Globalization, Europeanization, Complexity, and the Future of Scandinavian Exceptionalism

Throughout much of the twentieth century, the Scandinavian countries have been a problem for leftist and rightist visions of global order because, with various adaptations, they have continued to successfully develop on their exceptional path of market openness and social inclusiveness. How can this be explained? From a traditional social‐science perspective, it cannot. However, from a complexity perspective, where there are no rigid hegemonic fundamental human orders such as globalization and Europeanization, nation‐states evolve through complex adaptation with their global surroundings. From this perspective, diversity and exceptionalism—not order—are the norm.     

Economic Conditions,Economic Perceptions,and Public Support for European Integration

Political Behavior -     

Attitudes towards European Integration and the Danish Common Market Referendum

The article analyses survey data on the role played by the issue of European integration in the Danish Common Market referendum 1972. Despite a 2:1 vote in favor of membership, support for supranational European integration was low; in fact, integration as an issue was considerably more salient to opponents of membership than supporters who tended to vote mainly for tangible, i.e. economic reasons. As many as one-fourth of the sample voted for membership though being highly anti-integrationist, either because of disbelief in the dynamics of integration, because of the higher saliency of tangible benefits, or because of identification with strongly pro-market parties.     

Adapting Danish Interests to European Integration

When Denmark became a member of the European Community in 1973, political institutions as well as private business had to and did in fact make adaptations to the new and unaccustomed political environment. With the exception of the Common Market Committee of Folkelinget , however, the Danish polity did not change much with regard to the EC until the late 1980s when the Community gained new momentum. Now, traditionally corporatist patterns of decision-making are adapting to a European polity much more complex and pluralist by nature. Political and administrative institutions are developing new ways of influencing EC policies, though their lobbying activities still remain basically ad hoc and reactive. As to private interests, agriculture occupies a unique position with its long tradition of aggressive lobbying, while lobbying by manufacturing companies is still in the making. However, an overall weakening of national corporatist patterns of decision-making in response to the integration process, which one might perhaps have expected, has not taken place. Rather, we observe a strengthening. Thus, our case poses questions as to the relevance of existing corporatist notions for an understanding of the general nature of the policy-making process in the Community and the prospects for interest organizational centralization at the European level.     

European Integration and Citizens' Rights: A Comparative Perspective

The prospects for European Union citizenship are sometimes discountedby reference to homogeneity in the United States compared todiversity in the European Union. This article suggests thatthere may be more similarities between the two systems thanis sometimes supposed by many observers. Even though there areimportant differences, both systems have had to address similarquestions about how to combine the benefits of integration andthe protection of rights. In discussing the common and divergentfeatures, the author argues that comparison also reveals thepossibility that it is diversity, not homogeneity, that is necessaryto the protection of citizenship's rights.     

The Paradox of Integration: Habermas and the Unfinished Project of European Union

In a recent article Jürgen Habermas (1999) highlighted the potential for the European Union to act as a vehicle for the extension of democratic governance beyond the nation state, a project aimed at limiting the socially corrosive impact of globalisation. Yet this position appears paradoxical as the European Union itself exacerbates a major aspect of globalisation: the emasculation of national parliaments known as the 'democratic deficit'. This paradox can be understood by analysing the dynamics of post-war European integration through the lens of Habermasian social theory: EU evolution can lead either to the colonisation of the lifeworld by market and administrative subsystems (as with the democratic deficit), or to a process of lifeworld rationalisation conducive to pan-European solidarity and democracy. The latter of these tendencies could be encouraged through 'procedural democracy': this would institutionalise the conditions by which independent associations in European civil society, channelling their 'communicative power' through parliament, might reassert control over the two subsystems. In order to retain legitimacy, procedural EU democracy would have to link existing legislatures to the European Parliament, while citizenship would combine national and civic components. Hence the European Union would be more able than the nation-state to combine universal notions of justice with ethical pluralism.     

Same Menu, Seperate Tables: The Institutionalist Turn in Political Science and the Study of European Integration

Recent research on European integration has largely profited from the institutionalist turn in political science. Theoretical progress has, however, been hampered by the diverse understandings of this new research tradition. This paper tries to tackle the conceptual diversity in a positive way. We first analyze the neo–institutionalist turn in political science and European studies and then move on to a detailed analysis and comparison of the three competing approaches — sociological, historical, and rational choice institutionalism. Next, we will show that the main differences are as much epistemological as theoretical. A convergence towards a unifying institutionalist approach can thus only be possible if some sort of a methodological convergence takes place. We sketch how a synthesis between the competing schools might appear.