Germany, Europe, and the Politics of Constraint
Kenneth Dyson and Klaus Goetz
Abstract
The process of European integration is marked both by continued deepening and widening, and by growing evidence of domestic disquiet and dissent. Against this background, this book examines three key themes: the challenge to the power of member states – as subjects of European integration – to determine the course of the integrationist project and to shape European public policies; the constraints in the domestic political arena experienced by member states as objects of European integration; and the contestation over both the ‘constitutive politics of the EU’ and specific policy choices. Thes ... More
The process of European integration is marked both by continued deepening and widening, and by growing evidence of domestic disquiet and dissent. Against this background, this book examines three key themes: the challenge to the power of member states – as subjects of European integration – to determine the course of the integrationist project and to shape European public policies; the constraints in the domestic political arena experienced by member states as objects of European integration; and the contestation over both the ‘constitutive politics of the EU’ and specific policy choices. These three themes – power, constraint, and contestation – and their interdependence are explored with specific reference to Germany. The main findings call for a revision of the ‘conventional wisdom’ about Germany's Europeanization experience. First, while Germany continues to engage intensively in all aspects of the integration process, its power to ‘upload’ – ‘hard’ and ‘soft’, ‘deliberate’ or ‘unintentional’, ‘institutional’ or ‘ideational’ – appears in decline. Germany's capacity to ‘shape its regional milieu’ is challenged by both changes in the integration process and the ever-more-apparent weaknesses of the ‘German model’. The traditional regional core milieu is shrinking in size and importance in an enlarging Europe, and Germany's milieu-shaping power is being challenged. Second, the coincidence of enabling and constraining effects is being progressively replaced by a discourse that notes unwelcome constrictions associated with EU membership.
Keywords:
European integration,
member states,
public policies,
domestic politics,
European Union,
Germany,
power,
constraint,
contestation,
Europeanization
Bibliographic Information
Print publication date: 2003 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780197262955 |
Published to British Academy Scholarship Online: January 2012 |
DOI:10.5871/bacad/9780197262955.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Kenneth Dyson, editor
Visiting Professor, Centre for European Studies, University of Bradford; Fellow of the British Academy
Klaus Goetz, editor
Senior Lecturer in German, Department of Government, London School of Economics
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