“In Pursuit of Selective Liberalization: The Impact of European Integration on State Capacities”

Smith, Mitchell P. (1999) “In Pursuit of Selective Liberalization: The Impact of European Integration on State Capacities”. In: UNSPECIFIED, Pittsburgh, PA. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

The essay first presents two cases in which the privileged interaction between member state executives and European Commission officials generated information asymmetries that ultimately “strengthened” the capacities of members of national executives to promote liberalization selectively. But the essay also examines two more recent cases, in which, by contrast, private sector businesses in France and Germany have discovered opportunities to challenge longstanding privileges of public sector enterprises-the postal service in France and Germany’s system of state banks, or Landesbanken. The evidence demonstrates that when governments choose economic liberalization, they cannot necessarily control the process that follows. Where European Community institutions possess substantial autonomous policy capacities, actors constrained in the domestic political arena are faced with enhanced opportunities for interest realization through European Union institutions, and the rewards of interest articulation at the European level accrue privately to those who take action, governments are constrained in their pursuit of selective economic liberalization.

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