European integration in crisis? Of supranational integration, hegemonic projects and domestic politics
| Author | Simon Bulmer,Jonathan Joseph |
| Published date | 01 December 2016 |
| Date | 01 December 2016 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1354066115612558 |
European Journal of
International Relations
2016, Vol. 22(4) 725 –748
© The Author(s) 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/1354066115612558
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European integration in crisis?
Of supranational integration,
hegemonic projects and
domestic politics
Simon Bulmer
The University of Sheffield, UK
Jonathan Joseph
The University of Sheffield, UK
Abstract
The European Union is facing multiple challenges. Departing from mainstream theory,
this article adopts a fresh approach to understanding integration. It does so by taking two
theoretical steps. The first introduces the structure–agency debate in order to make explicit
the relationship between macro-structures, the institutional arrangements at European Union
level and agency. The second proposes that the state of integration should be understood
as the outcome of contestation between competing hegemonic projects that derive from
underlying social processes and that find their primary expression in domestic politics.
These two steps facilitate an analysis of the key areas of contestation in the contemporary
European Union, illustrated by an exploration of the current crisis in the European Union,
and open up the development of an alternative, critical, theory of integration.
Keywords
Domestic politics, European integration, Eurozone crisis, governance, hegemony,
structure–agency
Introduction
The European Union (EU) currently faces many challenges. A decade-long attempt at
constitutional reform nearly foundered as a result of the French and Dutch electorates’
rejection of the Constitutional Treaty in 2005 and the Irish electorate’s initial rejection of
Corresponding author:
Simon Bulmer, Department of Politics, The University of Sheffield, Elmfield, Northumberland Road,
Sheffield, S10 2TU, UK.
Email: S.Bulmer@sheffield.ac.uk
612558EJT0010.1177/1354066115612558European Journal of International RelationsBulmer and Joseph
research-article2015
Article
726 European Journal of International Relations 22(4)
the Lisbon Treaty, eventually implemented in December 2009. That step coincided with
the emergence of the ongoing Eurozone crisis, which revealed the EU institutions and the
member states as slow to react and politically weak in the face of the financial markets.
Germany reluctantly moved to the fore amid the leadership vacuum, with the traditional
Franco-German motor having lost power. The Eurozone crisis and the linked economic
and financial crisis have contributed to greater Euro-scepticism, as revealed by the out-
come of the May 2014 European elections. The EU’s response to the foreign policy crisis
on its doorstep in Ukraine has been hesitant. A refugee crisis threatened EU asylum and
migration policy, opening up new divisions between states. Finally, British Prime Minister
David Cameron wishes to secure EU reform prior to holding an in/out referendum.
Theorizing integration is once again under the spotlight. The main contending theo-
ries reveal insights but also significant flaws in explaining these developments. One
response is an emerging ‘disintegration turn’. Webber (2014) has suggested that integra-
tion theories should be turned on their head in order to offer predictions about the condi-
tions under which disintegration might take place (see also Eppler and Scheller, 2013;
Vollaard, 2014).
Our argument seeks to re-examine the dynamics of integration. It does so by embrac-
ing recent developments in International Relations (IR) theory, notably, the structure–
agency debate, in order to connect up the international level of integration with domestic
politics. The novelty of our argument is to understand European integration as the out-
come of contestation between rival hegemonic projects. Hitherto when the EU is under-
stood as a hegemonic project it is typically seen in economic or class terms and as an
integral part of the dynamics of transnational capitalism. Our interpretation is different,
although it engages with this approach. First, our analytical focus is on European integra-
tion rather than seeing the EU as simply an artefact of the global political economy or the
product of a transnational elite. Second, we argue that integration has always been both
economic and political in character and that domestic social relations need to be added to
global developments in identifying the way in which European integration is shaped.
European integration may, indeed, be about embedded neoliberalism (Van Apeldoorn,
2001), although this was not the case in the 1950s. However, it is also about the empow-
erment of political elites with good access to the EU’s decision-making centre to the cost
of those less well positioned. We therefore explore integration as the outcome of a strug-
gle for power among competing hegemonic projects.
We develop our argument to facilitate a dialogue with both mainstream and critical
approaches. Our focus on hegemonic projects is distinctive in placing emphasis on his-
torical context, institutional setting, the multiple levels of the integration process and the
underlying structural conditions that enable and constrain action. Developing a notion of
hegemonic projects in relation to the aforementioned issues departs from simply criti-
quing neoliberalism. At the same time, it permits meaningful dialogue with institutional-
ist approaches, while engaging with recent ontological developments in political studies,
namely, critical realism and the structure–agency debate. We develop a distinctive argu-
ment that hegemonic projects represent a mediating point between macro-structure,
institutional structures and active agency.
The article is structured in five parts. First, it offers a brief review of the principal
integration theories in the light of the post-Lisbon/Eurozone crisis, linking them to
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