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The European Union defence sector is not only crucial for the EU's security, but it is also a major industrial asset for EU member states, as it may foster innovation and greater integration among member states, as well as facilitate technology transfer. The understanding of and inferences about the sector, however, are laborious since data on the defence industry in Europe is often contradictory and confused and it is mostly compared at the national not at the European level. As a contribution to address such shortcomings and as opening piece for this Special Issue, this article focuses on the finding, collecting, cleaning, and organizing data on the geographical concentration/location of EU defence industries. This is a fully original descriptive analysis of the current situation, and it provides a reliable basis on the concentration/location of defence companies. This paper represents a firm basis from which to explore (in future research) how defence companies contribute to the technological integration of the EU and it should help the reader to better understand the following articles in this Special Issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The crises of the European Union and the geopolitical shifts in its international environment have generated a backlash against the post-Cold War 'debordering' of European integration. Whereas integration theories focus almost exclusively on the EU's internal boundaries and developments, this framework paper conceptualizes and theorizes integration as a process of internal debordering and external rebordering. It sketches the history of European integration in a bordering perspective and proposes general assumptions about the EU's bordering process. Accordingly, rebordering pressures result from widening boundary gaps at the EU's external borders, exogenous shocks to cross-border transactions, growing community deficits of debordering, and their politicization. Whether external rebordering succeeds and how it interacts with internal boundary formation, depends on EU-level boundary negotiations and the relative costs and benefits of external vs. internal rebordering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper models the correlates of parties’ positions on the issue of European integration, asking why some parties are in favour of European integration, while others are less favourable or even opposed to it. The paper builds on existing work which has identified three sets of explanatory factors predicting parties’ positions on integration: the electorate, parties and party system characteristics. By employing multilevel modelling using data on over 220 parties in 14 Western EU member states for the years 1984 to 2006, the effects of party- and context-level predictors of parties’ positions on EU integration are assessed. The findings demonstrate that parties’ positions are primarily influenced by EU preferences of the general electorate, parties’ left–right ideological extremes and incumbency status. The results also show that the impact of party characteristics is moderated by the electoral context in which parties operate. Moreover, the interaction between both levels offers further insights as to the nature of these associations. Specifically, party size is a robust predictor of integration position only when accounting for the levels of party system's fractionalisation and polarisation. Additionally, parties oriented towards the centre of the ideological spectrum are even more likely to favour European integration within highly polarised systems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The recent Eurozone crisis and the outbreak of political and populist Euroscepticism pose an unprecedented challenge to advocates of the post-war ‘Idea of Europe’. In the United Kingdom and France, some of the most eloquent and impassioned defences of ‘Europe’ have been penned by Jewish intellectuals. The historian Walter Laqueur, the philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy and journalists such as David Aaronovich, for example, have all rallied to the cause of ‘Europe’. This article will focus on the responses of Robert Menasse and Henryk Broder, two Jewish intellectuals from Austria and Germany, who have recently published powerful reflections on the European idea. Menasse’s polemic of 2012,Der Europäische Landbote(The European Courier), defends the idea of Europe as a ‘Friedensprojekt’, or ‘peace project’, and the European Union as an institutional antidote to the destructive power of nationalism and the self-interest of the nation-state. Broder’s bestselling book of 2013,Die letzten Tage Europas: Wie wir eine gute Idee versenken(The Last Days of Europe: How we are Scuppering a Good Idea), embraces ‘European values’ but launches a critique of a European Union which stifles pluralism and critical debate. This paper analyses how Menasse and Broder define the idea of ‘Europe’ and argues that, despite their differences, in form and content, the work of Menasse and Broder draws on a common tradition of enlightened cosmopolitanism as well as informs the renewed academic debate in the humanities and social sciences about the place of ‘cosmopolitanism’ in our global world. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

European integration is interpreted in this paper as the route by which (West) Germany, profiting from close ties with the English-speaking West, was able to restore its full sovereignty and economic pre-eminence in Europe. Yet in shaping the actual integration process, it was France which played the key role. Most of the landmark steps towards the current EU were French proposals to pre-empt Anglophone–German collusion; creating European structures in which a resurgence of Germany (politically and economically) was made subject to permanent negotiation. German unification in 1991 removed the one reason why successive governments of the Federal Republic had gone along with this. Paradoxically, sovereign Germany today finds itself bound by the dense networks of consultation and decision-making which make the EU unique in the field of regional integration. The paper shows that between 1992 and 2005, German capital has moved to the centre of the network of corporate interlocks in the North Atlantic area. This helps to explain why in the post-1991, post-Soviet era of neoliberal, finance-driven globalisation, Germany is increasingly ‘speaking for Europe’, as its corporations have become nodal points in the communication structures through which the responses to the challenges facing the EU and the West at large are being shaped. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The first part of this paper describes the small but constant expansion of the cross-state mobile population within the EU in the two decades preceding the 2004 enlargement. This expansion is puzzling in the light of the economic growth and the income convergence of member states over the same period. While the level of geographical mobility within the EU is frequently held to be 'low', data show that it should have been even lower given the rise of prosperity and the decline of income differentials in the EU15. In fact, it is argued that pro-mobility policies and the rise of non-labour migration have countered the diminishing appeal of intra-EU mobility that might be expected on the basis of purely economic conditions. The second part of the paper discusses the rationales and reasons of mobility. A distinction is drawn between observers' and social actors' views of the benefits of free movement. While the former usually put an emphasis on economic rewards, the latter are more likely to stress emotional and identity-linked returns. Survey data on Western European citizens who have resettled in another EU member state are revealing of the multifaceted causes and consequences of geographical mobility. In particular, these data show that identification with Europe and support for EU institutions in the mobile population are strikingly higher than among the general population. While it is true that cross-state mobility can entail economic benefits raising productivity and innovation, its political dividends are possibly even clearer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The open method of co-ordination (OMC) has received much attention in the recent EU literature. The predominant view claims that the OMC is not only a new but also an effective policy-making instrument. This paper raises doubts about both claims by offering a comparison of soft law policy co-ordination in three international organizations. More specifically, this paper compares the European Employment Strategy to the Broad Economic Policy Guidelines of the EU, the OECD Economic Surveys, and the IMF Article IV Consultations. Based on expert interviews, it seeks to demonstrate that these procedures are forms of multilateral surveillance that do not differ in kind. Such a comparative analysis of the OMC refutes claims to its novelty. Having compared the four procedures, a more general model of multilateral surveillance consisting of six elements is generated that facilitates further comparisons. This paper concludes that governments select voluntarist procedures mainly to secure their own competencies rather than to realize common goals. Effective problem-solving is therefore not necessarily the dominant objective of soft law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theoretical debate about the effects of politicisation on the democratic legitimacy of the European Union has tended to focus on the potential of conflict between European political parties or member state governments. At the same time, empirical sociological studies demonstrate that controversy about Europe continues to unfold primarily within national public spheres. There is as yet no genuine Europe-wide party system or public debate. This reveals a gap between the normative theoretical assessment of EU politicisation and empirical sociological analysis of this phenomenon. To reconcile this discrepancy, this paper develops three actually-existing trajectories of politicisation: the remote conflict, the international conflict and the domestic conflict. Each trajectory carries unique challenges and opportunities to the democratic legitimacy of the Union. It is argued that the domestic conflict trajectory is most promising from a normative democratic perspective. Paradoxically, this does not necessarily imply a renationalisation of the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

There is an interesting debate about democracy and citizenship in the EU. Views diverge about the features of democratic deficits currently facing the EU and accordingly, about the scope for Union citizenship. The paper suggests an analytical distinction between asymmetric and symmetric normative models of dual - national and Union - citizenship. Moreover, it proposes an alternative model of dual citizenship that puts emphasis on the responsiveness of citizens vis-a-vis phenomena that undermine democratic governance and the claim for equal respect and concern. One of the main ideas of responsive citizenship is that effective democratic control should complement procedural legitimacy in the EU as a means to prevent phenomena of political domination and guardianship. This is possible through the combination of competences ascribed on citizens through national and Community legislation vis-a-vis national and Union executive bodies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The State of European Cities Report is very much to be welcomed. For the very first time, the Report presents comprehensive, comparative, and relevant statistical information from the Urban Audit on selected cities from the 27 members of the European Community. The underlying concept is critically discussed in respect to four issues: the selection of cities, the selection of topics, the spatial scale and the temporal scope of the data. Concerning the future of European cities, the paper finally reflects on how to safeguard sustainability, to maintain and foster diversity, to cope with demographic change and to strengthen the role of the cities as actors. All tiers of governance - the EU, nation-states, states/regions and cities - would be well advised to integrate the data presented in the Report into future concepts and to face up to the challenges mentioned, whether through competition or through cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The period since the early 1990s has seen a marked shift in the terms of Dutch European discourse, as dramatically highlighted by the country's 'No' vote in its 2005 referendum on the European Constitutional Treaty. The present paper examines the trajectory of this discursive shift, suggesting that a traditional 'federalist' referential has been replaced by an elite discourse focused primarily on defining the 'limits of Europe' in intersecting substantive and geographical terms. A general framework for the understanding of national discourses of European integration is first set out, highlighting the key role played by national elites as mediators between the European and the national political systems. The Dutch case is then examined against this background, chronicling the general terms of the 'critical turn' in national European discourse, the 2005 referendum campaign, post-referendum party positioning and discussions surrounding the 2007 Reform Treaty. Despite the persistence of strong, underlying support for Dutch EU membership, it is finally argued that The Netherlands has not (as yet) found a stable, cohesive national narrative of its 'fit' and 'place' in the contemporary (post-enlargement) project of European integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Europe's 'political space', its dimensionality and its impact on European policies have received increased academic attention lately. Yet, one very basic element of this political space, the party composition of EU member states' governments, has never been studied in a systematic way in the rich literature on European integration. In this paper we explain why the EU literature should pay more attention to the analysis of Europe's party-political 'centre of gravity'. We give a systematic overview of the party composition of member governments from 1957 to 2003. This includes analyses of how the support for integration, the left/right political conviction, and the ideological homogeneity or heterogeneity of the member states affected the Council over the course of time. We draw on expert surveys, the data of the Comparative Manifesto Project, and data about government composition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper summarizes the state of affairs regarding formal and quantitative studies on decision-making in the Council of the European Union. We compare recent empirical studies in the field and distinguish between work that utilizes actors' ideal preferences, their revealed positions in the bargaining process, and their subsequent voting records in the area of EU legislative politics. We argue that document analysis remains an underemployed tool that could help formal modellers in confronting their theories with quantitative empirical information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This concluding paper sets the special issue in the broader context of literature on Europeanization. I consider what sort of empirical picture emerges from the issue and other literature, and highlight some puzzles in domestic politics to which that portrayal directs our attention. We see disjunctures between the EU's policy importance and low political mobilization around it, between general demobilization and bursts of activity around referenda, and between variation in citizens' views of the EU and little variation in mainstream political parties' programs. Then I consider the main ways in which Europeanization scholars explain these puzzles. I argue very briefly for an analysis that stresses the cross-cutting nature of pro- and anti-EU views in French (and other countries') politics, which leads to reactions from political parties to muffle internal dissent. To conclude I modestly extend this analysis to hypothesize a little-noticed mechanism of indirect EU effects on national politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an attempt to resist the "resurgent" intergovernmentalism of the last few years, all Europeans in favour of an ever-closer Union and the rise of a political Europe have strenuously defended the "Community Method". This paper argues that such a defence is short-sighted and that, because of its underlying principles and working mechanisms (diplomatic negotiations, opacity, compromise, etc.), the Community Method is no longer capable of carrying European integration forward, i.e. it is unable to create the conditions that can allow the EU to grow into a polity and a political community similar to those existing at nation-state level. Instead, the article contends that it would be only thanks to a process of politicisation, generating polarised policy preferences to the necessary degree, that a system of alternating power between (a European) government and opposition - a prerequisite to establish a genuine political Europe - could be brought into being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The EU budget has only recently started to feature in theories of European integration. Studies typically adopt a historical-institutionalist framework, exploring notions such as path dependency. They have, however, generally been rather aggregated, or coarse-grained, in their approach. The EU budget has thus been treated as a single entity rather than a series of inter-linked institutions. This paper seeks to address these lacunae by adopting a fine-grained approach. This enables us to emphasize the connections that exist between EU budgetary institutions, in both time and space. We show that the initial set of budgetary institutions was unable, over time, to achieve consistently their treaty-based objectives. In response, rather than reform these institutions at potentially high political cost, additional institutions were layered on top of the extant structures. We thus demonstrate how some EU budgetary institutions have remained unchanged, whilst others have been added or changed over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

EU enlargement and the inclusion of countries previously under communist domination led many West Europeans as well as Americans to think these countries would play the role of a ‘Trojan Horse’. These new EU members indeed have tended to approach the US with greater understanding, but these attitudes differ little from those of Western Europe after the end of World War II. East European pro-Americanism may turn out, however, to be short-lived. This paper argues that the real tension within Europe comes not from the East Europeans' attitudes toward transatlanticism or the Iraq War but rather from their dramatically different experiences under Soviet rule. Based on their empirical experience with Moscow and vital national interests in the democratisation of the EU's neighbourhood, the new members are unlikely to challenge old members over the US; when it comes to Russia, the prospects are quite different. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]