ECPR

Install the app

Install this application on your home screen for quick and easy access when you’re on the go.

Just tap Share then “Add to Home Screen”

ECPR

Install the app

Install this application on your home screen for quick and easy access when you’re on the go.

Just tap Share then “Add to Home Screen”

Macro and Micro Dynamics of EU Enlargement Decision-making

European Union
Policy Analysis
Constructivism
Uğur Sercan Gidişoğlu
Bogaziçi University
Uğur Sercan Gidişoğlu
Bogaziçi University

Abstract

According to the TEU the Council, in the form of an intergovernmental conference and acting unanimously, is defined as the formal decision-making body in the field of enlargement. Meanwhile, the Commission and the Parliament seem to be given mainly consultative or secondary roles. However, a more substantive analysis of institutional and practical dynamics of enlargement policy-making would expose a more complicated picture. It is aimed, in this paper, to analyze enlargement decision-making under a social constructivist perspective, to define macro and micro dynamics of enlargement policy-making and to show the constitutive relationship between macro and micro levels. For these purposes, a comparative analysis of the fifth enlargement, largely known as the eastern enlargement, and the ongoing process will be accomplished. The paper argues that the mutual constitutive relations between macro and micro dynamics of enlargement decision-making have created throughout the years a kind of ‘EU Machinery’ which favors the ‘community method’ against ‘intergovernmentalism’ and renders the community method considerably important in an area which is predominantly presumed as greatly intergovernmental in EU studies literature, notably by liberal intergovernmentalists. The analyses in this study are mainly taken from author’s doctoral research project which included 35 in-depth interviews with enlargement policy-makers as well as an exclusive analysis of the existing data in the relevant literature.