The theme of Europeanization has, in recent years, come to figure prominently in a wide range of social science analyses concerning both the process of European integration and broader patterns of change in contemporary Europe. Yet, though increasingly a staple of academic discourse, no widely accepted definition of the term has emerged. This volume of the European Studies represents one of the first interdisciplinary attempts to examine the manifold uses and possibilities of a Europeanization problematic. An international team of contributors drawn from the disciplines of Politics, Sociology, History, Anthropology, and Law explore processes of institution-building and identity formation through the optic of Europeanization. Their work offers new insights as regards the development of European integration, pointing particularly to the need for a genuinely interdisciplinary European Studies which encompasses, but is not limited to, the study of the European Union.

After two decades of research into the impact of the EU on domestic politics and policies, this book explores the relationship between Europeanization and EU integration. It argues that Europeanization should be considered as a stage in the development of EU integration as well as questioning the notion of incremental Europeanization.

This book examines the Europeanization of the polity and politics of a new EU Member State. Using social network analysis in a comparative research design, it provides a systematic analysis of the effects of Europeanization on the institutions, policy processes, power constellation and conflict among national elites. Providing a detailed case study on Romania in comparative perspective, the book analyses the impact of the European Union integration process on decision-making in six policy networks to develop a cross-sector and cross-time comparative analysis. It explores mandatory EU requirements in the area of immigration and asylum and the implementation of various EU directives during the negotiation period as well as post-integration. It also examines soft/non-mandatory Europeanization in the social sector and investigates a third control case on a domestic reform, fiscal decentralization in the education sector, where the EU influence is absent. Measuring the impact of Europeanization both before and after integration, this book has considerable implications for the study of current and future candidate states. It will be of interest to students and scholars of EU enlargement, Europeanization studies, European politics, especially Central and Eastern European politics.

The numerous and far-reaching socio-political transformations that have taken place on the European continent since the mid-20th century have stipulated the emergence of new approaches and research fields in the social sciences. One of these is the development of a Sociology of Europeanization. This textbook provides an overview of its major topics, concepts, and research approaches. Each of the 14 chapters of this textbook introduces one particular topic of the Sociology of Europeanization – ranging from major conceptual considerations to an exploration of the numerous spatial, cultural, economic, political, judicial, and socio-structural implications of Europeanization. Hence, this book is very suitable as a fundamental introductory reading and for teaching in European studies and related study programs. It is also recommended to everyone who is interested in more recent European history and current sociological studies of transnationalization. Events around the book Link to a De Gruyter Online Event in which renowned scholars and experts discuss what is necessary for the teaching of European Studies today and what future directions European Studies should take in light of current challenges and crises. The event was moderated by Sebastian Büttner and Susann Worschech, two co-editors of this textbook: https://youtu.be/Deh13FJ1ctE During the annual colloqium of the European General Studies Programme of the College of Europe (Bruges), Sebastian Büttner discussed and presented his co-edited book: https://youtu.be/GLheIHQOEv4

Europeanization is increasingly fashionable in the social sciences as a research focus as well as a backdrop for studies of the European Union and its relations with its member states. However, to date there is little consensus among the scholarly community over what Europeanization is or how it should be analyzed. Spatialities of Europeanization is the first work to comprehensively analyze contemporary research across the social sciences and humanities in order to bring together critically informed and previously unconnected contributions on this vital topic. The authors identify unexplored communalities between these different research traditions as well as shedding light on its neglected geographical and spatial dimensions which they argue are critical to understanding Europeanization in the 21st century. This book reflects a strong conceptual approach which is supported by detailed empirical materials drawn from interviews with policy elites at supranational, national and regional levels in the EU who are engaged in short, medium and long term EU policy planning and management. Offering fascinating empirically grounded insights into why Europe’s governance must now become more transparent and accountable to its 500 million citizens this book will appeal to scholars and researchers in the fields of Political Science, International and European Studies.

This book is a study of EU conditionality and compliance during the enlargement to the Central and Eastern European candidate countries. EU conditionality for membership is widely understood as having been a driving force for Europeanization, providing incentives and sanctions for compliance or non-compliance with EU norms, such as the 'Copenhagen Criteria' and the adoption of the acquis communautaire . By taking regional policy and regionalization as a case study, this book provides a comparative analysis of the effects of conditionality on the Central and East European countries and explores the many paradoxes and weaknesses in the use of EU conditionality over time.

Ireland’s relationship with the European Union has been determined by the behaviour, actions and discourse of political parties. This book examines this impact through an in-depth analysis of the Europeanization of party politics in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. First, it presents original research on cross-cutting issues that have featured in political debates about European integration, including referendum campaigns on EU treaties, Irish neutrality and party policy positions on the EU. Secondly, it is the first book of its kind to examine in detail how each of the main parties on the island of Ireland has adapted to EU membership. In doing so it both tests the thesis of ‘Europeanization’ and deepens understanding of the impact that EU membership can have on national and sub-national party politics. What this study reveals is that, while Europeanization is clearly evident in all parties in Ireland, including those most critical of European integration, its influence has been strictly curtailed. We argue that the effects of Europeanization in Irish party politics have been limited by enduring resistance to – and conditions placed upon – EU influence in particular policy areas, the importance of pragmatism and (sub-)national priorities in shaping parties’ approaches to European integration and the fact that engagement with the EU continues to be a predominantly elite-led process. This book was published as a special issue of Irish Political Studies.

Europeanization has often been conceived as a top-down process, necessitating implementation and adjustment at the national level. However, Europeanization can also be conditioned by bottom-up national initiatives. While recent endeavors in comparative political economy have emphasized the resilience of coordinated market economies, few detailed empirical studies have examined to date exactly how different European systems of political-economic governance cope with and respond to an European impetus for liberalization. This original study of the impact of the EU-induced liberalization of service provision on member states argues that innovative national re-regulatory strategies may be implemented in response to Europeanization. In permitting any company registered in an EU member state to provide services throughout Europe, new possibilities were created for the transnational posting of workers from low-wage to high-wage countries. However, high-wage countries could re-regulate the wage levels applicable to such employees. The exact nature of such response strategy is colored by the respective institutional power that labor market interest associations like trade unions and employer associations command. Therefore, different institutionalized varieties of capitalism generate distinct re-regulations of the Single European Market. Drawing on detailed case studies of ten European countries, this volume bridges the gap between the rapidly unfolding scholarly debate on Europeanization and varieties of capitalism. It argues that both strongly neocorporatist systems of political-economic governance and statist systems are capable of creating swift, comprehensive and thorough national re-regulations. This applies to Austria and France, but also Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Belgium, and Luxembourg. By contrast, countries with less strongly embedded neocorporatist structures, in which due to organizational deficiencies trade unions face difficulties blocking employer demands, create liberal response strategies, permitting a stratification of wage levels. Hence, both Germany and the Netherlands implemented liberal business-friendly re-regulations. The volume makes the case for important amendments to existing accounts of Europeanization and varieties of capitalism. Scholars of Europeanization need to incorporate bottom-up re-regulation into their conceptual framework, particularly in response to 'negative integration'. Recent strides in comparative political economy have placed great emphasis on continued divergence, yet this study suggests that even within the presumably unified group of 'non-liberal' coordinated market economies important institutional differences produce very distinct responses in the face of European liberalization.

This is a unique book-length accounts of the domestic impact of EU membership. Drawing on expert contributions, this volume provides a state of the art account of how membership has affected the institutions of central, devolved and local governance, the activities of organized interests, and major areas of public policy.

Who shapes the European Union’s policy towards Latin America? How has this EU policy modified individual member states’ relations with the region? This book provides a comparative account of seven member states’ bilateral links with Latin America since 1945, in the context of their EU membership and based on the concept of ‘Europeanization’. It illustrates how and why the main architects of this EU policy have been Spain and Germany. In contrast, Poland, Sweden and Ireland, which had little previous interaction with Latin America, have developed their current relations with that region virtually as a result of their EU membership. The United Kingdom and France lie in the middle: they have been influential in certain policy-areas and key periods in history, while they have adapted to what is done at the EU level in others. Practitioners, established academic experts as well emerging scholars in the field bring to be bear a novel combination of pioneering research and cutting edge conceptual analysis on this important but neglected area of the EU’s foreign relations.