Previous Meetings

These are the previous meetings of the current academic year. You may find the meetings of the previous academic year here.

23 April 2019

City Networks and the Multilevel Governance of Migration - Discourses and actions in the EU and US

Tiziana Caponio (Migration Policy Centre, EUI)

Seminar Room 1, Badia Fiesolana, 16-18h

Existing literature on City Networks (CNs), including studies on the migration and diversity policy field, look at CNs as instances of Multilevel Governance (MLG) policy-making. Yet, systematic research on the link between CNs and MLG is still scarce. The goal of this working paper is to understand how CNs on migration in different contexts conceive and frame their role in the multilevel politics of migration. What type of vertical and horizontal relations are CNs engaged in? And to what extent do these relationships configure the emergence of MLG-like policymaking processes? To answer these research questions, I undertake a policy frames analysis of the official discourses and main policy actions promoted by four CNs in different multilevel political settings, i.e.: the Eurocities Working Group on Migration and Integration, the European Coalition of Cities Against Racism (ECCAR) and the Intercultural Cities Programme (ICC) in Europe; Welcoming America in the United States. A key finding is that MLG, far from being an automatic outcome of city networking, is only one possible frame of policymaking interactions and not even the more relevant one.

13 March 2019

Prospectus Presentations

Seminar Room 4, Badia Fiesolana, 16-18h

A theory of crisis and crises of European integration: Why is this time different?

Lucas Schramm (SPS Department, EUI)

The European Union (EU) currently is in a state of crisis. Once again, one could say. In fact, the current crisis is not a single crisis but a multitude of crises: Eurozone crisis, migration crisis, Brexit, and a rule-of-law crisis in some EU member states. This “poly-crisis” (Commission President Juncker) has been going on for about ten years now and poses major challenges to EU institutions and member states. Consequently, in recent years, the end of the EU has repeatedly been invoked in political debates and press reports. European integration scholars, meanwhile, have started to work on elements and implications of a possible European ‘disintegration’. At the same time, crises have been an integral part of the European integration process from the outset. European integration only really took off after the proposed European Defense Community (EDC) was rejected in 1954. Since then, hardly a decade of integration has gone by without a major crisis. However, those crises were not only different with regards to the policy fields affected and the actors involved, but also in terms of crisis outcomes: No similarly ambitious project in security and military affairs has ever been launched again after the rejection of the EDC, whereas the end of the Cold War and German reunification, for example, led to the creation of a European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) as one of the most important projects in European integration history. In terms of crisis outcomes, though, we see considerable variation. At the same time, none of the crises so far has stopped or reverted the European integration process. Member states and EU institutions, in fact, have developed a remarkable level of routine, flexibility, and creativity in dealing with crises. And yet, the current poly-crisis might pose an extraordinary threat to the integration process. My thesis seeks to develop and test explanations to answer the question of why there has been variation in crisis outcomes. Doing so, it distinguishes between transformation, adaptation, disintegration, and failure. Moreover, the thesis wants to answer the question of why and in which ways the current poly-crisis is different from previous crises.

27 February 2019

The European Union and the Region of the Western Balkans: How periphery matters to the core in geopolitical terms?

Klodiana Beshku (University of Tirana / STG Visiting Fellow, EUI)

Seminar Room 3, Badia Fiesolana, 16-18h

This paper will aim to give a new European (Union) perspective of the Western Balkans Region in terms of Foreign Common and Security Policy of the European Union and how this perspective, if turned into a pragmatic and including enlargement policy could affect the future of the EU itself. The paper will try to give a new perspective on both Europeanization and Enlargement approach in European Studies, trying to overcome their classical paradigms. On this purpose, this paper will strive to make EU consider the area of the Western Balkans as a Geopolitical Region, in a world order where Russia, China, Turkey and other actors are threatening to include in their influence sphere the Western Balkans, some of these countries being historic allies of the EU and the USA. Geopolitics, as a pragmatic and realist approach of the Foreign Policy of a certain country appears to be a lot “in” nowadays. It is back more than ever now that “the history has returned” (Jennifer Welsh, 2018). In this direction, it seems important to determine a certain type of the geopolitical approach of the European Union’s vision of the World in terms of Realpolitik in a momentumwhen the geopolitical element is perceived as a driving force exclusively of the authoritarian regimes such as in Russia, China and Turkey. Why? After a decade of crisis within the EU, some of those already passed, others not, it could be the case for the EU to lay the vision in a longer perspective, in order to recover itself from the impasse and to regain new impetus for the future, but also to affront new issues concerning its security, new markets and energy exploitations. All this, particularly in a moment when US, historically an ally of EU and the West is reiterated in its domestic concerns.

20 February 2019

Obligation or Socialization? Attendance to Ministerial Meetings of the Council of the EU and the Rotating Presidency

Ieva Grumbinaitė (SPS Researcher, EUI)

Seminar Room 4, Badia Fiesolana, 16-18h

The fact that a remarkable share of decisions in the Council of the EU are made by civil servants and diplomats rather than elected ministers has been identified as yet another concern about the legitimacy of EU decision-making. On top of that, even though ministers are required to attend top-level Council meetings, this is not always the case. This paper introduces a dataset of ministerial attendance to the meetings of the Council of the EU from 2010 to 2017, showing that in one third of the cases vice ministers, state secretaries or permanent representatives were sent to the meetings instead of national ministers. Furthermore, it explores the impact of the rotating EU Council presidency on ministerial attendance to Council meetings finding that ministers barely skip meetings during their country’s presidency, but the position has no significant long-term socialising impact.

06 February 2019

The power of nomination in research funding: EU speech and academic strategies

Katharina Zimmermann (Humboldt University, Berlin / SPS Visiting Fellow, EUI)

Seminar Room 4, Badia Fiesolana, 16-18h

The power of the European Union is a matter of controversy, and a large variety of dimensions and nuances of power are discussed in the respective literature. In the proposed paper we take up the issue of language and concept framing and – by building upon Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of power of nomination – discuss how the specific scripts of EU funding shapes scholarly activities. By drawing on quantitative text analysis of publication abstracts in the context of EU-funded research and qualitative interviews with researchers and specialized administrative personnel, we show that different worlds of scholarly writing in and about Europe exist. Based on our findings, we argue that the EU’s particular power of nomination constitutes one of its central power resources, and thus knowing the rules of the “language game” of EU funding and using the EU vocabulary competently is crucial for gathering EU funds and successful project implementation. However, as our empirical data indicates, participating in the language game is not solely an issue of wording but also of adapting to the underlying concepts and ideologies, and can thus shape practices of scientific cooperation and have long-term effects on scholarly pathways.

The paper is co-authored by Katharina Zimmemann, Vincent Gengnagel, Sebastian Büttner and Christian Baier.

16 January 2019

One size does not fit all: European integration by differentiation

Jean Pisani-Ferry (RSC, EUI)

Seminar Room 3, Badia Fiesolana, 16-18h

Reforming the governance of the European Union has become urgent for three reasons: to better deal with politically-sensitive topics, to manage greater external challenges and because future EU enlargement will increase the diversity of the bloc’s member- ship. The answer to disagreement typically has been qualified majority voting, but on sensitive topics, the EU has increasingly moved to unanimity and heavy European Council involvement, which has often not delivered results. The alternative answer has been a Europe of multiple speeds of integration with one shared goal for all, increasing political tensions. A different approach is now needed to move Europe forward.

05 December 2018

A Crisis of Responsibility: The Role of Leader Understandings of Responsibility in Germany's Approach to the 2015 Refugee Crisis

Kelly Soderstrom (University of Melbourne / SPS Visiting Student, EUI)

Seminar Room 3, Badia Fiesolana, 16-18h

In late summer 2015, German Chancellor Angela Merkel opened Germany’s borders to hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing a violent civil war in Syria. During this “Refugee Crisis”, German leaders appeared to reverse their position on existing German and European Union (EU) asylum policies, especially the EU Dublin Regulation, by prioritising humanitarian protection for refugees over national interest. My doctoral thesis, entitled, “Germany’s Approach to Responsibility in the Refugee Crisis,” explores Germany’s response to the refugee crisis through an analysis of German political and civil society leaders’ understanding and prioritisation of responsibility in refugee policy at the national and supranational levels. This chapter of my thesis focuses on my conceptual and analytical frameworks, with responsibility as an ethical norm at the centre of refugee policy. Responsibility is cited by scholars and German politicians as an important factor which influenced Germany’s response to the crisis. Extant literature addressing responsibility as an explanation for Germany’s response focuses on single, isolated sources of responsibility for Germany’s change in policy approach. However, the context-dependent nature of responsibility demands a more nuanced approach in which the tensions between various types of responsibility at different levels of governance must be considered. Consolidation of decision-making and subjectivity in norm interpretation due to high degrees of uncertainty and urgency in crisis situations amplify these tensions between the various types of responsibility. These tensions can cause conflicts between competing normative policy objectives, which affect policy decision-making. Through understanding and subsequent prioritisation of responsibilities towards multiple actors at the national and supranational levels of governance, this chapter provides an analysis of how German leaders navigate the decision-making demands of the Refugee Crisis. I hypothesise that German leaders’ understandings and subsequent prioritisation of responsibility changed over the course of the Refugee Crisis, thereby driving policy change. This change in prioritisation of responsibility helps explain the evolution of Germany’s approach to refugee policy.

30 November 2018

Europeanization Revisited: Central and Eastern Europe in the European Union

Tomasz P. Woźniakowski (Hertie School of Governance & Stanford University) and Michał Matlak (European Parliament)

Seminar Room 2, Badia Fiesolana, 14-16h

Abstract

In 2004 and 2007, the European Union (EU) completed its Eastern enlargement, the largest intake of new member states in its history. EU accession also constituted a watershed in the history of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). In the course of enlargement, these countries have undergone pervasive “Europeanization” – a process of EU-driven change of their political and economic systems. Contributions to this special issue focus on the major questions for this collection: How has the Europeanization of CEE changed after accession, and how has it played out in the politics and the economies of the region? In the Introduction, we provide a conceptual and theoretical framework for these contributions and give an overview of their findings. The conceptual and theoretical section introduces the concept of Europeanization and reflects on the changing nature of Europeanization after Eastern enlargement. We argue that the conceptual conflation of Europeanization as process and outcome, which was defensible in the CEE accession period, needs to be reconsidered. After the 2005 enlargement, domestic factors and alternative international influences have gained in importance vis-à-vis EU-driven policy change. Consequently, gaps between Europeanization as policy diffusion and Europeanization as actual policy convergence are likely to increase and need to be theorized. Moreover, the theorization of mechanisms of Europeanization needs to be moved beyond the original focus on conditionality – and top-down, direct mechanisms more generally. After the accession period, and in the areas of political and economic Europeanization, indirect, horizontal and bottom-up mechanisms of Europeanization have gained in relevance.

You may find the book here.

14 November 2018

Pork-barreling going multilevel? - Regional autonomy and the role of partisan rivalry for the local allocation of EU funding

Florian Wittmann (BIGSS / SPS Visiting Student, EUI)

Seminar Room 3, Badia Fiesolana, 16-18h

Abstract

Partisan vote-seeking in the allocation of public goods and monies is a widespread and comprehensively studied phenomena. By contrast, less is known, which factors shape partisan vote-seeking behavior in a multilevel context with several actors being involved. This paper investigates this question by studying local fund allocation in EU Cohesion Policy in Polish and Italian regionally managed Operational Programmes, providing two main insights. First of all, it demonstrates that subnational authorities skew fund allocation towards their own electoral strongholds. Secondly, the capability of influencing fund allocation in financially and institutionally weak regions depends on the political context. Here, regions being in opposition to the incumbent government face larger obstacles to target their core constituencies compared to politically aligned governments.

07 November 2018

The EEAS's autonomous policy impact in EU security and defence policy-making: the use and mobilization of networks as explanatory variable?

Eleonore Heimsoeth (LSE / SPS Student, EUI)

Abstract

This thesis aims to assess the conditions under which the European External Action Service (EEAS) has autonomous policy impact, defined as the ability to shape and steer policies’ direction. For the EEAS to have autonomous policy impact it must, firstly, have the ability to insulate itself from other actors and cohesively pursue preferences, and secondly, engage and position itself in the network governance structure so as to connect and mobilize actors to create multi-actorial policy coalitions to engender policy transformation. By highlighting the underestimated politico-administrative capabilities of the EEAS, this research draws attention to a yet under-researched form of organisational resources, namely its social capital. Social capital represents the sum of the actual andpotential resources embedded within, available through and derived from the EEAS’s networks. The thesis goes on to test the variation of its social capital in three dominant policy types in the area of security and defence: (1)long-term strategic policy formulation, such as the European Union Global Strategy, (2)operational policies, adopting concrete crisis management and response mechanism, culminating in crises mediation and/or civilian and military mission and (3)capacity-building policies, that aim to create means for stronger defence capacities, such as the latest PESCO projects. To carry out this research a mixed-method approach is adopted: combining a qualitative Social Network Analysis and process-tracing exercise in three case studies, it will collect data through elite interviews and a roster-method survey.

24 October 2018

Explaining the informal institutionalisation of the European Parliament’s diplomacy since the Treaty of Lisbon

Daan Fonck (KU Leuven / SPS Visiting Student, EUI)

Seminar Room 3, Badia Fiesolana, 16-18h

Abstract

Throughout the last decade, the European Parliament has come to profile itself as a diplomatic player during several conflicts in the EU’s backyard. This paper therefore seeks to explain the discrepancy between the formally prescribed diplomatic prerogative of the EU executive (European Commission, EEAS), and the empirically observed diplomatic agency of the EP that has come to the fore since the entry into force of the Lisbon treaty. Theoretically, the paper revisits the scholarship on informal institutional change in EU institutional politics and applies these insights to this unexplored field of EU foreign policy. Treating parliamentary diplomacy as an informal institution, a rational-choice historical-institutionalist (RCHI) is relied upon to develop and test hypotheses on the emergence of parliamentary diplomacy as a recurrent practice in EU foreign policy. To test their validity, the article provides an analysis of all episodes of diplomatic mediation by the European Parliament since the 7^th European Parliament, and retraces patterns of informal institutional change both within the EP, as well as between the EP and the EU executive actors. It is found that the EP’s diplomacy installed itself primarily as ‘functionalist’ institution, aimed at increasing the efficiency of EU foreign policy, in absence of a clear formal legal framework to do so.