European Union

The European Union’s intergovernmental-supranational balance has been maintained over many decades by the well-established system of institutional arrangements and the mediation of member state interests. The push-pull factors that shaped the dynamics of European integration have varied over time, but there have rarely been pressures of such severity to undermine this equilibrium even in the successive phases of enlargement. However, recent years have witnessed new challenges to the politics and policy-making of the European Union in the shape of external shocks and internal upheavals that have unsettled the institutional dynamics and policy-making, and pose a potential existential threat to the EU. The global financial crisis of 2008 and in its aftermath the continued economic malaise across the member states, with growing popular unease over the relevance of the EU to their daily lives and their future, has generated increased questioning about what European integration means for the continent’s peoples. Member state governments, too, demonstrate greater scepticism about the capacity of the Union to deal with internal matters or external challenges. Yet, these same governments remain unclear to what extent the nature of the real challenge lies with institutional dynamics, or a collective European identity crisis in the face of mis-matched expectations about the division of authority between the member states and the EU-level. This Section welcomes Panels and Papers that reflect on the way in which the contemporary intergovernmental-supranational balance plays out, addressing how this has changed, adapted, or stagnated in the context of recent developments in various policy areas and more generally the process of European integration. Topics that might be covered in the Section include institutional dynamics (role of institutions, member states, non-state actors), policy areas (economic, social and external policies), identity crisis (including differing national responses and reactions to EU developments, rise of Euroscepticism, likelihood of disillusion and more proposals for ‘secession), and future enlargement possibilities.