Critical European Studies

The solutions of Euro Zone Crisis - a Neo-Gramscian Critique

by Mihail Caradaica

International Conference  CKS - Challenges of the Knowledge Society - Bucuresti: 2012

This paper belongs to the area of critical studies of European Integration and tries to analyse the nature of the... more This paper belongs to the area of critical studies of European Integration and tries to analyse the nature of the European states’ response to euro zone crisis, during the negotiation of European Fiscal Pact. The theoretical approach is neo-gramscianism, which is focused on social forces agency in the process of integration and super-structural dimension of European Single Market. Since 1980, the interests of big capital, gathered in the European Round Table, shaped a neo-liberal dimension of the European economy, adapting it to the context of globalisation.

But this neo-liberal project was also able to capture social-democratic, trade union and centrist demands into a neo-liberal European order, called by Bastiaan van Apeldoorn “embedded” neo-liberalism. This European model has also his limits because it puts the interests of capital in front of social policies through the assurance of market efficiency by EU. My purpose here is to see if during nowadays crisis, the European elite will apply the same economic principles of the embedded neo-liberalism trying to envisage rescue plans. To achieve this, I will follow the theoretical approaches of neo-gramscian authors like Apeldoorn, Bohle or Gill and analyse the state negotiations outputs during the European Council meetings.

Crise europeia, uniões monetárias e lições para Brasil

by Elson Rodrigo Souza Santos

Preliminary and incomplete version. Will be improved

In the early 2000s, the euro was rising a milestone in the consolidation of the European Union (EU) toward increased... more In the early 2000s, the euro was rising a milestone in the consolidation of the European Union (EU) toward increased integration. In alongside, the euro emerged as a potential competitor for the dollar as reserve currency in international arena. After a decade the economic and institutional problems were not solved, revealing weaknesses in the architecture of the EU and eurozone with American Crisis of 2008. However, even then, in Brazil are frequent official statements as President Lula about the importance of single money for the countries of South America on promote of regional integration. What’s looks like a political rhetoric than a realistic strategy towards integration.

What is the EU?

by Mahua Sarkar

co-authored with József Böröcz

La gobernanza socio-económica europea: el futuro del" neoliberalismo de compromiso"

by E. Bastiaan van Apeldoorn

(2006) Cuedernos Europeos de Deusto, 35, pp.143-76.

What Is the EU?

by József Böröcz

co-authored with Mahua Sarkar

European Integration: Global Strategy for Waning Powers

by József Böröcz

(scroll down to pp. 35-39 to read the paper)

‘European Unemployment and Transnational Capitalist Class Strategy: The Rise of the Neo-liberal Competitiveness Discourse’

by E. Bastiaan van Apeldoorn

(2003), in Henk Overbeek (ed.) The Political Economy of European Employment: European integration and the transnationalization of the (un)employment question. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 113-134.

Yilmaz, Hakan. 2011. "Euroscepticism in Turkey: Parties, Elites, and Public Opinion". South European Society and Politics, iFirst article, 2011, pp. 1–24.

by Hakan Yilmaz

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13608741003594353
Print version to be published very soon...

After reviewing the emergence of Turkish Euroscepticism in the context of the evolution of Turkey–European-Union... more After reviewing the emergence of Turkish Euroscepticism in the context of the evolution of Turkey–European-Union relations between 1963 and 1999, the paper analyses party and popular Euroscepticism after 1999. The Turkish case appears to confirm the Taggart– Sitter thesis concerning the strategic Euroscepticism of opposition parties. The exception of the Kurdish nationalists suggests that strategic Euroscepticism does not apply to ethnic minority parties. In Turkey there is both ‘soft’ Euroscepticism (centre-left parties) and ‘hard’ Euroscepticism (nationalist and Islamist parties), the latter usually based on identity. At the popular level, identity Euroscepticism revolves around four key issues: national sovereignty; morality; negative discrimination; and Europe’s alleged hidden agenda to divide and rule Turkey (the so-called ‘Sevres Syndrome’).

A national case-study of embedded neoliberalism and its limits: the Dutch political economy and the ‘no’ to the European constitution’

by E. Bastiaan van Apeldoorn

(2009) ‘, in Bastiaan van Apeldoorn, Jan Drahokoupil Laura Horn (eds) Contradictions and Limits of Neoliberal European Governance – From Lisbon to Lisbon. London: Palgrave, pp. 211-231.

When the Dutch, with an unexpectedly large majority, voted ‘Nee’ to the European Constitution, it became... more
When the Dutch, with an unexpectedly large majority, voted ‘Nee’ to the European Constitution, it became apparent that even in the traditionally pro-European Netherlands, the project of European integration had entered into a serious legitimacy crisis. Many were quick to proclaim that the resounding ‘No’ vote to a large extent reflected several socio-cultural anxieties expressed over European issues – such as a possible future accession of Turkey – that had little to do with the Constitution as such. Too little attention, however, has so far been paid to underlying socio-economic concerns.  Taking the Netherlands as a national case-study of' 'embedded neoliberalism'  this paper maintains that the rejection of the European Constitution may in part be seen as a manifestation of the failure of this hegemonic project in terms of sustaining the necessary levels of mass legitimacy.

The contradictions of “embedded neoliberalism” and Europe’s multilevel legitimacy crisis: the European project and its limits

by E. Bastiaan van Apeldoorn

in Bastiaan van Apeldoorn, Jan Drahokoupil Laura Horn (eds) (2009). Contradictions and Limits of Neoliberal European Governance – From Lisbon to Lisbon. London: Palgrave, pp. 21-43.

(from the Intro)
The sudden and unexpected death that the European Constitution met in French and Dutch voting... more (from the Intro)
The sudden and unexpected death that the European Constitution met in French and Dutch voting booths in the late spring of 2005, and the postreferendum blues that followed it, brought into the open a legitimacy crisis of the European project that had been looming for years, and that arguably will now deepen with the Irish rejection of the Lisbon reform
treaty that was intended to replace the failed Constitution. What is in fact a multi-level legitimacy crisis – inasmuch as national states find it equally hard to maintain the legitimacy of their policy output and national governments oten blame Europe in the process – has called into question the
coherence and foundations of the European integration process as a political and socio-economic project, which has been guiding the restructuring of state–society relations within Europe’s transnational political economy over the past decades.

The Transformation of Corporate Governance Regulation in the European Union: From Harmonization to Marketization

by E. Bastiaan van Apeldoorn

(2007 / 2010) (with Laura Horn)  in Henk Overbeek, Bastiaan van Apeldoorn, and Andreas Nölke (eds) The Transnational Politics of Corporate Governance Regulation. London and New York: Routledge, pp.76-97.

The Changing Political Economy of France: Dirigisme Under Duress

by Ben Clift

Book Chapter in Magnus Ryner & Alan Cafruny (eds.) A Ruined Fortress? Neo-Liberal Hegemony and Transformation in Europe New York: (Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), ISBN 0-7425-1142-1, pp.173-200.

This chapter explores the impact of this neo-liberal orthodoxy, and its expression through institutions such as the... more This chapter explores the impact of this neo-liberal orthodoxy, and its expression through institutions such as the ECB, on the French model. Our first concern will be macro-economic policy, charting the evolution from the 1983 U-turn, through ‘competitive disinflation’ to the establishment of EMU. Here we will look at domestic political support for the project amongst key policy elites, including the Socialist Governments of the day. We chart the mounting opposition to the neo-liberal, monetarist foundations of competitive disinflation and EMU respectively, and explore attempts by the Jospin government to reconcile this neo-liberal bias to the French social model and social democratic aspirations for the Euro area. Secondly, we will look at structural developments in the financial sector – and explore the interaction of domestic, European, and ‘global’ causes for such developments, and consider their impact on the nature of French capitalism. Thirdly, we will look at SEA and competition regulation, and its neo-liberal anti-dirigiste bias. We chart attempts to retain such a degree of quasi-dirigiste influence over industrial policy by the Jospin Government, particularly in the field of the services publiques. In conclusion we chart how a combination of domestic, European, and global pressures have fundamentally altered key aspects of the French model. The interaction of structural developments such as financial market liberalisation; convergence criteria, and ideological developments – notably the prominence of a neo-liberal economic orthodoxy which heavily influenced EMU, has, we argue, significantly hemmed in the French State’s voluntariste potentialities.

Theories of European Integration: A Critique

by E. Bastiaan van Apeldoorn

(with Henk Overbeek and Magnus Ryner) (2003)  in: Alan W. Cafruny and Magnus Ryner (eds) A Ruined Fortress? Neoliberal Hegemony and Transformation in Europe. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 17-45.

Transnational Class Agency and European Governance: the Case of the European Round Table of Industrialists’

by E. Bastiaan van Apeldoorn

(2000) New Political Economy, Vol. 5, No. 2, July, pp. 157-181.

This article analyses the political and ideological agency of an emergent European transnational capitalist class in... more This article analyses the political and ideological agency of an emergent European transnational capitalist class in the socioeconomic governance of the European Union (EU) by examining the case of the European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT). It seeks to show that the ERT—as an elite forum mediating the interests and power of the most transnationalised segments of European capital—has played a significant role in shaping European governance in as much as it has successfully articulated and promoted ideas and concepts that have at critical times set
the political agenda and, beyond, have helped to shape the discourse within which European policy making is embedded. Here, the increasingly neoliberal orientation of the ERT reflects, and at the same time is a constitutive element within, the construction of a new European order in which governance is geared to serve the interests of a globalising transnational
capitalist elite, and hence the exigencies of global ‘competitiveness’. Although in recent years some detailed work has been done on the role of the ERT in the
internal market programme, there has as yet been little attention paid to (and thus interpretation of) the content of the ideas promoted by the ERT and hence to the ideological power that this forum of transnational capitalists exercises.

The Marketisation of European Corporate Control: A Critical Political Economy Perspective

by E. Bastiaan van Apeldoorn

(2007) Co-authored with Laura Horn, New Political Economy, Vol. 12, No. 2., pp. 211-35.

The Social Purpose of New Governance: Lisbon and the Limits of Legitimacy

by E. Bastiaan van Apeldoorn

co-authored with Sandy Hager, Journal of International Relations and Development, Vol. 13, No. 3: 209-38

This article examines the extent to which the Lisbon strategy, with its utilisation of the Open Method of Coordination... more This article examines the extent to which the Lisbon strategy, with its utilisation of the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) as the ‘new mode of governance’ for supranational social policy, has delivered on the pledge of acting as a counterweight to neoliberal market integration in the EU. Adopting a critical political economy perspective, we transcend the focus on institutional form of existing approaches, and seek to explain the social purpose of Lisbon. In this context we argue that both form and content of the Lisbon strategy reflect a hegemonic project of ‘embedded neoliberalism’, inasmuch as the Lisbon strategy's institutional mechanisms such as the OMC reaffirm the asymmetric nature of European governance through the promotion of market-making rather than market-correcting policies, bolstering the power of transnational capital while simultaneously incorporating subordinate projects through limited forms of embeddedness. The contradictions inherent in this strategy have come to test the limits of its legitimacy.