Valentina Petrovic, Simon Walo, Jörg Rössel, Tally Katz-Gerro, Maria Pilar Lopez Belbeze
{"title":"Perceptions of a Shared European Culture Increase the Support for the European Union","authors":"Valentina Petrovic, Simon Walo, Jörg Rössel, Tally Katz-Gerro, Maria Pilar Lopez Belbeze","doi":"10.1111/jcms.13619","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jcms.13619","url":null,"abstract":"<p>There is disagreement amongst political theorists as to whether a European demos based on a culturally grounded identity as a precondition for a stronger integration of the European Union (EU) exists. We study a part of this question from a constructivist perspective by analysing how individuals in Europe perceive European culture and how this perception is related to support for the EU. We focus on the following questions: (a) whether European respondents perceive a shared European culture, (b) whether they consider this culture to be of higher value than other cultures and (c) whether they are proud of European cultures. We study these questions on the basis of a survey conducted in 2021 in nine European countries, including both EU and non-EU countries. Our results show that the perception of a shared European culture and its positive evaluation, both inclusive and exclusive, covary positively with support for the EU.</p>","PeriodicalId":51369,"journal":{"name":"Jcms-Journal of Common Market Studies","volume":"63 1","pages":"28-50"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jcms.13619","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141387234","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Inside the European Union's Trade Machinery: Institutional Changes in an Age of Geoeconomics","authors":"Sjorre Couvreur","doi":"10.1111/jcms.13625","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jcms.13625","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In the context of increasingly assertive behaviour in international trade policy, various scholars seem to agree on the presence of a ‘geoeconomic turn’ in European Union (EU) trade policy. Whilst various aspects of this turn have been studied, the way in which the EU's trade institution might have adapted to this new context remains unclear. Therefore, this article addresses the following research question: how has the Directorate-General for Trade (DG Trade) adapted to the geoeconomic turn in international trade policy? Using an innovative historical institutionalist framework and directed content analysis, the article analyses EU official documents and 14 interviews with EU officials. We find that, despite apparent continuity, under President von der Leyen, a gradual process of institutional adaptation through different forms of layering and conversion has taken place within DG Trade, increasing the EU's geoeconomic capacities and geoeconomic thinking inside the EU's trade machinery.</p>","PeriodicalId":51369,"journal":{"name":"Jcms-Journal of Common Market Studies","volume":"63 1","pages":"284-301"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jcms.13625","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141193452","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Non-learning Within a Constellation of Communities of Practice: The Case of the EU and Its Democracy Support in the Arab World","authors":"Christian Achrainer, Michelle Pace","doi":"10.1111/jcms.13629","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jcms.13629","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article addresses the puzzle of why the European Union (EU) struggles to learn from ineffective attempts to support democratization in the Arab world but instead continuously (re-)produces democracy support malpractices. To better understand this phenomenon, we draw from practice theory and conceptualize EU democracy support as practices performed by a community of <i>insiders</i> who act within a complex constellation of communities of practice. Due to the way in which communities function, decision-makers do not critically reflect on the background knowledge on which they base their practices and thus do not learn how to improve them. This constellation model offers a unique take on non-learning within the EU and in (policy-making) groups more generally. We illustrate the proposed conceptual framework through an empirical analysis of EU democracy support in Egypt, showing that the EU performs practices similar to those before the 2011 Revolution due to its inability to learn.</p>","PeriodicalId":51369,"journal":{"name":"Jcms-Journal of Common Market Studies","volume":"63 2","pages":"385-401"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-05-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jcms.13629","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141113398","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Fiscal Rules in the European Union: Less Is More","authors":"Bogdan Căpraru, Anastasios Pappas, Nicu Sprincean","doi":"10.1111/jcms.13628","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jcms.13628","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In this article, we examine the non-linear relationship between the number of fiscal rules in place and compliance with the European Union's (EU) numerical fiscal targets included in the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP). Using a sample composed of 27 EU Member States for a period spanning 2000 to 2021, we document that countries' compliance with fiscal rules is positively associated with the number of numerical fiscal targets. However, this association only holds up to a specific threshold. Once this threshold is achieved, the relationship becomes negative, implying that the multiplication of numerical fiscal rules may undermine compliance, thereby reducing their effectiveness. In addition, we find that general elections and frequent changes in government reduce compliance, whereas economic adjustment programmes contribute positively to countries' compliance with fiscal targets. The findings bear critical policy implications against the backdrop of the current review of the European fiscal framework.</p>","PeriodicalId":51369,"journal":{"name":"Jcms-Journal of Common Market Studies","volume":"63 1","pages":"320-334"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jcms.13628","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141149743","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Reassessing Cohesion Policy Through the Lens of the New EU Industrial Policy","authors":"Francesco Molica","doi":"10.1111/jcms.13616","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jcms.13616","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The research note explores the role of cohesion policy in the emerging EU industrial agenda with the view to anchor it in the new industrial policy paradigm. The first part discusses the historical evolution of EU industrial policy and presents the main features of the conceptual perspective loosely referred to as ‘new industrial policy’. Then, the note investigates the main tensions between cohesion policy's rationales and instruments and the new industrial policy perspective, for instance in relation to the use of experimentation and directionality, and outlines pathways to address them through different lines of research. In conclusion, the note discusses positive avenues to tackle the identity crisis facing cohesion policy thanks to the new industrial policy perspective.</p>","PeriodicalId":51369,"journal":{"name":"Jcms-Journal of Common Market Studies","volume":"63 1","pages":"302-319"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-05-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jcms.13616","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140982245","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"When EU Agencies Set Up Advisory Committees: All About Autonomy?","authors":"Torbjørg Jevnaker","doi":"10.1111/jcms.13618","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jcms.13618","url":null,"abstract":"<p>European Union (EU) agencies' relations with interest groups have received scarce research attention despite their relevance to bureaucratic autonomy and functioning. Such relations may be organised via advisory committees, which are durable organisational structures for regularised contact between an agency and those societal actors given membership by the agency. Advisory committees may be imposed by the legislator to control an agency or harnessed by the latter to build autonomy. The EU legislator leaves significant discretion to EU agencies regarding advisory committees. However, EU agencies' late emergence in already densely populated regulatory fields begs the question of whether the use of agency discretion is fully autonomous. A case in point is the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER), whose establishment and design of three European Stakeholder Committees are examined here. Advisory committees were needed by, but also imposed on, ACER, reflecting agency preferences to improve task performance as much as prior institutionalisation within the organisational field. Hence, factors beyond legal requirements can constrain agency discretion on how to organise the organisation of agency–interest group relations.</p>","PeriodicalId":51369,"journal":{"name":"Jcms-Journal of Common Market Studies","volume":"63 2","pages":"420-437"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-05-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jcms.13618","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140996691","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Brexit Rhapsody: Exploring Patterns of Issue Salience in the Negotiations","authors":"David Moloney, Mads Dagnis Jensen","doi":"10.1111/jcms.13624","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jcms.13624","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This study revisits the salience of the Brexit negotiations using an advanced Decision-Making in the European Union (EU) methodology to assess the relative importance of 20 key issues amongst the EU27 member states, the European Commission and the UK. Unlike earlier studies that suggest more uniform salience levels, except for the UK, our analysis identifies eight clusters of actors influenced by their political, economic and geographical contexts. These differences in salience levels have been conducive to logrolling, which likely supported a unified EU stance and a successful agreement with the UK. Additionally, our research quantitatively confirms the UK's distinct salience position, highlighting its isolation and reducing its ability to use divisive negotiation tactics. These findings offer insights into both the dynamics of past Brexit negotiations and ongoing EU–UK policy developments. They contribute to the analysis of Brexit and international negotiations in general by systematically exploring salience in high-level diplomatic negotiations.</p>","PeriodicalId":51369,"journal":{"name":"Jcms-Journal of Common Market Studies","volume":"63 2","pages":"507-525"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-05-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jcms.13624","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140881419","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Discursive Struggle for Digital Sovereignty: Security, Economy, Rights and the Cloud Project Gaia-X","authors":"Rebecca Adler-Nissen, Kristin Anabel Eggeling","doi":"10.1111/jcms.13594","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jcms.13594","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article explores the struggle for ‘digital sovereignty’ in the European Union (EU). A seeming contradiction – the internet, after all, spans the globe – digital sovereignty is portrayed as the winning geoeconomic formula to keep the EU secure, competitive and democratic in the digital future. Approaching digital sovereignty as a discursive claim and analysing it through a case study of the European cloud project Gaia-X, we show that there is no singular understanding of digital sovereignty in the EU. Instead, we identify six different conceptions across the domains of security, economy and rights. This article outlines three scenarios for how the digital sovereignty agenda may develop and thus shape the EU's digital policy and its relations with the rest of the world: <i>constitutional tolerance</i> (where the conceptions co-exist), <i>hegemony</i> (where one conception dominates) or <i>collapse</i> (where the agenda falls apart due to inbuilt conceptual contradictions).</p>","PeriodicalId":51369,"journal":{"name":"Jcms-Journal of Common Market Studies","volume":"62 4","pages":"993-1011"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-05-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jcms.13594","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140828780","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The EU’s Transactional Approach to Rule of Law Spending Conditionality in the 2020s","authors":"Pauline Thinus","doi":"10.1111/jcms.13620","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jcms.13620","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Rule of law spending conditionality marks a turn in the EU’s strategy in the 2020s. The entry of this value into the budgetary sphere represents an economization process, creating room for the development of a transactional approach to rule of law compliance. This article defines this conceptual framework and examines the extent of its application through the case study of three budgetary instruments used during the 2021–2027 cycle: the Recovery and Resilience Facility, the Rule of Law Conditionality Regulation and the horizontal enabling condition of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. Contributing to the recent Europeanization literature, it also emphasizes the change in European governance and in the EU–Member State relationship triggered by the new conditionality culture following the succession of European crises, moving from a traditional politico-legal enforcement model to a transactional one.</p>","PeriodicalId":51369,"journal":{"name":"Jcms-Journal of Common Market Studies","volume":"63 2","pages":"548-563"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140828788","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Małgorzata Jakimów, Filippo Boni, Richard Turcsányi
{"title":"Does Populism Matter in EU–China Relations? The Cases of Italy and Czechia","authors":"Małgorzata Jakimów, Filippo Boni, Richard Turcsányi","doi":"10.1111/jcms.13621","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jcms.13621","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article investigates whether populism affects the foreign policy of European Union (EU) member states towards China and, if so, through what mechanisms. In order to answer this question, we examine the cases of Italy and Czechia, both of which went through turbulent relations with China in the recent decade whilst also experiencing several government changes between populist and non-populist parties. Our analysis reveals that whilst populist-led governments appeared to be more China-friendly than non-populist governments, the impact of populism is not direct but mediated through other variables, namely, thick ideology, economic pragmatism and international positioning. We propose this model as a hypothesis for testing in future research. In addition, our findings suggest a need to rethink the relationship between thin–thick ideologies in the study of populism and to emphasise the role of ‘economic pragmatism’ as a mediating variable, which has been largely missing from the literature on populist foreign policy.</p>","PeriodicalId":51369,"journal":{"name":"Jcms-Journal of Common Market Studies","volume":"63 1","pages":"89-107"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jcms.13621","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141038522","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}