In the framework of the Swiss Chair Seminar Series, this session features a book presentation by EUI Emeritus Professor, Adrienne Héritier.
Abstract:
The book analyses the way the European Union works through the lenses of institutional power balancing and the linked mechanisms of institutional change. Viewing the EU as a polity subject to a continuous process of institutional power balancing when concrete policies are shaped allows to highlight covert dynamics of the polity. While the Treaties formally define EU and Member State competences, the de facto power of institutional actors becomes evident when these rules are applied while legislating, administering or adjudicating on specific issues. We assume that institutional actors pursue both policy and institutional goals. Embedded in a dynamic system of division of power, shared decision-making and mutual control, they are always wary that their institutional partners are overstepping competences. To prevent or correct such "transgressions" they resort to safeguard strategies. Since the targeted institutional actors will respond, sequences of interacting strategies will ensue, leading to an attenuation of institutional conflicts, their escalation or, when actors agree to disagree, an abeyance of conflicts.
Which new insights do we gain by viewing the EU in the light of policy conflicts and contestations of institutional power driven by safeguard strategies? Attention is drawn to aspects of policy making and institutional politics that are not reflected in the formal institutional rules, do not draw public attention and are not the central focus of political science analysis. We investigate a wide range of policymaking issues under the Community method, the Intergovernmental method, administrative policymaking and judicial decisions which gave rise to institutional conflicts, and ask: Did the institutional actors involved in these conflicts launch safeguard strategies, policy-wise or institutional, in order to contain a perceived power imbalance caused by another institutional actor? What was the outcome of these conflicts and what do they tell us about how the EU as a multi-level and multi-dimensional system functions in practice if we look beyond the established formal arenas?
With respect to existing theories of (dis)integration and differentiation, our analytical view is complementary, corrective and wider: It complements and corrects these theories when it shows that the latter’s claimed flows of development are refracted or ‘disturbed’ by actors engaging in strategies of correcting institutional dominance. It is more comprehensive in that it not only includes the formal political decision-making venues, i.e, the Community and Intergovernmental methods but also administrative policymaking and judicial decisions. And importantly, beyond formal institutional change, we also focus on how the strategic contest of institutional power leads to covert alterations of institutional rules.
How does a continuous contest of institutional power impact upon policy making and, indeed, the entire EU polity? Based on an inductive empirical analysis of a wide range of policy making cases we propose conjectures as to the outcome. The conflicts may lead to an institutional compromise, conflict escalation or an abeyance of conflict. However, escalation is rare because safeguards seek to correct a specific institutional domination, and do not pursue a finalité, i.e. an overall alteration of the European polity, such as an ever closer Union, a differentiated integration or a decentralized polity. And, importantly, the institutional outcomes of safeguard strategies are revisable by countervailing strategies, and the resulting balancing process evolves incrementally and not in one pre-defined track or direction. Since the other actors will react to such partial strategies, a self-correcting mechanism is set into motion containing the power of individual institutional actors allowing for coherence of the system in accordance with the Treaty principle of institutional balance of power and sincere cooperation . Hence, institutional power balancing is a means of holding together a political system while preserving cultural diversity as a value in a polity such as the EU and allowing for resilience when exposed to external shocks.