The economic and political crisis calls on European political leaders to produce a transnational “political good”: reconciling welfare democracy and the EU’s incomplete polity, currently on a dis-integrative collision path. However, the leaders of today’s EU, faced by formidable fiscal and electoral constraints, seems to be losing grip on both domestic and supranational dynamics, endangering representative democracy and solidarity. The proposed paper, one of the first outputs of Maurizio Ferrera’s ERC project REScEU (www.resceu.eu), asks the reasons of this impasse and what could be the way out. The key research question is why today’s political leaders are unable to bring about an adequate corrective (“reconciliative”) course of action through their discourse and policy-making activity. By comparing “reconciliative” and disintegrative initiatives by Italian and British prime ministers since the mid-1990s to the early 2010s, the paper aims at reconstructing the opportunity structure faced by mainstream (allegedly pro-EU) leaders in today’s EU. This will be done by exploring the political incentives and constraints that facilitate or forbid “reconciliation”, addressing mechanisms and short causal chains connecting subjective characteristics of the political leaders with their operative context. Accordingly, two preliminary hypotheses are set out to explain disintegration and lack of re-conciliation. The first is a politico-electoral explanation, suggesting that political leaders are unable to promote reconciliation because the experience unfavourable incentives within and beyond the boundaries of domestic electoral competition. The second explanation is anthropological, suggesting that the very channels and processes that put leader in power select out the mix of feats and skills that are required for reconciliation. The paper integrates comparative historical research with quantitative analyses of survey and social media data. The examination of current hurdles with a novel focus on the role of leadership should produce knowledge of both theoretical and practical value for EU integration and European democracy.
