Europeanization: Redefining the Research Agenda

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EuropeanizationRedefining the Research Agenda

• ELIAMEP, Athens
• Friday, February 8
• Paolo Graziano
• Center for Comparative Political Research
• Department of Institutional Analysis and
• Public Management
• Bocconi University, Milano

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Presentation outline

• Europeanization and European studies
• Conceptual issues
• Theoretical issues
• Empirical and methodological issues
• Conclusion

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Europeanization and EU studies

• neofunctionalist, (liberal) intergovernmentalist
  and supranational governance approaches main
  focus is the EU level
• Europeanization looks primarely at the domestic
  level and domestic implementation of EU policies
• subdisciplinary shift from international
  relations to comparative politics

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Europeanization research promises

• better understanding of
• EU policy-making
• national policy-making
• transformation of European State
• EU multilevel governance patters
• Europeanization can (and has) been connected to
• EU and domestic policy analysis policy change
• EU polity building and national polity change
  analysis institutional setting
• EU and domestic politics political actors
  strategies

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Europeanization research pitfalls

• conceptual confusion
• fuzzy methodology and causal links
• lack of comparative studies
• state of the art rich empirical or conceptual
  studies, but very limited cases of rich empirical
  AND conceptual studies

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Conceptual issues

• europeanization is not convergence nor mere EU
  integration
• top-down and bottom-up process (i.e. construction
  and diffusion)
• process is different from its (direct and
  indirect) effects
• policy, polity and politics
• Europeanization as a case of regionalization

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Theoretical issues

• Europeanization is not a theory yet...
• ...but it builds on both neofunctionalist and
  intergovernmental theoretical assumptions.
• Third step in regional integration theory?

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Empirical issues

• pressure for policy change...
• ...but domestic differential impact.
• goodness of fit problem or solution?
• endogenous (mediating) factors do matter
• pressures for
• national polities (state structures)
• politics (political parties, interest groups and
  social movements)

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Methodological issues

• different nature of effects (direct and
  indirect) ex. cost containment and social policy
• counterfactual reasoning (looking for alternative
  pressures for change)
• broad and comparative research design
• possibly cover both construction and diffusion
  phases of the process

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Conclusion

• Europeanization research has come of age
• it regards not only policy analysis but also
  political and polity issues
• but it is still quite slippery.
• conceptual and empirical issues have to be dealt
  together in order to advance further.