European Integration and State Transformation: The Expression of Rights (1988-2014)

While European integration has spurred much investigation into the role Member States, their citizens, and the European-level institutions play in reshaping institutions across Europe, much less attention has been paid to the changing nature of the modern European state itself and the import this has for those states still hoping to join the European Union (EU). More fundamentally, research on European integration has neglected to adequately examine 1) how this transformation of the modern European state--essentially the rewriting of the “rules of the game”--has affected the expression of civic, political, and social rights of Member States’ citizens and, subsequently, 2) the transformative effect this process could have on the expression of these rights in pre-accession and acceding states. This research quantitatively examines five policy areas directly linked to and affecting the expression of civic, political, and social rights from the breakdown of the national corporatist state in Europe to the present, and as such, it furthers the understanding of the effects European integration has had on the lives of everyday citizens. Moreover, by retrospectively including pre-accession and acceding states present during the time period covered and a specific analysis of the effects of integration on the expression of civic, political, and social rights in these countries, the citizens, policymakers, and government officials of states still hoping to join the EU may have a more reliable idea of the type of opportunities (and constraints) that accession will bring.