Intergovernmentalism

Research background: Recent developments have raised doubts on future sustainability of the EU as successful political and economic organization. Many phenomena — from euro and sovereign debt crisis to the emergence of right-wing, populist and anti-liberal movements — have brought into question the actual foundations of European integration, be it economic cooperation or a community of values. This problem became even more topical after the Brexit referendum. For this very reason a new strand of research on European disintegration has lately began to appear. It was supposed to fill in a serious gap in the body of literature, which had so far optimistically focused on integration processes. Purpose of the article: The aim of our work is to reflect on Brexit — which is an exemplification of disintegration tendencies — through the lenses of theories of European integration in order to find out how well the two match each other. We also try to identify the dynamics Brexit may provoke in...

This research assignment examines the foundations and historical contexts of both the European Union and the Arab League, emphasizing the motivations and mindsets that brought these entities into existence, alongside the prominent theories of regional integration: intergovernmentalism and neo-functionalism, which drive thinking about international politics to this day. The respective histories of these two unions are analyzed to establish context for the actions that bring about the current situation. These contexts are attached to the present-day crises of the Arab League and the European Union so as to assess the relationships the two unions have within themselves and with one another. These relationships will also contribute to the idea of stable peace, which is discussed at length in this assignment. Also, it will be noted that progress can be made, as the stage of stable peace in the two regions reside is identified in this assignment.

Much of the scholarly work on Brazilian federalism has long focused on the ways in which decentralization has produced institutional paralysis under intergovernmental conflict. This article, by contrast, suggests that Brazil has been under a gradual transformation since its democratization, which led to a recentralization of power in the hands of the federal government. It  presents a framework that explains how an initial decentralization process (1983–1994) turned into a centralization process (1995–2007) that ultimately increased the regulatory and coordination powers of the Brazilian federal government. In addition, the analysis shows that two main blocs of political parties competed to influence the sequence and speed of legislation related to the decentralization and centralization processes. Specifically, these parties used two competing temporal strategies – foot-dragging and pace-setting – to slow down or accelerate the approval of legislation regulating subnational autonomy. Once the centralizing bloc of parties enacted key legislation, they used fence-building to institutionalize intergovernmental relations, thereby consolidating the coordination powers of the center. The main contribution of this article is to advance a temporal approach to federal changes, which explains how the Brazilian federal government centralized authority under a decentralizing Constitution.

Climate change is regarded as one of our times greatest environmental, social and economic challenges. The impacts of climate change on natural ecosystems, human society and economics are potentially severe, making it one of the most significant political issues facing the international community. The EU’s response to global climate change, from the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 with the 8% emission reduction to 2008 years Climate and Energy Package with a 20% reduction, illustrates a clear increase in ambition for the region.

This short paper puts the case of Brexit in the
context of academic debate regarding the
nature of European integration and the future
of the European Union. In doing so, it revisits in
its first part three major theories of European
integration, namely: Intergovernmentalism,
L i b e r a l I n t e r g o v e r n m e n t a l i s m a n d
Supranationalism.
The second part of the paper, toys with
an idea that European integration and its
institutional form namely the European Union
have so far produced a set of seemingly
unquestioned assumptions and values,
which amounts to the status of ideology,
hence the term ‘Europeanism’ is used with
reference to contemporary EU.

The changes in the institutional structure of the EU brought about by the Lisbon treaty and recent developments in economic governance are offering scholars new fields of interest. In particular, the emergence of the European Council - and its President - as the institution driving integration further in times of crisis, the extension of co-decision and the continued quest for legitimacy through transparency are among the factors inviting scholars to cast new light on the role and functioning of the European Council and to re-assess the role and functioning of the Council of the European Union. The General Secretariat to both institutions has also increasingly been the object of scholarly enquiry.
The Library of the General Secretariat, a part of DG Communication and Document Management, wishes to contribute to and foster further research by offering scholars, libraries and civil society a structured bibliography of literature on the European Council, the Council of the European Union and their General Secretariat. The bibliography has been compiled by the Library on the basis of its own holdings and of targeted bibliographical research. It has greatly benefited from contributions by a variety of individual researchers and academic institutions throughout Europe and is constantly being updated with new contributions.
In its enhanced and updated January 2016 edition, the bibliography contains more than 1750 records: monographs, theses, academic articles and chapters of books. Records are indexed with EuroVoc descriptors http://eurovoc.europa.eu/ and classified by subject area. EuroVoc, the EU's multilingual thesaurus, is freely available via the EU Open Data Portal: http://open-data.europa.eu/en/data/dataset/eurovoc
In addition to the present printed release, the bibliography can be searched and browsed online at: http://ec.europa.eu/eclas/F?func=find-a-0&local_base=BIB
The Library invites research communities to use the bibliography and welcomes comments and suggestions on additional resources to be included. All materials referenced in the bibliography are held in full text in the Library and inter-library loans can be arranged. Researchers and students can access Library collections on site by appointment.

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Has the neo-functionalism been " defeated " in the debate about European integration theories? Since the 1960's the neo-functionalism has been submitted to criticism and debated among the academics of European studies. Parts of the discourse have been based on arguments that neo-functionalism is not a theory. However, the debate still continues in 2010´s as the European Union is further developing during the " post-Eurozone crisis period ". This study is limited to and based on the several articles discussing the " pros and cons " , advantages and disadvantages, relevance and irrelevance of the neo-functionalism within the framework of regional integration. The study discusses thematically in several cases the questions regarding the current discourse, exploring the arguments about possibilities for the theory of neo-functionalism to be modified. One of the findings is that neo-functionalism can be combined with the theory of federalism, as well as that the theory can be used for research relating the regional integration in general. Therefore I argue in the study that neo-functionalism, despite its problems and perceived shortcomings, still presents a relevant, reliable and useful theory for the regional integration research.

[Published in INDIA REVIEW: Vol 16, No.1. pp 14-41] Abstract: Despite the extensive literature on distributive politics, we still lack a theory of how political and fiscal institutions interact to shape the pork‐barrelling ability of national leaders in a federal parliamentary democracy. Focusing on party system attributes and governmental incentives attached to different types of discretionary grants, this article examines the extent to which a shift in the priorities and interests of the prime minister’s party – effected by the change from a dominant‐party system to a multiparty‐coalition system – is responsible for the change in the dynamics of distributive policies. I use a rich panel dataset on Indian states to propose a situational theory of distributive politics which states that incentives for exclusive targeting of affiliated states in dominant‐party systems drive national ruling parties towards particularism, while the shrinking opportunity to indulge in such a policy in multiparty‐coalition systems creates a universalisation effect. Additionally, the disaggregated analysis of discretionary grants brings to the fore the fact that the shift from particularism to universalism occurs for schematic grants, which provide an opportunity for credit‐claiming. The ad hoc grants, which are like side payments, remain subject to particularism.

La construction de nouvelles théories de l’intégration européenne est très étroitement liée au contexte historique dans lequel l’Union européenne et les chercheurs sont en prise. Christopher J. Bickerton, Dermot Hodson et Uwe Puetter rédigent les articles fondateurs du nouvel intergouvernementalisme entre 2011 et 2015, au moment où l’Union semble à nouveau sur le point  de s’évanouir pour rejoindre l’historique des actes manqués du vieux continent. À la suite de la crise économique et financière de 2008, les crises européennes se succèdent et se superposent pour former ce que d’aucuns appellent une « polycrise » : déficit démocratique, migrations, populismes, Brexit, cohésion de la zone euro, etc. Pour les observateurs inquiets de l’avenir de l’Europe, l’accélération de la mondialisation et les élargissements de l’Union ont exacerbé les concurrences et conflits nationaux en Europe, provoqué la montée des protectionnismes et des tensions (Bickerton, Hodson, Puetter, 2014). Le nouvel intergouvernementalisme insiste également sur la crise généralisée de la politique représentative (Mair, 2008 ; Papadopoulos, 2013). Chacune de ces crises représenterait un « défi existentiel » pour l’Union européenne (Schmidt, 2017).

Le nouvel inter-gouvernementalisme se situe par rapport aux théories historiques de l’intégration européenne, à commencer par le débat originel entre supranationalisme et intergouvernementalisme (Schmidt, 2017). Avant tout, il s’oppose au modèle de la prise de décision supranationale, symbolisé par la Commission européenne et la Cour de justice, correspondant au modèle néo-fonctionnaliste de débordement. Ensuite, il se distancie de ce qu’il appelle l’ancien intergouvernementalisme, de « supranationalité sans institutions supranationales » (Keohane, Hoffmann, 1991: 15) ou de « gouvernance par les gouvernements » (Mérand, Hofmann, Irondelle, 2011), où les États-membres présents dans le Conseil décident, habituellement en vertu de règles d’unanimité. Selon Vivien Schmidt, les anciens intergouvernementalistes avaient soit une vision utilitariste « réaliste » selon laquelle les marchandages des États-membres avaient pour priorité de protéger la souveraineté et les intérêts nationaux lors de la construction de l’Europe, soit une vision utilitariste « libérale » selon laquelle les marchandages des États-membres étaient utilisés pour servir des intérêts socio-économiques dans leurs pays respectifs (Moravcsik, 1998). Les États-membres tendaient ainsi à être des États-nations « obstinés » (Hoffmann, 1995).

This analysis aims to examine the perception and assessment of efficiency of Polish European policy by British representatives of public administration, scientists and opinion-forming publicists, as well as representatives of Polish public administration. The research perspective of this study combines elements of the intergovernmental and constructivist approach. The survey reveals similarities and differences in the perception of the efficiency of Polish European policy by Poles and Britons, while pointing at the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that are visible in Polish European politics from the British and Polish perspectives. Five main policy dimensions are examined: 1) activity and reactivity, 2) vision strategy, tactics, operationalization, implementation, 3) efficiency understood in many ways and in different contexts, 4) significance of Poland and its  European policy from the perspective of other countries, including regional integration, 5) Poles abroad during the period of membership as one of the factors of the European policy. The analysis leads to the conclusion that both in Poland and the United Kingdom, Polish European policy is similarly evaluated due to a similar paradigm of its implementation (intergovernmental, based on pragmatic implementation  of national interests), with differences mainly related to issues important  from the British perspective, i.e. the number of immigrants from Poland in the United Kingdom.

Integrasi Uni Eropa merupakan sebuah proses yang panjang serta mengalami berbagai dinamika. Dengan membentuk berbagai institusi supranasional –beberapa masih bersifat intergovernmental— Uni Eropa berusaha untuk mengintegrasikan negara-negara anggotanya. Berdasarkan pandangan dari beberapa akademisi, integrasi dapat diartikan sebagai upaya penyerahan seluruh fungsi negara kepada organisasi supranasional. Adanya penggunaan Qualified Majority Voting (QMV) kemudian dianggap sebagai sebuah upaya untuk membuat Council of Ministers –organ penting dalam legislatif UE yang masih berbentuk intergovernmental— menjadi institusi supranasional. Dengan adanya QMV, negara-negara anggota tidak lagi bisa secara leluasa menolak kebijakan yang tengah dibicarakan, sesuatu yang sangat mungkin dilakukan dalam mekanisme  unanimity yang sebelumnya diterapkan. Setelah Treaty of Lisbon 2009 diimplementasikan, pengambilan kebijakan di Council of Ministers akan menggunakan mekanisme double majority yang mulai berlaku pada 1 November 2014 mendatang. Pada dasarnya, double majority merupakan pengembangan dari mekanisme QMV dengan menambahkan kriteria tertentu dalam menentukan mayoritas suara. Melalui mekanisme double majority, terdapat tiga kriteria mayoritas yang harus dipenuhi, yaitu kriteria populasi, kriteria negara anggota yang mendukung, dan kriteria blocking. Sebagai implikasinya, sebuah negara akan sulit untuk menentang secara sepihak kebijakan yang tengah dibahas dalam Council of Ministers. Berkurangnya kekuatan negara dalam proses pembuatan kebijakan ini menunjukkan bahwa Council of Ministers terus mengalami perkembangan ke arah institusi supranasional. Berdasarkan beberapa fakta tersebut penulis berargumen bahwa supranasionalitas Council of Ministers yang tengah berkembang melalui penggunaan mekanisme QMV akan memberikan dampak positif pada integrasi Uni Eropa secara keseluruhan.

The EU, already suffering from a long-standing crisis of
legitimacy, continues to move further away from the liberal
democratic ideals upon which it was ostensibly founded. The crisis is consolidating the “rule by expert” mentality that already dominates many EU and national institutions of government. This post-democratic space, in which the trappings of democracy remain in place but the substance is hollowed out as fiscal policies are removed from the realm of parliamentary chambers, is accelerating the unravelling of the western European post-war compromise between capital and labour. This widening democratic deficit is
undermining public confidence in governments and institutions of state alike – a gap that is being filled by “anti-politics”, a cynical rejection of the entire political class as inevitably venal and out to swindle the public. This breakdown of confidence in authority creates space for so-called populist movements, which come in broadly three varieties: a faith in technocrats that ultimately buttresses post-democracy; a hard-right yearning for strongmen; and a desire for a radically more progressive set of social relations.

This review of Moravcsik, “Negotiating the Single European Act: national interests and conventional statecraft in the European Community” (1991) will look upon its arguments in favour of intergovernmental institutionalism. That being said, the paper is not intended to go into a discussion of whether institutional intergovernmentalism, neofunctionalism, or if any other (European) integration theory is better at explaining the outcome of the Single European Act (SEA). However, the paper will present three parts. Firstly, it will briefly discuss Moravcsik’s key points, theoretical status and conclusion. The second part will provide a critique of Moravcsik; bring in other theoretical points of view, and journal articles. Lastly, the third part will draw perspectives to the current situation in the EU, exemplified with the Greek crisis. It will be looked upon how the leadership and governance can be evaluated from this perspective.

“Every national of a Member State shall be a citizen of the Union. Citizenship of the Union shall be additional to and not replace national citizenship.” states Article 9 of the Treaty on European Union. If, according to Rousseau, sovereignty is “indivisible”, should accordingly the double European-national citizenship be conceived as unitary but shared by two levels of government, where the lower is formally given priority to the upper? “The principle of any Sovereignty lies primarily in the Nation. No corporate body, no individual may exercise any authority that does not expressly emanate from it” states Article 3 of the Declaration of Human and Civic Rights of 1789, pillar of the contemporary nation-state. But, in the case of the European Union (EU), where does sovereignty lie? What does an “European citizenship” entail?

Uluslararası ilişkiler disiplinindeki geleneksel ve çağdaş tartışmalar Avrupa bütünleşmesine dair entellektüel çalışmaları da doğrudan etkilemiştir. Avrupa bütünleşmesi sürecinin ilk yirmi yılındaki kuramsal çalışmalara uluslararası ilişkilerdeki idealizm-realizm çatışmasının bir uzantısı olan “yeni-işlevselciliğe karşı hükümetlerarasıcılık” tartışması damgasını vurmuş; 1980′lerden günümüze de uluslararası ilişkiler disiplininde gündemde olan “rasyonalizme karşı konstrüktivizm” tartışması Avrupa bütünleşmesini kuramsal düzeyde inceleyenleri etkisi altına almıştır. Bu çalışmanın amacı bütünleşme sürecine dair kuramsal çalışmaların genel bir değerlendirmesini yapmak ve Avrupa Birliği’nin geçmişinin, bugünün ve geleceğinin hangi teoriler çerçevesinde açıklanabileceğini ortaya koymaktır. Çalışmada, Avrupa bütünleşmesinin mevcut yapısının ve varacağı noktanın tek bir kuram etrafında incelenemeyeceği, her bir teorinin Avrupa bütünleşmesinin yalnızca bir parçasını ya da bir dönemini açıklayabildiği yaklaşımı benimsenmektedir.

The paper offers a comprehensive study of Hugo Grotius’s vision for the new co­existential paradigm in Europe and ideas of European integration through the prism of political philosophy and international relations. The paper proceeds with the construction of a theoretical framework from various ideas of the thinker and de­fines it as the Grotian theory of European integration. Based on the complex analy­sis of the Grotian concept of a community of sovereign nations and with an inter­pretive approach, the paper studies the visions of European unity in early modern and modern times. Grotius’s recommendation of “general congresses of Christian powers” had a constructive role in the configuration of the emerging European sys­tem of sovereign nation-states and for the new patterns of co-existential consensus. Hence, Grotius’s idealistic and holistic approach towards nations and society of na­tions is viewed within the framework of the theories of structural constructivism and intergovernmentalism of European integration.

🇫🇷  ➡️ 𝑬𝒏 𝒊𝒎𝒂𝒈𝒊𝒏𝒂𝒏𝒕 𝒍’𝑬𝒖𝒓𝒐𝒑𝒆 𝑮𝒓𝒐𝒕𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒏𝒆: 𝑳𝒂 𝒗𝒊𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒅𝒆 𝒍’𝑬𝒖𝒓𝒐𝒑𝒆 𝒆𝒕 𝒍𝒆𝒔 𝒊𝒅𝒆́𝒆𝒔 𝒅𝒆 𝒍’𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒆́𝒈𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒆𝒖𝒓𝒐𝒑𝒆́𝒆𝒏𝒏𝒆 𝒑𝒂𝒓 𝑯𝒖𝒈𝒐 𝑮𝒓𝒐𝒕𝒊𝒖𝒔
RÉSUMÉ
La contribution se propose d’étudier d’une manière compréhensive la vision qu’Hugo Grotius avait du nouveau paradigme de la coexistence en Europe et des idées d’intégration européenne à travers le prisme de la philosophie politique et des relations internationales. Elle procède d’abord à la construction du cadre théorique composé des idées maîtresses du penseur et le définit comme la théorie Grotienne de l’intégration européenne, avant d’aborder l’analyse complexe du concept Gro­tien d’une communauté de nations souveraines, qui, dans une approche interpréta­tive, débouche sur une présentation des conceptions d’unité européenne aux temps modernes. La recommandation faite par Grotius d’organiser des «congrès généraux des puissances chrétiennes» jouait un rôle constructif dans la configuration du sys­tème émergeant d’États-nations souveraines et des nouveaux schémas du consen­sus co-existentiel. L’approche idéaliste et holistique de Grotius au regard des na­tions et de la société des nations apparaît par conséquent dans le cadre des théories du constructivisme structurel et de l’inter-gouvernementalisme de l’intégration eu­ropéenne.

ZUSAMMENFASSUNG
Aus dem Blickwinkel der politischen Philosophie und der internationalen Bezie­hungen betrachtet, bietet der Beitrag eine verständliche Studie zu Hugo Grotius’ Vision des neuen Paradigmas der Koexistenz in Europa und der Ideen über euro­päische Integration, betrachtet. Er zeichnet zunächst den theoretischen Rahmen der wesentlichen Ideen des Denkers und definiert diese als Grotius’ Theorie, bevor dann die komplexe Analyse des Konzepts einer Gemeinschaft souveräner Nationen folgt, die, in einem interpretativen Ansatz in eine Präsentation neuzeitlicher Kon­zeption zur europäischen Einheit mündet. Grotius’ Vorschlag, einen „allgemeinen Kongress der Christlichen Mächte‟ einzuberufen, spielte dabei eine konstruktive Rolle in der Konfiguration des Systems aufstrebender souveräner Nationalstaaten und des neuen Systems, das auf dem co-existenziellen Konsens beruhte. Grotius’ idealistische und holistische Herangehensweise mit Blick auf die Nationen und den Bund der Nationen erscheint folglich im Rahmen der Theorien des strukturellen Konstruktivismus und der intergouvernementalen Integration Europas.

Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO) were introduced in 1945 with the creation of      Inter-governmental organisations (Willets, 2011, p.6). It is a notoriously broad term and is applied to a variety of different organisational forms (Vakil, 1997), therefore hard to define. However they are typically viewed as non-profit, voluntary and civic society based (Lewis & Kanji, 2009, p.9). This essay shall seek to highlight the main arguments which support Development NGOs (DNGO) being agents of foreign Aid: Providing for all beneficiaries through constant funding, promotion of development and monetary aid and lack of affiliation making them non bias. As well as the argument that foreign aid is a secondary purpose behind cooperation and the lack of DNGOs in capacity building, which all represent how they are not ‘agents of foreign aid’. This essay shall also attempt to address the reasons why DNGOs are vehicles of cooperation: the influence of alliance, involvement in the early stages of aid allocation, embracing of the Global South and the involvement of the government throughout planning. However, also discussing the impact of globalisation, ignorance to the core issue and the lack of substantial influence on states. Concluding that DNGOs are progressing from primarily providing foreign aid, to the understanding that cooperation is fundamental to global assistance and improving the global sphere.

This historical institutionalist (HI) approach to regional integration theorises what role relationships between Europe’s market and state actors and institutions have in the timing of the European Union’s (EU) establishment. This approach differs from intergovernmentalist and rational choice theories that understand this process as successive iterations of self-interested fully rational nation-state representatives playing the same unembedded games of power together ad infinitum. I propose rather that this understanding has become outdated because (i) there are certain spatiotemporal (or historical) contexts that limit national representatives’ abilities to prevent EU agent institutions from reproducing norms and rules that run counter to national interests, and (ii) when national actors reprise intergovernmental arrangements as a premise for governance, they undermine the ‘coherency’ that is crucial to the reproduction of EU institutions that have gained state-like functions in promoting and securing public goods. Because self-interested actors are at least minimally rational or prudent, they do possess the necessary problem-solving capabilities to recohere incoherent institutional processes. However, because complex information environments tend to accentuate the contextual limitations to actors’ rational capabilities, actors’ problem-solving capabilities in-turn have delayed effectiveness in the process of institutional recoherence. I later apply this HI model to recent critical junctures in the EU: the Eurozone crisis from 2010 and the Schengen crisis from 2015. I find that institutional incoherencies are based on discredited commitments to EU institutions in (firstly) economy and (latterly) home affairs. I propose that comprehensible cost-benefit measures demonstrate enhanced regulatory strategies at the EU level have the potential to yield optimal solutions to these commitment-based incoherencies. This paper thus asserts that contemporary evidence of intergovernmental arrangements in the EU represent snapshot delays and not limits to European state formation.

The Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) is an international knowledge institution established through the United Nations system. Mandated to “strengthen the science-policy interface for biodiversity and ecosystem services”, IPBES has a detailed set of intergovernmentally agreed functions, structures and processes that guide its  rst Work Program (2014-2018). This working paper sets out these institutional arrangements, noting that broader understanding of the IPBES mechanisms may assist wider participation, accountability, and scholarly analysis.

Liberal approaches to regional integration, including neoliberal variants preoccupied with institutional cooperation, have informed scholarship on European integration for a long time. They still do today, and for good reason: their problematization of economic actors and resources offers a welcome departure from the static diplomatic accounts of high level politics, while at the same time allowing for an analysis of the state (and its role in integration) that, occasionally, corresponds more closely to actual policymaking (instead of offering merely a normative account of state behavior). When they first emerged some decades ago, they neatly combined an appreciation for the salience of state interests in allowing for (or inhibiting) intra-state cooperation and combined that with an acute understanding of the important role that markets, technology, and interdependence between firms and states had come to play in contemporary efforts toward regional cooperation. Liberal intergovernmentalism (LI) has managed to achieve the status of a 'baseline theory' on the subject of

The purpose of this paper is to analyze and interpret the effects of the Euro crisis on the European institutional system and on the quality of its democracy and to examine the incomplete European integration process both political and economic.
Since the Maastricht Treaty, and then the Lisbon Treaty, the EU has a dual method of decision-making: one supranational and the other intergovernmental. During the crisis period, we have assisted to a grow of the latter at the expense of the community method. The crisis has obliged EU institutions to take action against it. This necessity to act quickly has shown weaknesses of the decision-making system and difficulties in promoting and implement accountable policies. The crisis had the dual effect to show that: Firstly, the responses that the institution gave to deal with it affected negatively the quality of democracy in Europe. Secondly, the European integration process needs to be completed both economically and politically.

By the outbreak of financial crisis and by the decrease of trust in the European Community, the intergovernmentalism as an effective crisis management method appears more emphatically in the rhetoric of Member States. During the debt management process, Member States try to find rapid solutions through overshadowing the supranational characteristic of European Union, concluding intergovernmental agreements, or in frame of intergovernmental reconciliations. It raises the question whether the current strengthening of intergovernmentalism is a temporary situation or a structural change. It is difficult to judge how these methods would adapt to each other within decision-making system. However, Member States have to keep in mind the requirement of long-term harmonization of European and national interests which is the keystone for existence of a unified and strong European Community.

Since its inception in 2010, the European Semester has undergone a series of institutional clarifications and procedural adjustments aimed at strengthening its legitimacy. Over its first 5 iterations it has significantly reshaped the roles, attributions and relations between the EU’s institutions, thus echoing several scholars’ contention that the old dynamics of integration have been replaced by new ones: the new supranationalism, the new intergovernmentalism and the new parliamentarism. Depending on the theoretical perspective embraced existing schools of thought draw these changes within the institutional dynamics of the EU in contrasting colors. Where new intergovernmentalists see new modes of governance such as the Semester attest to an increase in power of the Member States, the promoters of the new supranationalism observe a continued empowerment of supranational institutions, whereas new parliamentarism emphasize the mounting importance of parliamentary prerogatives. The aim of this article is to go beyond such stark dichotomies by arguing in favor of a dynamic process of hybridization. Put differently, the article challenges the view that the new modes of governance born from the Eurozone crisis have empowered one institution to the detriment of the others. We rather argue that the European Semester combines elements of the longer-term evolutions identified by these three schools, thus giving rise to a new institutional equilibrium.

This article analyzes how the enlargements, the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty and the responses to the euro-crisis have altered the institutional balance upon which its stability is based. The institutional framework launched for economic governance seems affected by a serious lack of legitimacy and changing roles. It is observed the growing influence of the European Council and the intergovernmental framework (Council, Eurogroup and the Euro summits) and the marginalization of the traditional
roles of the Commission and the European Parliament.

This essay traces common denominators of federalism in the governing institutions of the European Union (EU) with the United States (US). The purpose of this comparison is to highlight that, while the EU is compositionally sui generis (vis-a-vis its constituent European nation-states), the formal dimensions of its political organisation are remarkably familiar to that of other federal models, including the archetypal US case. Both the EU and US are imprinted by the hallmarks of a two-dimensional or ‘compound’ federal organisation, as per the vertical and horizontal axial layout of their political institutions. The democratic components of these compound democracies are each instituted within the artifices of the state; this fulfils the federalist promise by allowing for the dynamic constraint of each component’s unitary functions, under the tripartite branches of government.
The principle finding of my analysis is that the EU is not comparatively distinct by any drastic measure of political organisation when juxtaposed with the US, as the traditional federal model. This essay concludes that the EU is thus – contrary to the supposition of seminal intergovernmental scholars (c.f. Moravcsik, 2001) – not impoverished of the means to assume the main ingredients of federal statehood.

The normative school of global constitutionalism lacks a convincing model of constitutional politics. As far as the democratic legitimacy of constitution-making at the supra-state level is addressed at all, scholars usually resort to democratic intergovernmentalism. According to this normative model, processes in which constitutional norms in the global realm are made or amended are democratically legitimate if they are organized as treaty-making among democratic executives, followed by parliamentary ratification. In this article, I argue that this model should be rejected because it puts the democratic legal domestication of public authority at risk. Specifically, democratic intergovernmentalism is characterized by five shortcomings: (a) it does not distinguish between norms of contractual and constitutional quality, (b) it undermines the separation of powers, (c) it breaches the division and hierarchi-zation of constituent and constituted power, (d) it disregards the deliberative dimension of democratic control and (e) it does neither provide the citizens nor their representatives with a capacity to begin. Ultimately, I suggest that a superior approach should build on the notion of constituent power.

It is a well-known fact that budgetary allocations need to be based on a just formula for balanced service delivery in the modern world. This paper describes the intergovernmental formula designed for Rwanda in 2003 to allocate grants from the central to local governments (LGs). First, the previous criterion, the Local Authority Budget Support Fund, was reviewed. This was followed by a literature review and field visits. Finally, the specifications of the mathematical model are described, followed by the proxy selection, data analysis, econometric evaluation, and estimations used in the study. In 2003, data analysis revealed that LGs had low fiscal capacities and ubiquitous fiscal needs. These were proxied by mean own source revenues and expenditure needs, respectively, in the proposed formula. The difference between the two was taken as the mean fiscal gap. This formula corrected the inherent weaknesses in the previous transfer system. It proposed weighting parameters to determine subnational transfer entitlements. Additionally, it constructed and applied welfare poverty and fiscal gap indices that captured the behavior of LGs in terms of wellbeing, fiscal needs, and revenue capacity for the first time in Rwanda. The study recommendations were entirely adopted by the government. The formula was used to allocate unconditional grants from the central government to LGs to improve service delivery and reduce poverty. The study also highlights that any successful transfer formula design depends on how the following are determined-the transfer pool, weights, proposed variables, and proxy indices-and how they enter the model.

Although Professor Jean Baptiste Duroselle, author of “A European History of Europe,” passionately presents a historical narrative which seeks to explain the European Identity as a conception existing from “…before history was recorded to the present time,”  this narrative is better viewed as political rhetoric rather than historical narrative. Published as a press release by the European Commission (EC) in 1989, the utopian vision of a ‘superior and united’ Europe echoes in accordance with the national narratives of nearly any and every state seeking to rally its citizens. What makes this situation stand out? The difference between this narrative and the others is not what is being said, but who is saying it. This is among the earliest significant examples in contemporary history when a politico-economic supration is projecting the valor of its own genesis. Such narratives trace the same motif: altruism injected into the intentions of the politicians most prominent in shaping the new collective; they are also typically credited with the vision of a common identity or deep-seeded superiority (e.g. “Europe is a historical reality dating back to prehistoric times…”).  As Monnet, de Gaulle, Spaak, de Gasperi, Adenauer, Acheson, Bevin, Marjolin, and others are elevated to ‘European sainthood’ (to borrow a term from Alan Milward),  the scenario presented by Duroselle is no different. Before continuing, I should note that this review is not written to undermine the life’s work of these individuals,  but rather to counter Duroselle’s grandiose notion that a “new Europe brought into being by the endeavours of the Community Member States is slowly but surely reconstructing the European identity of ancient times and the European genius generated by the synergy between diverse cultures belonging to one and the same civilization.”  Exaggerated claims like these undermine both the genuine finesse and shortcomings of practical statesmen who were solving large-scale circumstantial problems in the wake of the Second World War. This paper counters that, at least on the topic of European Identity, France’s acclaimed Duroselle was writing as a politician, not as a historian—whether he knew it or not. Duroselle’s emotionally charged and forthright pious narrative does more than toe the line of propaganda. As Mark Gilbert notes “The European Commission has no doubts about what European integration represents and has tried its hardest to diffuse an orthodox narrative of how the Union was constructed, as even a brief glance at the Europa website shows.”  Alongside writers such as Alan Milward, Dinon Desmond, Mark Gilbert, Phinnemore, and others, this paper argues that Duroselle’s bias as an individual prompted him to bypass very critical questions pertaining to the European Identity as a historian, namely: What concrete political developments, initiatives, and actions led to the increased integration of European nations, politically, economically, and culturally?

The concept of asymmetric intergovernmentalism seeks to explain the nature of intergovernmental policymaking in the European Union (EU). This paper elaborates on the main characteristics and theoretical foundations of this conceptual framework and highlights the existence of asymmetries and differences between the member states within the decision and policymaking processes in the EU, particularly in terms of their capacity to define, shape and frame decisions and policies at the European level. It mainly focuses on the performance of asymmetric intergovernmentalism within the framework of responses to the Eurocrisis, and analyses two cases studies relating to fiscal discipline in the EU and the role of Germany in this matter.

Key words: Asymmetric intergovernmentalism; EU economic governance; Eurocrisis; Germany; EU crisis management.

Este artigo visa a demonstrar o instituto do direito de integração do Mercado Comum do Sul, assim como realizar, por meio do método comparativo, distinções entre o intergovernamentalismo do Mercosul e o supranacionalismo da União Europeia. Além disso, o artigo tem como objetivo apresentar as formas pelas quais as normas derivadas do Mercosul são internalizadas pelo ordenamento jurídico brasileiro, uma vez que não há um processo indelével para essa internalização. Para tratar, de forma mais eficiente, da integração dos países-parte do Mercosul, o artigo contempla a evolução histórica do regionalismo na América Latina, tratando desde o regionalismo fechado cepalino até a consolidação do Mercosul com o regionalismo aberto.