, Romano Prodi.8 The Commission was also faced with the dilemma of whether to work for further integration with a pioneer group led by some major powers, or to protect the coherence of the EU and the position of the smaller member states. Several small states were concerned that the reforms would change the power balance in favour of the larger countries. The issue was hardly whether some actors would have more power than others. They already did. Independent of the legal forms in the EU, a basic reality from the European balance-of-power era is still alive: cooperation within the EU has been based on a tacit understanding that some countries are more equal than others.9 The issue was rather how much the power balance would change and whether it was possible to find a legitimate pathway towards a European Federation. Finally, the plan did not receive overwhelming support even in Germany. Fischer presented his speech as his personal views. While realizing that it would not really be possible to do so, he explicitly tried to remove his hat as the German foreign minister. However, Chancellor Gerhard Schro¨der characterized the idea of a European president as ‘a perfect illusion’, presented by ‘one of the leaders of the Green Party seeking an identity’.10 European Commissioner Gu¨nther Verheugen—a German national—argued (in the Su¨ddeutsche Zeitung) against the idea of an EU core and warned against the EU becoming a superstate like the USA. In this context, what are the possibilities for institutional engineering? The ideas of federalism and a dynamic core are hardly new in the European context, but so far they have received modest support. Historically, it has also been difficult to get agreement on comprehensive institutional reforms (see Chapter 9 below). Is the Fischer plan, in the face of hostility, scepticism or apathy, utopian? A power struggle over reforms, given the traditional norms of consensus in the EU and the existing preferences, worldviews and powers of the various

7 British Liberal Democrat Andrew Duff, Agence Europe, no. 7723, (24 May 2000). 8 Agence Europe, no. 7759 (15 July 2000), p. 5. 9 For instance, Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker has argued that ‘larger European states have always preserved their special influence. . . . Nothing will change that . . . . The voice of the French President in the European Council counts more than my own. He knows it, I know it and accept it and there is no need to formalize this in the treaty’ (speech at the Swedish Institute for International Affairs, 7 June 2000, reported in Agence Europe, no. 7735 (10 June 2000)). 10 Gerhord Schro¨der, interview with Le Figaro, reported in Agence Europe, no. 7761 (19 July 2000), p. 6.

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actors, would be likely to threaten the EU itself, or to change the Union in fundamental ways. This is the case even if Fischer’s view had been triumphant in the end. Most likely the plan can be expected to remain utopian and a source of disappointment and frustration—unless there are significant changes in key concepts and vocabularies, preferences and worldviews. Such changes, however, are not impossible to achieve for patient institutional gardeners. Political leaders are neither impotent, nor omnipotent. From an institutional perspective, democratic institutions and identities cannot be engineered and re-engineered overnight. There are limitations of transformative leadership through institutional design, and in order to avoid the utopian trap, reformers have to go beyond ordinary processes of coercion, exchange, bargaining, negotiation and coalition-building. Seen as a contribution to a future debate—a broad, democratic constitutional debate on the preferred political order—Fischer’s speech could have come closer to a vision than a utopia.

OPTIONS FOR INSTITUTIONA L GARDENERS Consistent with the legal tradition of the EU, Fischer argued that ‘common laws can be a highly integrative force’. In contrast, from an institutional perspective, comprehensive change in a political order involves affecting not only human conduct and formal-legal institutions, but also peoples’ inner state of mind, their moral and intellectual qualities, their identities and sense of belonging (Mill 1962[1861]: 32). An institutional/gardening perspective doubts that democratic reformers can be successful independent of the characteristics of the population. That is, it doubts whether it is possible to develop democratic institutions without democrats, or a European Federation without Europeans, so that the legitimacy of institutional arrangements is based solely on a continuous proof of their functional efficiency (Olsen 1997c: 222). Political gardening requires knowledge about the mechanisms through which different institutions and processes of opinion- and will-formation may influence the mentality and identity of individuals and collectivities. On the one hand, such changes can be the result of a political community making decisions and debating the challenges and opportunities they face, and the principles, rules and procedures by which they want to live. On the other hand, changes can be traced back to processes of socialization in educational institutions, both universities and mass schooling (Soysal and Strang 1989; March and Olsen 2000).

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From this perspective, political leadership includes affecting how Europeans come to think about what constitutes unity or diversity, as well as the reasons for establishing and changing political borders, common purposes and projects, institutions and forms of governance. The EU also has numerous arenas for interaction, argumentation, problem-solving and conflict resolution, and gaining experience through interaction may create habits of working together, friendship, group loyalties and knowledge about others. These may create convergence, mutual confidence and spirals of positive trust. However, they may also create awareness of differences and produce conflicts and confrontations (March and Olsen 1998). Political gardeners can use such arenas for pushing the system in a consistent direction. They may stabilize attention, develop a shared vocabulary, shared interpretations of experience, criteria of assessment and aspiration levels, and improve institutional adaptability.

Stabilizing attention Fischer focused attention on major institutional reform, but he also emphasized the importance of different time-scales. His own time horizon was ‘far beyond the coming decade and the intergovernmental conference’. In this time perspective, there are many possible future distractions. Comprehensive change in institutions and identities may take decades or generations, and because large-scale reforms are weakly institutionalized, they usually attract a variety of issues, often loosely coupled to the reform itself. As argued by March and Olsen (1983: 286) in a study of comprehensive administrative reforms in the United States, ‘Although it is hard to predict what specific crisis, scandal, or war will divert presidents from the reorganization arena, it is easy to predict that something will’. The result is that reformers are frequently distracted and disappointed. However, persistence may pay off. Sometimes short-run failures turn into long-run successes, as old plans are reactivated under new and more favourable circumstances (March and Olsen 1983: 287). A possible first lesson, therefore, is that the realization of a large-scale reform vision requires an ability to stabilize and institutionalize attention and resources around comprehensive reforms, so that incremental steps can be tied together into a consistent long-term plan.11

11 The argument is relevant in the EU context because, on the one hand, outcomes are rarely entirely anticipated by those who strike strategic bargains (W. Wallace 2000). On the other hand, the preoccupation of institutional designers with the short term has led them to make decisions that have undermined their long-term control (Pierson 1996: 156).

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Developing a shared vocabulary Fischer was well aware that some words have to be used with caution. For instance, the term ‘federation’ irritates many Britons. Fischer did not want to irritate anyone, yet he had not been able to come up with another word. Simultaneously, he felt a need to avoid the misunderstanding that he was really suggesting a ‘renationalization’. Likewise, he wanted to avoid scaring anyone: ‘Let’s not misunderstand each other: closer cooperation does not automatically lead to full integration’. These expectations and fears have turned out to be realistic. The reform proposal came to mean different things to different actors. Consider, for instance, the idea of ‘a federation of nation-states’ with a sharing of sovereignty, and clear demarcation of powers, between levels of governance. In Britain federalism is associated, in spite of Fischer’s caution, with a hierarchy between levels of government (H. Wallace 2000c). For others ‘division of sovereignty’ meant that Fischer ‘distances himself from the concept of a European superstate transcending and replacing the national democracies’ (Bo¨rzel and Risse 2000: 1). More generally, ‘federalism’, ‘constitution’, ‘democracy’, ‘sovereignty’, ‘enhanced cooperation’, ‘Europe’, etc. are words without a shared meaning across EU member states, a fact that makes fruitful deliberation more complicated to achieve. A possible second lesson, therefore, is that implementation of a reform vision will depend as much on leadership through reconceptualization, as through reorganization. Success will be facilitated by the development of a shared vocabulary and concepts, or at least a repertoire of such vocabularies and concepts, so that actors can ‘translate’ between different interpretations of key concepts.

Developing shared interpretations of experience In fairly stable periods, institutions provide languages, concepts and repertoires of legitimate accounts. They help participants to make sense of an ambiguous, uncertain and changing world and present rules of appropriate or exemplary behaviour (March and Olsen 1989, 1995; Powell and DiMaggio 1991: 15). In periods of transformation, the organizing power of institutionalized concepts, schemas and scripts is weakened. There are competing institutions and interpretations. Questions are raised as to why the code of conduct and the forms of organization and governance are different in one country, or in one context, from another (Elias 1982[1939]).

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Major reform projects provide an opportunity for developing shared interpretations, affirming legitimate values and institutions, and changing the climate of opinion. A public discourse about the adequacy or inadequacy of existing institutional arrangements can be a process of civic education through which European citizens develop an understanding of what constitutes a good society and system of governance, i.e. the legitimate constitutional principles of authority, power and accountability and the normative-ethical basis and value commitments and beliefs of the polity (March and Olsen 1983; Olsen 1992: 259). A possible third lesson, in this perspective, is that an important aspect of political leadership, and an important way to avoid the utopian trap, is to provide adequate accounts of the past and visions for the future. Of course, agreement is by no means guaranteed. Struggles over belief-systems and causal models may be as fierce as conflicts over normative criteria or material benefits.

Developing shared criteria of assessment The prospects of avoiding the utopian trap will also depend on what reformers aspire to achieve through constitutional reforms. A political institution can be assessed instrumentally on the basis of its contribution to substantive (policy) results. Or a structural arrangement can be evaluated deontologically, i.e. on the basis of specific properties of the institution itself. The test then is not an issue of precise calculation of the effectiveness and efficiency of alternative designs for policy outcomes in specific situations. Instead, it is whether the institution is seen as the appropriate means of coping with certain classes of tasks and situations within a culture (Olsen 1997c). The issue is whether institutional practices and rules are consistent with basic principles of reason and morality in a culture—possibly involving general conceptions of good/evil, just/unjust, right/wrong, legal/illegal, true/false—so that it becomes a duty for citizens to follow its rules and prescriptions. For instance, support for representative institutions is a commitment to a longterm institutional arrangement, not to a specific outcome (Pitkin 1972: 234). Likewise, the rule of law, the prohibition of retroactive laws, and recruitment based on merit exemplify legitimizing principles not linked to the immediate substantive outcome of specific decisions. Such principles and institutions structure and discipline policy-making processes. They encourage some types of behaviour and inhibit others. Yet they do not determine precise policy outcomes.

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Fischer’s proposal had elements of a deontological approach—for instance, its emphasis on democracy and transparency. It aimed at developing basic principles for a workable system more than achieving an immediate policy outcome. In comparison, the British tradition has been described as instrumental. Political institutions, and reform plans, are primarily assessed as instruments for achieving policy outcomes. There is a preference for substance to determine form, and a standard question is, will this reform lead to better policy outcomes? In the EU context this leads to a preference for pragmatic, case-by-case cooperation, and to local experimentation rather than a single blueprint (H. Wallace 2000c).12 A possible fourth lesson is that visionary leaders should clarify whether reforms aim at changing the basic principles and rules for the organization of political power, and thus provide a framework for policy processes, or at achieving specific policy outcomes. The latter approach is probably more likely to generate frustration among reformers.

Clarifying aspirations Political leaders also have different aspirations when it comes to what kind of relationships should tie people in Europe together and therefore what kind of polity the EU should become. Aspirations have also changed over time. The revolt against the Maastricht Treaty created a perceived need for ‘heightening the sense of belonging to the Union and enhancing its legitimacy’ (Commission 1995b : 7). Furthermore, debates over the Rights Charter, the Austrian crisis, and the Draft Constitution reactivated a debate over the cultural identity of the EU. The general issue is: how flexible are political identities, and through what processes are they created, maintained and changed? Within the EU, there is awareness that building trust and cohesion among European peoples and governments will take time (Commission 1992: 8). In the short run, identities are unlikely to change in the absence of dramatic external shocks creating one of the ‘great mentality-shaping controversies’ (Habermas 1988: 12). In the face of cultural heterogeneity, it is also questionable whether a shared programme of civic education is possible in the short run. What should be the content of the programmes and who should be in charge of developing it? What institutions are needed in order to develop a feeling of a democratic, 12 The differences should not be exaggerated. During the Thatcher period reforms were driven to a considerable extent by principles and ideology, without clear evidence about exact policy effects (Hood 1996b).

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European identity? Given that identities change only slowly, the leadership challenge is to influence perceptions of the desirability and capability of multiple identities, and the perceived compatibility among competing identities, among Europeans. A possible fifth lesson is that visionary leaders need to clarify their assumptions about the role of shared identities and a sense of belonging—what they assume binds people in Europe together and what keeps them apart. Likewise, they need to clarify their assumptions about how fast, and through what mechanisms, identities may change. Europe constituted as a market community of exchange and a functional-utilitarian unit might not by itself provide an adequate foundation for further integration. A Europe constituted as a cultural community based on shared values is likely to be unattainable in the near future. As was argued in earlier chapters, plans for further integration based on Europe as a legal community of shared rights and duties, and a political community based on shared institutions of governance, might be more likely to avoid being utopianism.

Improving institutional adaptability Visionary leaders in the EU have to ‘take the law seriously’ (Joerges 1996b), yet they have to avoid becoming overly legalistic and formalistic. The problem of non-effective constitutions and institutions is well known. Constitutions can be written and rewritten and organizational charts can be drawn and redrawn. Still, such changes may have a modest impact on the ‘living institutions’ of a society (Olsen 1997a; Laffan 1999). Formal treaties and constitutional provisions alone cannot explain the Union’s dynamics (Dehousse and Majone 1994: 92). Change has often been incremental and part of the daily practice of governance and adjudication, later codified in treaty form by intergovernmental conferences (Kohler-Koch and Eising 1999; Jachtenfuchs and Kohler-Koch 2003). The distribution of formal-legal authority is only a limited part of the distribution of power resources. Visionary leaders, therefore, have to make realistic assessments concerning what modifications of practices can be achieved through changes in formal-legal institutional arrangements. They have to consider both to what degree and under what circumstances institutions can be deliberately restructured; and what the likely effects of changing formal organizational charts and rules will be in a world where many other resources than formal-legal authority count (Olsen 1996: 238). Likewise, avoiding the utopian trap may depend on the leaders’ understanding of what makes some institutions able to learn and adapt continuously,

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while inertia in other institutions creates large gaps between existing structures and underlying realities. Experiential learning has been suggested as the basis of governing the future polity (Deutsch 1981: 338). Success may depend, however, on insight into the many ways in which such processes are less than perfect,13 and how the imperfections of mundane processes of learning and incremental adaptations allow for comprehensive institutional reform. In general, the more inefficient the ordinary processes of adaptation are, the more likely it is that an institution or a regime may collapse like a house of cards and be replaced by a new one (Olsen 1992: 256; Olsen 1997c: 209). A possible sixth lesson for visionary leaders, then, is that they have to take an interest in the dynamics of ‘living’ institutions and not merely formal-legal arrangements. A precondition for deliberate radical reforms may be a better understanding of why ordinary processes of learning and adaptation sometimes succeed and sometimes fail.

G OV E R N I N G T H RO U G H I N S T I T U T I O NA L C H A N G E European cooperation has already produced a dense institutional order— a quasi-federal polity and a system of governance based on constitution-like treaties (Stone Sweet and Sandholtz 1998: 1; Bo¨rzel and Risse 2003). Many recent integration initiatives, however, have been initiated outside the EU institutions, and the European polity is an unsettled political order in terms of geographical reach, functional scope and institutional balance. The Union simultaneously faces questions such as these. Who is going to belong to the political community and where should its external borders be drawn? What should be the shared agenda, purposes and projects? How are collective issues to be dealt with, and in terms of which common institutions and principles? How are such choices to be justified and legitimized? Reorganizing political power in Europe involves a delicate rebalancing between levels of governance and institutions. The EU has gone through a variety of stages (Schuppert 1995), but the preconditions for a European federation are not well understood. The long-term history of government may also indicate that there is no such thing as an end-state, but rather a succession of forms of government (Finer 1999). Fischer’s speech can be seen as an attempt to provide leadership and a vision of a new political order in

13 March and Olsen 1975; Levitt and March 1988; March 1991, 1994b, 1999b; Levinthal and March 1993; Olsen and Peters 1996; March, Schultz and Zhou 2000.

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Europe in a period of profound uncertainty and ambiguity. He proposed further political integration, but he was also setting a limit for integration, short of a United States of Europe. So far member states have not shown much interest in taking the leap into full integration, an avant-garde has not emerged, and the draft Constitutional Treaty has created conflict and its future is highly uncertain after the Dutch and French ‘no’. The main argument of this chapter is that what looks utopian for political pawns and engineers may be a little less so for patient political gardeners. Gardeners, who understand well the dynamics of ‘living’ institutions and identities and how they mediate between institutional design and historical drift, may in the long run turn utopias into visions and guide European developments in a consistent direction. One key aspect is to develop a better comprehension of how existing institutional characteristics and histories affect major institutional change: that is, abilities of the institutions to adapt spontaneously to major changes in their environments, the abilities of the environments to eliminate nonadaptive institutions, and the latitude of purposeful institutional reform. This includes the development of better insight into the institutional preconditions for creating legitimacy and merited support through public debates about political institutions and the organization of governance. Likewise, it includes the development of a better understanding of how institutions may separate and buffer conflicts in everyday life, while such separation and buffering tend to break down at ‘constitutional moments’ and therefore make comprehensive institutional reform politically indigestible. This is the theme of the next chapter.

9 Coping with conXict at constitutional moments CONSTITUTING GOVERNMENT The literature on the dynamics through which political order and organized government is constituted and reconstituted in democratic contexts presents a paradox. It is commonplace to argue that democracies require constitutional rules in order to function well and it is assumed that a legitimate and durable order has signiWcant beneWts. In particular, constitutional rules and stable institutions provide a framework that makes it easier to regulate and limit conXict and secure civilized co-existence. Democratic constitutions are assumed to balance unity and diversity, power relations, and continuity and change. They are supposed to prevent arbitrary discretion and to create predictability by regulating the power following from winning (and losing) elections and governmental positions and by regulating the legitimate use of individual and group resources. Nevertheless, it is also commonplace to observe that it is diYcult to agree on comprehensive constitutional change in democracies. As illustrated by the Fischer initiative (considered in detail in Chapter 8), radical reorganization with a single scheme of a polity at a speciWc point in time is unlikely to be politically digestible. Actual reforms are usually incremental rather than comprehensive and attempts at reconstituting government through radical reform often create stalemates, confrontation and crises. In general, it seems to be easier in routine politics than at constitutional moments for democracies to live with durable tensions and to cope with conXict. It also seems to be easier to agree on political practices and rules than to agree on how those practices and rules can be described, explained and justiWed in a coherent constitutional text. This paradox suggests a need to develop a better understanding of the dynamics through which democratic orders are constituted and reconstituted. There is a need to specify the conditions under which the democratic vision of enlightened self-governance is viable, and reXection and purposeful change is likely to be a signiWcant part of constitutional transformations.

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In particular, we are interested in how characteristics of the institutional context within which constitutional change takes place, as well as the organization of the process of change itself, may shape and constrain the dynamics of constitutional rules and inXuence the extent to which humans are capable of establishing political order from reXection and choice—that is, to what degree and in what ways democratic contexts make comprehensive constitutional reform, based on deliberate design and choice, necessary, legitimate and feasible (Olsen1997a). Democracy is a distinct political order that provides a distinct historicalinstitutional context for governance and constitutional change. Democracy signiWes a set of historically evolving political ideals, principles and identities, as well as a changing collection of accumulated institutional practices, rules and distributions of rights, obligations and resources (March and Olsen 1995). Democratic governance signiWes a purposeful ability to shape political and social life. The doctrine of popular sovereignty, as an important part of the democratic creed, prescribes that citizens should be able to make and unmake their constitutions and institutions. Constitutional democracy is a special type of regime based on the philosophy of limited government and the aspiration of taming political power and constraining majorities. Developing political institutions of self-governance, then, is a Wrst-order political process and human will, intelligence and power are supposed to play a key role in constitutional and institutional change. Constitutions and institutions are understood as a means to achieve human purposes and change is seen as the deliberate manipulation of formal structures and rules in order to improve human conditions. Constitutional rules and procedures of change achieve legitimacy from the consent of the governed. Agreement and allegiance are based on argumentation, persuasion and compromises, more than on commands and coercion. The eVectiveness of governance ultimately rests on the loyalties of the governed and on their willingness to comply with legitimate rules and authorities and provide resources to the polity (Ferguson and Mansbach 1996: 382). This chapter starts out with a modiWcation and elaboration of the three stylized interpretations of institutional transformation presented in Chapter 8. These frameworks are based on diVerent conceptions of political actors, institutions and change and diVerent understandings of the relationship between human agency, institutions and the Xow of history. They portray the constitution and reconstitution of organized government as a result of, respectively, choice (design, reform), historical drift and institutional gardening. However, these three interpretations are not discrete and exclusive; they supplement and create preconditions for each other. Together they suggest a

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repertoire of processes of change further elaborated within organization theory (March 1981).1 An enquiry into the mechanisms assumed to guarantee agreement and allegiance within each of the three frameworks is then used as a starting point for discussing how some organizational properties may make democratic polities better able to cope with conXicts in routine politics than at constitutional moments. The focus then shifts to constitutional conventions as fairly open structures, and routine governance as usually performed within more specialized structures of attention and access for participants, problems and solutions (Cohen, March and Olsen 1972). In the last part, these ideas are applied to the speciWc historical-institutional context of the European Union. Political theories of constitutional change are to a large extent state-centred and based on ideas, language and institutional templates with roots far back in history, such as the English, American and French revolutionary experiences (Bellamy and Castiglione 1996; L. Alexander 2001). To what degree are such ideas adequate for understanding constitutional change in a contemporary context characterized by peaceful cooperation rather than war and revolution, and among well-established nation-states at the supranational rather than the national level? Will watching ‘government begin’ in the European context make it necessary to reconsider existing understandings of how organized government is constituted and reconstituted?

CHOICE, D RIFT AND GARDENING A constitution deals with how a group of people organizes and governs themselves politically. Constitutions prescribe a political order. They specify the basic institutions of government, their powers, responsibilities and interrelations. They outline the normative principles on which government is to be based and the ideas that explain and justify the rules. Most constitutions also include rules specifying the appropriate ways of establishing constitutional arrangements and rules for orderly amendments. Through what processes are constitutive rules and government instituted? If such rules have an eVect on power relations and how life-chances are allocated, how are conXicts over 1 Writing within a different scholarly tradition, McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly (2001) also suggest that studies of episodes taking place in specific historical-cultural contexts can be understood in terms of general (robust) mechanisms and processes, and in turn provide a better comprehension of such mechanisms and processes.

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such rules dealt with at constitutional moments and in other politicalorganizational contexts? For example, how is agreement achieved to impose legitimate constraints on the sovereign power of democratically elected decision-makers and under what conditions do democracies tolerate a minority binding a majority, or one generation binding the next one (Elster 1988b)? Unsurprisingly, there are competing accounts of the nature of constitutions, the processes through which they change and the factors used to account for constitutional developments. Historically, in particular under the inspiration of American and British experiences, constitutional change has often been interpreted either instrumentally, as a matter of deliberate purpose, design and choice among alternative arrangements, or as the outcome of organic, evolutionary processes (Mill 1962[1861]). This chapter allies itself with that tradition, but suggests three frameworks for understanding constitutional dynamics—constitutional design, historical drift and gardening.2

Constitutional choice The constitutional choice-frame assumes that government is constituted through a speciWc foundational process. It emphasizes the purposes, knowledge and power of an identiWable set of actors (‘founders’) and deliberate choices at speciWc points in time (Edington 1975).3 The key premisses are that alternative constitutions make a diVerence, that designers know the eVects of institutional alternatives, that there is a choice among constitutions, and that designers control the choice. In sum, constitutions are the instrument of constitution-makers and political development is planned and willed. An adequate understanding of why some constitutional arrangement is chosen over others requires knowledge about who the ‘founders’ are, what they are trying to achieve, how and why they come to believe that a certain alternative will best achieve their objectives, and how and why they succeed in getting the necessary support for their views. 2 In the presentation of the three frameworks, references to specific authors are used only as illustrations: there is no attempt to analyse in any detail the positions of these authors or their opponents. Some authors referred to in this chapter use the term ‘evolution’ rather than ‘historical drift’. The latter term usually implies that institutional change is a product of human action but not governed by an identifiable actor or group of actors. The former term also assumes that change improves the functional performance and the survival value of institutions, an assumption that is problematic from the institutional perspective used in this book. 3 ‘Design’ refers to a process aimed at producing prescriptions, usually with some adaptive rules for coping with unforeseen circumstances. The process involves the matter of how institutions might be, and ought to be, constructed and adapted to human purposes in order to function well and improve over time (Simon 1970; Nystrom and Starbuck 1981b; Goodin 1996b).

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Attention will be focused here on the constitutional convention model, familiar from, for example, the American experience in 1787 and the French in 1789–91 (Elster 1992). Organized government is constituted through an original and exceptional act at a privileged point in time and by a special representative body, a constituent assembly. Constitution-making and governance are separated. As argued by Paine, a constitution is the act of a people constituting government. All power exercised over a nation must have some beginning and government without a constitution is power without a right (Paine 1984[1791-2]: 185). The key role of the people is also reXected in current visions of constitutions as acts of higher law in the name of ‘We the People’ (Ackerman 1991). For the Federalists, constituting a common government would make it possible to do things each state could not do separately. Still, a major task was to limit the exercise of political power and prevent misuse. The selWsh nature of both rulers and ruled was taken as given. Neither were unfallen angels and external incentives were needed to guarantee the common good. Government had been instituted because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint. Ambition had to counteract ambition. Power had to be pitted against power. The focus was primarily on changing legal rules and incentives, not moral and ethical codes of conduct and peoples’ minds and emotions. Sentiments and a feeling of unity could not be created through a constitutional act at a given point in time. Rather, an existing unity and shared interest were to be expressed in the constitution (Hamilton, Jay and Madison 1964[1787]: 122–3). As observed by Wolin (1960: 389–90), there was no theory of how constitutions and political organization could educate citizens.4 In sum, the constitutional convention was portrayed as an occasion for epochal decisions, a break with the past, and a decision that is diYcult to amend. Yet, in order to secure a peaceful continuity, rather than an accumulation of errors, stagnation and revolution, rules for future amendments were needed. The system had to be able to beneWt from experiences and correct mistakes, ‘which they inevitably fall into’ (Hamilton, Jay and Madison 1964[1787]: 166). Reconciling continuity and Xexibility was diYcult, but elasticity could be promoted by making the constitution deal only with the most general elements of government. Paine also suggested that constitutions

4 In spite of the reference to ‘We, the People’, the Federalists were not strong proponents of popular self-government. One concern was that public reactions would reflect collective passions and not reason. Therefore, they warned against ‘the danger of disturbing the public tranquillity, by interesting too strongly the public passions’ (Hamilton, Jay and Madison 1964[1787]: 118, also 120).

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should have a Wxed period. Every seven years a new convention should be elected, so that improvements based on experience could be made (Paine 1984[1791–2] 185–91).

Constitutional drift Within the constitutional drift framework, the role of political actors and processes is less heroic. Constitutional change is the product of human action, but identiWable actors do not design constitutions at a speciWc point in time. Institutions, as collections of rules and practices, are part of a cultural heritage with a value beyond expediency and immediate instrumental utility. Society is basically self-organizing. Political development is a result of organic growth and historic drift/evolution. Constitutions evolve slowly as practical experiences, political compromises, judicial precedents and customary practices are encoded into constitutional rules. The rules reXect the accumulated collective intelligence, morals and power balances of a country. This framework is central in British constitutional thinking. For example, Burke was in favour of a settled scheme of government, which had proved its worth, against any untried project and grand revolutionary plan. The corporate structure that kept society together depended on deep-seated feelings of love and loyalty and only to a limited degree on conscious will, reason and the calculation of self-interest. The settled scheme would guarantee a constitution ‘made by what is ten thousand times better than choice, it is made by peculiar circumstances, occasions, tempers, dispositions, and moral, civil and social habitudes of the people, which disclose themselves only in a long space of time’ (Burke 1856[1782]: 147). Burke warned against politicians with speculative, radical and abstract plans for new and untried constitutions and institutions. Such arrangements would not work simply because they would lack the familiarity and habitual respect and positive sentiment of the established arrangements.5 Burke underscored the relevance of history. The constitution was seen as having deep roots in the past. It had grown out of the past with no break of continuity (Burke 1856[1782]: 146). The people were seen as an organized group with a history and institutions, and with deep-seated loyalties, morals and a sense of belonging to something larger and more enduring than 5 Like many other constitutional thoughts, the idea that formal-legal rules and institutions are unlikely to be effective if they are not supported by, or consistent with, the prescriptions of moral rules and traditions has long historical roots. Unwritten laws, internalized traditions, and feelings of obligation, reverence and shame are then assumed to trump the official written laws (see e.g. Sophocles 1969).

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themselves. Society was a partnership between ‘those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are yet to be born’’ (Burke 1968[1790]: 194–5). Experience was the best test, and the authority of the constitution was based on the fact that it had been tested through time and had successfully served the community. For Burke, the individual was foolish, but the species was wise and would over time always act right. A basic premiss was that a historical process of competitive selection would systematically eliminate the constitutional rules and institutions that failed to serve the community, functionally and in terms of its normative traditions. Stepwise reforms would be possible and desirable, however, if the goal was to alleviate a clear and present evil in society, if reforms were in accordance with the habits and spirits of its people and history and not based on general rules and principles, and if the aim was change in order to preserve.

Constitutional gardening The constitutional gardening framework portrays political actors as purposeful, with bounded rationality and neither omnipotent or impotent. Constitutions cannot be designed and reformed at will in arbitrary ways, but political intervention and leadership is possible. Constitutions and institutions are partly malleable through piecemeal political reform, learning and a continuous constitutional conversation. Historical change is guided but not controlled in detail according to any grand plan. For example, Popper (1961) observed that few social institutions have been consciously designed. The vast majority have just grown, as the unintended result of human action. Holistic reconstitution of the political system and the remodelling of human beings are beyond the capabilities of political actors, as well as normatively unacceptable. Still, there is a role for piecemeal social engineering. Political ends can be achieved by continuous small adjustments and readjustments. Improvements can be achieved, and the causes of harm, injustice and discontent can be removed, because the piecemeal social engineer knows how to learn from mistakes by proceeding step-by-step and carefully comparing the results achieved. In the same vein, OVe has suggested that piecemeal reformers can exploit windows of opportunity and capture situational options for establishing agreements on new rules or institutions as they emerge. Creative opportunism, based on ad hoc proposals, mixed and impure rather than clear principles, priorities and a master plan, will possibly be ‘the closest approximation to the notion of institutional design that we Wnd in the real world of politics’ (OVe 2001: 368).

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However, a constitution must possess a certain unity and internal coherence, so that appeals to it may be meaningful and capable of carrying conviction (Castiglione 1996: 7). A complication is that piecemeal reform, at least under certain conditions, tends to create a chaotic system and eventually to generate demands for comprehensive, planned reform to re-establish system coherence and unity of purpose (March and Olsen 1983). Therefore, in order to turn piecemeal reformers into constitutional gardeners, stepwise change cannot be governed by randomly generated exogenous events. Such reforms need to be given a sense of direction and purpose by continuous constitutional conversations, including a critical debate over legitimate preferences, interests and identities (Chambers 1998; Slaughter, Stone Sweet and Weiler 1998). Popper, for example, saw institutionalized free competition of thought as a precondition for progress. He also argued that a proper role for the social sciences was to study proposals for social improvements and critically assess whether or not a particular reform would be likely to produce an expected, or desired, result (Popper 1961: 58). According to Habermas (1996), the need to justify proposals for constitutional reform by giving reasons in public may also foster constitutional patriotism, peaceful resolution of disputes, and a sense of allegiance and mutual recognition. In brief, piecemeal reforms, supported by a continuous constitutional conversation, may over time make it possible for democracies to develop a consistent normative project. Constitutional gardeners, then, have some longterm normative standards that make it possible to recognize constitutional weeds and to turn incremental reforms into a uniWed, coherent constitution. Along the way, individual preferences, collective values, norms and identities are contested through critical debate. They are dynamic, not stable.

A repertoire of processes of change Sketching the three frameworks of interpretation is only a Wrst step towards understanding under what conditions enlightened reXection and choice will be important in constitutional change. An adequate comprehension of constitutional dynamics would require a reconciliation of several processes and logics of change. First, the three frames are not mutually exclusive and there is no exact metric that tells us when radical design turns into piecemeal reforms, or Popperian piecemeal engineering shades into Burkean reforms to conserve a historical drift not intended by any identiWable decision-makers. Second, the frameworks do not exhaust the relevant processes of change. Most likely, deliberate design and choice, drift/evolution and competitive

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selection, socialization, piecemeal social engineering, learning and deliberation would have to be supplemented with processes like imitation, diVusion, regeneration, war and coercion, as well as historical coincidences and chance. For example, the frequent observation of epidemics of constitution-making, often in the aftermath of wars, suggests the signiWcance of processes of imitation and diVusion (Loewenstein 1951: 151). Likewise, Bagehot observed the relevance of processes of regeneration and a shift of generations. A new constitution could not be expected to produce its full eVect as long as all its subjects were reared under an old constitution, and as long as its statesmen were trained by that old constitution (Bagehot 1961[1867]: 10, 11). Change can only be observed over long intervals of time, in particular when it comes to changes in mentalities. Third, each framework has to be unpacked into speciWc processes of change. Nevertheless, the list of processes may be limited rather than indeWnitely long. All institutionalized systems of governance develop a repertoire of experience-based standard operating procedures and processes of change for dealing with changing circumstances (March 1981; March, Schultz and Zhou 2000). While the diVerent processes may combine and interact in complex ways and the signiWcance of each may be diYcult to disentangle, a speciWcation of the scope conditions of each process would be helpful for developing a better understanding of constitutional change.6 Fourth, a key task is to make the underlying assumptions of each process explicit. For instance, a distinction has to be made between processes where human mentality and motivation are exogenous and those in which they are endogenous. An example of the Wrst case is when constitutional arrangements are interpreted as a negotiated order and a result of voluntary exchange and bargaining among self-interested actors with predetermined, given preferences. The eYciency of dispute resolution then depends on the characteristics of opportunity structures, formal contracts, trade gains, side-payments and simulated market exchanges.7 The key is to understand the nature of tensions 6 It may be a mistake to see such problems solely as a result of the complexity of contemporary societies. For example, in the foreword to the second edition of The English Constitution (1872), Bagehot observed that it was difficult to identify the effects of the Reform Act of 1867 and to disentangle its effects from other sources of change (Bagehot 1961[1872]: 10–11). 7 The assumption that the test of political institutions lies in expediency, the ability to meet the need for security and make mutual intercourse safer and easier, is hardly new. At least since the Epicureans there have been schools of thought which have assumed that human institutions develop primarily upon materialist principles and a restless pursuit of individual happiness. All men are essentially selfish. Yet there are tacit agreements on how to live together. Morality is identical with expedience and what is considered as right and just will vary with circumstances and time and place. Yet the optimistic conclusion is that ‘the wise men will act justly because the fruits of injustice are not worth the risk of detection and punishment’ (Sabine 1947[1937]: 134–5).

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and conXicts and eliminate barriers to negotiation, that is, obstacles to rational exchange and successful conXict resolution (Arrow et al. 1996; see also Vanberg and Buchanan 1989). An example of the second case is when constitutional developments are seen as part of a normative-educational project. Constitutional politics then involves developing a collective identity and constitutive norms, beyond immediate expediency and eYcient aggregation of exogenous preferences. Change and dispute resolution involve modiWcation of normative beliefs and identities— including who citizens are and want to be, and what they see as constituting good governance and a good society. Citizens accept principles and rules not as external constraints to be taken into account in individual calculations, but as internalized normative imperatives or guidelines. Reforms provide an occasion for deliberation and learning—for interpreting purposes, developing shared concepts of civic virtue, justice, legitimate rule and power, and for building new relationships and creating or reaYrming a sense of community and collective identity (March and Olsen 1976, 1986; Olsen 1997b). This chapter does not aspire to develop these issues further. Instead, the next part focuses on one aspect of constitutional change processes: how diversity and disputes are dealt with and the mechanisms through which agreement and allegiance are achieved. In particular, under what conditions are reforms aimed at radical change in constitutive rules likely to produce acceptance rather than confrontation and conXict? A modest step towards an answer is to ask what characteristics of democratic institutions may make it easier to cope with conXict in routine politics than at constitutional moments.

AC HIEVING AGREEMENT AND ALLEGIANCE It is often observed that there are limits to the constitutional reform a democratic system can digest at a single point in time. In general, it is a complicated matter to reach agreement on the identity and the fundamental principles of a democratic polity, and radical reform attempts tend to generate conXict (Russell 1993; Zielonka 2001). Constitutional rules are symbolic representations and a new constitution founded on new principles of organization and legitimization is likely to be contested, not least because of the impact on strong symbols (von Beume 2001b: 6). Therefore, mobilizing support and achieving agreement and allegiance are key processes and the legitimacy of the change process becomes one important determinant of whether change is accepted or resisted. How, then, is conXict assumed to be dealt with in models of constitutional design, drift/evolution and gardening?

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Mechanisms of acceptance and allegiance The choice framework often makes strong assumptions about acceptance based on the legitimacy of the procedures of representative government. Paine, for example, assumed that even a large minority would accept majority decisions, because they were supposed to believe in the principle of majority governance (Paine 1984[1791–2]: 190). The Federalists, in contrast, saw legitimacy as more problematic. They observed that limited changes and single propositions were easier to accomplish than a completely new constitution (Hamilton, Jay and Madison 1964[1787]: 165). In addition to common needs and utility, they appealed to social and cultural unity—one united people with the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, similar in their manners and customs, and sharing the experience of Wghting a long and bloody war together (Hamilton, Jay and Madison 1964[1787]: 7). In fact, the Federalist Papers were written as part of a political project and an attempt to explain and justify the need for a stronger federal government, in order to counteract the expected conXict over ratiWcation of the proposed constitution. In general, both the power and intelligence bases of constitutional design are problematic in representative democracies. The doctrine of constitutional democracy reXects the bounded legitimacy of majority government as a mechanism for dispute resolution. Heterogeneity and tolerable diVerences generate demands for constitutional guarantees for minorities and sudden radical change of established compromises has limited legitimacy. Changing the basic rules requires large-scale majorities and makes such change less feasible (Weaver and Rockman 1993). Yet, the need for comprehensive constitutional change is also likely to be reduced in democracies where processes of learning and adaptation are well developed (Olsen 1997c). Furthermore, it is unclear what can be achieved by changing legally valid constitutions. In political science it has long been disputed whether written constitutions play a vital role in the life of democracies, as well as what explanatory power can be assigned to constitutions compared to political, military, economic and social forces (Finer 1970; Loewenstein 1951). Studies of formal organizations also suggest that action is rarely uniquely speciWed by rules (March, Schultz and Zhou 2000: 23) and that change in rules may be loosely coupled to behaviour and functional performance (Meyer and Rowan 1977; Brunsson 1989). The drift/evolutionary framework presupposes acceptance and allegiance based on strong socialization into a community of causal and normative beliefs. Burke, for instance, assumed that identiWcation with the system provided a guarantee against conXict over constitutive rules. Even those

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occupying the lowest positions in society would acquiesce, due to their feeling of moral obligation, following from their belonging to a society and the values and traditions cherished by that society. Competitive selection would over time eliminate constitutional rules and institutions inconsistent with the spirit of the (successful) community (Burke 1856[1792],1968[1790]). Citizens are unlikely, however, to be so thoroughly and consistently socialized as Burke suggested. The degree of identiWcation varies and typically diVerent institutions socialize citizens into partly competing identities and belief systems. For example, some come to think that the constitution is what the judges say it is. Others see democratically elected representatives as the legitimate interpreters of constitutive rules. Furthermore, civil society, as a deliberative and communicative sphere of its own, from time to time creates mobilization from below which articulates social discontent and Zivilisationskritik. Sometimes change in a political system can fail so badly that it generates change of the system itself (Kochanek 1971: 319). Processes of competitive selection are also imperfect means of resolving disputes, inter alia because political systems tend to eliminate the variations required by eYcient competitive selection. The gardening framework portrays allegiance as more problematic and Popper assumed that it was easier to get political acceptance of smaller changes through ongoing bargaining and fact-Wnding. He based acceptance and allegiance on the system’s ability to learn from piecemeal reforms and experiments (Popper 1961). Likewise, Habermas and others have faith in the ability of democratic systems to reach agreement through force-free deliberation (Habermas 1996, 1998; Eriksen and Fossum 2000). In modern democracies learning aspirations are generally high. The expectation is that experience will improve the intelligence, eVectiveness and adaptability of governance. Experiential learning is supposed to enable governments to detect and counteract failures, to revise or eliminate rules that do not serve citizens well, and to improve their performance record as well as the polity’s Wtness for the future (March and Olsen 1995; Olsen and Peters 1996). Informed citizens and oYcials are supposed to learn to harbour realistic expectations when it comes to what diVerent institutions can and cannot do. Therefore, in an ideal democracy, equilibrium constitutional solutions are assumed to be common. That is, no actors are likely to act so as radically to defy existing institutions. The democratic challenge is not to make great designs and big leaps possible, but to foster the continuous learning and adaptation that make such leaps unnecessary (Olsen 1997c). Small and well-timed interventions can have signiWcant consequences when multiplied by other processes of change (March and Olsen 1995: 44). Still, piecemeal constitutional reforms do not necessarily solve the problem of

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acceptance and allegiance. There is no guarantee that a number of loosely coupled piecemeal reforms will add up to a coherent set of constitutive rules. Neither does piecemeal reform remedy the problems of calculating the consequences of constitutional change (Elster 1988a: 304, 308–9),8 and such reforms tend to breed new demands for reforms rather than making reforms redundant (Brunsson and Olsen 1993). Furthermore, conXicting parties can sometimes make working agreements based on open and free public deliberation and argumentation (Eriksen 2000: 59), but deliberation is no panacea for achieving acceptance and allegiance. The conditions for open and forcefree deliberation are seldom met in contemporary democracies, where information often is treated as a strategic resource or commodity of trade. Sunstein also argues that incompletely theorized agreements are an important source of successful constitutionalism and social stability (Sunstein 2001: 50–1). Citizens can agree on constitutional practices and rights even when they cannot agree on constitutional theories. The supposedly high learning aspirations of modern democracies are also challenged by the observation that there are many ways in which reforms in the name of intelligence may not serve intelligence (March 1999b: 8). Studies of learning in organized systems show that functional as well as political learning is taking place. Yet learning is often unreliable, myopic or superstitious and imperfections are caused by characteristics of individual actors as well as organizational settings. History is ineYcient and learning does not guarantee that institutions adapt immediately and precisely to environmental changes or deliberate reforms.9 A preliminary conclusion is that political actors may pursue moral and causal understanding and political control, yet no single process of constitutional change guarantees acceptance and allegiance. If all processes of change have imperfections and bounded legitimacy, why, then, are tensions and conXicts accumulating in some political systems yet not in others? How do the importance and the legitimacy of deliberate comprehensive constitutional reform depend on the imperfections of other processes of change, such as

8 Elster argued that radical constitutional change could only be justified on the grounds of justice, not consequential arguments (Elster 1988a: 304). Sartori responded that it is no easier to defend constitutional change on the basis of justice and that one should avoid ‘seeking a paradise that will eventually turn into an inferno’. Sartori saw constitutions as incentive structures structuring decision-making processes. In his view, the practical implication of an inability to predict is inability to reform. The task of the researcher is to specify the conditions under which specific constitutional reforms are likely to cause, or fail to cause, the intended effects (Sartori 1997: 198–9). 9 March and Olsen 1975, 1989; Levitt and March 1988; March 1991, 1994a, b; 1999a, b; Levinthal and March 1993; Olsen and Peters 1996; March, Schultz and Zhou 2000.

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variations in institutional ability to learn routinely from experience and adapt to changing circumstances? What are the eVects of organizing constitutional change in diVerent ways, given a certain level of enduring tensions? Why is it presumably more diYcult to cope with disputes through a constituent assembly or convention than through routine politics? Which properties of contemporary democracies make them able to live with enduring tensions?

Constitutional moments and routine politics Selecting an appropriate area for joint decision-making, allocating authority and power, and balancing coordination and autonomy are key decisions in all formal organizations, including political ones. These are also decisions on which conXict is quite possible. The stronger the need felt for joint decisionmaking, and the more collective decisions there are, the more likely is conXict (March and Simon 1958: 121–2). However, in democracies where processes of learning and adaptation are well developed at the system level, major tensions are less likely to build up. The need for comprehensive constitutional change is reduced and a radical reconstitution of government becomes a rare and exceptional event.10 As a corollary, the less developed the routine processes of learning and adaptation, the more likely that internal tensions build up. Radical change may take place in the wake of a revolution, social unrest, Wnancial bankruptcy or some other serious performance crisis, or may follow from external shocks such as war, conquest and defeat. These are situations with a breakdown in institutionalized arrangements for dispute resolution, where extraordinary solutions are required. Then a constitutional debate and reform may be triggered. Internal breakdowns or external shocks create drama and focus collective attention. They may focus attention on common destiny and shared sentiments rather than on what divides people under normal circumstances. Yet, in cases of long-term build-ups of tensions and disputes this focus may also reinforce historical cleavages and injustices and challenge the unity of the polity. Consider then how open and specialized structures organize attention and access diVerently. A convention is a fairly open organizational structure. The convention is likely to be highly visible and attract attention. Symbolic 10 For example, Habermas (1996: 389) writes about the ‘rare moments of a revolutionary founding of a constitution’ and Elster (1988b: 6) refers to ‘the rare moments in a nation’s history when deep, principled discussion transcends the log-rolling and horse-trading of everyday majority politics, the object of these debates being the principles which are to constrain future majority decisions’.

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matters dominate its agenda and the convention is likely to bring to the fore a large variety of participants, problems and solutions. The more open the decision and access structures are, and the longer the convention lasts, the more likely it is that constitutional reform becomes an overXowing ‘garbage can’, making it diYcult to reach a joint decision (Cohen, March and Olsen 1972). In routine politics, attention and access are organized diVerently. All democracies live with tensions and contradictions between institutions, principles and ordering ideas (Lepsius 1990; Orren and Skowronek 2004). Yet, political organizations also develop standard mechanisms for absorbing and coping with conXict by separating issues in time and space. A number of organizational processes, such as sequential attention, local rationality and the creation of buVers of slack resources, make it possible to live with enduring tensions much of the time (Cyert and March 1963). An extensive use of specialized and segmented structures has the eVect that conXicts are routinely limited and curtailed. Some issues are removed from the public agenda and government intervention. DiVerent institutions based on diVerent logics regulate diVerent aspects of political and social life. They prescribe partly incompatible rules and shape citizens diVerently. Consider, for example, the institutional diVerentiation of modern society, such as the separation of law-making, execution and adjudication. Specialization and separation into institutional spheres make it legitimate to give access only to a restricted number of participants. Likewise, it becomes legitimate to pay attention to a limited number of normative and causal considerations viewed as relevant to a speciWc institution or role (Weber 1978). Sometimes tensions or collisions between institutions create inconsistency and incoherence and become a source of change. Yet, most of the time organizational specialization and separation of attention and access make a system function in acceptable ways in spite of diversity and contradictions. Open structures such as a constituent assembly can only beneWt to a limited degree from these organizational mechanisms for delimiting and constraining disputes. For example, the break-up of Czechoslovakia, where ‘the failure to create a new constitution was closely related to the failure of keeping the country together’, illustrates the fact that a constitution-making process may itself foster conXicts by bringing to the forefront divisive issues that possibly could have been accommodated with less conXict by other types of processes (Elster, OVe and Preuss 1998: 64). Even in a fairly homogeneous and stable country such as Norway, aversion to comprehensive constitutional reform is partly based on the fear that such a reform would provoke ‘unnecessary conXicts’. The frequent use of the ‘don’t wake a sleeping bear’ argument suggests that Norwegian political leaders believe that a convention or a

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general constitutional commission would not be able to cope with conXict as well as routine processes based on institutional specialization and separation (Olsen 2002a). Paine suggested that the attempt of the American states to constitute a federal government was an opportunity for ‘seeing government begin’ and in 1791 he also speculated that ‘for what we can foresee, all Europe may form but one great republic and man be free of the whole’ (Paine 1984[1791–2]: 185, 209). Can existing ideas on constitutional change and institutional dynamics contribute to a better understanding of the ongoing European political transformations and in particular, the role of reXection and deliberate choice? Can students of constitutional and institutional change learn something new from European integration, as an attempt at supranational and peaceful constitution-making?

EUROP E’S CONSTITUTIONAL MOMENT? Historically, the European political order has to a large extent been constituted and reconstituted through conquest and colonization, rebellion, revolution and civil war (Bartlett 1993; Tilly 1993). In contrast, the EU is a non-violent attempt to develop a polity out of sovereign nation-states. It is an experiment still in Xux that does not Wt the usual categories such as ‘state’ or ‘international organization’ (LaVan, O’Donnel and Smith 2000).

Constituted government It can safely be concluded that the post-war European trend is towards more integration and institutionalized cooperation. Half a century of cooperation has produced a large-scale, heterogeneous, multi-tiered and multi-centred polity. Territorial boundaries and agendas have expanded, and a dense institutional order, a quasi-federal polity and a system of governance based on constitution-like treaties have developed.11 The Union is based on four basic treaties and more than 700 articles, 50 protocols and 100 declarations (Stubb 2001: 7), as well as important court decisions (Slaughter, Stone Sweet and Weiler 1998; Weiler 1999). There has been a development from a limited-purpose organization to a full-blown polity with the express aim of 11 Kohler-Koch and Eising 1999; Wallace and Wallace 2000; Hooghe and Marks 2001; Stone Sweet, Sandholtz and Fliegstein 2001.

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reconciling all of the following: economic competitiveness and eYciency, global inXuence, military security, social inclusion and justice, ecological sustainability, democratic governance, human rights, and protection of national identities, language and cultural diversity and distinctiveness. Territorial cleavages have been supplemented by non-territorial ones (Egeberg 2001, 2006; Hix 2001; Hooghe and Marks 2001). For some time, the Union has been involved in a constitutionalization process, yet there is no agreement as to whether the EU has a constitution, whether it needs one, and if so, what kind of constitution is needed for what kind of polity (Joerges, Me´ny and Weiler 2000). One suggestion is that the Union has a constitution in legal terms but is lacking a constitutional theory in which its foundational values have been worked out. The hierarchy of rules is rooted in neither a hierarchy of normative authority nor a hierarchy of real power (Weiler 1995, 1999, 2001). The Union has never agreed upon a coherent long-term plan for an endpoint for its polity-building—a Wnalite´ politique. There are competing purposes and partly incompatible conceptions of the form that Europe should take, from a federal polity to a free-market area. The meaning and signiWcance of democracy as a normative standard is contested (Majone 1998) and since many key terms are loaded with symbols and interpreted diVerently within diVerent political and legal traditions, misunderstandings are common. Among key actors there is disagreement about how the emerging polity can best be described, explained, justiWed, consolidated or changed. Of course, these are characteristics shared to some degree by all democratic states. But these features are more critical in the EU because of the high level of consensus required for change. Furthermore, because the Union is ‘the Wrst-ever attempt to construct democracy at a level beyond that of the nation state’, there is no obvious precedent or blueprint to be copied. Neither is it clear how democracy can be organized beyond the individual country, in a Union that covers an increasing part of the European continent (Prodi 2001c).

Constituting government: through what processes? Among scholars there is also little agreement on how constitutional and institutional developments in the EU can best be understood. Nevertheless, the interpretative frameworks and models that have been applied are not very diVerent from those used to analyse other polities. Some understand the dynamics of the emerging polity as deliberate choices (Moravcsik 1998). Others see change as part of a historical process involving the evolution and

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long-term transformation of European nation-states (Wessels, Maurer and Mittag 2003), or as the outcome of incremental, gardening-like processes (Kohler-Koch 1999; Olsen 2000). A standard interpretation of Union dynamics is to see developments as the result of rational choice and bargaining among the major member states (Moravcsik 1998). There have been important treaty agreements, but also disappointments, such as the Treaties of Amsterdam and Nice, where it was impossible to agree on major reforms. The ratiWcation of the Maastricht Treaty turned out to be problematic and the fate of the Draft Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe is highly uncertain. It has also been argued that the Union is able to negotiate only one thing at a time (Stubb 2001) and, partly as a consequence, a process of intergovernmental conferences (IGCs) has become institutionalized. In Wfteen years, the Union’s basic treaties have been revised four times. The European political order, then, has not been established by a single constituent assembly or a linear process. There have been Wts and starts and sometimes seemingly haphazard developments (Dehousse and Majone 1994: 194). The Union has decided issues where consensus has been achievable, and postponed the rest. Periods of spurts in integration have been followed by stagnation and Eurosclerosis. Cycles of political and legal integration have not always been synchronized (Slaughter, Stone Sweet and Weiler 1998; Weiler 1999). Furthermore, bargaining has taken place within an ecology of other processes of change and an adequate comprehension seems to require insight into a variety of loosely coupled processes (Sverdrup 2000). Consider competitive selection. Over the last Wfty years, the EU has been only one of several attempts at European integration. Compared to the other initiatives, such as the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), the EU has proved its competitiveness and has continuously attracted new members. While the Union has not had any ready-made template to copy, it has imitated rules and ideas from other international organizations and member states. Important developments have also been the result of processes of institution-speciWc learning and adaptation. For example, the Common Assembly, on its own initiative, renamed itself the European Parliamentary Assembly. In 1986 the name was formalized to the European Parliament. This change took place after a long period of deliberate ambiguity, where the name was diVerent in diVerent languages and translations, reXecting diVerent opinions about what the institution should be (Bainbridge 2000). Likewise, the body of people formulating the Charter of Fundamental Rights in the European Union renamed itself a ‘convention’, a name with clear constitutional overtones (Mene´ndez 2002: 1).

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Generally, institution-speciWc learning and adaptation has taken place as new institutions have tried to develop acceptable working relationships with other institutions and Wnd their place in the larger political order (LaVan 1999: 255). Language development, with an increasing use of English in many EU fora, is also primarily a process of local adaptation (Karlsson 1999). Both language development and the rewriting of European history books (Soysal 2002) are part of a change in the cultural basis of European governance and constitution-making. The same is true for the type of change through regeneration reXected in the ‘banal Europeanization’ taking place as new generations, through daily practices, come to take their belonging to the Union as a given fact (Cram 2001). However, while a common Xag or currency is increasingly becoming a given fact for a new generation, the war experiences that have been so important for European integration may fade into the background as an older generation bent on preventing a new war in Europe dies out. The specialized and segmented processes of adaptation and incremental constitution-building have to a limited degree been given systematic direction by a single European political discourse. As late as 1996, there was a ban on talking about a constitution in Brussels (Fossum 2000: 121) and often major decisions have been made without public debate or even much notice of what was going on. Furthermore, there has been a tendency to act Wrst and then make sense of the acts (Weiler 1999: 5). The causal and moral beliefs and the identities of European citizens are still primarily shaped by national contexts and possibly it might take at least one more generation to build a truly ‘res publica Europae’ (Ku¨hnhardt 2001). Supplementing a dominant functional discourse of European development with a democratic-normative discourse, however, has become one possible source of constitutional dynamics. The trend was sparked by the problematic ratiWcation of the (Maastricht) Treaty on European Union (1992) and involves a politicization of both substantive content and the process of change used. Before Maastricht, European dynamics were primarily portrayed as part of a functional project and a question of expediency and eVective performance. Member states were cooperating to satisfy their predetermined national interests. After Maastricht, a national go-it-alone approach was no longer an answer (Commission 2002: 3). Increasingly, however, EU dynamics have also been driven by a normative-educational project—a pursuit of meaning and identity and an eVort to make the Union democratically accountable. Bargaining over the Amsterdam and Nice Treaties, for example, involved more than an aggregation of predetermined preferences (Sverdrup 2002). So did the Constitutional Convention, and for some time there have been signals

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of a desire to move from market-building to democracy-building. The aim has been to bring European institutions closer to the citizens, reduce a perceived democratic deWcit, and win back the trust and support of the citizens of Europe.12 Disputes now concern the normative foundations of the Union—the criteria and principles that should underpin its institutions and their interrelations, and the fundamental rights and obligations of its citizens.

Problems of routine politics and the faith in a Convention As shown in earlier chapters, one complaint from those aiming at radical constitutional change is that decades of bargaining in intergovernmental conferences, processes of historical drift, incremental reforms, learning and adaptations have not produced acceptable results. They argue that the need for comprehensive change has not been eliminated. The EU, as a system of governance, meets neither standards of functional eYciency nor democratic standards. The problems are also expected to increase as the Union is enlarged. Radical reforms are claimed to be necessary in order to prevent increased size and heterogeneity from creating a stalemate or reversing the trend of integration. Some also see incremental processes as almost inevitably leading to deWcits and pathologies and to an opaque, inscrutable and cumbersome system (Schuppert 1995: 360). For example, the Commission has branded the intergovernmental method of revising the Treaties as the cause of the problems. The method is time-consuming, with drawn-out negotiations and decisions taken in the middle of the night by exhausted heads of state or government. It makes the process hostage to the veto of individual states and therefore produces timid solutions and paralysis, rather than giving an answer to what the Union wants to achieve and what the nature of the European project is. The four basic Treaties are a source of confusion, inconsistency and reduced eVectiveness (Commission 2002). According to the then-President of the Commission a new reform method was needed: ‘We cannot think about building a new democratic Union if we leave the task of preparing and deciding on the new constitutional structure of the Union to Governments and oYcials’ (Prodi 2001c: 3). The Declaration on the Future of Europe, an Annex to the Treaty of Nice, initiated a process of constitutionalization. A Convention with broad representation was set up to

12 European Council 2001a, b; Prodi 2001c.

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prepare a document for the next IGC—a conference that was supposed to revise the Treaties and possibly culminate in a European Constitution.13 The Commission portrayed the Convention as a deliberate break with the past and a radically new approach to change. The convention was expected to ‘take the European project forward’. The sizeable contingent of parliamentarians was supposed to strengthen the role of the people; involve the European Parliament and national parliaments more directly in the reform of the Union; help win back the trust and support of the citizens of Europe; and create a feeling of common purpose. According to the Commission, the challenge was not to issue a political declaration, or write a legal text, but to establish a constitution with real impact on political and social life. The Convention was expected to submit a truly constitutional text that explained what the Union is and what it is for, a text that could serve as the basis for ‘a subsequent renovation of the institutional system’. The role of the institutions had to be deWned within a single arrangement and all institutions should refocus on their core task and agree to undergo root-and-branch reform (Commission 2002: 4, 18; Prodi 2001a, c, d). As so often in the past, Eurospeak was interspersed with grand phrases: Europe was seen to ‘set course towards a new era’; the Union had ‘launched a new constitutional phase in the building of Europe’; a ‘historic turning point’ was expected.14 The success of grand reforms, however, is not guaranteed. Already the Preamble to the Treaty of Rome (1957) had spoken of an ‘ever closer union among the peoples of Europe’. For some this vision has been what the French institutionalists called a theme of development or a directing idea (Broderick 1970). The idea has in particular been institutionalized in the Commission, as the guardian of the Treaties, in the European Parliament and in the European Court of Justice. Some full-time participants have kept the idea alive even in periods of Eurosclerosis. Throughout the history of the EU, drafts for a federalization and constitutionalization of the Union have been produced. But such drafts have never mobilized broad support. Member states have tended to be conservative and several members, among them the United 13 The Convention on the Future of the European Union was led by former French president Valery Giscard d’Estaing, and was opened on 28 February 2002. The Convention was a hybrid organization, not a proper constitutive assembly. It did not have any formal decision-making authority. The task was to prepare the issues for the next IGC. The members were not elected by the people. The 105 participants and their substitutes, representing more than half a billion Europeans, were appointed by a variety of institutions. Member states, the ten countries that had been offered EU membership (and are now members), and the candidates Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey each had two representatives from their parliament and one from their government. Furthermore, there were 16 representatives from the European Parliament and two from the Commission. The report was delivered in June 2003 (Convention 2003). 14 For example, Commission 2001a, 2002; European Council 2001a, b; Prodi 2001c, d.

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Kingdom and the Scandinavian countries, did not want to move in a federal direction in the Convention, a development they interpreted as a centralization of power in Brussels. Nor did they see a need to rethink the basic institutional architecture of the Union. Some wanted a free market protected from governmental intervention (The Economist 2000). Some preferred intergovernmental cooperation, not more supranationality. Others saw a constitution as a symbol related to the nation-state (Grimm 1995) and did not want the EU to become a state. Even a simpliWcation of the Treaties was problematic for some. For example, the Swedish prime minister argued that Treaty articles are the result of delicate compromises and simpliWcation would be diYcult without changing their content (Persson 2001: 3). The challenge was therefore to build consensus around a political project in a context where a shared vision of the future Europe, or a common analysis of the present situation, could not be assumed. In this situation, the EU pinned its faith on the Convention model, a model that could be expected to work only under special circumstances. In doing so, the Union also locked itself into an organizational framework where the price of failure was high.

Constitutional moment or (temporary) equilibrium? Is the European Union, then, currently at a crossroads, facing a constitutional moment? Is it still likely that the processes initiated by the Convention will be able to do what executives and diplomats have not accomplished so far? Or has the EU reached a constitutional equilibrium after a spurt in integration since the mid-1980s? Has the Union entered a new cycle, a period of consolidation, or a retreat to intergovernmentalism in which the Council is strengthening its role? Before the Convention had started its work there were already diVerent expectations among students of European integration. Optimistic scenarios could Wnd some support in Habermas’ (1998) argument that Europeans can constitute themselves as a nation of citizens based on acceptance of common legal rules, and that constitutionalization might encourage a new European consciousness and change current power constellations. Mene´ndez (2002) added that as the Union had focused on transparency, democratic representation and participation, and rights and freedoms as foundational principles of the Union, these themes could not easily be excluded again from European constitutional politics. There was also considerable scepticism, however. Scharpf (1999a) argued that the preconditions for a Union operating on the basis of governance by the people and majority democracy was lacking and he saw legitimacy as

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depending primarily upon the Union’s problem-solving capacity. Schmitter (2000) concluded that a full-scale constitutionalization was currently impossible because member states were not ready for a major overhaul of their ruling institutions. Freezing a constitutional settlement was premature in a period of enlargement and Xux. Such change would require that the Union use a larger time-frame and mobilize citizens in deliberation and referenda. Stubb (2001) also predicted that those expecting radical Treaty changes were likely to be disappointed and Moravcsik (2002) concluded that the EU was approaching the end of a decade of institutional reform. In his opinion we could already glimpse a constitutional compromise that was likely to remain stable and serve as the end-point of European integration for the foreseeable future. We would not have a super-state but a federation narrower and weaker than existing nation-states. Before the Convention had come to a conclusion, Olsen (2003a) argued that an institutional perspective and the reform history of the EU pointed in the same direction. In the absence of a major crisis and ‘great mentalityshaping events’ (Habermas 1988: 12) changing who and what Europeans identify with, European constitutionalization and institutionalization was likely to be a lengthy process. It was unlikely that the European political order would be radically changed by the discrete acts of the Convention and the subsequent IGC. There might be a simpliWcation of constitutional texts and a formal codiWcation of earlier achievements in integration. The convention might also take signiWcant steps towards a new order. Still, the convention and the IGC were likely to be part of a long-term process, stretching backwards in time as well as far into the future. While the Wnal result of the Convention, the IGC and the ratiWcation process remains to be seen, the Dutch and French ‘no’ seems to conWrm that it is diYcult to cope with conXict at constitutional moments. The draft Constitution codiWed some changes. It made some simpliWcations and modiWcations. Yet the draft Constitution did not propose radical change, discontinuously replacing one political order with another. It was more a part of a long-term process than a discrete event—a foundational act at a constitutional moment. From an institutional point of view it is less surprising that ratiWcation turned out to be problematic than that the Convention was able to reach (more or less) consensus on a text. From an institutional perspective it is interesting that in its work processes the Presidency of the Convention used several organizational techniques of specialization and separation known from routine politics to buVer conXicts (see Chapter 2 above). The proceedings, for example, were divided into separate phases of listening, analysis and choice, making the decision phase rather brief. Easier issues were attended to Wrst and the more diYcult ones

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had to wait. The Convention was sequentially presented with small groups of paragraphs, not a full constitutional draft. The Convention also used ambiguity to buVer conXict. For example, the draft Treaty embraced both ‘a Europe of states’ and ‘a Europe of citizens’. These two principles have very diVerent implications in a Union where member states have from 400,000 to more than 80 million inhabitants, and the dilemma was reXected in the proposal for a double majority of states and citizens. Yet, the relationship between the two principles was not spelled out in any detail. Furthermore, while the Convention was more transparent than any of its predecessors, public attention was still limited. During the process only 28% of the population had heard about the Convention (Petersson et al. 2003) and Europe never issued its ‘Federalist Papers’ explaining and justifying the outcome to citizens. Those who hoped for a grand European debate on the future of Europe were also disappointed. The Convention called for a period of reXection and debate but the results have been modest.

CONCLUSION The aim of this chapter has been to contribute to a better understanding of the processes through which political order and organized government is constituted and reconstituted in democratic contexts, and in particular the role played by explicit choice at ‘constitutional moments’. A key observation is that the European Union has faced challenges and balancing acts well known from other polities. The Union has also coped with the challenges by using a repertoire of processes of change frequently observed in other organized settings. The imperfections of these routine processes have from time to time created tensions and demands for comprehensive reform. Yet the EU has not invented a panacea for improving the role of reXection and choice in the development of political constitutions and institutions. As in other polities, it has been diYcult to achieve agreement and allegiance when new comprehensive designs and foundational decisions have been proposed. Like other polities, the EU has been better able to cope with tensions and disputes through routine politics than through single constitutive decisions. While the EU is often portrayed as a sui generis phenomenon, one conclusion is that studies of European integration do not invite a major revision or rejection of available theoretical ideas and analytical frameworks developed in quite diVerent historical and institutional contexts.

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While observing the birth of organized government may yield special insights, we have been warned by Bagehot about the diYculty of studying a changing object, in particular constitutional change, where it may take many years to discover the real consequences of reforms. Whether European integration is currently in a period of consolidation or is facing a constitutional moment, it is important to avoid myopic theories based solely on the most recent developments. A well-developed theory of the dynamics of constituting and reconstituting organized government, in particular how institutions mediate between institutional choice and drift, must be relevant for the European Union as well as for other polities. Such a theory would require the reconciliation of diVerent time-perspectives on change. It would include long-term trends of integration, countervailing and period-speciWc cyclical diVerences in the tempo of (dis)integration, and situational, moment-speciWc change, when single events or decisions create windows of opportunity and perturbations around a trend or cycle. Theory-builders would also have to observe how changes in legal rules, in the living institutions of governance, and in language, identities and the cultural basis of EU governance may follow diVerent patterns and have diVerent rhythms. Along the way, the Union has faced collisions between national political, administrative and constitutional traditions that can lead to constructive tensions, innovations and reinterpretations. Collisions, however, can also cause destructive conXicts and the breakdown of political order. The exact conditions for the diVerent trajectories are diYcult to specify, yet the theme of the next two chapters is what consequences European cooperation and integration have had for the Union’s component unit, the territorial state.

Part IV New and old political orders

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10 The Europeanization of the territorial state? IMPACTS OF EUROP EAN INTEG RATION ‘Europeanization’ is understood in this chapter as change in the core domestic institutions of governance as a consequence of the development of Europeanlevel institutions, identities and policies.1 Attention will be focused upon how, through what processes, and to what degree European inXuence is exerted at the domestic level. What kind of adaptation pressure can be observed from the European Union? Is there a collision between principles of organization and governance at the European and the domestic levels? Are domestic impacts so profound that they represent a challenge to territorial states? Are states drained of functions, powers and responsibilities, so that their sovereignty and capacity for collective action, as well as their character as nationstates, democratic states, or welfare states, are modiWed or transformed? Has the sovereign state, as the key component unit of the Westphalian order, been replaced or transformed, creating discontinuity in the European political order? To the extent that the European experiment in political organization and governance challenges the territorial state, there is a need to explore which European-level institutions and actors matter the most and why some states and institutions undergo more profound change than others. What are member states motivated and able to do and what determines the responses of domestic institutions, including their ability to ignore, buVer, redeWne, counteract, or exploit European-level pressures? Furthermore, there is a need to explore what kind of structure has emerged, how much and what remains of the old order, whether the diversity has been reduced and convergence increased, and how elements of a new order may co-exist with the old. First, some institutional processes inXuencing domestic impacts are discussed. Second, it is argued that a speciWc characteristic of the European setting is a combination of uneven adaptation pressures from the European level and well-entrenched domestic institutions. Third, some empirical observations of actual domestic impacts are examined. Finally, two mechanisms mediating 1 Olsen 2002b; Featherstone and Radaelli 2003; Bo¨rzel 2005; Bulmer 2006; Chapter 3 above.

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between legal and ‘living’ institutions, rules and practices, and between the new and the old order, are explored: how institutions Wnd their place in a larger political order, and implementation-deWcit seen as a possible safety valve for European cooperation and integration.

I N S TI T U T I O NA L M E DI AT I O N From an institutional perspective, under what conditions can we expect modest or strong domestic impacts, and what is the likely importance of basic processes such as imposition, competitive selection and experiential learning? Imposition of new institutions requires considerable concentration of power and power diVerentials (Stinchcombe 1968: 108–9). This top-down perspective assumes a dominant actor, a political centre, with the capacity to monitor, implement and enforce collective decisions, eventually through coercion. In situations of conXict, adaptive processes are likely to be asymmetric. Resourceful actors require others to adapt rather than adapting their own structures, while less resourceful actors have to adapt to recalcitrant environments (Deutsch 1966b: 111). Another standard interpretation of adaptation is that institutions emerge, are transformed, or are maintained as a function of exchanges between selfinterested rational actors. In one case, institutions are spontaneous by-products of a voluntary exchange among actors without any shared interests or ends. A large number of actors observe the comparative eYciency of alternative patterns of organization. They reorient and adapt their behaviour on the basis of such interpretations, and as a result some institutions Xourish and others disappear. In another case, a small group of identiWable actors who share an end are seen as the architects of institutions. Institutions are established as self-interested actors make a contract binding themselves to a collective project and establishing mechanisms for control and enforcement which keep a structure in place. Institutions are self-sustaining ParetoeYcient equilibria, i.e. no actor has an incentive to change (Hechter 1990, Goodin 1996b). In models of competitive selection, environmental imperatives are seen as driving the process of change, and there is a need to understand the mechanism of variation, selection and retention. Institutions and actors are Wxed and their survival and growth rates depend on their performance and, comparative advantages and how well they ‘match’ their changing functional and normative environments. Only the most eYcient institutions survive. The others disappear. In experiential learning institutions change on the basis

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of experiences with, and interpretations of, the response of relevant actors in the environment to alternative forms of domestic organization and governance. Environmental actors may be indiVerent to the focal domestic institution or may be actively promoting speciWc forms. They may dictate prescriptions or allow considerable discretion and local autonomy. In all cases, forms and actions assessed as successful are more likely to be repeated and developed. Likewise, unsuccessful forms are more likely to be avoided. We need to understand which experiences actors are exposed to, how they interpret and assess what has happened and why it has happened, and to what degree they are able to store, retrieve and act upon information. There is normative as well as functional pressure of adaptation and institutions are then seen to change as general cultural rules and accounts, not individual purposes and choices, are enacted. New organizations become legitimate by adopting structures, procedures, personnel arrangements, and statutes which are seen as appropriate in their environments. The isomorphy hypothesis suggests that institutions which frequently interact or are exposed to each other over time develop similarities in organizational structures, processes, recruitment patterns, structures of meaning, principles of resource allocation, and reform patterns.2 Processes producing isomorphy can be coercive—a structure is imposed; normative—a structure is imitated because it is technically superior; or mimetic—a structure is copied as a way to avoid uncertainty (DiMaggio and Powell 1991: 67). Since the parts of an institution that are exposed to other institutions are most likely to develop isomorphy, administrative units, for example, are more likely to become isomorphic than core working units (Scott and Meyer 1994: 117). The degree of isomorphy will also be more extensive in formal constitutions and organization charts, declarations of purpose, and educational and professional credentials of employees, than in actual practices, structures of meaning and allocation of resources (Meyer and Rowan 1977). Structure breeds structure. Isomorphy is most likely in environments with stable, formalized and clear-cut organizational structures (Scott and Meyer 1994: 118). The institutional understanding of patterns of adaptation used in this book is more sceptical of the eYciency of isomorphic processes and institutional adaptation in general. This approach starts from the idea that an institution is likely to adapt routinely to pressure that is consistent with or enhances its identity, status and power. A corollary is that institutions are likely to resist pressures that threaten their identity, status and power (March and Olsen 1989). Institutions also have diVerent capacities of adaptation and there are 2 Meyer and Rowan 1977; Thomas et al. 1987; DiMaggio and Powell 1991; Brunsson and Olsen 1993; Scott and Meyer 1994.

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varying institutional traditions for rule-following, adaptation, and styles of confrontation or compromise (Sverdrup 2004). The autonomy hypothesis argues that all institutions develop some resilience towards changes in their functional, normative and power environments. The most standard institutional response to novelty is to Wnd a routine in the existing repertoire of routines that can be used (March and Olsen 1989: 34). External changes are interpreted and responded to through existing institutional frameworks, including existing causal and normative beliefs about legitimate institutions and the appropriate distribution, exercise and control of power. Established rules and roles often persist, not through cost–beneWt calculations, but because an organization does not search for or consider alternatives unless there is some kind of performance crisis (March and Simon 1958: 168, 173). Therefore, from an institutional perspective we should not expect processes of adaptation to be perfect, making adaptation automatic, continuous and precise. The argument is not that institutions are immune to environmental change. As argued in other chapters, the basic idea is that history is ‘ineYcient’ in matching practices and structures to environments. Institutionalization strengthens the borders around sets of activities. It buVers external turbulence and provides a transformative capacity (Polsby 1975: 277, 289) but often adaptation is taking place in a world not easily understood or controlled. The rate of adaptation may be inconsistent with the rate of change in the environment to which the institution is adapting, and there may be no single optimal institutional response to changes in the environment (March 1981). Internal processes of attention, interpretation, decision-making and work may slow down, accelerate, reverse or redirect change, as a function of how well external changes and reforms ‘match’ institutional identities, histories and dynamics (March and Olsen 1989, 1995). An implication is that one needs to know institutional histories, structures and internal dynamics in order to predict institutional responses and adaptations (see Chapter 2 above). Practices and rules reXect the lessons of cumulative experience, and experiential learning includes what is likely to be seen as legitimate goals, beliefs, behaviour, processes, structures, resources and outcomes in a culture. Learning includes matters such as how formal competencies are to be used, who has real power, who can be trusted, how diVerent actors are likely to react, and the conditions of peaceful co-existence in the face of enduring diVerences, tensions and conXicts. Experience, however, does not guarantee improved intelligence (March 1999b). In fairly stable and simple worlds, learning may contribute to improvement. When the world is complex and unstable, experience may not be a good teacher and the wrong lessons may be learned (March and Olsen 1975, 1976). It may be easier to arrive at shared (reliable) interpretations than true

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(valid) ones (March 1994a). The mixture of formal rules and informal norms is not easily learned (Wilks 1992). Furthermore, properties of political life make even shared interpretations somewhat unlikely, e.g. the conXictual nature of politics, strong ideologies and convictions, and high turnover in personnel. In addition, in politics results often emerge only after long time-periods and then causal connections are diYcult to discern, analytical capabilities and causal understandings are often modest, and memories have faded. Likewise, the capability of modifying behaviour and structures on the basis of experience is limited (March and Olsen 1995; Olsen and Peters 1996). Profound and abrupt adaptations, with a sudden elimination and replacement of established practices, meanings, and resource allocations, can be expected only under special circumstances. In particular, this is true for core properties which deWne the identity of an institution and in tightly coupled orders, where change in one part requires concurrent changes in many other parts (Hernes 1976: 543). Viable democracies, for example, require some stability and coherence in their practices. Governance refers to an institutionalized pattern of stabilized power and rule, principles, and codes of conduct (Friedrich 1963: 182) and democracies place severe restrictions on amending the basic rules of polities, in particular in heterogeneous societies (Weaver and Rockman 1993: 464). A relatively harmonious institutional development, rather than an accumulation of tensions and crises and institutional breakdowns, then, depends on the ability of institutions simultaneously to absorb or respond to environmental changes and protect their basic identity and integrity. From an institutional perspective, one would expect that the scenario of adaptation processes creating radical breaks with the past—that is, the start of a new and distinct historical epoch dominated by a new order with speciWc foundational characteristics (monarchy into republic, dictatorship into democracy) and the end of another epoch and order based on other foundational characteristics—is likely only if a high concentration of power is combined with a perceived performance crisis and the availability of a superior alternative. Elements of both old and new orders are more likely to co-exist when adaptation takes place in slow motion and is driven by piecemeal reforms based on everyday experiential learning and mutual adaptation. In many respects the European Union is closer to the latter than the former pattern. The Union combines a modest and uneven European adaptation pressure with well-entrenched domestic institutions. Adaptation pressure has been uneven over policy areas, member states, and diVerent historical periods and, as shown in Chapter 2, the territorial state in Europe is founded on a cluster of historically developed, strong institutions, and there are important diVerences between institutional arrangements and historical trajectories among member states.

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While there has been disagreement about how European political dynamics can best be understood, mainstream research tends to interpret cooperation in the European Union as voluntary and allowing only a modest role for imposition and coercion. Restrained use of majority voting is also seen to strengthen this tendency. Domestic adaptation is primarily understood as a result of functional imperatives and competitive selection, or as driven by political intentions, interests and power. In the former, integration is an unintended by-product, with some versions seeing integration as self-sustaining and self-reinforcing, as growing interdependence makes the nation-state less functional and breeds European cooperation. In the latter, self-interested actors are the architects of political order, and institutional developments are the result of intergovernmental bargains or the leadership of supranational oYcials (Moravcsik 1993, 1998; Jachtenfuchs 1995).

Adaptation pressure The European Union is a multi-centred and multi-tiered mixed political order that does not easily Wt on one side or the other of conventional dichotomies, such as federal state vs international organization, or supranational vs intergovernmental arrangement. New layers have been added rather than old ones being replaced and hybrid and nested structures have emerged. The Union has exclusive competencies and distinct structures and procedures and is more than an international organization and an arena for bargaining among national actors. The number of Union laws and rules (acquis communautaire) is considerable and in several ways the EU represents a unique achievement in cooperation and integration. Nevertheless, the degree of institutionalization, in terms of shared and enduring practices, meanings, and resources, is in many respects limited, uneven and unWnished at the Union level. The boundaries of the European Community/Union have changed frequently and are still uncertain. It is also unclear how much, and what, European governments and peoples want to have in common, and what institutional arrangements are acceptable. There are demands for diVerentiated membership and ‘variable geometry’, rather than equal rights and obligations for all member states and citizens. The current order is Xuid, with little precise clariWcation of the competencies of the Union and member states. The Union has no ‘kompetenz-kompetenz’,

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i.e. authority to change its own competence, and its coercive capacity and eVective threat have been described as weak (Wincott 1995: 7). The EU is not based on a single treaty, a unitary structure, or a single dominating centre of authority and power. Rather, the Union is built on several treaties and a complex three-pillar structure. The pillars are organized on diVerent principles and supranational–intergovernmental mixes (Dehousse 1994). The decision-making structure is complex, fragmented and ad hoc, with overlapping and unclear jurisdictions and (still) a large number of diVerent procedures for making decisions. Individual Directorate-Generals have developed distinct styles of operation. The institutional apparatus for providing common analysis and assessment as a basis for collective action is small in many policy areas and key terms like ‘union’, ‘federation’ and ‘subsidiarity’ have diVerent meanings in diVerent member states. More often than not, diVerent groups read diVerent things into existing structures and developments (Sbragia 1994; Chapter 8 above). The EU is dependent on national administrations, organized interests and business Wrms for co-funding of programmes, information, and implementation of policies. Compared to the nation-state, the EU has only a modest ability to extract and allocate resources and raise taxes, and modest budgets and staV create signiWcant constraints on what the EU can do. Regulation has become the main policy instrument partly because costs may be transferred to the regulated, and conXicts among member states about the distribution of costs and beneWts can be avoided (Majone 2005). The EU also serves as an arena for horizontal information-exchange, and the interdependence of the Union, member states, organized interests and Wrms is reXected in the development of functional networks of policy specialists between levels and branches of government and across public–private borders. There are complex networks between levels and branches of government and across public–private boundaries (Siedentopf and Ziller 1988; Peters 1992; Edwards and Spence 1994). Arguably, an extended agenda has been compensated for by increased participation of national actors at all stages of EU policy-making processes (Dehousse et al. 1992: 49) and one interpretation is that member states have ‘successfully nationalized the Community’ (Kassim and Wright 1991: 841). While national governments continue to be a main route through which European policy-makers are lobbied by regional and local governments, governments are also bypassed (Goldsmith 1993: 698), and between 1985 and 1992 the number of lobbyists in Brussels quadrupled (Andersen and Eliassen 1993: 37). None the less, the EU can be expected to exert pressure on domestic institutions in several ways. The evolving European order provides a new framework for political life that is likely to inXuence attention patterns, i.e. the

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search for, exposure to and diVusion of information. New networks are also likely to inXuence what inferences are drawn, as participants discover new causal and moral schemes for interpreting and evaluating information. Attention may be called to new, technically superior solutions or to new myths. Aspiration levels and standards of comparison may change as diVerences between nation-states are discovered, for instance diVerences in payments (Page and Wouters 1995; Peters and Hood 1995). There may be redeWnitions of what is politically necessary, possible and desirable. IdentiWcation has a signiWcant cognitive component (March and Simon 1958) and new attention patterns may therefore in the long run aVect identiWcations, belongings and loyalties. The institutional frameworks of socialization change, and so may patterns of recruitment and self-recruitment (Burnham and Maor 1994). In addition, the new European context provides an opportunity for individuals and groups with an established agenda to challenge aspects of national regimes with which they disagree (Wincott 1995: 12). Governments, administrative leaders, organized interests and others may use the uncertainties linked to European integration as a window of opportunity to promote their favourite reforms (Raadschelders and Toonen 1992a, b). For example, since the single market is the institutional centrepiece of the evolving order and there is a political, cultural and social institutional deWcit compared to the most developed welfare states in Europe, a tendency towards institutional isomorphy, where nation-states become more like the Union, would imply that some of them would have to develop a new institutional balance and character (Ferrera 2005; Leibfried 2005). Since sectorization across levels of government is strengthened, and coordination made more diYcult at both the European and national level (Christensen 1981b: 205; Scharpf 1988: 270; Siedentopf and Ziller 1988: 32, 59–60; Scharpf 1994), the role and the character of the state may be challenged primarily by a variety of centrifugal processes that jeopardize unity and create fragmentation (Raadschelders and Toonen 1992a, b). These possibilities notwithstanding, it has been argued that even without expectations of a uniWed and clear-cut system, the European constitution is confused, with no overall principle of organization (Wincott 1994: 573, 588), and that the confusing array of practices and rules reXects the fact that there is no shared vision and project, and no common understanding of the legitimate basis of a future Europe (Weiler 1992, 1993a). Therefore, it may tentatively be hypothesized that the EU does not have an institutional infrastructure, which makes it likely that nation-states will be generally undermined by developments at the European level. Adaptation pressure is relatively weak (Bulmer, 2006) and fairly often no single institutional solution, or distinctive European pattern which contrasts with national

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practices, is prescribed (Page and Wouters 1995). For example, EU directives require commitment to shared objectives and results and not to a speciWc set of domestic institutions and methods to achieve those objectives and results. The oYcial position is that the same result can be achieved equally well with diVerent institutional arrangements and this assumption gives member states discretion and allows diVerent responses and institutional adaptations. Domestic opportunity and incentive structures are modiWed, and so is the framing of politics. Yet there is room for domestic agency and a need to attend to power distributions, veto points, and possible reform coalitions at the domestic level (Knill 2001). Adaptation pressure is also uneven across member states. It is very unlikely that European laws and policies will Wt individual states’ structures, procedures, traditions, and deWnitions of appropriateness to the same degree. European ways of organizing, behaving and thinking may conform closely to those of some member states and contrast with others (Page and Wouters 1995: 187). An implication is that national and institutional responses are likely to vary, according to the degree of Wt (March and Olsen 1989, 1995). Domestic responses are also likely to vary as a function of whether or not there are policies and institutions already in place in a policy area.

Entrenched institutions DiVerentiated responses and patterns of adaptation can be expected both because EU institutions and policies are unevenly developed, so that the adaptive pressures vary, and because the old political order has been characterized by long, strong and varied institutional histories, resulting in diVerent domestic arrangements and capabilities (Rokkan 1999; Chapter 2 above). In practice, contemporary states tend not to be coherent unitary systems built on a single (or even a few) organizing principles and logics. They are rather sediments or layers of incoherent ideas, rules and institutional arrangements developed through a historical process of addition and diVerentiation (MacIntyre 1984, 1988). The ship of state has become a Xotilla, making coordination between levels, branches and sectors of government a problem.3 Functional subsystems with their own structures and dynamics are diYcult to penetrate from outside (Mayntz 1993: 14; Jachtenfuchs and Kohler-Koch 2003). The public–private boundary has become blurred and public–private dependencies have become more complex.

3 I owe this metaphor to B. Guy Peters.

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An implication is that the relation between the Union and the member states cannot be seen a priori as a relation between unitary, coherent actors. It is therefore necessary to go beyond a deWnition of adaptation as a question of relations between levels of governance and of transferring functions, powers and responsibilities from the national to the European level. Current transformations also include shifts in the relations between governmental institutions and actors at the same level of governance, and between governmental and non-governmental institutions and actors. Europeanization, then, involves, Wrst, the division of functions, responsibilities and powers between diVerent levels of governance. At issue is adaptation in the vertical distribution across levels of government, and the crux is to balance supranational and intergovernmental aspects, and to build capabilities at the European level while respecting the sovereignty and diversity of member states. The answer is supposed to be given by the principle of subsidiarity. Its core meaning is that functions should be placed as close to the citizen as possible, yet the concept has no clear accepted meaning and is open to a variety of interpretations (Blichner and Sangolt 1994). A second concern is adaptation in the horizontal distribution of functions, powers and responsibility and how the degree of consistency and coherence at the domestic level of government is aVected—whether coordinating units are strengthened, or coalitions across levels of government make coordination more diYcult at the domestic level. In particular, what is the impact on the democratic quality of governance, i.e. the role of democratic politics and accountability in the enforcement and legitimisation of public authority? Are there changes in the signiWcance of numerical strength, the power of elected representatives, the independence of the courts, and the inXuence and role perceptions of executives, civil servants, functional experts, and independent regulative agencies (Derlien 1995)? Finally, adaptation involves alteration in the role of government in society. What state rulers have been able to do has always been contingent on what other actors have let them do and have helped them do (Goodin 1996b: 13). Governance depends as much on the institutional arrangement of society as on the political organization of the state (Dyson 1980) and a Europeanization of the territorial state also includes possible changes in state–society relations. An implication is that it becomes necessary to study how European developments might have diVerent impacts on institutional spheres, how institutions attend to, interpret and respond to such developments diVerently and possibly in non-synchronized ways, and how the relations and balance between the major institutional spheres of the territorial state may be transformed (Olsen 1996). The conditions under which autonomous and mutual adaptation will lead to institutional harmonization and convergence of institutions divergent at

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the outset are not well understood (Burnham and Maor 1994). Neither do available data allow a systematic analysis of how diVerent combinations of adaptation pressure from the European level and variation in the strength of domestic institutions together generate change in member states and eventually produce institutional harmonization and isomorphy between relevant ‘counterparts’ in the European Union and the states, and between diVerent nation-states. Some light can be shed, however, upon a general expectation from an institutional perspective: since the European Union has not developed an institutional infrastructure that constitutes a serious challenge to well-entrenched institutions at the domestic level, a fundamental and abrupt change in the role of the territorial state can only be expected in a crisis, where member states have lost their functional and normative legitimacy and the EU is generally seen as a superior alternative.

A DA P TAT I O N O BS E RV E D In the mid-1980s there was a surprising revitalization of Western European cooperation, which eventually generated (among other initiatives) the Single European Act and the (Maastricht) Treaty on European Union, both seen by many as representing a new stage in European integration. In addition, the collapse of communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe stimulated belief in the possibility of a major transformation of the European political order. In 1989, ‘the year when the post-war order came crashing down’ (LaVan 1992: 1), was the year the language of crossroads and historical moments was popular. These developments led to a revival of the old theme of the future of the territorial state as the key institution of political order and rule in Europe and the locus of political power and legitimacy. European integration gave new impetus to the view that the nation-state was outdated and basically irrelevant to the major concerns of the twentieth century, responsible for major tragedies and doomed to disappear as part of the law of progress.4 Nevertheless, events soon took a new turn. In 1991 the Europhoria of Maastricht shifted to a widespread feeling of crisis, as ratiWcation became more diYcult than expected. Together with growing nationalism in Europe, the disenchantment with Maastricht, as well as the hesitant start of the 1996 Intergovernmental Conference on the future of Europe, raised a question of another kind. Perhaps the real challenge was whether nation-states would be 4 Beetham 1990; Hobsbawm 1992: 34–5, 185, 191; Schmitter 1996; Liftin 1997.

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able to exploit a unique opportunity to change the political organization of Europe and thereby possibly contribute to peace and stability, economic competitiveness and prosperity, democracy and social welfare, and sustainable ecological development throughout Europe. Yet the questions remained. What would be the implications for the state? Would its role be challenged? Was it likely that the state would wither away and the nation grow increasingly irrelevant? To what degree would national structures, procedures and policies be modiWed or replaced? How would European and national actors cope with the growing degree of interdependence, the increasingly complex networks of horizontal interaction, and the new demands for adaptation and reforms? Available interpretations of the signiWcance of European developments for the territorial state have varied widely. Some have held that integration has been having a negative eVect on the problem-solving capacity of the state and reducing the role of democratic politics in society. Member states have lost more control and capabilities to the Union (Scharpf 1999a). Social policies, for example, have become part of the market-building process, and the four freedoms, market pressure and EU regulations have produced a ‘quiet accumulation’ of constraints on domestic policy-making creating signiWcant losses of autonomy and sovereignty. These processes have been driven by law and court, and member states’ governments have not always paid much attention to how the new constraints are eroding their future autonomy and sovereignty (Leibfried 2005: 243, 256). More generally neo-functionalistic assumptions about the reduced problem-solving capacity of the state have contributed to the belief that it is not viable and will wither away. In contrast, it has been argued that it is diYcult to imagine a political world in which the nation-state is ‘transcended by some other predominant structural pattern’ (Cerny 1990: 3). Intergovernmentalists in particular have assumed that member states are still in the driver’s seat, that European institutions are arenas for intergovernmental bargaining, and that states can shape integration and veto undesirable decisions. Integration has been seen as strengthening the territorial state and the state-based order and as creating stronger rather than weaker national government (Milward 1992; Metcalfe 1994; Moravcsik 1994, 1998). A third interpretation has portrayed integration as a new stage in the history of the European state (Wessels 1996; Bartolini 2005; Ferrera 2005) and as transforming rather than strengthening or weakening the state (Kohler-Koch 1999; Kohler-Koch and Eising 1999; Hooghe and Marks 2001). Finally, it has been suggested that European-level developments may have modest impacts on domestic government (Page and Wouters 1995), and Goetz, for example, has concluded that the literature ‘casts some doubt over

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the explanatory power of ‘‘European integration’’ as a major force driving domestic executive change’ (Goetz 2001a: 220). European-level changes are just one among several drivers of domestic change, and Goetz found no straightforward connection between adaptive pressure and adaptive reactions. Therefore, he prescribed caution in treating European integration as a major independent source of change. While there are competing interpretations, the main Wndings (although with many nuances) are, Wrst, that ‘Europe matters’ and second, that there is domestic persistence and enduring diversity.5 While institutional capacitybuilding has gradually made the EU level of governance more important, predictions about the increasing irrelevance of the territorial state and the nation have not received much support. The state is still a strong actor and structural diversity persists among the core domestic institutions in spite of increasing contact and competition between national models. There has been no general trend towards isomorphism and no signiWcant convergence towards a common institutional model homogenizing the domestic structures of the European states. The autonomy hypothesis can claim some support because established domestic patterns have been resilient but also Xexible enough to cope with changes at the European level, and no new and uniWed model of dealing with Union matters has emerged. In general, EU arrangements have turned out to be compatible with the maintenance of distinct national institutional arrangements and there are even cases of reconWrmation and restoration of established national structures and practices. There have also been adaptations of domestic structures. Member states, as well as non-member states such as Norway which participate in the European Economic Area, have had to abolish or modify institutions and regulations, including some state monopolies (Ugland 2002). Opportunity structures, access to policy-making, and protection against policy-makers have changed and networks have been established (Bo¨rzel 2005). National borders have been weakened, transnational interaction and trade have been facilitated, welfare arrangements have been challenged, and new boundaries of solidarity have been drawn within and among organized interests.6 There have been signiWcant and persistent shifts of domestic attention, behaviour, resources, personnel and policies to European-level institutions and their 5 Page and Wouters 1995; Christensen 1996; Rometsch and Wessels 1996; Olsen 1997b, c; Egeberg and Trondal 1999; Harmsen 1999; Bomberg and Peterson 2000; Kassim, Peters and Wright 2000; Radaelli 2000; Sverdrup 2000; Bulmer and Burch 2001; Cowles, Caporaso and Risse 2001; Goetz 2001a; He´ritier et al. 2001; Jacobsson, Lægreid and Pedersen 2001; Kassim, et al. 2001; Ladrech 2001; Trondal 2001; Featherstone and Radaelli 2003; Wessels, Maurer and Mittag 2003; Bo¨rzel 2005; Bulmer and Lequesne 2005; Bulmer 2006; Dimitrov, Goetz and Wollmann 2006. 6 Dølvik 1997; Macey 1998; Bartolini 2005; Ferrera 2005; Leibfried 2005.

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decision-making cycles. For example, EU rhythms, time-schedules and calendars discipline domestic actors and a ‘consultation reXex’ has emerged (Ekengren 1996). There have been demands for improved domestic coordination (to achieve consistency), new information systems (to make policy-makers better informed) and national capacities for rapid reaction to European events (to facilitate faster and timelier responses) (Ekengren 1996; Kassim 2000: 236). Some copying and learning has taken place (Bo¨rzel 2005) but institutional learning across national borders has been limited (Kassim 2000: 242; Wessels, Maurer and Mittag 2003). The ability of the European level to penetrate domestic institutions, has however, not been perfect, universal or constant. EVects have been diVerentiated, not uniform. While extensive penetration of domestic institutions by European developments has taken place in some spheres, in other spheres one Wnds protected spaces, stubborn resistance and non-penetration (Wallace 1999: 3, 2000a: 371). National institutions have made a diVerence and there has been ‘domestic adaptation with national colors’ (Risse, Cowles and Caporaso 2001: 1). That is, adaptation has reXected institutional resources and traditions, the pre-existing balance of domestic institutional structures, and also ‘the broader matrices of values which deWne the nature of appropriate political forms in the case of each national polity’ (Harmsen 1999: 81). European-level developments have rarely dictated speciWc forms of institutional adaptation. In practice, as well as in theory, they have left considerable discretion to domestic actors, and European signals have been interpreted and modiWed through domestic traditions, institutions, identities and resources in ways that have limited the degree of convergence and homogenization. Adaptation has reXected variations in European pressure as well as domestic motivations and abilities to adapt. Competitive selection on the basis of comparative eYciency has been a signiWcant process in some sectors, like telecommunications (Schneider 2001: 78; Levi-Faur 2004), but competitive selection has not in general guaranteed convergence towards a ‘best practice’ and optimal institutional forms across Europe (Harmsen 1999: 84). The prospects for a ‘European Administrative Space’ will be discussed in the next chapter. Here, it is suYcient to observe that the Commission and the European Court of Justice have provided guidelines and rules that constitute elements of an administrative policy and a framework for administrative cooperation, and that Commission oYcials have been involved in dayto-day implementation and in monitoring committees in several policy areas.7 In the EU, however, attention has traditionally been on policy 7 Dehousse et al. 1992; Hagel-Sørensen 1994; Marks, Hooghe and Blank 1995; Joerges and Dehousse 2002; Egeberg 2006.

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preparation and policy-making more than administrative organization and behaviour. For a long time the inXuence on national administrative systems was largely ignored (Toonen 1992) and assessments of domestic impacts have diVered. On the one hand, European developments have been presented as an important reason for administrative reforms. Early Danish studies argued that membership in the European Community ‘necessitated an administrative adaptation of unprecedented scope’ (Christensen 1981a: 1). New structures of national coordination were developed and there was a blurring of the international/domestic distinction (Christensen 1981a, b). In Ireland it was also observed early on that ‘adaptation to the demand of EC membership was perhaps the greatest challenge faced by the Irish civil and public service since the foundation of the state’. Community membership was placing a heavy burden on the Irish public sector for which it was relatively unprepared (LaVan 1991: 190). In the Netherlands, Europeanization was portrayed as one of the foremost reasons for administrative reforms, in particular at the regional and local level (Raadschelders and Toonen 1992a, b). A study of ten smaller West European states—both member and non-member states—also concluded that adaptations to the EU were inXuenced by existing institutional arrangements and traditions, sometimes even beyond formal Union requirements (Hanf and Soetendorp 1998b). A more recent set of studies also holds that a multilevel Union administration has been evolving gradually and, as a result, domestic public administration is now parts of both a European and a domestic administrative system (Egeberg 2006). On the other hand, it has been observed that administrative departments in member states have not diVerentiated between domestic and European policies and have not designed new administrative systems based on the speciWc demands of EU policy processes or the substance of the policy to be implemented (Siedentopf and Ziller 1988; Metcalfe 1994). Page and Wouters, furthermore, concluded that 35 years after the Treaty of Rome the direct impact on national core administrations had been modest. They saw little prospect of European administration replacing national administration and found no evidence of national public sector reform imitating European structures. There was no overall European principle of organization, no logic that was intrinsically attractive and worth copying, no style or culture which was likely to spread with interaction. They saw little evidence that closer European integration would produce major changes in the organization or workings of the national administration (Page and Wouters 1995). Generally, the available data base on domestic adaptation does not invite strong, deWnitive conclusions when it comes to the Europeanization of domestic administrations, and even less so for some other domestic

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institutions. Most national parliaments, for example, started to take a serious interest in their own role in the integration process as late as the mid-1980s (Neunreither 1994) and there have been a limited number of studies of the adaptation of the polity at large, including changes in domestic politics, political cleavages, voting behaviour, elections, political parties and party systems.8 While domestic impacts are not limited to structural and policy changes, there are also relatively few studies of how Europeanization contributes to moulding public opinion and changing the role of civil society. Studies report that citizens are carriers of multiple identities more than previously and also that national identity is reaYrmed.9 Likewise, there are diVerent observations of the degree to which European values, norms, concepts, policy paradigms and identities are internalized among elites in member states, shaping domestic discourses and identities.10

A methodological note While the Europeanization literature is growing rapidly, it is still easy to agree that further theorizing depends on more and better empirical studies (Kassim and Wright 1991). It is also still reasonable to ask whether ‘Europeanization’ research is a passing fad, a political concern or a new research agenda (Featherstone and Radaelli 2003; Chapter 3 above). Furthermore, there are good methodological reasons for not drawing premature conclusions about how much change there has been in the territorial state that is attributable to European factors. First, distinctions such as Westphalian/post-Westphalian order, state/international organization, and intergovernmental/supranational may be useful for capturing change from an old to a new political order in periods when there are institutional earthquakes. Yet, such distinctions may be too crude to capture the inconsistencies, tensions and stepwise changes of mixed orders, hybrid institutions and intermediate arrangements—that is, when profound transformation of the political order takes place in slow motion and over extended periods of time. Second, there have been interesting attempts to separate the eVects of Europeanization and globalization (Verdier and Breen 2001). It has nevertheless turned out to be diYcult to trace changes at the domestic level back to European-level institutions, policies or events. Such eVects are often subtle, 8 See, however, Mair 2000; Goetz and Hix 2001; Ladrech 2001; Anderson 2002; Bartolini 2005. 9 Schlesinger 1992, 1993; Venturelli 1993; Hooghe, Marks and Wilson 1999; Hooghe and Marks 2001: 66; Risse 2004. 10 Radaelli 1997; Dyson 2000a, b; Checkel 2001a, 2005; Sbragia 2001: 80; Sjursen 2001a: 199–200.

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indirect, incremental and diYcult to measure and assess. It is also diYcult to disentangle European ‘net eVects’ from global, national and subnational sources of adaptation.11 It has been argued, for example, that radical changes in the role of the state since the 1980s have been caused primarily by a widespread feeling of a global economic threat, a turn from politics to markets, and a search for increased economic competitiveness (Suleiman 2003), rather than by European factors per se. Likewise, transnational professions such as economics have spread dominant ideas globally, and a development towards more autonomous central banks (Cowles and Risse 2001: 232–3) and a shared concept of ‘appropriate Wscal behavior’ (Sbragia 2001: 80) have not been an exclusively European phenomenon. The high intensity of competitive selection in the telecommunications sector has also resulted to a considerable extent from strong global pressure (Schneider 2001: 78; Levi-Faur 2004). Finally, claims about the domestic eVects of European-level developments are also an important part of political processes and attempts to inXuence future European developments. As long as there are competing visions for the future, claims about domestic impacts are also likely to diVer. The next section therefore aims to shed some light on how the EU’s ability to live with competing deWnitions and with co-existing elements of a new and an old order can be studied in the interface of legal and ‘living’ institutions, rules and practices.

L E G A L A N D ‘ L I V I N G’ I N S T I T U T I O N S The dominant interpretation of EU institutions is formal-legal with an emphasis on law-making, regulation, formal-legal institutions and adjudication. Lawyers and law hold a ‘peculiarly prominent position’ in the European Community (Wincott 1995: 9) and political relations and behaviour are supposed to be established by legal injunction, a view that Easton (1964: 154) called a typical European way of looking at politics. The Community/Union has traditionally been more concerned with establishing legal principles and rules than in monitoring how such rules aVect actual behaviour and outcomes (Lang 1981). Yet there have been warnings that it is unrealistic to portray the implementation and consequences of EU law-making as a legal or technical process rather than a political process (Raadschelders and Toonen 1992a, b). From a behavioral perspective it is necessary to get beyond a legal interpretation of institutional adaptation as discrete choices (law-making, 11 Radaelli 1997: 572; 2000; Bulmer and Burch 2001: 76; Levi-Faur 2004; Bo¨rzel 2005; Leibfried 2005; Bulmer 2006.

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constitutional choice, court decisions). Rather than giving priority to formal purposes and choices, the politics of adaptation can be seen as a relatively continuous sequence of preparing decisions, formal decision-making, implementation, enforcement, evaluation and feedback, where each aspect has an independent inXuence upon policy substance and institutional developments. While doctrinal coherence and logical consistency are important for courts of law and the legal community at large,12 politics, diplomacy and life in formal organizations are often observed to Xourish with ambiguities, local rationality, sequential attention and inconsistencies (see Chapter 2 above). Formal statements, decisions and structures may be ignored and remain a dead letter, or they may be Xouted, or reinterpreted during processes of implementation and enforcement. Resorting to Wne but ambiguous words is a technique frequently used when little can be done (Dell 1993). Hence, analysing how domestic and European actors actually relate to formal-legal institutions, laws, rules and regulations may possibly provide a key to understanding the evolving European–domestic institutional interface. It may shed light on how member states and the EU live up to the challenge of not only developing common formal institutions and laws, but also putting them into practice. While it is often diYcult to achieve agreement on formal rules and institutional designs in heterogeneous polities, it might be even more diYcult to mobilize political support for putting decisions into practice by having adequate resources and administrative capabilities for action in place.13 Attention to ‘living’ as well as legal institutions, and practices as well as formal rules, may illuminate the processes through which institutions develop acceptable working relationships with their environments and Wnd their place in a larger institutional arrangement that combines elements of both a new and an old order (Olsen 1997b; LaVan 1999: 255). Two such processes are considered here: how institutions develop peaceful relations with their environments, and implementation deWcit as a possible safety valve for European cooperation and integration.

12 For example, the Council’s legal service has complained about the increasing number of non-publicized statements, some of which contradict or add to the enacted terms of legislation. These interpretations may be a handy part of political negotiations, but they tend to undermine legal certainty. The number of statements or interpretations which are not part of EU legal commitments is considerable and for countries taking part in the European Economic Area who are not members of the EU, secret interpretations of implementation represent a special problem. 13 Richardson suggests that lack of resistance to European environmental legislation in the Wrst phase was due to the fact that many actors expected that the legislation could be ignored in practice. Only later did they discover the real costs involved (Richardson 1994: 143).

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Institutions Wnding their place Analytically, it is useful to distinguish between how institutions match their changing environments and how institutions manipulate their environments (Nystrom and Starbuck 1981b). In reality, however, institutions tend to co-evolve through interactive learning and adaptation as they respond to an unfolding history through several parallel and not necessarily tightly coupled processes (March 1994a; March and Olsen 1995). The intermingling of levels and branches of government and non-governmental actors, as in the European case, tends to complicate learning and adaptation. Complexity is compounded because institutions at both levels also adapt to an international environment and because each state adapts to changing internal political environments. Making sense of institutional adaptation means understanding how political actors, on the basis of more or less clear legal rules and often with sparse and ambiguous experience, make moral and causal inferences about the world, how they translate interpretations into behaviour, and how they embed action implications into practices, memories, principles of resource allocation and identities and thereby facilitate routine action. Institutionalization, then, means learning one’s place in a larger order. Institutions discover their place as they negotiate on the meaning of events and the implications for behaviour and institutions (March 1994a; March and Olsen 1995). Quite speciWc, but often inarticulate, procedural and judgemental standards are acquired (Wilks 1992: 33), usually through gradual processes of role-learning and trust-building (Bulmer 1994: 372). Such processes can be observed as EU institutions have tested out their power over time. Institutions have often not used their formal powers before precedents have been collected and there is considerable experience with the political, legal and economic feasibility of alternative behaviours and structures. In the case of new and untried institutions, it has taken time to develop competence, self-conWdence and esprit de corps, as well as legitimacy in the eyes of authorities, clients and other signiWcant groups (Wilks 1992: 7). It has also taken time for adequate resources to be committed on a routine basis and sometimes that has never happened. Enduring practices, understandings and resource allocations have evolved as actors have learnt from experience— mundane encounters in everyday life as well as historical battles—how things have worked in practice. For example, when authorities have been aware of the real relations of power, serious violations of rules have sometimes not produced reactions because those violations were perceived to have no chance of being approved

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(Lang 1981: 336). The Commission is also reported to have operated with a feeling that it could not aVord to apply the law too literally and confront the member states. Legal powers were only gradually translated into legal activism and eVective jurisdiction (Wilks 1992). Establishing the Committee of Regions and equipping it with purposes and formal powers was just a Wrst step towards an institutionalization of practices, structures of meaning and resources which decided the Committee’s real abilities to represent regional and local interests at the European level. Likewise, the European Court of Justice had to learn how a principle could be applied in order to avoid dramatic political responses (Wincott 1995: 18), and as part of becoming a ‘living’ institution the European Court of Auditors had to adapt to their domestic environments (LaVan 1999). Furthermore, the European Council grew into a new role gradually. It started as a summit and its existence was not written into any treaty until it had been in regular operation for a decade (Bulmer 1994: 364; Johnston 1994). Deviations from formal purposes, legal rules and institutional designs can be seen as pathological, and failures to be remedied. They, however, can also be seen as possible preconditions for democratic governance and for balancing continuity and change, as well as elements of old and new political orders. In this perspective an implementation deWcit can be a safety valve, rather than a threat, for the European Union.

The implementation deWcit as a safety valve Writing rules for a large number of heterogeneous countries which Wt the special and changing situation of each country is no easy task. Usually, implementation will bring to the fore ambiguities as well as unexpected and undesired implications. Therefore, it is also problematic to apply the rules fully. This is particularly the case when rules are a result of political bargaining and ‘package deals’ between several actors. Package deals are diYcult to change. Experimentation and exploration of new possibilities are hampered and it is diYcult to adapt to new circumstances by writing new rules. As a consequence, implementation and enforcement may become key processes, providing functional Xexibility and a possibility for pragmatic interpretations and modiWcations to diVerent and changing circumstances. Implementation deWcit is not uncommon in political systems and, as already observed, an important feature of the European political order is that the Union is highly dependent on the individual member state, cooperation between member states, and the regional and local level for the implementation and enforcement of Community law (Commission 1993: 16;

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Goldsmith 1993; Commission 1994). With the partial exception of competition and anti-dumping laws, implementation has been decentralized and has depended on historically determined national administrative practices and traditions (Dehousse et al. 1992). The basic idea has been that Community law is to be ‘applied with the same eVectiveness and rigor as the application of national law’ (Commission 1993: 17). Directives have been supposed to be binding as to the results to be achieved. Member states have had discretion when it comes to forms, methods and administrative solutions, as long as the result is the same. Yet, the degree of administrative speciWcation has varied (Siedentopf and Ziller 1988: 39). In the literature, inadequate implementation has for some time been presented as a problem and a serious constraint on the eVectiveness of the EU. The problem has also been expected to become more serious as a result of enlargement and an expanding agenda (Dehousse et al. 1992; Metcalf 1994). It has been held that European integration and cooperation may be drained of substance because the institutional infrastructure and the management capacities to implement policies eVectively are missing. Large gaps have been observed between formal competencies and institutional capacities and among the remedies have been improved transparency of national implementation and the development of well-coordinated networks of administrative partnerships across member states (Metcalfe 1994; Joerges and Dehousse 2002). There have also been pressures for improvement from member states that have seen themselves as loyal implementers of common laws and rules. For example, as part of the preparations for the European Intergovernmental Conference in 1996, some member states asked whether the Union had the ability to control and sanction non-implementation. It was pointed out that a larger and even more heterogeneous EU would make even stronger demands on following and implementing joint rules (Udenrigsministeriet 1995: 100, 125–6). The view of the Commission has varied. The Commission has sometimes argued that administrative cooperation for the most part appears to be satisfactory, but with signiWcant diVerences between policy areas (Commission 1994: 1). In some policy areas no surveillance of implementation has taken place. In others, the possibilities of monitoring implementation have been limited. This has been the case in particular where implementation depends on cooperation between member states without the participation of the Commission. However, as part of putting the single market into practice, the focus shifted from developing new formal competencies to the conditions for exercising existing competencies better. Management was emphasized, i.e. eVectiveness, coherence, and consistency in interpretation, implementation and enforcement throughout the Community.

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On the other hand, the Commission has proclaimed that delayed or inadequate implementation was the greatest threat to the single market. In general, insuYcient implementation could jeopardize the credibility of Community law. It was also held that it would take more resources to manage Community legislation eVectively for the internal market than it took to prepare it, and the Commission was worried that there would be insuYcient human resources and budgets for management (Commission 1995a, c). In order to improve implementation, the Commission promised to provide services to member states with less developed administrative infrastructures, including both Wnancial contributions and staV training (Commission 1994). Furthermore, preparation for the 2004 enlargement focused on implementation to an unprecedented degree and attention was extended from the motivation to implement Community laws to the capability to do so (see Chapter 11 below). In legal discourse, implementation of Community legislation usually means incorporation into national law (Commission 1995c: 9). EU statistics on domestic legal implementation, based on national self-reporting, say nothing about the degree to which legal incorporation actually changes behaviour and allocations of beneWts and burdens in each country. Neither do they say whether the breaking of laws and rules is punished. In general there has been little precise information about the administrative means by which member states enforce Community law, even when such information is viewed as important for developing mutual conWdence and promoting cooperation across the Community (Commission 1994: annex 1, pp. vii–viii, 1995b: 49). A key property of implementation processes in several areas of European legislation is that authorities rely heavily on complaints by those aVected as a means of detecting problems (Commission 1994: 12; Commission 1995d). The European Court of Justice has also contributed to increasing the role of private actors in the enforcement of Community law (Dehousse et al. 1992: 70). Citizens can take their states to court for not implementing Community directives, but such acts demand resources. Enforcement of the law then depends on who is able to complain loudly enough to be heard and obtain redress. Strong actors may help ensure or prevent implementation (Wincott 1995) and it becomes less likely that the law will be applied in a uniform and consistent way. In particular, if voluntary compliance cannot be assumed to be automatic, if no public agency has the responsibility for enforcing implementation, or if such agencies are heavily under-resourced, actual implementation will depend on the aVected parties’ individual and group resources. In areas monitored by resourceful organized interests, professions or individuals, implementation is likely to be diVerent from policy areas where such

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actors are lacking. In such areas a large proportion of enforcement actions are also likely to be settled out of court. Dehousse et al. (1992: 68–9) observed that only 2.4% of complaints went through to court judgement, but since then, the number of cases referred to the court has increased (Commission 1995d). Over time there has been an overall reduction in the deWcit of transposition, but the number of conXicts regarding non-implementation has increased in the same period. While states converge on transposition, they diverge regarding their mode of handling conXicts related to non-implementation. The larger states more frequently use court rulings to settle such conXicts. In particular the Nordic states pursue a more consensus-seeking approach, with limited use of the courts. Domestic tradition and style of decision-making are more important for explaining variation in implementation than the enforcement capacity of EU institutions and the extent of participation and inXuence exerted at the European level (Sverdrup 2004). The aspiration here is not to review the implementation literature (for that, see Sverdrup 2004). It is rather to suggest a way of interpreting implementation deWcits. In democracies a perceived implementation deWcit might be seen as a problem, but also as a safety valve. In the Wrst case the response is actively to reduce the deWcit and diVerences in rates of implementation. In the second case the response is to justify and legitimize certain types of deviance and variations. In the Wrst case the question is, can the European Union live with an implementation deWcit and considerable diVerentiation in implementation rates among member states? Legal (continental) thinking makes a clear-cut division between a public and a private sphere, and assumes that relations between the two are regulated only by law (Derlien 1995). The unity of law and the uniform and consistent implementation of law is a cornerstone of the Rechtsstaat. This makes it of the greatest importance to have appropriate procedures for implementation and enforcement in order to attain the best possible level of conformity to community law (Pappas 1995). Given the importance of rule-making and regulation in the Union, a major implementation deWcit would signify a performance crisis. Taking implementation more seriously, however, is also likely to have signiWcant consequences. It would require stronger administrative and legal capabilities at the European level and stronger intervention in domestic public administration and adjudication, actions that are very likely to generate debates and possibly serious conXicts. In the second case, the important question is: can the Union survive with a uniform and consistent implementation of its expanding political agenda? The EU needs to ensure that its laws are implemented and respected. At the

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same time the Union’s policy has not been to eliminate distinctive features of national jurisdictions, the manner in which public authorities enforce laws and regulations, and national cultures. The claim has been that the organization of implementation and administrative cooperation must take account of signiWcant diVerences between member states, reXected in diVerent organizational structures, operational practices and the level of resources devoted to enforcement (Commission 1994: annex 1, pp. vii–viii). As a consequence, a wholesale attempt to impose a European administrative system has not been seen as politically viable. Instead there have been attempts to specify and codify limits to ongoing cooperation, to defend earlier achievements, to create a sense of belonging to the Union, and to enhance its legitimacy (Commission 1995b: 6–7), eVorts that in the long run may have major impacts on the domestic level (Egeberg 2006). A key issue, then, is how the Union can ensure acceptable implementation and also Xexibility. This dilemma is reXected by the fact that the Commission, usually assuming uniform and eVective implementation, has appealed for a ‘reasonably homogeneous’ implementation (Commission 1995c: 10). It has also been held that it is not necessary for regulatory measures to be uniform and all-encompassing (Dehousse et al. 1992: 20); that the EU needs an implementation process which reXects the complexity of the policy-making processes (Wessels 1994: 448); and that the Union has already developed a ‘Xexible, bargained and consensual policy-style’ (Kassim and Wright 1991: 850). The doctrine of a margin of appreciation, moreover, suggests that there are legitimate national variations in implementation due to diVerent traditions, practices and circumstances, and this doctrine has been seen, for example, as a necessary principle in the interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights (Einersen and Trier 1991). Balancing the need for uniform, consistent implementation with the need to accept diVerentiation based on legitimate national diversity is already a diYcult act. Continuous enlargements are likely to make the balancing act even more complicated. Finding an appropriate balance is also likely to be complicated by an expanding agenda and increased use of majority voting, requiring member states to implement more decisions that they have voted against. Under such circumstances, ‘perfect’ implementation may be as much of a threat to the Union as an implementation deWcit. DiVerentiated implementation and pragmatic modiWcations to diVerent and changing circumstances may be necessary for providing the Xexibility needed to make the Union survive or Xourish. The challenge is to construct balances between uniform and diVerentiated implementation which mediate between unity and diversity in ways that are perceived as reasonable and legitimate. This is more likely to be achieved

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through ‘messy’ political processes based on compromises that create hybrid orders in which elements of an old and a new political order co-exist, than through legal decrees prescribing clear rules and principles and a logically coherent institutional arrangement. In the next chapter the possibility of the co-existence of elements of old and new orders are further explored in the context of a possible emerging ‘European Administrative Space’.

11 Towards a European administrative space? EUROPEAN ADMINISTRATIVE CONVERGENCE? Public administration is a key institution of government and understanding administrative change is an important, but often ignored part of comprehending the ongoing transformations of the European political order. In this chapter, the focus is on whether there has been a trend towards a ‘European Administrative Space’ (EAS), understood as convergence on a common European model. The chapter raises several questions. Is the term useful for analytical purposes? What is ‘convergence’ and what indicators can be used for measuring convergence? To what extent has there been convergence, which aspects of administrative systems have converged, and what has (eventually) been the direction of change? Under what conditions can we expect administrative convergence? Through what processes has convergence taken place? How can these changes be explained? What actors and forces have been encouraging or inhibiting convergences and what has been the role of institutions in mediating between the old and new administrative order? A methodological purist can with good reason argue that we lack the concepts, methodology and data to answer the questions. For example, the lack of an accepted metric of convergence makes it possible for students of administration to observe the same phenomena and describe the situation in radically diVerent terms. A more pragmatic view, and the one upon which this chapter is based, is that the questions are too important to be ignored. The challenge is to develop analytical models with explanatory power that improve our comprehension of administrative dynamics. The aspiration, then, is to suggest a way of thinking about administrative adaptation, more than to give Wrm answers about the extent of European convergence. The hypothesis that an EAS has emerged will be compared with two competing, or supplementary, hypotheses: a global convergence hypothesis and an institutional resilience hypothesis. An old, and recurring, idea is that there is a single best way of organizing administration. Scholars and practicians have prescribed context-free, universal organizational forms that because of their comparative functional eYciency or normative attractiveness are expected to spread all over the world, independent

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of national and other diVerences.1 Universal prescriptions that are not bound in time and place, however, have tended to have a proverbial character (Simon 1946) and empirical research suggests that ‘good administration’ and ‘good government’ hinge on speciWc deWnitions of ends, purposes and values. If so, there can be no truly universal generalizations about public administration without a profound knowledge about the varying political and social characteristics that impinge on the administration (Dahl 1947; March 1997). An alternative idea is that context matters and that one context can be dominant in a speciWc time period. For example, growing international interdependencies and improved communication can make diVusion of ‘best practice’ increasingly eYcient, globally or in Europe, reducing the signiWcance of speciWc historical and cultural contexts. Global convergence can then follow if administration is a context-free activity with a single best solution, and if the global environment is currently dominant. European convergence can follow if context matters and the European context is dominant for administrations within, but not outside, the region. A third possibility is suggested by the institutional resilience hypothesis. Here a basic assumption is that the two other hypotheses overestimate the likelihood, extent and speed of convergence, and that Europe and the rest of the world are likely to continue for quite some time with a variety of administrative models. This approach assumes that environments are more or less homogeneous and imperative, administrative reformers are more or less powerful and institutions are more or less robust (March and Olsen 1989, 1995, 1998). Institutions mediate between new and old orders diVerently and make it possible to diVerent degrees to combine elements from the two orders. An implication is that we need to understand the conditions under which, and the processes through which, existing institutional arrangements contribute to continuity or diVerentiation, rather than convergence. The rest of the chapter is divided into Wve parts. First, I consider whether terms such as a ‘European Administrative Space’ and ‘convergence’ are at all useful for understanding institutional dynamics. Second, the theoretical ideas are developed a little further. Third, some observations of administrative convergence in the European Union are presented. Fourth, attention is directed towards enlargement and convergence among candidate countries, and Wfth, some conclusions and puzzles are presented. 1 The belief in the study of administration as a context-free technical question is expressed by Urwick (1969[1937]: 49): ‘It is the general thesis of this paper that there are principles which can be arrived at inductively from the study of human experience of organization, which should govern arrangements for human association of any kind. These principles can be studied as technical questions, irrespective of the purpose of the enterprise, the personnel composing it, or any constitutional, political, or social theory underlying its creation’.

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A ‘European Administrative Space’ usually means that public administration operates and is managed on the basis of European principles, rules and regulations uniformly enforced in the relevant territory (Cardona 1999, OECD/Sigma 1999: 15).2 Common, or similar, arrangements drive out local principles, organizational forms, rules, standards and practices.3 A development towards an EAS then stands in contrast to national administrative systems as ‘solid bedrock for nationalism, that is, idiosyncratic arrangements where the structure of public administration reXects the identity, history and traditions of a speciWc state and society’ (Nizzo 2001: 2). ‘European Administrative Space’ has symbolic overtones of European integration and unity and can be seen as part of a normative programme. Its analytical value, however, depends on the usefulness of ‘administrative convergence’, itself a term without a clear and accepted meaning (Pollitt 2002). At a general level convergence implies a reduction of variance and disparities in administrative arrangements. DiVerent administrations develop along the same path in a way that produces homogeneity and coherence among formerly distinct administrations. A complication is that national administrative systems, and even more so the EU, are complex conWgurations of institutions, often with non-synchronized dynamics. There may be convergence along some dimensions and divergence along others. If so, it may not be meaningful to summarize convergence across structures and rules, agendas and timetables, rhetorical fashions, recruitment 2 Sigma, or Support for Improvement in Governance and Management in Central and Eastern European Countries, refers to a joint initiative of the OECD Centre for Cooperation with Non-Member Economies and the European Union’s Phare Programme. 3 As is often the case in the literature on European integration, ‘European Administrative Space’ is a term with several meanings. D’Orta (2003), for example, deWnes EAS as increased informal horizontal cooperation among European public administrations. D’Orta emphasizes the importance of capacity-building, enabling administrations to implement European laws. He predicts that there will be more integration and coordination of administrative policies among member states and more homogenization of administrative capacities, yet without uniformity and without betraying the history and the speciWcity of the individual countries. Performance and not administrative institutions and procedures need to be harmonized. EYciency and quality of services have to be improved ‘no matter what the organizational models and the administrative procedures actually used by the individual countries’ (9). An example mentioned is the Open Method of Coordination with its data collection, analysis and assessment of productivity and eYcacy, peer reviews, training, capacity-building, and the development of ‘a truly common culture’. Scherpereel (2004: 554, 559) sees Western European public administrations as organized in roughly the same way and guided by similar behavioural principles, even if member states are also seen to ‘organize their administrations in idiosyncratic ways’. His conception of an EAS is based on several indicators, including relations between public administration and society.

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patterns, education and training, careers, remuneration, labour relations, the size of the work force, external relations, resources, capabilities, practices, behaviour and outcomes. In order to do so and eventually conclude that there is a trend of convergence, we would need to compare exact measures of current administrative distances along a variety of dimensions with similar distances at an earlier time. Few, if any, such measures of similarities and dissimilarities exist. It may therefore be diYcult to conclude, for instance, that a new type of administrative system is emerging based on a mix of several national traditions, that a single national system has come to dominate in the EU, or that there is convergence around imported models from international organizations or the USA. Yet it may be easier to draw conclusions about crude variations in convergence and resilience than about absolute convergence. Therefore, an attempt will be made to compare convergence in member states and in applicant countries. It may also be possible to observe whether structural, behavioural and other adaptations may substitute for one another so that institutional dynamics include loose coupling between formal organizational charts, reform rhetoric, behavioural practices and substantive outcomes. The institutional resilience hypothesis in particular suggests that we should expect complex and mixed patterns of convergence and divergence, given that historical processes in Europe have produced diVerent domestic administrative and political traditions (see Chapters 6 and 10 above). How, then, can we understand the conditions for administrative convergence, its direction and the processes through which convergence may take place?

ADMINISTRATIVE DYNAMICS

Conditions The new institutionalism in organizational sociology assumes that organizations are structured by their environments and tend to become isomorphic with them. The importance of institutionalized environments—organizational norms and prescriptions—is emphasized, in addition to functional interdependencies and competition. Organizations are more likely to adapt to the norms and expectations of their environments, and convergence is more likely to occur, in situations with ambiguous goals, uncertain relationships between ends and means, dependence on a centralized resource and intense external interaction (DiMaggio and Powell 1983). The institutional resilience hypothesis is based on an alternative view, where the internal properties of institutions and organizations are key factors

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in understanding convergence. First, there is no a priori reason to believe that normative or functional competition will always create convergence, rather than niche specialization and variety in forms. Neither are there reasons to believe that a powerful rule-maker or controller of resources will always impose uniform structures and convergence. Second, changing public administration implies intervention in large-scale, complex and dynamic institutions with pre-existing identities, structures, internal dynamics and resources, and history is not eYcient in terms of adapting administrative institutions rapidly to environmental change or reform eVorts. As argued in Chapter 10, the standard institutional response to novelty is to Wnd a routine in the existing repertoire of routines that can be used. External change and reform initiatives are interpreted and responded to through existing institutional frameworks. Convergence consistent with an existing identity will be fairly smooth. Convergence in conXict with an identity is likely to create confrontations. Sudden and radical change is most likely in situations with obvious performance crises (March and Olsen 1989: 34).

Convergence towards what? Recently, developments in public administration have been interpreted by means of two generic models: the ‘classical’ or Weberian public administration (the Old Public Administration, or OPA) and the New Public Management (NPM) (OECD/Sigma 1998a; Verheijen and Coombes 1998; Goetz 2001b). A favourite diagnosis has been a paradigm shift ‘from Old Public Administration to New Public Management’ (Dunleavy and Hood 1994). The idea of an emerging European Administrative Space has roots in the continental public law tradition and the Old Public Administration. The idea of a global convergence has aYnities with the NPM, primarily an Anglo-American school of thought. The OPA and the NPM are diVerent in many ways. The OPA assumes that the core of political life is law-making, interpretation, implementation and enforcement. Law and hierarchy govern the public administration. Administrators are rule-driven bureaucrats executing and maintaining legal norms with integrity on the basis of Rechtsstaat principles and with the common good in mind. The OPA emphasizes reliability, consistency, predictability and accountability. Administrative dynamics is governed by legislators or announced and enforced by courts (Weber 1978: ch. 11; Chapter 6 above). The NPM stands in contrast to the idea of a unique European convergence. It suggests that convergence is global or at least common for OECD countries and that the public sector is not distinctive from the private sector (Christensen and Lægreid 2001; Pollitt 2002). The NPM portrays a centrally organized and rulebound public administration as outdated. The NMP represents an ‘inevitable

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shift rather than a temporary fad’ toward a more advanced administration (Osborne and Gaebler 1992: 328). Change follows from shifting circumstances, customers’ demands and political objectives (OECD 1995, 2001). The tension between a legal-bureaucratic and a managerial approach to public administration and the idea that private business administration provides an exemplary model for the public sector are hardly new (Waldo 1956). Nevertheless, a focus on the diVerences between the two may disguise the fact that they also share important assumptions. Both prescribe a single set of administrative principles for organizing the public sector. They assume that over time, more eYcient forms will replace less eYcient ones, resulting in administrative convergence on an organizational model with superior technical eYciency, be it a Weberian bureaucracy or the private Wrm in competitive markets. These two approaches are also based upon an instrumental view of administration. They portray the administration as a tool for an external principal—a branch of government controlled by the legislative and judicial branches, or by shifting external circumstances. In contrast, the resilience hypothesis assumes that administrative environments in contemporary democracies are not so simple, coherent and imperative. Administrative institutions have more autonomy with respect to their environments and administrators are powerful actors in their own right. Administrative environments seldom provide public administration with clear competences, rules, objectives and incentives. On the contrary, the administration operates in a complex ecology of institutions, actors, goals, rules, interests, powers, principles, values, beliefs and cleavages. Politicians, judges, experts, organized groups, mass media and individual citizens are likely to hold diVerent and changing—not coherent and stable—concepts of ‘good administration’. They are likely to want the administration to serve a variety of changing and not necessarily consistent principles, goals and interests. For example, administrators are expected to: . ensure administrative loyalty to the incumbent government, and yet be politically neutral and loyal to all legitimately elected governments and the principle of representative government; . be eVective policy entrepreneurs taking initiative and getting problems solved but also be accountable to elected leaders and the people; . be rule-driven and the guardians of the constitution, the principle of the rule of law and an impersonal legal arrangement, without excessive formalism; . act as experts and users of the best scientiWc knowledge available—an administration based on merit professional competence and loyality to the principle of enlightened government—but avoid technocracy;

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. be cost-conscious managers governed by the principle of economic eYciency, adapting to changing circumstances and consumer demands, using markets and price mechanisms, without producing social inequality, exclusion and protest; and . protect speciWc constituencies and the principle that aVected parties should be heard, without giving privileges to strongly organized interests. Each concern is a possible source of legitimacy as well as criticism, and tension between them is a source of administrative dynamics. Throughout history conXicting role expectations have been reXected in struggles over the size, organization, procedures, competences, resources, recruitment and outcomes of public administration, as well as struggles over how the relations to other institutions, organized interests and individuals should be organized (Kaufman 1956; Jacobsen 1960). The political-administrative order involves imbalances and collisions between principles and institutions (Orren and Skowronek 1994, 2004; Olsen 2001b), and due to sequential attention and local rationality (Cyert and March 1963), diVerent concerns are activated over time and across institutions. As the mix of concerns changes, so do conceptions of good administration and good administrators. During periods of transition, in particular, conceptions of the exemplary administration are challenged and can be dramatically redeWned. Conventional wisdom becomes heresy. Administrative virtues are turned into vices. Old expertise is scrapped and new types of knowledge, skills and training are demanded. Trust in institutions disappears or emerges. Organizational structures, roles and cultures are branded illegitimate and new ones are legitimized (March and Olsen 1989). Because tensions are enduring rather than temporary, any prescription based on hegemonic aspirations and the universalization of a concern is likely to foster criticism, countervailing forces and a search for a new balance between institutions. Such institutional balancing acts are usually constitutional and political and lack a correct technical answer. Organizing public administration involves a power aspect. Long (1949: 257), for example, argued that ‘the lifeblood of administration is power’ and Weber (1978) observed that the political masters could easily become dilettantes facing a professional administration. An implication is that we need to avoid deWnitions of public administration that a priori assume speciWc authority and power relations.4 Theorizing about administrative dynamics requires understanding how balances are struck and administrations Wnd their place in a political order. 4 An example is deWning public administration as ‘the organizations which are directly subordinated to political power and which are at the service of the executive in the policy making process’ (Bossaert et al. 2001: 17).

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Processes: attractiveness and imposition Administrative convergence can take place due to attractiveness, where convergence emerges because one model is generally seen as superior, and imposition, where a model is preferred by a winning coalition and dictated to others.5 Attractiveness signiWes learning and voluntary imitation of a superior model. The receivers copy an organizational form because of its perceived functionality, utility or legitimacy. Likewise, a common model can emerge through joint deliberation, or each country facing the same challenges can independently develop similar solutions. Convergence as attractiveness is likely if a single administrative prescription is generally viewed as superior to other ways of organizing the public administration, globally or in the European context. A perceived superiority can be based on technical-functional performance and comparative eYciency. For example, functional interdependence, as a result of economic or political integration, can lead to more interaction, exposure to new solutions and possibly agreement on a ‘best practice’. In a more moderate version variance is reduced as some organizational forms disappear because they do not perform in an acceptable way according to minimal standards. Existing institutions, budgets or staV are not adequate to handle important tasks. There is erosion of problem-solving capacity, performance declines and crises have already occurred or are expected. Superiority can also refer to normative attractiveness. Organizational templates have a value of their own and a speciWc way of organizing public administration can be seen as the most democratic, rational or modern even without evidence of its functional superiority (Meyer and Rowan 1977; Powell and DiMaggio 1991). In this case, convergence around appropriate organizational forms, processes and practices reXects the fact that a single administrative form achieves a normative hegemony. An implication of this is that de-legitimization of forms and reduced pride in existing arrangements is likely to reduce resistance to change. Convergence might take place as external high-status forms are copied without much analysis of their performance in the new setting. Imposition signiWes convergence based on the use of authority or power. A single model penetrates the territory and weakens or eliminates established institutions. When no single way of organizing public administration is seen as functionally or normatively superior, convergence by imposition assumes a concentration of authority or power and also that administrative issues are given attention and priority among the powerful. Convergence based on 5 The distinction is well known in the literature (Olsen 2002b) and overlaps partly with DiMaggio and Powell’s (1983) distinction between coercive, mimetic and normative processes.

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coercive power implies the ability to dictate solutions against the will of administrations. Authority signiWes that some external source is accepted as legitimate when it comes to creating, reforming or dissolving administrative arrangements. Conditionality means acceptance of organizational forms not for their inherent characteristics, but as a condition for membership, legitimacy or side-payments. Understanding convergence through imposition requires a focus on the distribution of relevant resources and processes of mobilizing support. For example, if it is accepted that the main challenge is not to rewrite legal texts but to change and improve the actual working of public administrations (Ziller 1998: 138), we need to observe that there may be important diVerences in the resources needed to win battles over texts and formal arrangements and those needed to win battles over behavioural practice, results and administrative identities and cultures. In the latter case, there are likely to be larger and more complex constellations of institutions, actors, cleavages and power relations, making convergence less likely or slower to achieve.

CONVERGENCE IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

Conditions for an EAS among member states The European context has several characteristics that could be expected to promote administrative convergence and a European Administrative Space, but also a number of properties that could counteract this trend. One such factor is that the European order is characterized by long, strong and varied institutional histories, with diVerent trajectories of state- and nation-building (Rokkan 1999; Chapter 2 above). As a result, public administration structures and regulations have varied among EU member states (OECD/Sigma 1998a: 13)—an institutional pattern that is likely to create variations in both the motivation and capability for institutional convergence (Olsen and Peters 1996; Pollitt and Bouckaert 2004). Traditionally the EU has also given modest attention and priority to administrative issues. There has been more focus on policy-making and substantive results than on administrative arrangements (Chapters 6 and 10 above). The costs of changing the organization of domestic administrations have been seen as high (Hanf and Soetendorp 1998b). The Commission crisis, reaching a climax when the Santer Commission resigned in the spring of 1999 after accusations of mismanagement, fraud and nepotism (Committee of Independent Experts 1999a, b), moved administrative reform to the top of

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the Commission’s agenda. Still, recent modernization attempts have involved long lists of practical reforms but no coherent administrative model (Commission 2004). The Union has not developed an explicit and coherent administrative policy (European Federation of Public Service Unions 1999; Chapter 6 above). The Treaties do not prescribe a speciWc model of administration and there is no acquis communautaire for public administration. On the contrary, the EU has throughout its history assumed that a variety of national administrative systems are legitimate and compatible with membership, and that diVerent arrangements can do equally well in implementing EU legislation.6 Furthermore, the Union has limited powers in administrative matters. The Commission has no direct powers to reform national administrations. Administrative convergence may be encouraged, but there is no explicit policy to harmonize administrative systems in order to make them uniform or compatible (Burnham and Maor 1994; Page and Wouters 1995: 190). Debates over the distribution of administrative competence have been linked to struggles over the general distribution and separation of powers in the Union. Competence over public administration is also one of the issues where the ‘nature of the Union’ was discussed in the Convention. An early draft of the Constitutional Treaty stated that the Union should respect the national identities of its member states, including the organization of public administration at national, regional and local level (CONV 2003). However, the biggest political party, the European People’s Party, did not want to give this constitutional protection to domestic public administration. Historically, member states have guarded their administrative autonomy and have been reluctant to grant general organizational, supervisory and enforcement competence to European institutions. Most of them have been satisWed with laws that give the Commission direct administrative responsibilities only in speciWed domains and otherwise assume that the EU will not interfere with the internal administrative organization of the member states as long as Union obligations are followed and common rules are implemented. Administrative instruments that leave discretion to member states have been more popular than those imposing speciWc administrative solutions (Schwarze 1996; Cardona 1999; Kadelbach 2002). In addition to limited legitimacy the Commission’s administrative capacities in terms of staV and budgets are modest compared to its tasks. The 6 For example, in the White Paper on Governance and in its communication to the Convention the Commission emphasizes that implementation of common policies must be as decentralized as possible and that the diversity of local situations must be better taken into account (Commission 2001a, 2002).

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Union’s administration is a political administration, in the sense of a staV with signiWcant discretion (Joerges and Dehousse 2002). Administrators are, however, part of complex networks across sectors and levels of governance involved in a joint exercise of coordination and authority.7 Usually implementation takes place through national administration or by shared management. Sometimes it is organized through outside contractors such as Wrms and organizations. The growth in specialized autonomous European agencies has also been combined with a reluctance to give them discretion, and national representatives have been placed on their governing boards (Chiti 2002; Dehousse 2002a; Egeberg 2006). As a result, it has been suggested that the idea of an administration serving some common higher authority cannot be upheld in a non-unitary, non-state pluralist polity such as the EU (Joerges 2002: 21). These conditions make the idea of a single principal controlling administrative convergence less plausible. There are, however, also actors and forces in favor of convergence. Although no grand implementation crisis has emerged in the Union, the issue of an implementation deWcit has been raised (Bo¨rzel 2001, 2002; Sverdrup 2004; Chapter 10 above). Member states accept that it is in the common interest to have adequate administrative capacity to implement Union rules and that counteracting maladministration is a common concern. Their preference for administrative autonomy therefore has to be balanced against the Union’s need for eVective and uniform implementation. For the Court and the Commission the role as guardians of the Treaties provides a stronger power base than their limited formal administrative policy competence (Kadelbach 2002). A high level of interaction and exposure to each other’s administrative thinking could also be expected to contribute to an EAS. European administrations have for centuries studied and copied each other and they share important characteristics (Barker 1944; Markussen and Ronit 2003). Nevertheless, increased integration, interdependency and interaction have created a qualitatively new situation. However, because institution-building and policy-making in the Union have been unevenly developed across institutional spheres and policy areas, the adaptive pressure on national administrations will vary (Knill 2001; Chapter 10 above). Finally, European convergence may be more likely because the international normative reform climate has changed. The institutionalized pressure for global administrative convergence has weakened and the support for NPM is less enthusiastic than a decade ago. For example, the World Bank is now less conWdent than it was in the early 1990s. Then, they ‘knew’ that 7 Rometsch and Wessels 1996; Kohler-Koch and Eising 1999; Hooghe and Marks 2001; Egeberg 2006.

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a paradigm shift was needed and the prescribed medicine included a shift from a centralized, hierarchical, rule-driven administration to one characterized by management and market orientation (World Bank 1991: 38). Now, the need for in-depth understanding of the speciWc situation in individual countries is emphasized. There are few answers that are right under all circumstances. No single recipe or imported one-size-Wts-all notion of best practice will do. A good public sector is no longer a minimalist one (World Bank 1997, 2000; Chapter 6 above). In sum, the European context suggests that administrative convergence is more likely to follow from attractiveness than from imposition. Convergence is also more likely to be an artefact of substantive policies than the result of a coherent European administrative policy. If so, convergence could be expected to be incremental and to put constraints on domestic administrative solutions, rather than generating a full-scale exemplary model replacing existing arrangements.

Observed administrative convergence among member states There are few systematic studies of European administrative convergence, a fact that invites tentative rather than Wrm conclusions (Bo¨rzel 2005). There are also few references to an EAS in Union documents and in speeches by European political leaders. The concept is mostly found in studies of public law and reports from OECD/Sigma in conjunction with the enlargement of the Union. Furthermore, there is no consensus on the extent of convergence on a common European model. On average, studies in administrative law report more convergence than studies by empirical social scientists. A report from the Thematic Network in Public Administration argues that European public administration has a speciWc nature and that a gradual convergence of public administration systems in a European Administrative Space is under way.8 Nizzo also concludes that ‘a ‘‘European Administrative 8 The Thematic Network in Public Administration, supported by the EU since 1997, has focused on the promotion of a European dimension to public administration education. The main conclusion reported from the June 2000 meeting was ‘the need for public administration education in Europe to Wnd its own identity. Public administration education continues to be dominated by literature and approaches ‘‘imported’’ from the USA. There is still little evidence that a speciWc European ‘‘mode’’ of public administration education is emerging, regardless of the very speciWc nature of public administration in Europe and the gradual convergence of public administration systems in the European Administrative Space’: report by Bernadette Connaugton, University of Limerick, from the Third Annual Plenary Meeting of the Thematic Network in Public Administration, University of Hamburg, 9–10 June 2000; available at <www.nispa.sk/newsletter/f3-epan.html>.

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Space’’, in which the areas of convergence exceed the divergences, does now exist’ (Nizzo 2001: 7). Likewise, a report from Sigma observes that while an EAS is not an established fact, the driving forces of convergence are gaining speed and power. It has been asked whether the process has reached a point where diversity is replaced by European administrative standards (OECD/ Sigma 1999: 15). A key argument is that while there is no formal acquis communautaire regulating European public administration, a non-formalized acquis has emerged. Member states with diVerent legal traditions and diVerent systems of governance have developed a common body of doctrine and shared understandings of principles of administrative law, standards of good practice and the requirements for unitary and eYcient implementation of EU laws. The implementation of speciWc policies, and the need to achieve speciWed objectives and results, has required member states to change national administrative law systems and modify administrative principles, structures and procedures (Kadelbach 2002). New administrative bodies and positions have been instituted and the concept of public administration, the public sector’s scope and extent, and its role in the economy and society has converged. Calendars, deadlines, statistics, frames of reference etc. have been modiWed.9 Such developments are illustrated by a study of the process through which the scope of exemption of employment in the public service was deWned, that is, the areas where member states can impose restrictions on the free movement of workers and discriminate on grounds of nationality. Here a functional (type of work), not an institutional, deWnition was developed, national conceptions of ‘public service’ were redeWned, and during the process member states’ preferences changed towards more willingness to recruit foreigners (Dimitrakopoulos 2001). There are several nuances in the conclusions. For example, Schwarze (1996: 800) argues that the administrative structure appears to be destined to be particularly resilient to European inXuence. His study of 12 EU member states documents the fact that there are substantive and structural diVerences between systems of administrative law and he predicts that national administrative orders will not lose their particularized and dominant role in the near future. Nevertheless, national administrative law has undergone ‘remarkable change’ under European inXuence, creating considerable coherence. The organizational structure of the administration has been more inXuenced in As of 1 Sept. 2006, the European Public Administration Network (EPAN) currently involves 99 institutions in 27 states in Europe. (). 9 Ekengren 1996; OECD/Sigma 1999: 3; Sverdrup 2000; Nizzo 2001: 5.

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some member states than in others and the absence of a national tradition has facilitated European inXuence. Ziller observes that member states look to each other for inspiration. Becoming an EU member also means accepting some common administrative standards. Yet, Ziller makes a distinction between approximation and harmonization and argues that there is neither a project nor a need for identical administrative systems and institutions throughout the Union (Ziller 1998: 137). On the basis of a study of the public service of the 15 member states, Bossaert and colleagues are even more reluctant to accept an EAS as an established fact. European law-making and case law in substantive Welds have produced administrative change ‘more or less through the back door’ (Bossaert et al. 2001: 3; Demmke 2002: 11). However, diversity and speciWc national features still characterize public administration, as the part of the political-administrative system most strongly inXuenced by speciWc national traditions. There has been change but not harmonization and convergence: ‘We cannot yet speak of a European Administrative Space, although trends can be seen towards a Europeanization of the public services’ (Bossaert et al. 2001: 248, 251–2). The harmonization of administrative law systems in the Union has primarily been the work of judges and lawyers (Shapiro 2001). It has taken place via the case law of the European Court of Justice, legislative acts and voluntary adaptation. An important challenge has been to develop a balance which preserves the autonomy of national administration and at the same time ensures that Community rules are administered properly (Cardona 1999; Nizzo 2001; Kadelbach 2002). Convergence on a European model is seen as driven by the need for national administrations to obey the same laws, and a widespread interaction amongst civil servants and politicians—processes that are assumed to change inevitably the ways in which governments operate (OECD/Sigma 1999: 16; Nizzo 2001). Conclusions about convergence depend on whether they are based on studies of legal texts or actual practices. For example, the Charter of Fundamental Rights includes ‘the right to good administration’. Yet, the European Ombudsman complains that major achievements, such as new rules on access to documents, are implemented in a less than perfect way (European Ombudsman 2002a, b). More generally, Dehousse argues that there is a mismatch between law and practice in the Union and that traditional legal categories have ‘ceased to reXect adequately the actual operation of the EU machinery’ (Dehousse 2002a: 208). Dehousse and several of his fellow students of law conclude that an improved understanding of convergence requires detailed information about how the EU political-administrative system works in practice (De Bu´rca 1999; Weiler 1999; Joerges and Dehousse 2002).

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Empirical studies by social scientists by and large report little structural convergence. As shown in Chapter 10, these studies observe a signiWcant and persistent shift of domestic attention, patterns of interaction and allocation of administrative resources to European-level institutions. They also Wnd convergence in policies. Yet, the main Wnding is that no new harmonized and uniWed European administrative system has emerged, no signiWcant domestic convergence towards a common model has occurred, and no single prescription, in functional or normative terms, has achieved hegemony. Governments and administrative systems have adapted diVerently to European pressures on their own terms. That is, adaptation has reXected resources and traditions, the pre-existing balance of domestic institutional structures. While the NPM has had a signiWcant impact in several member states, its role in the Union has been modest. However, the adoption of a managerial ideology is illustrated by the development of the Common Assessment Framework. CAF belongs to a family of management self-assessment tools and is a result of the cooperation among the EU ministers of public administration. It provides a set of shared European criteria, a common database and a web site.10 CAF allows sharing of experiences, comparison and benchmarking and learning, yet gives many degrees of freedom when it comes to how improvement is to be achieved. The Open Method of Co-ordination developed around the Lisbon process, and the Lisbon Council in March 2000 has in particular been portrayed as an example of a new European mode of network governance and part of a general development from government to governance both within (Rhodes 1997b) and among states (Rosenau and Czempiel 1992). He´ritier, however, questions the importance and novelty of the open method. She observes that it is used in a limited number of policy areas, primarily in areas where the Union does not have a clear mandate and where its competence is contested. Usually there are elements of bargaining over targets and indicators— bargaining taking place in the shadow of government, hierarchy and legislation. The Commission also used the method earlier when moving into new policy areas where its competence was problematic, often as a Wrst step towards legislation (He´ritier 2002). Furthermore, it is not obvious that more use of a non-legal policy style and framework laws will make an EAS more, rather than less, probable. For example, in other contexts governments have demonstrated the ability to cope with and even dissolve well-established networks (Richardson 2000). In sum, European-level developments have not dictated convergence on a single form of domestic administration through attractiveness or imposition. 10 Located at <www.eipa.nl/CAF/en/CAF2002_introduction.htm>.

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Support has not been forthcoming for imposing a unitary solution in the Union. Sector-speciWc policies and court decisions have generated change and constrained the structural options available. Still, considerable discretion has been left to domestic actors and structural domestic diversity has persisted. European reform attempts have been interpreted and modiWed through domestic institutions in ways that have limited the degree of convergence and homogenization. EU arrangements have been compatible with the maintenance of diVerent national institutional structures and practices. Established national patterns have been resistant but also Xexible enough to cope with changes at the European level.11 This pattern, however, is more likely for member states than for applicant countries, which are likely to be more vulnerable to adaptive pressure.

CONVERGENCE AND ENLARGEMENT

Conditions for an EAS in applicant countries Applicant countries are in a diVerent situation than are well-established member states. With respect to the Central and Eastern European countries (the CEECs) that became members in 2004, several factors could be assumed to make administrative convergence likely, through attractiveness as well as imposition. Established domestic arrangements were delegitimized and the CEECs faced a bargaining situation characterized by asymmetry and conditionality. If performance crisis, power asymmetry and the high priority of an issue in the eyes of the powerful party are important causes of adaptation, the applicant countries could be expected to change and possibly converge on a single model imported from outside. However, there were also factors working against convergence. The European Union conducted no assessment of existing administrative systems during the preparation for accession in 1973, 1980, 1986 and 1995 (Ziller 1998: 138). In contrast, since 1997 the EU has placed administrative issues high on the enlargement agenda. The Union has coordinated administrative policy and accession policy and the administrative capacity to take on obligations of membership has become an important criterion for 11 Page and Wouters 1995; Me´ny, Muller and Quermonne 1996; Rometsch and Wessels 1996; Hanf and Soetendorp 1998b; Egeberg and Trondal 1999; Harmsen 1999; Kassim, Peters and Wright 2000; Radaelli 2000; Bo¨rzel 2001; Bulmer and Burch 2001; Cowles, Caporaso and Risse 2001; Goetz 2001a; Goetz and Hix 2001; Jacobsson, Lægreid and Pedersen 2001; Ladrech 2001; Trondal 2001; Bo¨rzel and Risse 2003; Wessels, Maurer and Mittag 2003.

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membership. Candidate countries have been put under pressure to modernize their administrations, that is, to develop a professional civil service and to build the institutional capacity to implement and enforce legal norms.12 While some actors are proud of their historic achievements and do their best to protect them, others are eager to get beyond ‘the burdens of the past’ (Zielonka 2001). The domestic administrative arrangements of the CEECs were characterized by low performance and legitimacy and were in need of radical reform. The EU was also in a stronger position vis-a`-vis the applicant countries than in relation to member states. The Union controlled entrance and could provide economic help. The EU could therefore formulate conditions for membership, including administrative conditions. Countries that wanted membership and at the same time were less attractive members in terms of economic and administrative performance or democratic legitimacy were in a particularly weak bargaining position. They could be expected to be candidates for administrative convergence. Probably, the most signiWcant factor impeding convergence on a model transferred from the EU has been the absence of an accepted exemplary organizational model and a coherent reform policy in the Union. The EU has wanted reforms and improved capabilities, but exactly what kind of administration and capabilities are desired has not been clear. The Union’s conditionality principle, deWning the conditions that will make administrations in applicant countries compatible with EU standards and able to implement the acquis, gives the most detailed guide to EU preferences. SpeciWcations of the structures required were presented in an informal working document produced by the Commission in September 2000 and Grabbe argues that the document’s informal status, explicitly not committing the Commission to its measures, is indicative of the EU’s uncertainty about how far to go in providing institutional criteria and preferences (Grabbe 2001: 1023). While the convergence criteria have become more precise over time, the administrative obligations of EU membership are still not well speciWed. Inconsistent signals are also sent to applicant countries from the EU and from diVerent member states (Grabbe 2001; Dimitrova 2002). Furthermore, due to change over time, the CEECs had to adapt to a moving target of performance standards (Fournier 1998: 135). Part of the explanation of the EU’s, reluctance is also that the dilemmas facing reformers are real. There are no obvious and simple solutions. For example, ensuring predictability, stability and continuity has high priority, 12 Fournier 1998: 111; OECD/Sigma 1998b; Verheijen 1998: 28; Nunberg 1999; European Council 2001a; Grabbe 2001; Lippert, Umbach and Wessels 2001; Dimitrova 2002; Dimitrov et al. 2006.

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but reforms must not hamper later revisions and modiWcations, as external conditions continue to change. Therefore, stability has to be combined with Xexibility, dependability with openness, and continuity with adaptability (Hesse 1998: 170). After some enthusiasm was expressed for NPM principles, going ‘back to basics’ and Weberian bureaucracies were advocated as more attractive.13 Several reports by OECD/Sigma advised the CEECs not to copy business methods and NPM reforms in Western Europe. The CEECs were advised to recognize their own potential rather than borrow from the West. Each country had to Wnd its own way forward (Fournier 1998: 135) and reforms had to be adapted to tight budgetary constraints and a short time frame. It was ‘impossible to simply adopt Anglo-Saxon administrative cultures’ and such prescriptions were likely to have ‘detrimental’ and ‘disastrous’ consequences for the CEECs (Fournier 1998: 129; Hesse 1998: 176; Metcalfe 1998: 61). Another factor was the expressed norm that the EU is not entitled to set conditions for future members to which current members are not subject and which they would Wnd unacceptable (OECD/Sigma 1998a: 15). Imposition would also reduce the trust in, and legitimacy of, administrative arrangements in the CEECs (Dimitrova 2002). Still, the Union was seen to have a right to demand administrative solutions compatible with membership. It was legitimate to suggest alternative models to serve as possible reform objectives based on the institutions and practices of member states and other modern democracies. While the EU constitutional and administrative systems diVer, it was argued that there were a limited number of models and that they shared important features (OECD/Sigma 1998a: 15). The tendency, then, was to portray administrative change as a question of attractiveness and introducing common standards of good practice. The role of the Union was to provide inspiration, give guidance and work as catalysts or accelerators of change. Convergence was not portrayed as a question of power and imposing a particular European model (Fournier 1998: 126; OECD/Sigma 1999; Nunberg 2000: 2).

Observed administrative convergence among applicant countries The administrative development in the CEECs is an unfolding process, and Goetz and Wollman (2001: 882) observed that ‘the present conWguration of executive arrangements in the CEECs is a still Xuid amalgam of inherited, 13 See Ko¨nig (1992: 159) for an early discussion of a possible movement towards a public administration organized as a Weberian rational-legal bureaucracy and the prediction that a transformation from the old communist system to a ‘conventional Western European’ administrative system was likely to be diYcult.

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imported and domestically developed institutional arrangements’. Administrative capacities have been built and a variety of principles, rules, standards and regulations shared by European democracies have been introduced, constraining the set of administrative options available to the CEECs. The ‘amalgam’, however, is described in diVerent ways. On the one hand, it is claimed that convergence has so far materialized to a limited degree. It is also argued that West–East knowledge transfer has had a marginal impact. The eVorts of Western management gurus and academic tourists have been of little use and the dissociation of law-making from implementation has created a mismatch of intentions and real changes. New legislation has been adopted even when it was recognized that the administrative preconditions for giving eVect to laws were lacking and could not be created in the near future (Hesse 1998: 175–6). The administrations of the ancien re´gime have also proved surprisingly resistant to radical transformation. The new order is complex. Elements of the old and new administrative order co-exist and not necessarily in consistent ways. Diversity is the dominant theme; impacts are diVerential, asymmetrical and Xuid. There is considerable tension, incongruence, eclecticism and indeterminacy, and persons matter. While the European Union has focused on building administrative capacity, making it possible to comply with accession criteria, to implement the acquis communautaire, and to use pre-accession funds in an eYcient and legitimate way, the EU at least initially underestimated the capacity of domestic political and administrative institutions in the CEECs to resist the kind of change demanded by the EU, in the absence of strong reform coalitions (Dimitrov et al. 2006). A study of Czech and Slovak administrations also concluded that there were elements of both the old (socialist) and the new (European) systems in both countries (Scherpereel 2004). More generally, practices from the communist era are seen to have survived remarkably undisturbed. Yet, they have done so in de-ideologized form and the ‘new civil servant’ is a rehabilitated version of the ‘old bureaucrat’ (Nunberg 1999: 257). Older national traditions have sometimes been mobilized to replace more recent and delegitimized arrangements. A suggested explanation has been that structural continuity in the applicant countries has primarily been a result of the weakness of EU inXuence (Goetz 2001b; Lippert, Umbach and Wessels 2001). Several factors other than EU policy have inXuenced administrative developments in the CEECs, but the existing institutional diVerentiation and resilience of domestic institutions and traditions are not seen as decisive. Limited resources, however, have constrained reform eVorts. On the other hand, a study of Czech civil servants observed that those most exposed to the EU had been more sensitive to signals from EU institutions

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than from their political leadership. They were also more supportive of European integration (Drula´k, Cesal and Hampl 2003). Furthermore, a Lithuanian study claimed that the impacts, both in scope and intensity, have been far more visible in the applicant countries than in the member states. The explanation was in terms of more elaborated membership conditions, an asymmetry of power that was strengthened by the lack of enthusiasm for enlargement in the EU, a concentration in time of the change process, as well as the weak infrastructure and in many cases the absence of formulated policies in the applicant countries. The EU prescription of market correction policies and the administrative requirements of a utopian model of a regulatory state led to convergence and structural isomorphy. The result was depoliticization and a strengthening of non-majoritarian, technocratic institutions that was counterproductive to democratization. The preferences of the candidate countries were not incorporated into the process. They lost control over the agenda and had little time and energy left for issues like education, health, social security and law and order (Maniokas 2003). In brief, some see convergence as modest in spite of the presence of several factors that could be assumed to produce such change. Delegitimized institutions and power asymmetry have been counteracted by the lack of an exemplary model agreed upon by EU members, the absence of a coherent administrative policy in the Union, and the EU norm that domestic organization should be controlled by member states. Others observe more convergence and see imposition as a key process. Such diVerences in perceptions are to be expected and it is no surprise that an observer from a small and relatively powerless applicant country is most inclined to see convergence and imposition. However, the time-frame used may also be too short to make Wrm conclusions about long-term administrative convergence.

C O N C LU S I O N S AN D P U ZZ L E S To what extent, then, is there support for the European convergence hypothesis and the vision of an emerging European Administrative Space? Variance and disparities have been reduced and convergence has occurred. Common institutions have been established. Domestic administrations have been adapted to European standards and administrative law has been harmonized. Incremental constraints on the set of acceptable administrative solutions have reduced variance and may in the long run accumulate into an EAS. Nevertheless, there is also continuity and co-existence between elements of the new and the old administrative order. No unitary model has emerged and convergence has

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often involved discovering and codifying what member states’ administrations already had in common. Impacts have been stronger in applicant countries than in member states. The ratio of imposition to attractiveness has also been higher in the former. Several factors make it diYcult to give more precise answers. There are no shared concepts and indicators of ‘administrative convergence’. When diVerent mixes of convergence and continued diVerentiation are observed, no shared metric exists to decide to what degree convergence has taken place. There are also few comparative empirical studies and conclusions vary according to the countries studied. Because diVerent parts of public administration have diVerent dynamics, conclusions also depend on which aspects are studied. An example is whether the focus is on administrative law and formal organizational structures, objectives and standards, administrative doctrines, roles, codes of conduct, cultures, identities or behavioural practices. Therefore, a focus on institutional dynamics must not be allowed to overshadow the fact that administrative convergence depends on changes in administrators as well as in structures, rules and resources. The NPM assumes self-interested, utility-maximizing administrators. The OPA assumes administrators socialized into an ethos of rule-following and public service. Understanding administrative convergence, however, requires longitudinal studies of the processes through which a sense of administrative identity and role is developed, lost and redeWned. Such understanding also requires insight into the conditions under which the administration is likely to develop European and domestic identities and internalize democratic, constitutional and professional norms. An example would be whether legal rules work as external incentives aVecting behaviour through calculation of the expected utility of available alternatives, or rules have normative power. In the latter case administrators are governed by internalized codes of right and wrong, true and false, legal and illegal, and they act on the basis of a logic of appropriateness. For democratic governments it is easier and more legitimate to change formal administrative and legal structures than to change moral structures and mentalities that inXuence whether people voluntarily comply with rules of conduct. Ignoring the role of change in moral and causal beliefs, however, is likely to create surprises and disappointments in the CEECs (Cepl 2000) as well as in the West. A Wrmer conclusion can be drawn when it comes to the global convergence hypothesis. The hypothesis gets little support. The NPM is part of administrative rhetoric and practice in several member states. Still, it has played a modest role in European convergence and no general trend from Old Public Administration to New Public Management can be observed in Union administrative practice. The diVerent perspectives of the OECD/Sigma and OECD/Puma reform programmes, promoting respectively the ‘classical’

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model and NPM, illustrates the need to contextualize theories and principles, make their basic assumptions explicit and study their scope conditions. These diVerences also suggest a need to take into account sequential and cyclical attention to legitimate concerns, such as stability and Xexibility, innovation and accountability, capacity-building and slimming down, substantive results and constitutive normative principles, due process and rights. Sigma has advised the CEEC countries to give priority to the rule of law, accountability, reliability and predictability, and trust-building over eYciency. In its recommendations to Western countries Puma has given priority to economy and eYciency. It would be no surprise if priorities change in both regions over the next few years, among advisers as well as governments. For students of administration, European developments revive old issues, such as the need to take the historical and cultural context into account and develop a speciWc public sector organization theory as a counterweight to the ahistorical and a-cultural NPM, which takes its inspiration from private sector management. Public administration is in the midst of a balancing act in which its institutional role is being reconsidered, redeWned and reorganized (see Chapter 6 above). It is part of a long-term process of reorganizing interinstitutional relations and redeWning democratic and constitutional ideals in a multilevel and multi-centred Europe. These transformations involve a variety of processes of change. Even if some actors are more inXuential than others, no single principal is likely to control administrative convergence by redesigning laws or incentive structures. The institutional resilience hypothesis diVerentiates between change that is consistent with an institution’s identity and change which is not, and between situations characterized by a performance crisis, and those which are not. VeriWcation and falsiWcation is sometimes diYcult because the distinctions do not predict precisely when convergence is expected to take place. The hypothesis, however, is supported by the fact that many elements of the public administrations have survived not only in member states but also in applicant countries. A shared European context, common policy-making and extensive interaction have produced modest convergence. The oft-alleged inXexibility of public administration, however, has not been observed. Administrations have shown willingness and ability to change, rather than rigidity and insularity. One reason may be that European involvements have provided interesting tasks and made administrators more central participants in policy-making— changes that are unlikely to collide with institutional identities and impede change. Administrations have succeeded in coping with changing environments, but they have done so in ways inXuenced by existing administrative arrangements. In a world of Weberian bureaucracy it is no surprise that formal structures are maintained, since it is irrelevant whether rules come

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from Brussels or national capitals. Yet the institutional resilience hypothesis is supported by the observation that member countries have been able to cope with common challenges, both in Brussels and at home, through their diVerent ways of organizing public administration. Observations of European developments create two puzzles for students of formally organized institutions. A foundational belief among students of formal organizations, as well as practicioners, is that organization matters. The assumption is that purposes and substantive rationality are embedded in formalization. Well-organized institutions, working properly, govern behaviour and achieve in practice the purposes they were designed to serve. Designing and redesigning institutions changes behaviour and improves substantive results (Goodin 1996b; OVe 2001; Stinchcombe 2001). From this perspective, students of administrative convergence face two puzzles: Wrst, loose coupling between formal organization and behaviour, and second, loose coupling between formal organization and substantive results. The Wrst puzzle is that stability in organizational structures and behavioural Xexibility have come together. Intense interaction among European administrators, changed patterns of attention, and resource allocation have taken place without radical structural change and convergence. The observation of loose coupling is not new in the study of formal organizations (March and Olsen 1976; Weick 1976). It is well known that the degree of coupling and the degree to which organizational structures govern behaviour and shape results vary. On the face of it, the loose coupling of organizational structure and behaviour also seems to support an interpretation of formal structures as fac¸ades and myths (Meyer and Rowan 1977; Brunsson 1989). A more careful examination, however, shows that the evidence in the European context is the opposite of the expectations of this literature. Its prediction is that organizations facing changing environments will change their formal fac¸ades and protect their behavioural cores. In the European context, formal organizational structures have been fairly stable while core practices have changed. The second puzzle is that the European Union has been successful in terms of common policy-making and economic and political integration with rather modest administrative convergence. While it is uncertain exactly how uniWed domestic implementation of EU policies is, no major implementation crisis has emerged (see Chapter 10 above). DiVerently organized administrations have been able to cope with new functional tasks and changing normative environments. They have succeeded in producing acceptable, and sometimes outstanding, substantive results under new conditions, basically within established administrative structures. Possibly, the two puzzles are illusory, and due to the fact that students of European administrative convergence lack adequate, Wne-grained categories

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and conceptual tools for analysing organizational structures, behavioural patterns, substantive results and their interrelations. It is, however, also possible that the puzzles are real. If they are, they challenge students of public administration to rethink the varying relations between institutional organization, behaviour and performance, including the question of how the organization of administrative institutions mediates between new and old administrative orders.

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Index access, and European institutions 129 accountability 9, 40, 102, 117 and charade of 144 and democratic legitimacy 120 and network governance 131 accounts, and institutional change: and environmental accounts 104–5 and institutional accounts 106–8 and strategic agency accounts 105–6 acquis communitaire 186, 232, 270 actors: and competitive selection 80 and European Union’s self-interpretation 2 and experiential learning 79–80 and institutional adaptation 245 and institutional change 105, 166 and institutional engineering 168–9 and institutions 101 and limited capacity of 63 and motivations of 22 and purposeful decision-making 76–9 and rule application 74–6 and significance of 54 adaptation: and democracies 47 and European Union 217–18 and Europeanization 72, 79–80, 82–4, 228, 229–30, 236, 239–40 radical adaptation 231 uneven adaptation pressure 232–5 and institutional processes 4 and institutional reform 172, 175–6, 197–8 and institutions 21, 188 finding their place 245–6 and maintenance of political order 32 and politics of 244 and territorial state 91 administration: and Code of Good Administrative Behaviour 135, 136, 161 and Europeanization 240–1 double-hatted 161 see also administrative convergence; European Administrative Space (EAS); public administration administrative convergence: and absence of shared concepts of 272

and applicant countries 269–71 conditions for 267–9 and approaches to: common assumptions of 257 institutional resilience 253, 255–6, 257, 273–4 new institutionalism 255 New Public Management 256–7, 272–3 Old Public Management 256 tensions between 257 and assessment of 271–2 and attractiveness 259 and doubtful usefulness of term 254–5 in European Union 263–7 conditions for 260–3 and global convergence 272–3 and imposition 259–60 and lack of metric for 252 and loose coupling 274 and meaning of 254 and role of administrators 272 see also convergence; European Administrative Space (EAS); public administration agency, and institutional forms 113 alienation, and European Union 117 allegiance: and constitutional change: choice framework 209 drift framework 210–11 gardening framework 211–12 and European integration 37 ambiguity 244 and Convention on the Future of Europe 223 and European integration 65 Amsterdam Treaty (1997) 38, 217, 218 anarchy, international 36, 56 applicant countries 74, 110 and administrative convergence 269–71 conditions for 267–9 and Convention on the Future of Europe 41 appropriateness: and behaviour 3, 8 and European Union enlargement 75 and public administration 148

318 arguments, and explanatory power 102 aspirations, and reform proposals 196–7 attention: and attention patterns 233–4 and reform process 193 and sequential 65, 173, 214, 244, 258, 273 attractiveness, and administrative convergence 259 auditing 153 authority: and administrative convergence 260 and bureaucracy 138 criticism of 143 autonomy: and bureaucracy 139, 147 and Europeanization 230, 239 and institutions 3, 53 citizens’ roles 123 legitimization of 130 and integration 24 bargaining: and institutional change 105, 188 and institutionalized cooperation 47 and network governance 124, 131 and open method of coordination 125 behaviour: and appropriateness 3, 8 and behavioural logics 45, 148 and communitarian approaches 8 and consequentiality 2 and institutions 4 and national identity 56 and political actors 54 and principal-agent models 8 and rule-driven 2–3 and structures of meaning/resources 4 behavioural revolution, and political science 98, 99 benchmarking 125, 172 best practice 125, 143, 172 and diffusion of 253 boundaries: and centre-periphery relationships 53 and European integration 27–8 and Europeanization 70, 73–6 and integration 26 and nation-and state building 52 and political and national 36–7 and transnational interaction 56 bounded rationality 11, 206 and reform 174

Index bureaucracy: and attractiveness of 141 criteria of success and failure 141–5 impacts of 145–9 positive contributions of 146–7 rules 146–9 and bureaucratic theory 138–9 and bureaucratization 138, 140 and characteristics of 138 and conflicting views of 137 and criticism of 7 democratic dynamics 154 network criticism 143–4 public administration reform 142–3 too little bureaucracy 142, 150 too much bureaucracy 142 and disentanglement problem 149 and European integration 36 and European Union 157–61 as ideal type 140–1 questionable value of 149 as institution 139 as instrument 139 as pejorative term 138 and public administration 9 and relevance of 137 and viability of 150–1 democratic learning 154–6 reform 151–3 Weber’s views of 150–1 and Weberian 9, 138 see also public administration capacity, and bureaucracy 140 Central and East European Countries 75, 110, 237 and administrative convergence 269–71 conditions for 267–9 centre-building 6, 32, 52, 58, 59, 65, 70, 88 centre-periphery relationships 53 change: and coexistence of old and new orders 12–14 and constitutional choice 21 and (de)institutionalization 19 and environmental determinism 21–2 and Europeanization 71–2 adaptation 82–4 competitive selection 79, 80 diffusion 84–6 experiential learning 79–80 institutional dynamics 89–90 political unification 87–90

Index purposeful decision-making 76–9 rule application 74–6 and institutions 3, 9, 10, 103–4 environmental accounts 104–5 institutional accounts 106–8 from legal to ‘living’ 97–100 strategic agency accounts 105–6 and legitimacy, basis of 102–3 and lessons from European integration: lack of comprehensive theory of 45–6 learning and adaptation 47 legitimacy 46–7 role of democratic actors/institutions 46 and organic processes of 187 see also constitutional change; institutional dynamics; reform Charter of Fundamental Rights in the European Union 130, 190, 217 and public administration 135, 265 choice: and constitutional change 21, 203–5, 210 and institutional forms 105 and reform 174 churches, and Europeanization 83 citizens: and myth of free and equal 119 and public administration 135 and role of 117–18, 132–4 research agenda 128–9, 131–2 and their helpers 7–9 citizens’ Europe, and principle of 42–3 citizenship: and conceptions of 121 and democracy 25 and European citizenship 126, 128 and European integration 61 and nation-state 132 and participation: autonomous institutions 123 democratic perspective on 119–21 European Union’s view of 126–7 network governance 124–5 parliamentarization 122–3 reliance on others 120 and political unification 51 and territorial identity 51–2 civil rights 59 civil society: and democratic legitimacy 125–6 and Europeanization 83, 242 and integration 96 and mobilization from below 211 civilization, and rules 146

319

coercion: and administrative convergence 259–60 and Europeanization 85, 232 and imposition 228 and institutionalization 97 co-evolution 67, 245 co-existence of orders see also mixed orders cognitive frames 174 collective memory 65 collectivism, and unity 5 colonialization, and Europeanization 85 Committee of Regions 246 Common Agricultural Policy 61 Common Assessment Framework 266 communitarianism, and behaviour 8 community, and institutions 23 competition: and convergence 256 and institutions 176 competition policy 35, 61 competitive markets 89, 90 competitive selection 22 and challenge to 30 and constitutional change 206, 211 and dispute resolution 211 and European Union 217 and Europeanization 72, 79, 80, 228–9, 240 and institutional change 104, 188, 189–90 compliance: and bureaucracy 140 and normative obligations 101 and reasons for 100 and rules 100 conditionality, and administrative convergence 260, 268 conflict: and constitutional change 214–15 and Convention on the Future of Europe 222–3 and decision-making 213 and routine politics 214 consent, and European integration 58–9, 65 consequences, and integration 25–7 consequentiality: and political behaviour 2 and public administration 148 constitutional change: and agreement/allegiance to 209 choice framework 210 drift framework 210–11 gardening framework 211–12 and competing accounts of 203 and consequences of 212, 224 and constitutional conventions 204–5

320

Index

constitutional change (cont.) conflict 214–15 garbage can process 214 open nature of 213–14 and constitutional moments 213 and democratic context 201 and difficulty of 200 and frameworks for understanding: clarifying assumptions of 208–9 constitutional choice 203–5 constitutional drift 205–6 constitutional gardening 206–7 non-exhaustive nature of 207–8 not mutually exclusive 207 processes of change 208 and impact of, doubts over 210 and legitimacy 209, 210 and limits to 209 and piecemeal reform 206–7, 211–12 and rarity of comprehensive 213 and routine politics 214 see also constitutional reform; Convention on the Future of Europe; reform constitutional politics, and political orders 21 constitutional reform: and damaging potential of 191–2 and democratic context 201 and difficulty of 200 and Humboldt Lecture (Fischer) 178, 183–4, 185–6 criticism of 190–1 interpretations of 194 time scale 193 utopian or visionary 189–92 and leaders as institutional engineers 184, 187–8 and leaders as institutional gardeners 184, 188–9, 192–3, 199 clarifying aspirations 196–7 developing shared assessment criteria 195–6 developing shared interpretations 194–5 developing shared vocabulary 194 improving institutional adaptability 197–8 stabilizing attention 193 and leaders as institutional pawns 184, 187 and problems created by 171 see also constitutional change; Convention on the Future of Europe; reform constitutionalism 212

constitutions: and behavioural approach to 99 and change 175 and functions of 200, 202 and Weber’s definition of 99 ‘consultation reflex’ 240 Convention on the Future of Europe 9, 41–4, 66, 179 and aims of 220 and ambiguity 223 and establishment of 219–20 and expectations of: optimistic 221 sceptical 221–2 and member-states’ reservations 220–1 and procedures of 222–3 see also constitutional change; constitutional reform; Draft Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe (2005) convergence: and Europeanization 236–7 and limited nature of 30, 35–6, 81–2 and public administration reform 152–3 see also administrative convergence cooperation: and European integration 58–9, 65 and public administration 144 coordination: and functional organization 111–12 and institutional change 89–90, 108 and integration 96 and rules 146 Copenhagen Declaration (1993) 74 corruption, and bureaucracy 146 decision-making: and competing institutional forms 109–10 and conflict 213 and framing of proposals 110 and purposeful, Europeanization 72, 76–9 and risk-aversion 172 and routine politics 214 deinstitutionalization: and change in political orders 19 and national unity 51 and processes of 96 deliberative democracy, and possibility of 132 democracy: and balancing acts involved in 121 and conceptions of 24–5 and constituting government 200

Index and constitutional democracy 210 and constitutional reform 201 and democratic governance 8 and European integration 61 and institutional engineering 169 and institutional requirements 118 and integration 178 and learning and adaptation 47 and legitimacy 7, 120 theoretical requirements 128–9 and nation-state 132 and political orders 20–1 and post-democratic order 29 see also participation democratic deficit 7, 33, 47, 117, 128, 132 democratization 40 and political unification 51 and rules 146 deontological approach 141, 153, 195–6 d’Estaing, Vale´rie Giscard 41 differentiation: and Europeanization 80–1, 240 and implementation of European law 249, 250 diffusion: and administrative reform 154 and constitutional change 208 and exporting European institutions 72, 84–6 and open method of coordination 172 direct effect, and European law 59 disentanglement problem 149 dispute resolution: and competitive selection 211 and constitutional democracy 210 and European Union 47 and institutional breakdown 213 and routine politics 214 and unity 6 diversity and unity, balancing of 4–7, 22–7 and integration 23–5 and lessons from the EU 44–8 and varieties of consequences 25–7 and Westphalia decaying 27–31 and Westphalia modified 56–7 and Westphalia rescued 31–6 and Westphalia transformed 36–44 Draft Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe (2005) 9, 43, 179, 190, 217, 222 and ambiguity 223 and public administration 135, 261

321

see also Convention on the Future of Europe due process 101 economic integration 32, 59 economic policy, and Europeanization 83 education, and national identity 78 elections: and European Parliament 129 and Europeanization 83 environmental determinism 21–2, 55 and challenge to 30 environments: and institutional change 104–5 and institutions finding their place 245–6 equality, and rules 146–7 equilibrium models, and political orders 12–13 European Administrative Space (EAS): and administrative convergence 254–5, 263–7 absence of shared concepts of 272 assessment of 271–2 conditions for 260–3 role of administrators 272 and applicant countries 269–71 conditions for 267–9 and meaning of 252, 254 and Old Public Management 256 European Central Bank 7, 32, 49 and national banks 35 European Commission 7, 34, 35, 49, 60 and administrative order 159 and Convention on the Future of Europe 220 and convergence criteria 268 and criticism of inter-governmental method 219 and democratic participation 117 Plan D 127 and European civil service 136 and implementation of European law 246, 247–8, 250 and national administrative entities 35 and need for comparative studies 129 and open method of coordination 125 and public administration 160–1 and Reform Strategy White Paper (2000) 160 and transnational public sphere 125 European Convention on Human Rights 250

322

Index

European Council 78, 246 and need for comparative studies 129 and public administration 159 European Court of Auditors 112, 159, 246 European Court of Justice 7, 34, 49, 246 and administrative convergence 265 and enforcement of European law 248–9 and national courts 35 and need for comparative studies 129 and public administration 136 European Economic Area 239 European Free Trade Association (EFTA) 78, 217 European integration: and absence of strategic-actor rhetoric 15–16 and apolitical conception of 39, 58 and basis of 92 and co-evolution 67 and consequences of 92 and context of 57 and determinants of 92 and different views on 40 and dynamics of 92, 94, 190 institutionalization 94–7 legal to ‘living’ institutions 97–100 and economic integration 32 and features of 62, 66 consent-based 58–9, 65 flexibility 65 impact on member states 61–2 instrumental justification of 58 unevenness of 59–61 and Humboldt Lecture 185–6 criticism of 190–1 interpretations of 194 time scale 193 utopian or visionary 189–92 and identity 36, 37, 60, 101–2, 196–7 and impact of: disagreements over 33–4 domestic politics 129 member states 61–2 national institutions 35 and impact on territorial state 12 allegiances 37 and instrumental/functional approach to 6 and learning processes 62–5 and lessons from 44–8 lack of theory of European integration 45–6 learning and adaptation 47 legitimacy 46–7

role of democratic actors/institutions 46 and limits to 101–2 and long-term historical processes 50 and meaning of 92 and opposition to 59 and political character of 39 and process of 15–16, 44 and tensions over 58 and time perspective on 63 and Westphalia decaying 27–31 limitations of approach 30–1 obsolescence of nation-states 27–9 post-democratic order 29 and Westphalia rescued 31–6 beyond intergovernmentalism 33–6 conceptions of the EU 33–4 EU’s limited capabilities 32–3, 61 governance without government 34–5 role of member states 32 and Westphalia transformed 36–7 Convention on the Future of Europe 41–4 emergence of European institutions 37 enlargement 37–9 politicization and democratic dynamics 39–41 principles of institutional organization 37 see also administrative convergence; Europeanization; integration European law 34, 59 and domestic incorporation of 248 and implementation deficit 246–51 and margin of appreciation 250 and soft law 35 European Ombudsman 126–7, 129 and public administration 135, 265 European Parliament 49, 60, 122, 123 and development of 217 and elections to 129 and need for comparative studies 129 and public administration 159 and role of 125–6 and strengthening of 34, 133 and weakness of 33 European Union: and administrative convergence 262–7 applicant countries 267–71 conditions for 260–3 loose coupling 274 and architecture of 97 and balancing unity and diversity 44 and constitutional development 216

Index adaptation 217–18 comprehensive reform demands 219 Convention on the Future of Europe 219–23 criticism of inter-governmentalism 219 democracy building 218–19 haphazard nature of 217 interpretations of 216–17 learning 217–18 post-Maastricht 218 and control by member states 32, 59 and criticisms of 7 and decision-making: competing institutional forms 109–10 framing of proposals 111 and democratic legitimacy 32 and development of 215–16 and different conceptions of 33–4, 216 and dynamic nature of 167–8 and English-only Europe 29, 60 and enlargement of 38–9 administrative convergence 267–91 dynamics of 74–6 identity formation 110–11 and foreign policy 86 and formal-legal nature of 176, 243 and ‘future of Europe’ debate 69 and global influences on 29 and governance of: consistent developments in 44–5, 180–1 nature of 178 principles of 102 structure of 233 without government 34–5 and institutional change 103–4 demand for comprehensive reform 166–8 environmental accounts 104–5 institutional accounts 106–8 from legal to ‘living’ 97–100 strategic agency accounts 105–6 transforming potential of 102 and institutional collisions 111–12 and institutional design 9, 11–12 as large-scale experiment 1 and legitimacy 32, 39, 41, 60, 100, 101, 102–3 and limited capabilities of 32–3, 61, 232–3 and mixed political order 14 as multi-level/centred polity 34 and objectives of 215–16 and power relations in 191 and public administration 135–6, 153

323

absence of doctrine 159, 261 search for administrative order 157–61 and public opinion 127 and raison d’eˆtre of 189 as regulatory polity 98–9 as rule-based polity 8–9 and self-interpretation of 171 actor-centred 2 as political order 2–3 strategic-actor perspective 3 and supranational elements of 33–4 and transformation of political order 1 and unity and diversity 4–7 see also Convention on the Future of Europe; European integration; Europeanization European Union Consolidated Treaties (1997) 167 Europeanization: and ‘banal Europeanization’ 218 and change processes 71–2 and changing boundaries of Europe 70, 73–6 enlargement of EU 74–6 and conceptions of 69 as contested concept 68 and doubtful usefulness of term 68, 70 and dynamics of 69 and European-level institutions 70 purposeful decision-making 76–9 and exporting European institutions 70–1, 84–7 and impact on national governance systems 70, 79–84, 227–8, 237–8 adaptation 79–80, 82–4, 228, 229–30, 236, 239–40 administrative systems 240–1 autonomy hypothesis 230, 239 civil society 83, 242 competing interpretations of 238–9 competitive selection 79, 80, 228–9, 240 convergence 236–7 differentiated responses 80–1 domestic institutions 81–2 domestic politics 242 entrenched domestic institutions 235–7 experiential learning 79–80, 228–9, 230–1 implementation deficit 246–51 imposition 228 institutional mediation 228–31 institutions finding their place 245–6 isomorphy hypothesis 229, 239

324 Europeanization (cont.) maintenance of national institutions 239 methodological considerations 242–3 national identity 83 non-uniform effects 240 public opinion 83 radical adaptation 231 uneven adaptation pressure 232–5 values and policy paradigms 82–3 and model-building 90–1 and political unification 87–90 change processes 88–9 co-evolving institutions 88–9 institutional dynamics 89–90 and political unification project 71 and power relations 72–3, 77, 86 see also European integration Euroscepticism 40 expediency, and institutions 208 n7 external shocks: and change 103 and constitutional change 213 and institutional collisions 112 federalism 59 and European identity 86 and framing of proposals 110 and Humboldt Lecture 183–4, 185–6 criticism of 190–1 interpretations of 194 time scale 193 utopian or visionary 189–92 and institutional development 10 fiscal policy, and Europeanization 83 flexibility: and implementation of European law 249–50 and public administration 273 foreign policy: and European Union 86 and Europeanization 82 free movement 35, 61 ‘future of Europe’ debate 69 garbage can process 214 goals, and public administration 148 governance: and citizens’ Europe 42–3 and criteria for good 120 and democratic context 201 and democratic governance 8 and effectiveness of 201

Index and European Union 178 consistent developments in 44–5, 180–1 principles of 102 without government 34–5 and Europeanization, domestic impact of 79–84 and law 98–9 and network governance 124–5, 130–1, 266 and obsolescence of nation-state 29 and supranational 77 government, and constituting of 200 and constitutional choice 203–5 and constitutional drift 205–6 and constitutional gardening 206–7 see also constitutional change; constitutional reform historical drift, and institutions 10 historical inefficiency 72, 175 n2, 230 and institutional change 77–8, 106 and institutional processes 4 history: and ‘burdens of the past’ 81 and constitutional change 205–6 and European integration 63 and lessons from 111 ‘never again’ 65 ‘recapturing former glory’ 65 and rewriting of 218 homogeneity, and political orders 23 human rights 60, 130 and rights revolution 153 Humboldt Lecture (Joschka Fischer) 178, 183 and criticism of 190–1 and European Federation 183–4 and interpretations of 194 and process of change 185–6 and stepwise political development 186 and time scale 193 and utopian or visionary 189–92 identity: and bureaucrats 36 and citizenship 51–2 and collective 24 and education 78 and European integration 36, 37, 60, 101–2, 196–7 and European Union enlargement 74–6, 110–11 and formation of 109

Index and integration 25, 26 and national identity 30, 31, 56 Europeanization 83 and unity 5 ideologies: and institutions 21 and public administration reform 145–6 and trust 126 imitation, and constitutional change 208 implementation 244 and implementation deficit 246–51, 262 imposition: and administrative convergence 259–60 and Europeanization 85, 228, 232 incentives, and institutionalization 97 individualism 133 and unity 5 information, and European Union 233–4 institutional dynamics 22 and Europeanization 89–90 and frameworks for understanding 103–4 environmental accounts 104–5 institutional accounts 106–8 strategic agency accounts 105–6 and imperfectly integrated political orders 108–12, 179 and institutional collisions 111–12, 180 and institutional reform 165 capabilities 177–8 complex/dynamic worlds 180–2 knowledge 173–7 reflection 179 support for 178–9 will formation 170–3 and leaders as institutional engineers 184, 187–8 and leaders as institutional gardeners 184, 188–9, 192–3, 199 clarifying aspirations 196–7 developing shared assessment criteria 195–6 developing shared interpretations 194–5 developing shared vocabulary 194 improving institutional adaptability 197–8 stabilizing attention 193 and leaders as institutional pawns 184, 187 see also change institutionalism 3–4 and approach of 3 and institutional design 10–11 and nature of institutions 4

325

and political development 13 and role of institutions 3–4 institutionalization: and assessing level of 95–6 and change in political orders 19 and characteristics of 96, 230 and coercion 97 and exploitation of capabilities 95 and incentives 97 and institutions finding their place 245–6 and integration 23, 94–7 and national unity 51 and participation 97 and processes of 96 and standardization 95 and structuration and routinization 95 institutions: and adaptation 21 and assessment of 195–6 and autonomy of 3 and behaviour 4 and behavioural approach to 98, 99 and change 3, 9, 10 and characteristics of 3–4, 15 as citizens’ helpers 7–9 and democratic governance 8 and design of 9–11 and dynamic conception of 109 and European Union’s self-interpretation 2 and experiential learning 64 and finding their place 245–6 and formal-legal approach to 98, 176, 181 and forms of 105, 113 and functional-instrumental conception of 100–1 and functions of 173 and institutional engineering 11–12, 41 simple model of 168–9 and from legal to ‘living’ 97–100 and legitimacy of 100 and limited capacity of 63 and organizing principles of 108–9 and political development 21 and political orders 15 and role of 1, 15 and trust 126 and unity and diversity, balancing of 5–7, 22–7 and uses of 22 integration: and assessing level of 95–6 and autonomy 24 and boundaries 26

326 integration (cont.) and challenges of 25–6 collision 26 and characteristics of 96 and component entities 22 and cultural integration 23 and democracy 178 and diversity and unity, balancing of 23–5 and functional integration 23 and identity 25, 26 and institutionalization 23, 94–7 and key issues in 107 and lessons from the EU 44–8 and polity characteristics 24–5 and social integration 23 and supranational integration 49 and tensions over 58 and territorial state 51–2 and varieties of consequences 25–7 see also European integration integrative processes 6 Intergovernmental Conferences 217 and Convention on the Future of Europe 41 intergovernmentalism 32 and Commission criticism of 219 and European-level institutions 77 and institutional change 105 and treaty reforms 34 internal market 59 international anarchy 36, 56 international institutions 56 international organizations 65 and administrative reform 154–5 international relations 101 international relations theory 169 isomorphy hypothesis, and Europeanization 229, 239 judicial activism 61, 153 justice, and bureaucracy 139 knowledge: and institutional engineering 168 and institutional reform 173–7 kompetenz-kompetenz 96, 232–3 language: and English-only Europe 29, 60 and European integration 60 and reform proposals 194 law, and European Union 98–9

Index and implementation deficit 246–51 see also European law leadership: and institutional change 89–90 and institutional engineering 168–9 and leaders as institutional engineers 184, 187–8 and leaders as institutional gardeners 184, 188–9, 192–3, 199 clarifying aspirations 196–7 developing shared assessment criteria 195–6 developing shared interpretations 194–5 developing shared vocabulary 194 improving institutional adaptability 197–8 stabilizing attention 193 and leaders as institutional pawns 184, 187 and role of 63–4 and transformative 183 learning: and administrative convergence 259 and constitutional change 211, 212 and democracies 47 and European integration 62–5 and Europeanization 72, 79–80, 228–9, 230–1 and institutional change 109, 174–6 and an institutions place 112 and open method of coordination 125 and public administration 154–6 legalism, excessive 176 legislation, and political power 98 legitimacy: and autonomous institutions 130 and basis of 102–3 and constitutional change 209, 210 and cultivation of 99 and democracy 7, 120 theoretical requirements 128–9 and European Union 32, 39, 41, 46–7, 60, 100, 101, 102–3 and institutions 100 and need for improvement 117 and public administration 145 and reform 177 liberalization, and transnational interaction 56 Lisbon process 85–6, 124, 266 loose coupling, and administrative convergence 274 loyalty, and governance effectiveness 201

Index Maastricht Treaty (1992) 2 n1, 42, 60–1, 117, 122, 217, 218, 237 and dynamics of integration 190 and European citizenship 126 and revolt against 196 margin of appreciation, and European law 250 market mechanism, and institutional reform 175–6 market orders, and characteristics of 26 meaning: and rules 146 and structures of 4 minorities, and participation 131 model-building, and Europeanization 90–1 modernization: and European integration 28–9 and impact on institutions 108 motivation, and bureaucracy 140 multilevel networks 59 nation building 50, 52 and European integration 57 and institution building 78 and political unification 51 and role of actors 54 nationalism, and resurgence of 30, 83 nationalization of political life 50–6 nation-state 36–7 and challenge to concept of 67 and citizenship 132 and democracy 132 and European integration: impact on national institutions 35 Westphalia decaying 27–31 Westphalia rescued 31–6 Westphalia transformed 36–44 and European political order 1 and European Union’s self-interpretation 2 and national identity 30, 31 as no longer functional 6 and obsolescence of 27–9 see also territorial state neo-classical economics, and public administration reform 152 networks: and European Union 97, 233, 234 and Europeanization 88 and network governance 124–5, 130–1, 266 and participation 124–5 and public administration reform 152 and supranational governance 77

327

New Public Management 151–2, 155, 256 and convergence 256–7, 272–3 and weakened support for 262–3 see also public administration Nice, Treaty of (2003) 217, 218 and Declaration on the Future of Europe 219 non-governmental actors 29 non-intervention, and weakening of principle 56 norms, and European Union enlargement 75–6 novelty, and routines 80, 230, 256 Old Public Management 256 see also public administration Open Method of Coordination 35, 66, 124–5, 131 and administrative convergence 266 and diffusion processes 172 Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) 154, 273 organization theory, and institutional engineering 169 parliamentarization 122–3, 125–6, 129 participation: and democratic perspective on 119–21 and European Union’s view of 126–7 and institutional reform 176, 179, 181 and institutionalization 97 and institutions: autonomous institutions 123, 130 impact of 134 need for empirical studies 129 network governance 124–5, 130–1 parliamentarization 122–3, 129 and myth of free and equal citizens 119 and political objectives 120–1 and public opinion 127 and role of citizens 117–18, 132–4 reliance on others 120 research agenda 128–9, 131–2 and trust 120, 126, 134 path dependency 72, 175 n2 and change 53, 63 and institutional change 106 peer reviews 125 people, the: and conceptions of 5–6 and constitutional reform 188 and constitutions 204 and political orders 20–1

328 ‘permissive consensus’ 39 policy-making 64 and European Parliament 129 political development, and institutions 21 political integration, see European integration; Europeanization; integration political order: and change: (de)institutionalization 19 requirements of 184–5 and coexistence of old and new 12–14 and constitution of 22 and democratic vision of 20–1 and emergence of 20, 21 and functioning/consequences of 20 and institutional collisions 111–12, 180 and institutions 15 and kinds of 20 and lessons from European integration 44–8 lack of comprehensive theory of 45–6 learning and adaptation 47 legitimacy 46–7 role of democratic actors/institutions 46 and mixed orders 13–14 and (re)constituting of 200–1 and social/cultural homogeneity 23 and transformation of European 1 and Westphalian order: co-existence and co-evolution 67 impact of European Union 111–12 use of concept 19 n1, 49 n1 Westphalia decaying 27–31 Westphalia modified 56–7 Westphalia rescued 31–6 Westphalia transformed 36–44 political parties 53, 133 and European Parliament 129 and Europeanization 83 political unification: and co-evolving institutions 88–9 and Europeanization 71, 87–90 and institutional dynamics 89–90 see also European integration; Europeanization politicization, and European integration 39–41 popular sovereignty 201 power, and institutional engineering 168 power differentials, and European integration 59

Index power relations: and bureaucracy, criticism of 143 and European Union 191 and Europeanization 72–3, 77, 86 and legislation 98 and public administration 258 preferences, and institutional reform 170 principal-agent models, and behaviour 8 Prodi, Romano 117, 191 and dynamic nature of EU 167–8 and reform 166–7, 219 proportionality 66 public administration: and administrative doctrines 145 and administrators 148–9, 156 roles of 158 and assessment of 144, 159 and bureaucracy 9 and centrality of 135 and citizens 135 and complexity of 158 and context of 253 and criticism of: democratic dynamics 154 role of 142–3 too bureaucratic 142 too little bureaucracy 142, 150 and democratic learning 154–6 and de-professionalization of 147 and disentanglement problem 149 and environment of 144 and European Union: absence of doctrine 136, 159, 261 search for administrative order 157–61 and Europeanization 240–1 and implementation of European law 249 and inadequacy of single principle of 156, 159 and institutional resilience 253, 273–4 as key institution 252 and legitimacy 145 and organizational impacts 145–9 neglect of reform consequences 145–6 rules 146–9 and politicization of 147 and post-bureaucratic administration 150 and power relations 258 and principles of 136 and rebalancing of 156–7 and re-examination 157 and reforms of 142–3 administrative context 155

Index balancing stability and flexibility 151 bounded nature of 151–3 convergence hypothesis 152–3 external influences 154–5 inattention to consequences 145–6 malleability 151 market-based 152 network organization 152 New Public Management 151–2, 256 types of 151 and role expectations 257–8 changes in 258 and struggles over 258 and trust in 135–6 and universal prescriptions for 252–3 see also administrative convergence; bureaucracy; European Administrative Space (EAS) public opinion 39 and European Union 127 and Europeanization 83, 242 purposeful behaviour 52 and Europeanization 72, 76–9 and political actors 63 rationality: and bounded rationality 11, 174, 206 and bureaucracy 139 and communicative rationality 132 and local 65, 173, 214, 244, 258 reality checks, and institutional change 109, 174 Rechtsstaat, see state, the reflection, and institutional reform 179 reform: and adaptive capability 172, 175–6 and balancing problem 171–2 and cognitive frames 174 and conditions for successful 181–2 and consequences of 173–4, 181 and consistent direction of 180–1 and constraints on 173 and Convention on the Future of Europe 41–4 and damaging potential of 191–2 and demand for comprehensive 166–8, 219 and divisive nature of 178 and European Union institutions 93 and experiential learning 174–6 and Humboldt Lecture (Fischer) 178, 183–4, 185–6 criticism of 190–1

329

interpretations of 194 time scale 193 utopian or visionary 189–92 and institutional collisions 180 and institutional engineering 165 capabilities 177–8 complex/dynamic worlds 180–2 knowledge 173–7 reflection 179 simple model of 168–9 will formation 170–3 and institutional perspective 165–6 and institutionalization of 178 of institutions 9–12, 165–6 and instrumental approach to 167 and lack of stability 105 and legitimacy 177 and market mechanisms 175–6 and motives for 170 and objectives of 167, 171 and options available 181 and participation in 179 and problems created by 171 and reasons for 166 and support for 178–9 see also constitutional change; constitutional reform; public administration, and reforms of regional policy 61 regulation, and European Union 233 reinterpretation, and institutional change 109 reinventing government 154 reorganization, and institutions 4 rescue theory 34 research agendas: and Europeanization 242 and European-specific 93 and role of Euro-citizens 128–9 resources, and structures of 4 risk-averse behaviour 172 Rokkan, Stein 50, 52–5 Rome, Treaty of (1957) 91, 190, 220 routine: and adaptation 80 and dealing with novelty 80, 230, 256 and institutional processes 4 and institutionalization 95 and routine politics and constitutional change 214 rule application, and Europeanization 72, 74–6 rule of law 101, 181

330

Index

rules: and bureaucracy 140, 141–2 and compliance with 100 and constitutions 99 and European Union 8–9 and explosion of 153 and implementation deficit 246–51 and ‘package deals’ 246 and public administration 146–9 and reasons for following 100 normative obligations 101 scoreboards 125, 172 search, and choice 174 self-control, and compliance 101 self-restraint, and democracy 25 shaming 125 Single European Act 237 single-purpose agencies 148 social cohesion, and institutions 23 social engineering, and constitutional change 206 Social Europe, and conflict over 61 socialization: and constitutional change 210–11 and education 78–9 and integration 96 and public administrators 149 sovereignty, and weakening of 56–7 standardization, and institutionalization 95 state, the: and historical development of 50–6 and Rechtsstaat 51, 139 law 249 and varieties of 31 see also nation-state; territorial state state building 50, 52 and European integration 57 and institution building 78 and political unification 51 and role of actors 54 state-society relations, and Europeanization 236 structural interconnectedness 95, 96 structuration, and institutionalization 95 subsidiarity 66, 236 Support for Improvement in Governance and Management in Central and Eastern European Countries (Sigma) 254, 263, 264, 273 supranational institutions, and integration 96

territorial state 12 and adaptability of 91 and historical development of 50–6 and impact of changing political order 12 and impact of Europeanization 227–8, 237–8 adaptation 228, 229–30, 236, 239–40 administrative systems 240–1 autonomy hypothesis 230, 239 civil society 242 competing interpretations of 238–9 competitive selection 228–9, 240 convergence 236–7 domestic politics 242 entrenched domestic institutions 235–7 experiential learning 228–9, 230–1 implementation deficit 246–51 imposition 228 institutional mediation 228–31 institutions finding their place 245–6 isomorphy hypothesis 229, 239 maintenance of national institutions 239 methodological considerations 242–3 non-uniform effects 240 radical adaptation 231 uneven adaptation pressure 232–5 and institutional robustness 49 and integration of 51–2 and obsolescence of 27–9 and Westphalian order 27 modification of 56–7 see also nation-state Thematic Network in Public Administration 263 TINA-syndrome 28 n5 see also environmental determinism tradition: and political development 53 and reinterpretation of 25 transnational actors, and European integration 28 transparency: and autonomous institutions 123 and European institutions 129 and institutional reform 176, 181 and public administration 159 Treaty revisions 64 trust 39, 118, 126 and autonomous institutions 123

Index and basis of 135–6 and European citizenship 128 and participation 120, 126, 134 unity: and diversity, balancing with 4–7, 22–7 integration 23–5 lessons from the EU 44–8 varieties of consequences 25–7 Westphalia decaying 27–31 Westphalia modified 56–7 Westphalia rescued 31–6 Westphalia transformed 36–44 and formation of modern state 50–6 utopians and visionaries 183

331

variable geometry 232 voting behavior, and European integration 129 voting behaviour, and Europeanization 83 war, and constitutional change 208 Westphalian state order, see political order will formation 40, 46 and identity formation 102 and institutional change 105 and institutional engineering 168 and institutional reform 170–3 and political gardening 192 World Bank 154 and New Public Management 262–3