Traditional EU integration theories are biased in a manifold manner. Aside a “normative bias” (Faber/Wessels 2005) which led to a blindness for “disintegration” phenomena, one can state also a “constitutional” and a “problem-solving bias” (Eppler/Scheller 2013). “Federalism”, taken as European integration theory, has often also been linked to a normative “big bang” approach as Churchill sketched in Zurich in 1946. Due to the unanswerable question of finality, findings from federalism theory were, therefore, seen as almost worthless to explain integration processes.
The paper discusses ways how to integrate aspects of different federalism theories into the traditional European integration theories to explain the EU “disintegration” process more comprehensively. For this purpose we differ between functional and cultural integration/disintegration. This distinction can be derived from different theoretical approaches which see federal arrangements always balancing between shared rule and self-rule (Elazar 1991) on a continuum between autonomy and solidarity (Ryker 1975). This explains the federal simultaneity of integrative and disintegrative dynamics causing a permanent re-allocation of powers between the jurisdictional levels (Benz 1985). By contrast, sociological federalism theories are shedding more light on the cultural, ethnic and religious dimension of decentralization. Like economic theories of federalism they are focusing the individual as point of departure for each power allocation.
This distinction between functional and cultural integration/disintegration allows to capture much better the simultaneities of the European integration process which is shaped by a legal overstretch of functional integration and new old forms of cultural disintegration – especially since the outbreak of the economic crisis. For this purpose, however, it is necessary to replace the idea of a hierarchal multi-level structure through the idea of a “polycentric integration field” (Crum/Fossum 2011).
