While European integration has spurred much investigation into the role Member States, their
citizens, and the European-level institutions play in reshaping institutions across Europe, much less
attention has been paid to the changing nature of the modern European state itself and the import
this has for those states still hoping to join the European Union (EU). More
fundamentally, research on European integration has neglected to adequately examine 1) how this
transformation of the modern European state--essentially the rewriting of the “rules of the
game”--has affected the expression of civic, political, and social rights of Member States’ citizens
and, subsequently, 2) the transformative effect this process could have on the expression of these
rights in pre-accession and acceding states.
This research quantitatively examines five policy areas directly linked to and affecting the expression
of civic, political, and social rights from the breakdown of the national corporatist state in Europe to
the present, and as such, it furthers the understanding of the effects European integration has had
on the lives of everyday citizens. Moreover, by retrospectively including pre-accession and acceding
states present during the time period covered and a specific analysis of the effects of integration on
the expression of civic, political, and social rights in these countries, the citizens, policymakers, and
government officials of states still hoping to join the EU may have a more reliable idea of the type of
opportunities (and constraints) that accession will bring.
