“European Integration and Political Convergence Since Maastricht: The View from the Member States”

Anderson, Jeff. (1999) “European Integration and Political Convergence Since Maastricht: The View from the Member States”. In: UNSPECIFIED, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

Scholars have differed over the location, scope, and implications of these transformations, but few disagree about their basis in fact: membership matters [Sandholtz 1996]. In this paper, I examine a key aspect of domestic politics where, it turns out paradoxically, European integration appears to have mattered in a limited but nonetheless significant manner: the institutions, procedures, and rules associated with parliamentary democracy and the political dynamics that flow from them. Employing a comparative framework based on Arend Lijphart’s celebrated analysis of democratic regime characteristics, I find that many of the core national institutions of democracy have proven extremely resilient in the face of any erosive effects of integration. The content of politics may have changed in response to integration, but not the containers, it would seem. That said, one can point to tangible if not always striking shifts underneath (literally!) this picture of stability, in the form of a greater political salience of regionalism and extensive decentralization initiatives.

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