Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Challenging ‘New Constitutionalism’ in the EU: French Resistance, ‘Social Europe’ and ‘Soft’ Governance

2008; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 13; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13563460802436566

1469-9923

Owen Parker,

European Union Policy and Governance

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes Thanks to Ben Clift, Lena Rethel, Matthew Watson, Ben Rosamond and James Brassett for their advice and encouragement. Thanks also to the three anonymous NPE reviewers and the editors of NPE for their helpful comments. The usual disclaimer applies. Stephen Gill, ‘The Constitution of Global Capitalism’, paper presented at the International Studies Association Annual Convention, Los Angeles, 14–18 March 2000; Stephen Gill, ‘Constitutionalizing Inequality and the Clash of Globalizations’, International Studies Review, Vol. 4, No. 2 (2002), pp. 47–65. Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (Beacon Press, 1944). Jamie Peck & Adam Tickell, ‘Neoliberalizing Space’, Antipode, Vol. 34, No. 3 (2002), pp. 380–404. To give a concrete example, we might note the original use of the OMC in employment policy, where, as Offe summarises, it proceeds as follows: ‘First, the summit (European Council) adopts guidelines for employment policy to be observed by member states. These guidelines focus upon the prevention of exclusion, the activation of the unemployed, the promotion of “entrepreneurial spirit” and start-up enterprises, flexibility, and non-discrimination. Second, each member state adopts an annual national action plan (NAP) specifying the overall guidelines for the particular context of national policy. Third, an annual report on employment, jointly authorised by Council and Commission, is submitted to the summit of the subsequent year as a feedback, eventually leading to the revision of guidelines and NAPs and potentially including specific recommendations concerning the policies and performance of individual countries.’ Claus Offe, ‘The European Model of “Social Capitalism”: Can It Survive European Integration?’, The Journal of Political Philosophy, Vol. 11, No. 4 (2003), pp. 437–69. See, for example, the positive review of the OMC in Ulrich Beck & Edgar Grande, ‘Cosmopolitanism: Europe's Way Out of Crisis’, European Journal of Social Theory, Vol. 10, No. 1 (2007), pp. 67–85. See also David M. Trubek & James S. Mosher, ‘New Governance, Employment Policy and the European Social Model’, in Christian Joerges, Yves Meny & J.H.H. Weiler (eds), Mountain or Molehill? A Critical Appraisal of the Commission White Paper on Governance, Jean Monnet Working Paper No. 6/01, 2001. On the ambiguities, uses and abuses of the notion of ‘competitiveness’ in the EU context, see Ben Rosamond, ‘Imagining the European Economy: “Competitiveness” and the Social Construction of “Europe” as an Economic Space’, New Political Economy, Vol. 7, No. 2 (2002), pp. 157–78. John Maynard Keynes, General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (Palgrave, 2007 (1936)). Gill, ‘The Constitution of Global Capitalism’, pp. 8–11. Cited in Ben Rosamond, ‘Globalisation and the European Union’, paper presented to the conference ‘The European Union in International Affairs’, National Europe Centre, Australian National University, 3–4 July 2002. Stephen Gill, ‘European Governance and New Constitutionalism: Economic and Monetary Union and Alternatives to Disciplinary Neoliberalism in Europe’, New Political Economy, Vol. 3, No. 1 (1998), pp. 5–26; Stephen Gill, ‘A Neo-Gramscian Approach to European Integration’, in Alan W. Cafruny & Magnus Ryner (eds), A Ruined Fortress? Neoliberal Hegemony and Transformation in Europe (Rowman and Littlefield, 2003), pp. 47–70. There are nevertheless important differences between the two, such as the former's greater emphasis on the importance of government intervention to ensure functioning competition. See, for example, Thomas Lemke, ‘The Birth of “Bio-politics”: Michel Foucault's Lecture at the College de France on Neo-liberal Governmentality’, Economy and Society, Vol. 30, No. 2 (2001), pp. 190–207; William Walters & Jens Henrik-Haahr, Governing Europe: Discourse Governmentality and European Integration (Routledge, 2005); Christian Joerges, ‘What is Left of the European Economic Constitution? A Melancholic Eulogy’, EUI Working Paper Series (LAW No. 2004/13), European University Institute, Florence, 2004; Razeen Sally, ‘Ordoliberalism and the Social Market: Classical Liberalism from Germany’, New Political Economy, Vol. 1, No. 2 (1996), pp. 233–57. Andreas Bieler, ‘What Future Union? The Struggle for a Social Europe’, paper presented at the workshop Concepts of the European Social Model, Vienna, June 2006, pp. 22–5. Walters & Henrik-Haahr, Governing Europe, pp. 52–3. Gill, ‘European Governance and New Constitutionalism’. Giandomenico Majone, Regulating Europe (Routledge, 1996). Bastiaan Van Apeldoorn, ‘Transnational Class Agency and European Governance: The Case of the European Round Table of Industrialists’, New Political Economy, Vol. 5, No. 2 (2000), pp. 157–81. See also Bieler, ‘What Future Union?’ Apeldoorn, ‘Transnational Class Agency and European Governance’, p. 160. Gerard Strange, ‘The Left Against Europe? A Critical Engagement with New Constitutionalism and Structural Dependence Theory’, Government and Opposition, Vol. 41, No. 2 (2006), p. 201. Gill, ‘The Constitution of Global Capitalism’, p. 8. Graham Burchell, ‘Liberal Government and Techniques of the Self’, in Andrew Barry, Thomas Osborne & Nikolas Rose (eds), Foucault and Political Reason: Liberalism Neo-liberalism and Rationalities of Government (University of Chicago Press, 1996), p. 26. Strange, ‘The Left Against Europe?’, pp. 205–7. See also Joerges, ‘What is Left of the European Economic Constitution?’; and Jurgen Habermas, ‘Why Europe Needs a Constitution’, New Left Review, No. 11 (2001), pp. 5–26. See, for example, Kenneth Dyson, ‘Benign or Malevolent Leviathan? Social Democratic Governments in a Neo-Liberal Euro Area’, The Political Quarterly, Vol. 70, No. 2 (1999), pp. 195–209. The concept of a ‘post-national constellation’ is taken from Jurgen Habermas, The Postnational Constellation (Polity Press, 2001). See also Jurgen Habermas, The Inclusion of the Other: Studies in Political Theory (Polity Press 1998), p. 123. See, for example, A. Claire Cutler, ‘Globalization, the Rule of Law, and the Modern Law Merchant: Medieval or Late Capitalist Associations’, Constellations, Vol. 8, No. 4 (2001), pp. 480–502. Gill, ‘European Governance and New Constitutionalism’, p. 20. Offe, ‘The European Model of “Social Capitalism”’, p. 2. Joerges, ‘What is Left of the European Economic Constitution?’, pp. 7–8. Vivien A. Schmidt, The Futures of European Capitalism (Oxford University Press, 2002); Vivien A. Schmidt, ‘French Capitalism Transformed, Yet Still a Third Variety of Capitalism’, Economy and Society, Vol. 32, No. 4 (2003), pp. 526–54. See also Ben Clift, ‘The French Model of Capitalism: Still Exceptional?’, in Jonathan Perraton & Ben Clift (eds), Where are National Capitalisms Now? (Palgrave, 2004), pp. 91–110; and Ben Clift, ‘The Changing Political Economy of France’, in Alan W. Cafruny & Magnus Ryner (eds), A Ruined Fortress? Neoliberal Hegemony and Transformation in Europe (Rowman and Littlefield 2003), pp. 173–200. Schmidt, The Futures of European Capitalism. Ben Clift, ‘Debating the Restructuring of French Capitalism and Anglo-Saxon Institutional Investors: Trojan Horses or Sleeping Partners?’, French Politics, Vol. 2, No. 3 (2004), p. 334. Schmidt, The Futures of European Capitalism, pp. 534–5. Walters & Henrik-Haahr, Governing Europe. Colin Hay & Ben Rosamond, ‘Globalisation, European Integration and the Discursive Construction of Economic Imperatives’, Journal of European Public Policy, Vol. 9, No. 2 (2002), pp. 147–67; Alistair Cole & Helen Drake, ‘The Europeanization of the French Polity: Continuity, Change and Adaptation’, Journal of European Public Policy, Vol. 7, No. 1 (2000), pp. 26–43. Clift, ‘The French Model of Capitalism’. Schmidt, The Futures of European Capitalism, p. 536. See, for example, Clift, ‘The French Model of Capitalism’. Rawi Abdelal, ‘Writing the Rules of Global Finance: France, Europe, and Capital Liberalization’, Review of International Political Economy, Vol. 13, No. 1 (2006), pp. 1–27. Wincott, ‘The Idea of Social Europe’, p. 294. Translation: ‘everything comes together, our nation, our Europe, Europe our nation’, Mitterrand, 1986. Cited in Vivien Schmidt, ‘Trapped by their ideas: French elites’ discourses of European integration and globalization', Journal of European Public Policy, Vol. 14, No. 7 (2007), pp. 992–1009. Lionel Jospin, Ma Vision de l'Europe et de la mondialisation (Omnibus, 2001). Susan Milner, ‘Protection, Reform and Political Will: France and the European Social Model’, in Helen Drake (ed.), French Relations with the European Union (Routledge, 2005), p.106. On plans for 2008, see ‘2008 “the year to re-start social Europe” says French Minister’, Euractiv, http://www.euractiv.com/en/socialeurope/2008-year-restart-social-europe-french-minister/article-173188 (accessed June 2008). Schmidt, ‘Trapped by their Ideas’; Hay & Rosamond, ‘Globalisation, European Integration and the Discursive Construction of Economic Imperatives’. David J. Howarth, ‘Making and Breaking the Rules: French Policy on EU “gouvernement économique”’, Journal of European Public Policy, Vol. 14, No. 7 (2007), p. 1070; Ben Clift, ‘The New Political Economy of Dirigisme: French Macroeconomic Policy, Unrepentant Sinning and the Stability and Growth Pact’, British Journal of Politics and International Relations, Vol. 8, No. 3 (2006), pp. 388–409. See also Dyson, ‘Benign or Malevolent Leviathan?’. Ben Clift, French Socialism in a Global Era: The Political Economy of the New Social Democracy in France (Continuum International Publishing Group, 2003), p. 183. Gill, ‘European Governance and New Constitutionalism’, p. 6. Although German Finance Minister Oskar Lafontaine was in broad agreement with Jospin in the late 1990s, he lost an internal battle with Schroeder, who preferred the maintenance of the EMU status quo, and this led to Lafontaine's resignation in February 1999. See, for example, Dyson, ‘Benign or Malevolent Leviathan?’; and Shawn Donnelly, ‘Explaining EMU Reform’, Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol. 43, No. 5 (2005), pp. 947–68. Clift, ‘The New Political Economy of Dirigisme’. Howarth, ‘Making and Breaking the Rules’, pp. 1062–4; Clift, ‘The New Political Economy of Dirigisme’, p. 399; Donnelly, ‘Explaining EMU Reform’; Patrick Leblond, ‘The Political Stability and Growth Pact is Dead: Long Live the Stability and Growth Pact’, Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol. 44, No. 5 (2006), pp. 969–90. Clift, ‘The New Political Economy of Dirigisme’. Speech during Attac meeting at Aubagne on the eve of the referendum, http://www.attac.fr (last accessed June 2008). For descriptive reviews see in particular Gilles Ivaldi, ‘Beyond France's 2005 Referendum on the European Constitutional Treaty: Second-order Model, Anti-establishment Attitudes and the End of the Alternative European Utopia’, West European Politics, Vol. 29, No. 1 (2006), pp. 47–69. Also Henry Milner, ‘“YES to the Europe I want; NO to this one.” Some Reflections on France's Rejection of the EU Constitution’, Political Science and Politics, Vol. 39, No. 2 (2006), pp. 257–60; Sylvain Brouard & Vincent Tiberj, ‘The French Referendum: The Not So Simple Act of Saying Nay’, Political Science and Politics, Vol. 39, No. 2 (2006), pp. 261–8; Paul Hainsworth, ‘France Says No: The 29 May 2005 Referendum’, Parliamentary Affairs, Vol. 59, No. 1 (2006), pp. 98–117; Nicolas Sauger, Emiliano Grossman & Sylvain Brouard, Les Français contre l'Europe? Les sens du référendum du 29 mai 2005 (Presses de Sciences Po, 2007). Ivaldi, ‘Beyond France's 2005 Referendum on the European Constitutional Treaty’, p. 59. Schmidt, ‘Trapped by their Ideas’. Ibid. Ipsos, ‘Référendum 29 Mai 2005: Le sondage sorti des urnes’ (exit poll data), http://www.ipsos.fr/canalipsos/poll/8074.asp (accessed June 2008); European Commission, ‘The European Constitution: Post Referendum Survey in France’, Flash Eurobarometer, June 2005, http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/flash/fl171_en.pdf (accessed June 2008). Schmidt, ‘Trapped by their Ideas’, p. 1005. Emiliano Grossman, ‘Introduction: France and the EU: From Opportunity to Constraint’, Journal of European Public Policy, Vol. 14, No. 7 (2007), p. 984. Liesbet Hooghe & Gary Marks, ‘Europe's Blues: Theoretical Soul-Searching after the Rejection of the European Constitution’, Political Science and Politics, Vol. 39, No. 2 (2006), pp. 247–50. Speech at the Socialist Party meeting, Marseille, 31 March 2005. Cited in Ivaldi, ‘Beyond France's 2005 Referendum’, p. 61. Ibid. Brouard & Tiberj, ‘The French Referendum’; Schmidt, ‘Trapped by their Ideas’; Milner, ‘“YES to the Europe I Want”’. Ipsos, ‘Référendum 29 Mai 2005’. Also, Schmidt, ‘Trapped by their Ideas’, p. 1003. European Commission, ‘The Commission's Contribution to the Period of Reflection and Beyond: Plan-D for Democracy, Dialogue and Debate’, 13 October 2005. The Economist, ‘France's Hyperactive President: The Sarko Show’, 28 June 2007, http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9407824 (accessed June 2008). Alan Riley, ‘The EU Reform Treaty and the Competition Protocol: Undermining EC Competition Law’, Centre for European Policy Studies, Policy Brief No. 142, September 2007, http://shop.ceps.eu/downfree.php?item_id=1541 (accessed June 2008). The Economist, ‘France's Hyperactive President’. Katrin Bennhold, ‘News Analysis: Is Sarkozy an Old Style Gaullist in Disguise?’, International Herald Tribune, 5 July 2007, http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/05/europe/france.php (accessed June 2008); The Economist, ‘France's Hyperactive President’. Speech to European Parliament prior to UK Presidency of EU, 23 June 2005, http://www.number.gov.uk/output/Page7714.asp (accessed June 2008). Clift, French Socialism in a Global Era, p. 181. Wincott, ‘The Idea of Social Europe’, p. 281. Karl Magnus Johansson, ‘Tracing the Employment Title in the Amsterdam Treaty: Uncovering Transnational Coalitions’, Journal of European Public Policy, Vol. 6, No. 1 (1999), pp. 85–101. Gael Coron & Bruno Palier, ‘Changes in the Means of Financing Social Expenditure in France since 1945’, in Caroline de la Porte & Phillippe Pochet (eds), Building Social Europe through the Open Method of Co-ordination (Peter Lang, 2002), pp. 112–3. See also Daniel Wincott, ‘Beyond Social Regulation? New Instruments and/or a New Agenda for Social Policy at Lisbon?’, Public Administration, Vol. 81, No. 3 (2003), pp. 533–53. Scharpf, ‘The European Social Model’, p. 655. Mark A. Pollack, ‘A Blairite Treaty: Neo-liberalism and Regulated Capitalism in the Treaty of Amsterdam’, in Karlheinz Neunreither & Antje Wiener (eds), European Integration after Amsterdam: Institutional Dynamics and Prospects (Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 267–89. See, for example, Wolfgang Streeck, ‘International Competition, Supranational Integration, National Solidarity: The Emerging Constitution of “Social Europe”’, in Martin Kohli & Mojca Novak (eds), Will Europe Work?: Integration, Employment and the Social Order (Routledge, 2001), pp. 26–7. European Commission, DG Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities, ‘Towards Common Principles of Flexicurity: More and Better Jobs through Flexibility and Security’, July 2007; Maarten Keune & Maria Jepsen, ‘Not Balanced and Hardly New: The European Commission's Quest for Flexicurity’, European Trade Union Institute for Research, Education and Health and Safety (ETUI-REHS), Working Paper 2007/01, 2007. For example, European Commission, ‘Implementing the Community Lisbon Programme: Fostering Entrepreneurial Mindsets through Education and Learning’, COM (2006) 33, 13 February 2006. The tension between competitiveness and redistribution is not, of course, a necessary one despite this discourse. Thus, for example, the European Commission's definition of ‘flexicurity’ underplays the degree to which a ‘security’ component includes an important redistributive element in those states – notably Denmark and Holland – from which the concept emerged. See, for example, Keune & Jepsen, ‘Not Balanced and Hardly New’. Schmidt, ‘Trapped by their Ideas’, p. 1002. For a balanced assessment of the social dimension of Lisbon, see Mary Daly, ‘European Social Policy after Lisbon’, Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol. 44, No. 3 (2006), pp. 461–81. See also Wincott, ‘Beyond Social Regulation?’ Daly, ‘European Social Policy after Lisbon’, p. 471. Gill, ‘European Governance and New Constitutionalism’, p. 17, emphasis added. Clift, ‘The New Political Economy of Dirigisme’, p.392. Grossman, ‘Introduction: France and the EU’, p. 988; Schmidt, ‘Trapped by their Ideas’. Strange, ‘The Left Against Europe?’, p. 215. Gill, ‘European Governance and New Constitutionalism’, p. 17. Walters & Henrik-Haahr, Governing Europe, p. 120.