Sevasti Chatzopoulou

Since the early 1990s, Euroscepticism has become an increasingly studied phenomenon. Yet, an area of the academic literature on Euroscepticism that has received little or no attention is the emergence of, and increased development of, transnational and pan-European networks of opposition to the EU. This chapter offers a state of the art review of the existing literature on Euroscepticism, and introduces the concepts of transnational and pan-European scepticism which contribute to the emergence of a European public sphere.

Abstract The proliferation of European Union (EU) agencies, referred to as agencification phenomenon, constitutes a significant EU institutional innovation. Agencification aimed to provide information, promote efficiency, decrease politicisation and generate standards based on specialised technical knowledge. However, the expanded role of EU agencies in regulatory policy-making has raised legitimacy questions, particularly in times of crisis and scandals. The legitimacy of agencies has been extensively studied with regard to input, and output (efficiency) legitimacy criteria. Instead, drawing on Schmidt's (2013) work this article claims that in order to assess the overall legitimacy of the EU regulatory governance through agencies, the ‘throughput’ criterion needs to be considered. Although important, the ‘input’ (politics) and ‘output’ (policy) criteria fail to capture what happens within the actual governance (process), between the decisions and the outcomes. Examples from the EU food regulatory governance through the European Food Safety Authority, a particularly technical and scientific policy area, illustrate how the ‘throughput’ mechanisms operate. While the absence of one of the throughput mechanisms delegitimises the regulatory governance of food, their simultaneous presence contributes to overall legitimacy of governance.

This article examines the Europeanization of social movements following the European sovereign debt crisis. It develops a theoretical framework to measure degrees of social movement Europeanization, incorporating targets, participants, and issue frame dimensions of mobilization. Europeanization of social movements occurs when they collaborate with similar movements in other countries, claim a European identity, invoke Europe-wide solidarity, contest authorities beyond the state and ascribe responsibility for solving the crisis to European Union (EU). By targeting EU authorities, social movements may contribute to the construction of the EU as a crisis actor and through deliberative processes define the roles and identities of such actors.

Purpose – The need for food safety and food quality standards is acknowledged by public regulators, private actors, and the society. The purpose of this paper is to identify the types of actors in the multilevel transnational food chain regulatory governance and how their interlinking affects regulatory outcomes over time. Design/methodology/approach – Food chain regulatory standards emerge within a complex process beyond the state. Based on interdisciplinary theoretical perspectives, namely regulatory governance and political economy, this paper provides a integrative framework of analysis by identifying the types of actors and their interactions in the food chain regulatory governance. Findings – Food chain regulatory standards setting have been mainly studied either from the public regulator or the firm self-regulating point of view. This paper demonstrates how the political and economics dynamics of the interactions among public and private actors operate within the transnational food standards setting process. The study identifies the groups of interdependent actors (public and private) that interact within the transnational food chain regulatory process and develop public-private regulations, self-regulations, and co-regulations over time. In this process, the actors’ different power, operational and regulatory capacity, experience, resources affect the regulatory outcome with socio-economic and governance implications. Research limitations/implications – The paper does not examine in detail how these interactions operate empirically on specific regulations. Practical implications – The paper offers an integrative thorough understanding of the food chain regulatory standard setting process, relevant for academics, policy makers, the industry, and society. Originality/value – The paper constitutes new research by identifying the actors and interactions in the integrative regulatory governance of the food chain standards.

This article joins the Europeanization studies and examines the administrative adaptation to Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), a highly institutionalized and regulated policy, in two small older member states, Denmark and Greece. The findings demonstrate variation in administrative adaptation. In Denmark, both formal and informal administrative structures adapt to CAP, while in Greece administrative adaptation is limited to formal structures. This variation is attributed to two dimensions of the domestic institutional and organizational settings, namely “centralization” and “professionalism.” The comparative analysis provides an in-depth understanding of the administrative differences between North and South—a cleavage that became prominent during the Eurozone crisis.