Politicisation or De-Politicisation? The (Inter-) Institutional Consequences of the ‘Constraining Dissensus’ over European Integration

Abstract

The shift of the ‘permissive consensus’ about European integration to a ‘constraining dissensus’ (Hooghe and Marks), and the increasing prominence of national politics across arenas in the EU’s system of multi-level governance are, by now, well-established in both political and academic debate. The ‘top-down’ consequences of the EU’s politicisation—for instance, for national elections, referendums, party competition, political discourse, public opinion—are also increasingly well-explored. Yet, we still know little about how growing domestic contestation over European integration has impacted on the EU’s institutions, inter-institutional relations and decision-making, and about whether and why institutional responses to growing domestic contestation vary within and across the EU’s institutions and policies. The proposed panel contributes to filling this gap, by exploring the ‘bottom-up’ impact of domestic contestation. Analytically, the panel focuses on the tension between supranational responses aiming to politicise the EU’s institutions and decision-making (e.g., by deliberately attempting to inject more open, public and party-political conflict into the decision-process), and aiming to de-politicise (e.g., by deliberately attempting to ‘shield’ and insulate the supranational arena from open political conflict); empirically, the four papers explore this tension across different institutions, institutional arenas and stages of the policy-process, including: legislative decision-making (Broniecki, Obholzer and Reh); inter-institutional relations and inter-institutional agreements (Bunea); the European Commission’s role in implementing and reforming fiscal governance (Franchino and Mariotto); and the use of legal and political instruments in response to domestic ‘authoritarianism’ (Kelemen). In short, the panel explores, systematises and explains the impact of domestic contestation and politicisation across the EU’s institutional arenas and policies, and, in doing so, contributes to the nascent research agenda of ‘bottom-up’ politicisation and multi-level politics in the EU polity.

Title	Details
Against the Odds: Overcoming Gridlock in EU Decision-Making	View Paper Details
To Politicise or De-Politicise EU Decision-Making: The Role of Inter-Institutional Agreements	View Paper Details
Intergovernmentalisms and Fiscal Governance of the European Union: Explaining Tightening, Pooling and Delegation	View Paper Details
The EU's Authoritarian Equilibrium: From Democratic Deficit to Autocracy Surplus	View Paper Details