Exploring the toolkit of European Union integration theory: What role for comparative federalism?

Benson, David and Jordan, Andrew ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7678-1024 (2011) Exploring the toolkit of European Union integration theory: What role for comparative federalism? Journal of European Integration - Revue d'Integration Europeanne, 33 (1). pp. 1-17. ISSN 0703-6337

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Abstract

More and more scholars are revisiting federal theories in an attempt to explain the functioning of the EU. Yet in-depth empirical testing of their claims remains surprisingly limited. Cooperative federalism represents one particularly promising variant of federal theory in this respect. This article extends and refines existing claims about its utility to show how EU policy-making can be fruitfully conceived of as a multi-level 'cooperative game' played out between different actor coalitions. It then uses these arguments to analyse task allocation — a critical indicator of the European integration process — within the environmental sector. Drawing on fresh empirical evidence, it demonstrates how differential patterns of task allocation have emerged from a series of interlinked 'cooperative' dynamics, which were in turn shaped by broader federal structures. Although greater testing and development is needed, it concludes that there are good reasons to add cooperative federalism to the evolving 'tool-kit' of EU integration theory.

Item Type: Article
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences
UEA Research Groups: University of East Anglia Schools > Faculty of Science > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
Depositing User: Rosie Cullington
Date Deposited: 26 Jan 2011 11:44
Last Modified: 15 Jun 2023 23:40
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/19915
DOI: 10.1080/07036337.2010.526711

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