United clubs of Europe: Informal differentiation and the social ordering of intra-EU diplomacy
| Published date | 01 September 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00108367221103494 |
| Author | Kristin Haugevik |
| Date | 01 September 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/00108367221103494
Cooperation and Conflict
2023, Vol. 58(3) 374 –392
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/00108367221103494
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United clubs of Europe:
Informal differentiation
and the social ordering of
intra-EU diplomacy
Kristin Haugevik
Abstract
This article makes the case for integrating informal, social and minilateral dynamics in analyses
of ‘differentiated integration’ in the European Union (EU) context. In EU studies, differentiated
integration has mainly served as an analytical lens for studying variation in states’ degree of
formalized commitment to the European integration project or in organizational decision-making
procedures across policy areas. While this focus has generated important analytical and empirical
insights, three dimensions tend to be lost when limiting the study of differentiated integration to
negotiated outcomes manifest in legal documents and decision-making procedures. First, informal
processes of integration precede and concur with formal ones. Second, European integration is
an inherently social process, and member states integrate with the EU identity-building project
in different ways and to different degrees. Third, member states enjoy heterogeneous social ties
with one another, routinely forming informal bi- and minilateral coalitions in everyday decision-
shaping processes. More knowledge about these informal and social dynamics can give us a
better understanding of how differentiated integration manifests itself in practice and where the
European integration process is heading. The theoretical argument is buttressed by data from the
2020 European Council of Foreign Relations’ ‘Coalition Explorer’ survey, showing how partner
preferences within the EU continue to reflect stable social sub-orders.
Keywords
differentiation, EU, identity, integration, minilateralism, subregionalism
Introduction
Recent alterations in the European political and security landscape have spurred a new
wave of scholarly interest in ‘differentiated integration’ – whether understood as a con-
cept, a theory, a process or a model (Bàtora and Fossum, 2019; Gänzle et al., 2019;
Leruth and Lord, 2015) or as a type of practice unfolding ‘in the everyday social
Corresponding author:
Kristin Haugevik, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), PB 7024, St Olavs plass, 0130 Oslo,
Norway.
Email: kmh@nupi.no
1103494CAC0010.1177/00108367221103494Cooperation and ConflictHaugevik
research-article2022
Article
Haugevik 375
negotiation of meaning’ among European experts and practitioners (Svendsen and
Adler-Nissen, 2019). This renewed academic interest has dovetailed with intensified
debate at the policy level. Faced with the prospects of an increasingly heterogeneous
European Union (EU) with an expanded working portfolio, even the European
Commission (2017) – the professed ‘engine’ of European integration – has signalled
openness to the idea of member states committing to integration at different speeds and
to varying degrees. At the heart of both the academic and policy debates stands the
question of how increased tolerance for flexible solutions affects not only individual
member states’ loyalty to the integration project but also the EU’s effectiveness as a
political system and international actor (Pirozzi and Bonomi, 2021).
In EU studies, the term ‘differentiated integration’ has served mainly as an analytical
lens for studying formal variation, either in states’ degree of legal commitment to (parts
of) the integration project or in organizational decision-making procedures across policy
areas (Schimmelfennig et al., 2015; Schimmelfennig and Winzen, 2019; see also Fossum,
2019; Lavenex and Križić, 2019). Such a ‘thin’ analytical conception makes sense in the
context of both canon theories on European integration foregrounding how state prefer-
ences drive or hamper cooperation and decision-making (Moravcsik, 1998), and theories
emphasizing how path-dependent institutional processes over time curb member states’
individual room for manoeuvre (Pierson, 1996). However, in this article, I argue that
three important aspects are lost if we confine the study of differentiated integration to
negotiated outcomes manifest in legal documents and decision-making procedures. First,
formal processes of differentiated integration tend to be preceded by and concur with
informal ones (Andersen and Sitter, 2006; Lavenex and Križić, 2019; Rieker, 2021). The
many actors involved in shaping EU policies interact informally at different levels,
across different sites and policy areas, on a day-to-day basis. If we routinely bracket the
informal in analyses of differentiated integration, we lose an important part of the picture
as to why and how differentiated outcomes transpire. Second, European integration is an
inherently social process involving continuous relational identity-building efforts
(Christiansen et al., 1999; Risse, 2018), yet there are important variations in the ways in
and degree to which member states invest in and integrate with the larger EU identity-
building project (Adler-Nissen, 2014; Börzel, 2002; Hansen and Wæver, 2002). When
making the analytical transition from ‘integration’ to ‘differentiated integration’, this
dimension is often lost on the way. Finally, member states enjoy heterogeneous social
ties with one another within the EU complex and order, and routinely engage in informal
sub-groupings articulating both short-term overlapping interests and long-term identity
treats. While this insight features prominently in scholarly work on intra-EU negotia-
tions and diplomacy (Christiansen and Neuhold, 2013; Elgström, 2017; Kaeding and
Selck, 2005), it has remained largely absent in leading work on differentiated integration
in the EU context.
In what follows, I make the case for a ‘thick’ definition of differentiated integration,
one which accounts for informal dynamics, for variations in degree of social identifica-
tion with the EU identity-building project and for heterogeneous bi- and minilateral ties
between member states. Doing so, I build on recent work highlighting informal aspects
of differentiated integration (Andersen and Sitter, 2006; Lavenex and Križić, 2019;
Rieker, 2021) and add insights from work accentuating logics of social differentiation
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