Jcms-Journal of Common Market Studies最新文献

The link between citizens' and representatives' preferences is central to representative democracy. Research on representation of citizens' preferences in the European Parliament (EP) has primarily concentrated on national political parties and candidates. We ask how well transnational EP party groups and members of the EP (MEPs) represent their voters on the left–right and EU-integration dimensions. We use data from four waves of the European Election Studies and surveys of MEPs. We show that MEPs in centrist parties tend to be closer to their voters on the left–right dimension than others, with EU positions making little difference to this. Our findings indicate the median voter tends to be more Eurosceptic than the median MEP across most centrist party groups whilst the opposite is true for the most Eurosceptic groups. These results have important implications for the study of representation and democracy in the EU.

This article explores the reasons for the latest push to conclude the European Union (EU)–Mercosur agreement and what threatens its completion. I focus on three factors: the EU's geopolitical incentives, the EU's civil society organization (CSO) politicization and domestic political economy constraints. A longitudinal case study based on three pre-specified stages reveals that the reduction of the opposition from Mercosur's expected distributional losers during the run-up to the 2019 agreement, combined with higher geopolitical incentives in the EU from late 2022, paved the way for a successful renegotiation in 2023–2024 that reduced the EU's environmental CSO opposition. Furthermore, the combination of high geopolitical incentives and political economy constraints in the EU explains why the agreement's completion remains uncertain. This study informs debates on the ‘geopoliticization’ and ‘geoeconomic turn’ of the EU's trade policy by highlighting the tension between a geopolitically-driven trade initiative and domestic political economy constraints.

In this paper, we investigate the adaptation of the EU climate stances between the early 2000s until today. Historically tracing the EU's approach to the green transition, we highlight an increasing role of interventionist frames within European discourses and policies. As the realms of intervention have increased, so has the EU's emphasis on the need to provide social protection for the sections of the population that have more to lose from a large-scale transition. We understand this process as signalling the increasing relevance of what we call the Compensatory State. This concept points to a form of governance that, by setting itself ambitious goals that (if implemented) would have widespread effects on large portions of the population, needs to produce equally extended forms of compensations. The paper historically traces the development of this form of governance from the previously prevalent frameworks (which we understand through the concepts of the Regulatory State and the Competitiveness-enhancing State). The paper integrates contemporary attempts to theorise the role of public authorities within the EU's green transition. In addition, our analysis challenges the expectations of the extant literature in political economy, which looks at increasing social protection mainly as a public solution to market distortions.

The Brussels effect has become a major tool for analysing the global exemplary impact of the European Union (EU) rules in academia and policy-making. It is entering uncharted territory. Heightened corporate lobbying and third-country influence test the EU's regulatory capacity and the stringency of its standards while shifting political tides challenge the EU's aspirations as a global rule-maker. Threats from Donald Trump and tech firm executives abound. To capture such dynamics, the article outlays a pioneering reconceptualisation of this effect, drawing from the political economy concepts of instrumental and structural/hybrid power. This reconceptualisation equips the Brussels effect framework with analytical tools needed to tackle contemporary governance challenges while encompassing advocacy efforts that undermine the background conditions of this effect. Reconceptualising the Brussels effect also helps us to address the shifting world political dynamics while adjoining it with broader debates on power and polycentric governance.

This article examines the agency of national executives in shaping the reform agendas within the National Recovery and Resilience Plans (NRRPs) under the EU's Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF). Through a comparative analysis of NRRPs drafting in Germany, France, Italy and Spain, and an in-depth longitudinal study of Italy, we argue that the partisan profile of national executives, to a significant extent, accounts for which reforms were included in the respective national plans, while the domestic usage of Europe by national executives explains how they went about embedding those reforms in the NRRPs. In terms of research design, we first match the reform priorities outlined in the political manifestos of the governing parties and those included in the NRRPs. Second, through a systematic analysis of press coverage, we sketch out how national executives leveraged (or not) Europe domestically during the drafting of their respective plans. Our findings contribute to shed light on the interplay between domestic political dynamics and EU-level requirements, demonstrating how governments navigated the tension between fulfilling their electoral mandates, building domestic support for their reform agendas and adhering to EU guidelines and constraints.

One of the instruments by which the European Union (EU) promotes democracy abroad is conditionality attached to its aid. By providing material incentives before countries meet a set of conditions (ex post) or after progress has been made (ex ante), the EU aims to alter the behaviour of third countries. Consistency in applying ex post and ex ante conditionality is essential for the EU's international credibility. Although extensive research has explored ex post conditionality, much less scholarly attention has been paid to ex ante conditionality. To address this gap, we ask: ‘Does the level of democracy impact EU aid allocation, and if so, is the EU consistent in applying ex ante conditionality?’ Empirically, we focus on aid from EU institutions allocated to the neighbourhood in its broader understanding—countries in the eastern and southern neighbourhood, as well as the Western Balkans and Turkey. Using time-series cross-sectional data that cover over 20 years of EU aid (2000–2020), we demonstrate that improvement in the democratic performance of beneficiaries is positively associated with more aid, suggesting that EU institutions indeed allocate aid based on democratic performance. The findings further reveal the lack of consistency in performance-based aid allocation—the EU is more likely to reward improved democratic performance in strategically important neighbours. Namely, a higher level of democratic performance is associated with more aid in countries from which the EU imports energy. Additionally, countries from where migration originates receive more aid, disregarding their level of democracy. The findings reveal both the performance-based and instrumental use of aid by EU institutions, contributing to the literature on EU credibility.

This article argues that extensive use of private military and security companies (PMSCs) makes the European Union (EU) an enmeshed security and defence actor. This is an actor spanning the public and the private domains as well as the resources, rules and practices of the EU member states and of EU-level institutions. Enmeshment, in Leander's (2014) terms, leads to recombination and blending of rules, resources and practices from multiple domains. Our findings based on (a) an analysis of the EU's rules for contracting PMSCs and (b) a new data set of 564 PMSCs linked with the EU in the period 2014–2023 suggest that the EU and its member states systematically tap into resources of the private military and security industry in conducting their security and defence policies. The resulting enmeshment processes call for a reconceptualization of the EU as a security and defence actor.

Examining the provision of domestic care, this article highlights governance gaps in the regional administration of labour rights protections within the direct state funding of long-term care. Drawing upon data from secondary sources and semi-structured interviews with stakeholders in four European countries, municipal activities including whistleblowing procedures, care-worker professionalisation, the expansion of employee's roles and inter-agency data analysis have been identified and are described. My analysis suggests that initiatives to enhance individual agency are more commonly reported in traditionally familial welfare regimes while collective actions are more frequently described in countries that have had a more universalist approach to the provision of long-term care. Without further reform and greater theoretical diversification, particularly in relation to its gendered nature, our understanding of potential avenues to improve the detection of labour malpractices seems unlikely to adequately address the evidential threat. Implications for theory, policy, practice and future research are discussed.