Europeanization and changing patterns of governance in Ireland
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.0033-3298.2005.00442.x |
| Published date | 01 March 2005 |
| Date | 01 March 2005 |
Public Administration Vol. 83 No. 1, 2005 (159–178)
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2005, 9600 Garsi ngton Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street,
Malden, MA 02148, USA.
EUROPEANIZATION AND CHANGING
PATTERNS OF GOVERNANCE IN IRELAND
MAURA ADSHEAD
In order to examine institutional change in Republic of Ireland (hereinafter referred
to as ‘Ireland’ or ‘the Irish case’) as a consequence of European integration, this
article looks at the adaptation of national institutions subsequent to EU membership.
A new institutionalist approach is taken towards the definition and discussion of
institutions in order that the analysis may encompass the broadest range of changes
consequent to EU membership: in relation to national structures; decision-making
patterns; socialization processes; and overall ‘system change’. The analysis uses the
organizing concepts offered by Bulmer and Burch (1998) in their evaluation of the
impact of Europeanization on national systems of public administration in Britain.
According to this framework, ‘institutions can be analysed in terms of four grad-
ations moving from the formal, through the informal, to the normative and cultural’
(Bulmer and Burch 1998, p. 604).
INTRODUCTION: ASSESSING EUROPEANIZATION USING AN
INSTITUTIONALIST FRAMEWORK
Recent theorizing of European integration has moved away from ‘grand
scale’ theories about the causes and direction of the integration process to more
middle range theories about the precise terms of change and the impact of
EU involvement in the policy making processes of national political systems
(Andersen and Eliassen 2001; Goetz and Hix 2001; Heritier et al. 2001; Knill
2001). This shift of emphasis is signalled by the coining of a new term for
studies in the area – Europeanization. Commenting on the intellectual devel-
opment of ‘Europeanization research’, Goetz (2002, pp. 2–6) characterizes
this change as a ‘generational shift’ in the focus of EU studies.
‘First generation’ analysis of the EU, associated with the literature from
the 1970s and 1980s, was characterised by a number of assumptions about
the inter-relations between EU and national levels of governance. The
impact of European integration was usually approached from a top-down
perspective, seeing the locus of change as a hierarchical relationship
between the EU and the national. Most studies presupposed some form of
mismatch between the European and domestic levels, so that they tended to
emphasize the reactive and often involuntary nature of adaptation. Much of
this work was characterized by the expectation of an emerging cross-
national convergence in the domestic arrangements of EU member states
over time.
Maura Adshead is in the Department of Politics and Public Administration, University of Limerick.
160 MAURA ADSHEAD
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2005
‘Second generation’ analyses of the EU, however, associated with the liter-
ature since the mid 1990s, tend to be far more agnostic about the impact of
the EU on domestic politics. There is an acknowledgement that the process
may comprise both ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ dynamics, and may involve
both vertical and horizontal dimensions of change in national governing
styles (Adshead 2002, pp. 6–7). Moreover, there need not necessarily be any
‘mismatch’ in the institutional or policy-making design of domestic systems
in order for change to take place. Finally, instead of the convergence
assumption, there is a tendency to highlight the ‘differential impact’ of EU
influence in alternative member states. It is this shift in emphasis, from the
so-called first generation analyses of EU involvement in domestic political
systems to the second, which provides the theoretical context for this study.
To date, emphasis on the teleological development of the EU has led to a
concentration of studies on the larger EU member states that are seen to
‘drive the integration process forwards’. ‘Few scholars have focused on the
relationship between the behaviour of smaller member states in the EU and
the degree of their domestic adaptation to the external environment of the
Union’ (Hanf and Soetendorp 1998, p. 3). Even where such studies do exist
(and where the Irish case has been examined), the primary focus for investi-
gation is how small member states have ‘responded (my emphasis) to the
internal and external demands springing from EC/EU membership’ and on
the adjustments that they must make in order to accommodate advancing
European integration (Hanf and Soetendorp 1998, pp. 6–7). The implicit and
sometimes explicit assumption is that ‘the constitutional and institutional
set-up of member states will converge towards one common model’ (Rometsch
and Wessels 1996:36) as a consequ ence of memb ership of t he Europea n
Union.
Existing Irish case studies (Laffan 1996; Laffan and Tannam 1998) clearly
fall into Goetz’s category of ‘first generation’ analyses of the EU: they are
primarily (though not exclusively) concerned with Irish executive and par-
liamentary adaptation to EU membership and the main focus of analysis is
on governmental strategic adaptation to the EU. This study, by contrast, is
intended to present a more ‘second generation’ analysis of Irish EU mem-
bership. The focus of analysis has been broadened in two dimensions. First,
the areas of EU impact are expanded to include not only formal institutional
structures, but also governmental processes and procedures, codes and
guidelines, as well as more generalized societal change. Second, the impact
of EU membership is conceived of much more broadly, taking account of
both vertical (EU/member state) and horizontal (member state/member
state) aspects of policy influence and change.
In order to develop these themes, this article draws primarily upon the
ideas and concepts provided by sociological and historical branches of new
institutionalism (Hall and Taylor 1996; Immergut 1998), incorporating spe-
cific revisions made by Bulmer and Burch (1998). From Sociological Institu-
tionalism comes the broad definition of institutions as the: ‘formal or
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