Explaining diversity – diversity in explanations

3 Explaining diversity – diversity in explanations

Comparative Europeanists will not be unduly surprised, still less concerned, by the apparent cross-national diversity of patterns of Europeanisation. Yet, given the dominant scholarly emphasis on persistent divergence in the core institutions of European democracies, despite decades of political and economic integration, it is worth probing these findings somewhat more deeply. Might the diversity in Europeanisation effects be caused as much by diversity in frameworks of analysis as by the empirical facts ‘on the ground’? In raising this question, our intention is not to deny differences in the reactions that have been observed. Rather, we want to explore to what extent and in what ways the apparent diversity in Europeanisation experiences might be conditioned by variations in empirical foci and conceptual and theoretical lenses. In this regard, the definition of institutions, powers and European integration as well as theoretical frameworks, geographical coverage and periods of observation deserve some comment.

Defining institutions: A common focus on parliaments and executives notwithstanding, analyses of the polity effects of progressive European integration do, in fact, cover many different institutional dimensions, which are not always tightly defined or made explicit. Thus, institutional analyses of parliaments and executives have variously focused on tasks, powers, competences, resources, structures, procedures, personnel, organisational behaviour, attitudes and, albeit rarely, norms and values. There is a strong tendency to generalise from the findings on one or two of these dimensions so as to arrive at broader conclusions regarding ‘winners’ and ‘losers’. Moreover, there is a great deal of work that, empirically, looks at parliaments or executives only, but draws conclusions about shifts in parliamentary systems more broadly.

Defining power(s): The domestic distribution of political power is at the heart of polity analyses of Europeanisation. Yet, how power is best defined, how it can be measured and what conditions the exercise of power are, of course, all deeply contested issues. In the study of parliaments, e.g., whilst some authors equate power with access to information, the ability to draw on ideological resources or agenda-setting power and make these the yardsticks of their assessments, others draw their conclusions on the basis of observations about MPs’ strategic behaviour or attitudinal change amongst parliamentarians and parliamentary parties.

Defining EU integration: Given the predominant understanding of Europeanisation as a response to European integration, it is, perhaps, surprising that students of Europeanisation rarely define explicitly what is meant by integration and the EU as the supposed driving force behind domestic change. For example, at least in polity related writing, there has, so far, been little attempt to draw out the implications of different policy modes, as set out, e.g., by Wallace (2005 ) who distinguishes the traditional Community method from an EU regulatory mode, an EU distributional mode, policy coordination and intensive transgovernmentalism. The EU is variously conceived as an actor and an arena; a set of structures and of procedures; or a legal, political, economic, social and cultural entity. It is, of course, all of these things, but, depending on which dimensions are highlighted, its domestic effects can be expected to differ substantially. Analyses that stress the domestic “usages of Europe” (Jacquot and Woll 2003 ), in particular, are often less concerned with the hard edges of EU integration than with its ideational dimensions and its legitimatory uses in domestic discourse (Schmidt 2005 , 2006 ).

Differences in theoretical approaches: Europeanisation research has been a laboratory for the application of new institutionalist frameworks in institutional and policy research. Very broadly, one can distinguish, first, between rationalist vs. historical-sociological approaches; and, second, between frameworks that stress either a top-down or a bottom-up perspective. Different theoretical approaches are, of course, highly selective in terms of the empirical evidence of Europeanisation they are likely to capture; in terms of the explanatory apparatus they employ; and in terms of the mechanisms of change they tend to highlight (for a recent summary see Bulmer 2007 ). This selectivity of theoretical lenses is inevitable, as theory is a tool for selection. Yet, given a pronounced tendency in the Europeanisation literature to ‘customise’ theoretical frameworks (rather than to employ and, where necessary, refine tried and tested frameworks in new empirical contexts), there is more than an element of arbitrariness in many of the findings (something that is reinforced by continuing debate surrounding the conceptualisation of Europeanisation itself – see Radaelli and Pasquier 2007 ).

Differences in geographical coverage: The great majority of Europeanisation studies put ‘domestic’ variables – be they institutions, interests, ideas, identities or discourses – at the heart of their explanations of patterns of Europeanisation. To the extent that these domestic explanatory variables vary, patterns of Europeanisation can also be expected to diverge. Our knowledge of Europeanisation in different parts of Europe is unequal, a fact that counsels circumspection when it comes to discussing wider European trends. In the English-language literature at least, the Europeanisation of core polity institutions in the Nordic countries, the UK, Germany, France and the Benelux countries has been much more extensively covered than Southern Europe. The literature on the countries that joined the EU in May 2004 and January 2007, respectively is also, by necessity, still fairly limited (see Sedelmeier 2006 ). What matters here is not just that the picture of Europeanisation that we have so far is, in parts, still very sketchy. The fact that few studies cover both North and South and West and East is also likely to lead to a rather skewed picture. For example, a study that only includes Nordic countries in a comparative analysis of parliamentary Europeanisation is more likely to show some parliaments as ‘losers’ than a more encompassing analysis that also includes Southern European parliaments, which are often regarded as ‘weak adaptors’. Thus, both the number of cases included in Europeanisation analyses and their selection matter when it comes to assessing diversity. It may seem paradoxical, if only at first sight, that the small N studies that prevail in Europeanisation research, combined with the fact that they tend to focus on neighbouring countries (or relatively homogeneous regions) bias analyses towards the finding of diversity rather than convergence.

Differences in time periods: When it comes to the role of time in Europeanisation research, three closely related points deserve highlighting. First, most studies consider only short periods of time, so that it is difficult to say anything about phases or stages of Europeanisation or to explore the possibility that trends might be reversed. What may look like diversity in a ‘snapshot’, may well turn out to possess a high degree of similarity once developments are studied over time. Second, hardly any studies pay attention to ‘relative timing’ (Goetz 2006 ), e.g., by comparing executive Europeanisation during pre-accession negotiations across different enlargement rounds. Analyses that cover the same time period, but neglect relative timing (notably relative to the date of accession and relative to the domestic consolidation of democracy) are, again, in danger of overstating the diversity of Europeanisation experiences. Finally, as Bulmer (2007 : 56) has noted, it is “surprising that there has been so little work that has sought to attend to the impact of time, timing and tempo at EU level upon the domestic level. Have national governments and parliaments, for example, made a perfect adjustment to the non-linear pattern of constitutional development in the EU? And if not, why not?”.