Jcms-Journal of Common Market Studies最新文献

This article addresses the puzzle of why there is at best incremental change in European Union (EU) democracy promotion and theorises an instance of such change by examining responses to (online) disinformation in EU electoral observation. It develops a field theoretical approach for the explanation of incremental change, as evident in social media monitoring, in EU election observation. Field theory furthers consideration of the position of actors, social interactions and characteristics of the particular field. On the basis of this theory, conceptualisation of a heterogenous democracy assistance and electoral observation field and an in-depth study of EU election observation in Tunisia (2019), I argue the EU has responded to disinformation through the imitation of practices and epistemic negotiation. The responses and the incremental changes in EU election observation that evolved reflect the central but contested position of the EU in the field.

Whilst formative work on characterising UK-EU cybersecurity cooperation points to re-engagement rather than disengagement, we seek to take this as our starting point in order to build a more complex picture on how Brexit has impacted practitioners at policy and operational levels. The article argues that while UK-EU collaboration in cybersecurity has historically been robust, the politics of withdrawal/ Brexit have had varying effects on engagement at the level of the everyday: (1) business as usual in the domain of national security and information sharing; (2) re-engagement in the law enforcement realm; and (3) a formal partial disengagement in the policy and institutional realm. We therefore highlight in this article a more nuanced and differentiated impact relating to Brexit and cybersecurity cooepration and show how established communities of practice have been able to uilise mechanisms of resistance to achieve their goals in a time of political turbulence.

This article evaluates the implementation challenges of the Critical Entities Resilience (CER) Directive in comparison with the Network and Information Security (NIS) Directive and the Floods Directive (FD) within the European Union (EU). CER, which aims to enhance the resilience of critical entities, including critical maritime infrastructure, allows for considerable interpretative flexibility by Member States in defining critical entities and security measures. This flexibility could lead to heterogeneous impacts, introducing inconsistencies that hinder the functioning of the single market, and thereby resilience uniformity across the EU. In contrast, the FD's structured approach with clear objectives and detailed reporting requirements has led to a more consistent and effective implementation. This paper argues that the lack of specificity in the CER Directive may undermine its effectiveness. It suggests that adopting a more structured approach similar to the FD could improve the implementation consistency and resilience of critical entities across the EU.

‘Convergence’ stands out as a prominent signifier in discourse about the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), recently also gaining prominence in debates within Comparative Political Economy (CPE) studies on the Eurozone crisis. However, these studies neglect the concept's endogenous deployment in EMU discourse and, therefore, how it influences capitalist restructuring efforts within it. This article tackles the latter by providing a critical policy discourse analysis of key texts throughout the Union's history, linking the use of the term to the institutional development of the EMU. By doing so, not only does it identify the concept's constitutive discursive role as a frame and problem of monetary integration, but it also showcases its limitations from a CPE perspective, specifically by combining insights from the aforementioned studies with those of Europeanisation research and by subsequently criticising the neoclassical and neofunctionalist assumptions guiding ‘convergence’ efforts in EMU.

How do Eurosceptic parties position themselves regarding individual European Union (EU) institutions? Using Euromanifesto data from 1979 to 2019, this study addresses this question by disaggregating the attitudes of party families towards separate intergovernmental and supranational EU institutions. It focuses on the relationship between the identities of radical left- and right-wing parties and Euroscepticism. The findings reveal that post-communist parties are more sceptical of intergovernmental institutions than nationalist parties, whilst nationalist parties are more sceptical of supranational institutions. Despite widespread Euroscepticism in both nationalist and post-communist party families, nationalist parties' attitudes towards intergovernmental institutions align with those of other party families. In contrast, post-communist parties support the transfer of more competences to the European Parliament but are sceptical of intergovernmental institutions. These results suggest that foundational party identities influence party-based Euroscepticism, which has implications for the EU's handling of increasing Euroscepticism.

The European Union (EU) relies on the input of scientific knowledge and external policy advice to develop and justify its climate policy. This link between the EU and external policy actors, including Brussels-based think tanks, has emboldened amid multiple crises faced by the EU. Using crisis, Brussels-based think tanks may alter their activities by acting strategically in attempts to influence EU policy-making and enhance their prominence by promoting ideas, knowledge and policy recommendations. This research note sets out to examine the climate policy link between the EU and Brussels-based think tanks and the changing activities of Brussels-based think tanks during the Brexit crisis, given Brexit has raised questions around the EU's ability to continually develop ambitious climate policy and sustain its climate leadership. Drawing on a dataset of over 800 think tank documents and applying a time-series regression and descriptive social network analysis, changes in the climate-related publication productivity and co-authorship networking activities of three Brussels-based think tanks – Bruegel, CEPS and EPC – are examined before and after the Brexit referendum. The results show that Brussels-based think tanks' climate-related publication productivity and their co-authorship networking activities change before and after the Brexit referendum, but in different ways, highlighting the need to consider the characteristics of individual think tanks vis-à-vis their role in EU policy-making.

Expectations are high regarding the impact of the extensive Covid-19 crisis support ‘Next Generation EU’. Mixed experiences from established EU distributive policies indicate, though, that ultimate policy outcomes largely depend on national implementation decisions. This article scrutinises vote-buying strategies according to which domestic governments exploit the largely autonomous national distribution of EU funds to target certain constituencies. To study national strategies, the analysis takes advantage of the extraordinary leeway given to domestic governments in distributing REACT-EU funds, part of Next Generation EU. The encompassing quantitative analysis covers a large sample of member states and committed funds. The regression results provide no support that national governments distribute REACT-EU funds to politically opportune regions. In a departure from most previous analyses focusing on specific member states, these findings suggest that vote buying is not the dominant strategy in the national implementation of all EU funds.

The European Commission crucially relies on expertise and advice to fulfil its focal role in drafting policies. For this reason, it maintains numerous expert groups. When handling technical complex cases, expert groups engage in deliberative supranationalist problem-solving that is driven by logic and knowledge. Based on the Commission's policy initiative to develop European Public Sector Accounting Standards (EPSAS) for the integration of European Union member states' government accounting practices, this study investigates how and under what conditions policy incentives translate via expert group deliberations into draft policies. Drawing on policy design literature and using process tracing, this study finds that pre-existing policy instruments or design choices on higher order policy elements could lead to challenges in achieving the integrity and superiority of solutions at the level of calibration and street-level requirements, thus failing to produce the necessary expert consensus.

Amid the escalating contestation of European integration, the European Union (EU) endeavours participatory innovations to bridge the gap between EU institutions and citizens whilst addressing the challenges posed by Eurosceptic actors. This article builds on empowering dissensus, arguing that Eurosceptic contestation might strengthen EU integration by making EU issues a matter of discussion in the European public sphere. It expands its application beyond policy contestation to polity contestation. The article examines the Eurosceptic discourse surrounding the Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE), a pioneering deliberative attempt to bring citizens closer to EU institutions. Employing thematic analysis of various documents produced by Eurosceptic political groups, the article reveals two predominant themes through which these groups challenged the legitimacy of the CoFoE: manipulative governance and lack of representativity. These themes closely align with academic assessments and reinforce the Eurosceptic narrative of an ‘elite cartel’ governing the EU.