Silander / Öhlén Sweden and the European Union

An Assessment of the Influence of EU-membership on Eleven Policy Areas in Sweden
1. Auflage 2020
ISBN: 978-91-7335-057-0
Verlag: Santérus Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 496 Seiten

What has EU-membership meant for Swedish policy and policy-making since the country became a member in 1995? Has the policy changed in terms of organisation (form) and content (substance) as a result of an increasingly consolidated membership? Based on the assumption that Swedish policy is part of multilevel governance at a local, regional, national and European level, the focus is on the interaction between Swedish national policy and the EU. In this book Swedish policy refers to the following policy areas: economic, agricultural, environmental, social, education, gender equality, asylum and migration, crime prevention, foreign and security, neighbourhood and development and aid. Every policy area has been scrutinised over time, from the moment of entry into the EU until today. The book addresses students at various levels, as well as politicians, civil servants and journalists with regard to how Sweden and Europe in general, and Swedish policy and the EU in particular, are interwoven in one political system. Contributing authors Therese Bjärstig, Tobias Bromander, Fredrik Bynander, Katarina Eckerberg, Camilla Eriksson, Ingrid Grosse, Anne Haglund-Morrissey, Martin Nilsson, Anna Parkhouse, Charlotte Silander, Daniel Silander, Sofia Strid, Rebecka Ulfgard Villanueva, Mats Öhlén

Autoren/Hrsg.

Silander, Daniel

Öhlén, Mats

Leseproben

2. Europeanisation, Governance and Policy Processes
Mats Öhlén & Daniel Silander
There is no doubt that eu membership has influenced Sweden’s political system. Three examples may suffice to illustrate this. First, the full set of eu regulations (acquis communautaire) was incorporated into Swedish legislation once membership was in place. Second, Swedish actors on various levels became potential receivers of European Union (eu) funds. Third, Sweden’s external relations were either completely subordinated to the eu (as in the area of trade) or coordinated by it (as in foreign and security policy). The relevant question, however, is in what way the country’s political system has been influenced, and to what extent. What does it mean to say that Sweden’s political system has been influenced by eu membership? A clarification is necessary here. In political science, it is customary to differentiate between politics, policy, and the polity. Politics involves what is usually referred to as the political game, which mostly relates to party politics and party organisations. Policy concerns the making of concrete political decisions and their implementation. The polity, finally, comprises the organisation of the state in terms of government and public administration. The focus of this book is on the second and third of these: policy and the polity. Thus, we are interested in how eu membership has affected the Swedish political system in terms of its content (i.e., its outcomes), and in terms of its form (i.e., its organisation). This book is not concerned, however, with how the country’s party system and political parties have been influenced in terms of organisation, strategy, or cleavages. In this chapter, we introduce two central concepts for our book – Europeanisation and governance – before concluding with a section on policy processes. These concepts are vital for understanding how and why a member state of the eu – in this case Sweden – is influenced by its membership therein. Influence of a more technical type (e.g., a new regulatory framework for farmers) is relatively easy to identify, but gradual and subtle changes in terms of organisation and policy content are more difficult to pinpoint. We need more precise concepts if we are to understand the dynamics in the relationship between Sweden and the eu. By utilizing these concepts, we can add a theoretical aspect to the discussion on the consequences of eu membership. We hope thereby to provide a starting point from which various policy areas can be compared, and to contribute to a wider discussion on the consequences of eu membership for Swedish politics. Europeanisation Europeanisation relates specifically to a process whereby eu institutions and political arrangements, both formally and informally, influence their counterparts at the national level within the member states. Studies on this question emerged already in the 1970s, but it was in the 1990s that the theme became popular among academics. This likely reflected the creation of a political union in 1993, with the Treaty of Maastricht, and the intense integration process that followed. The main focus of studies in this area has been on explaining the processes involved, and on tracing significant variations amongst member states and amongst policy areas when it comes to the consequences of Europeanisation (Pollack 2010: 37). One central claim made in the literature is that the level of Europeanisation is likely the product of two factors: (1) how well demands from the Union mesh with existing institutions, rules, norms, and practices at the national level; and (2) how strongly different variables at the national level – such as the number of veto points or the resistance of national institutions to change – intervene (Cowles et al. 2001). The pressure to change will be weaker when there is a good fit between the eu level and the national level with regard to rules and institutions. Conversely, the pressure for change at the national level will be stronger when national institutions differ significantly from their counterparts at the level of the Union. However, the match between the two levels is not a constant. On the contrary, it varies over time and (especially) between different policy areas. Our aim in this book is to clarify this variation in the case of one particular member state: Sweden. Demands and expectations for national adaptation as a consequence of eu membership take various forms (Tallberg et al. 2010: 17). On the one hand they may be formal, as when legislation and guidelines result in juridical demands for the adaptation of national rules and institutions. When a country joins the Union, for example, it must adopt the full framework of eu rules (acquis communautaire). The eu also adopts new treaties, new rules, and new targets over time, which in turn creates new demands and expectations for national adaptation. On the other hand, the pressure for national change has a more informal character when norms, ideas, and practices established at the Union level slowly influence national political systems. An example of this can be seen in the increasingly strong position of the governments of the member states, reflecting the role that they play in representing the latter in eu negotiations. Another example of such informal pressure is evident in the changes which national governments have made in their administrative organisation. In the theoretical literature, the division into formal and informal demands for national change has been linked to two different logics of Europeanisation: the logic of consequences, and the logic of appropriateness (March & Olsen 1989, Börzel & Risse 2007). The logic of consequences is based on the assumption that actors are rational and that their preferences are fixed. In the context of the eu, this may apply to situations where actors try to link new proposals to the most suitable (from their perspective) paragraph in the treaties. For example, the European Commission might formulate a proposal in such a way as to link it clearly to a treaty paragraph, thereby positioning the proposal within a policy area over which the member states have limited influence once the proposal is approved. The logic of appropriateness, by contrast, involves an entirely different view on actors, opening up for a broader view on their preferences. Rooted in the social-constructivist tradition, it portrays the ideas, interests, and aims of actors as dynamic rather than static – as changing over time and according to context. Compared to the rationalist tradition, moreover, this approach entails a broader view on institutions – as involving rules and routines that define which actions are appropriate in each specific situation (March & Olsen 1989: 21). In this tradition, furthermore, rules, norms, and values are viewed as independent variables. Thus, through the behavioural expectations that they bear, institutions exert influence over the actors involved. They reward behaviour seen as appropriate, and they punish behaviour seen as inappropriate. In this way, they influence both actors and decisions. Thus, the Europeanisation of national politics and policy may be both direct and indirect (see Vink & Graziano 2007). Direct effects are the result of specific demands from the eu – e.g., for new regulations in the area of agriculture. Indirect effects, by contrast, do not derive directly from eu decisions, but they still arise as a consequence of Union membership. Organisational changes in the public administration of member states – for the sake of a better fit with official eu policy areas – are an example. The Swedish constitution mentions nothing about eu influence on the country’s public administration, but pressures to adapt are in fact heavy. Ministries are continually reviewing how to coordinate their management of eu-related issues with various interest groups and with other agencies. They usually do this during an early phase of the decision-making process, thereby simplifying the formulation of Swedish opinions before negotiations are conducted in the Council, as well as – at a later stage – before the eu’s directives are implemented in Sweden (Beckman & Johansson 2002). Furthermore, public administration in Sweden is linked – as it is in all member states – to the policy process at the Union level. This generates further informal pressures to adapt. Most notably, Swedish public servants participate in various expert groups and in the so-called ‘comitology committees’. The role of the expert groups is primarily to provide advice as the Commission prepares new proposals. The task of the ‘comitology committees’ is to assist the Commission in implementing new eu legislation – in other words, to help it ensure that all of the member states enforce the new rules. Taken together, these elements point to an informal and indirect Europeanisation of Swedish public administration, at both the organisational and the individual level. Some clarifications are in order where informal and indirect Europeanisation is concerned. For one thing, Europeanisation does not necessarily mean convergence, i.e., the shaping of all member states along the same lines by eu legislation and institutions. The relevant thing is the response of the...