Searching for patterns

4 Searching for patterns

The preceding section has given some pointers as to explanations for the finding of diversity or, at times, even contradictions in patterns of Europeanisation. As we have indicated, this finding is, to some extent, the result of analytical frameworks and research designs employed in studies of Europeanisation. The dominant strand of Europeanisation literature has stressed the ‘differential impact” of Europe: diversity in domestic responses – across countries and institutions – constitutes a key theme in Europeanisation research. In fact, it has become something of an article of faith that Europeanisation is not associated with convergence (Wessels, Maurer, and Mittag 2003 ). Whilst all this may advise against the search for broader patterns, it is through identifying such patterns that the full implications of integration for national democracies become apparent. Four types of patterning, in particular – domestic, cross-country and cross-regional and temporal – deserve further examination.

Domestic patterning: The integrative or disintegrative effects of European integration on national ‘formulas of democracy’ (Schmidt 1997 )(Schmidt 1997) are not easy to assess, not least since work that cuts across polity, politics and public policy is still rare. In one of the first attempts to undertake such a cross-cutting analysis, Dyson and Goetz (2003 : 386) noted the disjuncture between “progressively Europeanized public policies, a semi-Europeanized polity, and a largely non-Europeanized politics”. Bache and Jordan (2006 ), in their study of the Europeanisation of the British political system, in important respects modelled on the Dyson and Goetz volume, note that “what works as a short-hand, admittedly simplified, description of the domestic effects of the EU in Germany works significantly less well for Britain” (Bache and Jordan 2006 : 278). Thus, neither the polity, policy or politics domain “can be easily categorised as Europeanized, semi-Europeanized or non-Europeanized” (2006 : 278). Schmidt ’s (2006 ) monographic comparative treatment of the Europeanisation of national institutions, policy-making and representative politics in France, Germany, Italy and the UK is the first major attempt to compare both across dimensions and across countries. As such, it constitutes an advance in the search for broader patterns, although her distinction between simple and compound polities will certainly be called into question.

Cross-country and cross-regional patterns: work that seeks to detect patterns along one or several dimensions – such as the organisation of parliaments or executive Europeanisation – is often centred on particular regions of Europe. Such a regional focus does, as indicated above, carry both risks and potential. The risk of regionally-focused studies is that they magnify differences amongst country experiences, as they might exclude more extreme cases. The potential is that through the accumulation of regional studies it becomes possible to inquire into “clustered Europeanisation” (Goetz 2006 ), i.e., to ask whether Europeanisation differs not just across countries but also across different parts of Europe.

Temporal patterns: When it comes to temporal patterns, there are at least two issues that deserve further study. The first has to do with phases or stages of Europeanisation. Do the institutional responses of national parliaments or national executives to European integration follow a similar chronological pattern? If that is, at least to some extent, the case, then what may appear as cross-country variation may have more to do with countries being at different stages of Europeanisation than enduring cross-national variations. Second, temporal factors may shape Europeanisation experiences. In this respect, what matters is not only when a country joined the EU (different phases of integration are likely to be associated with different phases of Europeanisation; countries that have joined the EU more recently are likely to pass through phases of Europeanisation in an accelerated fashion); but also the ‘relative timing’ in terms of domestic conditions, notably as regards the state of domestic political institutions (Goetz 2006 ). For example, a country that joins the EU with a fully consolidated, historically validated set of polity institutions is likely to experience greater adaptive pressures on its long-established representative institutions than a country in which Europeanisation coincides with democratic consolidation.

Enquiring into cross-sectoral, cross-country, cross-regional and temporal patterning raises another fundamental problem in Europeanisation research, which in Comparative Politics is discussed under the label of “methodological nationalism” (Beck 2003 ): does it make sense to privilege individual countries as the basic unit of comparative analysis? European integration involves the progressive opening of domestic political systems and their growing interdependence, yet the bulk of Europeanisation research is concerned with ‘domestic political systems’ assumed to react largely independently of each other to integration processes.

There are several problems with this narrow emphasis on domestic responses. First, the ‘opening of the state’ means that country borders lose some of their erstwhile significance in structuring social and political phenomena. Studies that take countries as the basic unit of comparative analysis are in danger of missing out one of the arguably most prominent features of integration and Europeanisation, namely their impact on the territorial structuring of politics and territoriality as a fundamental ordering principle of political life embodied in the modern nation-state (see Goetz 2007 ). Analysts disagree as whether the “restructuring of territoriality” (Ansell and DiPalma 2004 ) strengthens functional-sectoral organizing principles at the expense of territory. But whatever the direction of the territorial effect, comparative analyses are well advised to extend their scope to the Europeanisation of political, social, economic and cultural ‘spaces’ other than those defined by country borders (for an instructive example see Caramani and Mény 2005 ).

Second, with its focus on comparing reactions to integration within individual states, the Europeanisation literature is not well positioned to pick up ‘transnational’ integration effects. Its near-exclusive focus on the domestic is bound to underestimate the changes brought about by intensified integration, such as the emergence of new modes of transnational administration, as discussed, e.g., in recent work on the transformation of executive politics in Europe (Egeberg 2006 , 2008 ; Curtin and Egeberg 2008 ).

Finally, there are good reasons to expect that ‘domestic’ systems do not react independently of each other to progressive integration. The issue here is not that the domestic reactions have a common cause: integration, but rather that ‘domestic’ variables – be they institutions, interests, ideas or identities, which tend to dominate in the explanatory accounts of Europeanisation – interact across borders.

To overcome the limitations of ‘methodological nationalism’, Europeanisation research will, therefore, need to advance both empirically and theoretically: in their empirical focus, students of Europeanisation will, first, need to pay closer attention to political-institutional spaces that cut across state borders and, second, the increasingly dense institutional sphere between the EU and the domestic levels, i.e., transnationalisation. This empirical broadening makes it necessary, at a theoretical level, to re-examine critically the hitherto dominant emphasis on domestic explanatory variables. It is probably inevitable that – as Europeanisation research engages more intensively with the study of integration and transnationalisation – the heuristic advantages and restrictions of Europeanisation as a concept will continue to be the subject of critical debate.