Does the EU represent a move from state-centric to multi-level governance?

Sciences politiques | 3 pages | 05-03-2006 | Format : | Note : Non noté

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Résumé

Assess the claim that the EU represents a move from state-centric to multi-level governance.

Extract:

The former French President of the European Commission, Jacques Delors, once stated that the European Union was an “unidentified political object”. This phrase highlights the complexity of the EU polity, which various theories have tried to capture and which has sparked controversy among the students of European integration. Among those theories, two models emerged between the late eighties and the early nineties, focusing on the relationship between supranational, national and subnational institutions, drawing opposite conclusions on the role of these actors in EU policy making. The term “multi-level governance” was coined by authors such as Gary Marks and Liesbet Hooghe, to describe European integration as “a polity creating process in which authority and policy-making influence are shared across multiple levels of government – subnational, national and supranational” . This model points at the dilution of national sovereignty and at the autonomous role of the European Parliament, the European Commission, and the European Court of Justice. The multi-level governance theory has its roots in neofunctionalism, and was developed in the context of a rapidly expanding European regional policy, in which it saw the opening of direct contacts between the European and local levels of government, bypassing the central state. Taking an opposite view, the theory of state-centric governance argues that European integration does not challenge the autonomy of nation states and is driven by bargain among member state governments. Supranational actors exist only to aid member states to facilitate agreements , and national governments still act as gatekeepers between European institutions and local authorities. This theory has been put forward by scholars such as Andrew Moravcsik, and is a development of the realist model of international relations ...

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