Capacity‐Building and the New Intergovernmentalism
本文提出欧盟一体化中是否伴随超国家主义取决于一体化模式：规则制定倾向于超国家主义，而能力建设则倾向于无超国家主义，解释了后马斯特里赫特时代的一体化悖论。
The NI claims that the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 marks a fundamental change in the logic of European Union (EU) integration (Bickerton et al., 2015). Before Maastricht, expansions in EU policy scope were typically linked to concomitant expansions of the supranational competencies of the European Commission and the European Court of Justice. After Maastricht, this link was lost. The EU's policy scope continued to expand from market integration to new areas of activity. Yet the traditional EU institutions hardly gained new competencies. More integration was achieved primarily through deliberation and consensus-based co-ordination in intergovernmental arenas such as, most prominently, the European Council (van Middelaar, 2019). Supranational delegation was rare and targeted to task-specific de novo bodies such as the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) or the European External Action Service (EEAS), rather than to established general-purpose institutions such as the Commission: integration without supranationalism – an ‘integration paradox’ (Bickerton et al. 2015, p. 705). NI identifies two main drivers of this paradox: pro-integrationist political elites and Eurosceptic mass publics. In this reading, national political elites converged around neoliberal policy ideas in the 1990s because the economic crises of the 1970s and 1980s had undermined faith in national policy solutions. Going it alone was no longer considered viable or attractive. Integration was the way to go. The EU expanded into areas of core state powers including money and finance, defence, and justice and home affairs. The difference between high and low politics blurred (Bickerton et al. 2015, p. 715). At the same time, however, mass publics became increasingly disenchanted with representative democracy. Distrust in political elites grew. Political entrepreneurs from the political fringes started mobilising against elite projects such as, prominently, EU integration. Euroscepticism surged on the back of a ‘crisis of representation’ (Bickerton et al. 2015, p. 710). NI claims that integration without supranationalism is a response to these contradictory trends. Intergovernmental co-ordination allowed government elites to push ahead with integration whilst at the same time keeping the façade of national accountability to placate domestic mass publics. Where delegation was unavoidable, it focused on tailor-made expert bodies with narrow mandates rather than on all-purpose political bodies such as the Commission. National governments stayed formally in charge, not unaccountable EU bureaucrats: a European elite cartel with a veneer of legitimacy (Hodson and Puetter, 2019). Frank Schimmelfennig published a trenchant critique of NI (Schimmelfennig, 2015) immediately upon its inception. In his view, there was nothing new or particularly intergovernmental about post-Maastricht integration. Intergovernmentalism had always been a key feature of EU integration, and supranationalism continued to feature after Maastricht. Yes, the member states were wary of supranational delegation. But then they had always been wary without stopping to delegate: they created the European Central Bank (ECB), empowered the Commission during the Eurozone crisis and extended majority voting in the Council. Still, there was something novel about NI that even Schimmelfennig acknowledged. The notion of integration without supranationalism hit a nerve. However, in Schimmelfennig's mind, this was not because NI reflected a period-specific change of the general logic of integration in the post-Maastricht era but a policy-specific logic of integration in areas of core state powers (Schimmelfennig, 2015, p. 723). We agree with much of Schimmelfennig's criticism but take issue with his policy-specific explanation. The dividing line between integration with and without supranationalism is not only or primarily between market-related policies and core state powers but within core state powers. In some cases, the integration of core state powers involves considerable supranationalism, for example, tax harmonisation, state aid control, defence procurement, justice and home affairs, or the annual budget. In other cases, integration is mostly without supranationalism. For instance, the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), military missions, weapons supplies to Ukraine and, more generally, ‘event politics’ (van Middelaar, 2021, pp. 24–27) are shaped by intergovernmental co-ordination, consensus-based decision-making and limited delegation to task-specific de novo bodies, as NI contends. We claim that the proximate cause of integration with and without supranationalism is the mode of integration: rule-making or capacity-building (Genschel and Jachtenfuchs, 2014; Majone, 1997). Integration by rule-making tends to be with supranationalism, whilst integration by capacity-building tends to be without. NI observes neither a period-specific nor a policy-specific pattern of integration but a mode-specific one. We develop our argument in three parts. We start by introducing integration by rule-making (regulatory integration) and integration by capacity-building as two distinct modes of integration. Next, we explain why integration by capacity-building tends to be ‘without supranationalism’. In a nutshell, capacity-building is associated with specific control problems to which integration without supranationalism provides specific solutions. Yet the association is probabilistic rather than deterministic. As we note in the conclusion, capacity-building increases the likelihood of integration without supranationalism but does not guarantee it. Where the association holds, it takes a variety of forms. There is more variance in integration without supranationalism than NI seems to allow. Our argument is based on the distinction between two modes of integration: European rule-making and European capacity-building. In this section, we explain this distinction conceptually and briefly discuss its real-world significance in the EU. There are two basic modes of governance: rules and capacities (Genschel and Jachtenfuchs, 2014; Majone, 1997; van Middelaar, 2019). Rules refer to laws, regulations, norms and standards of behaviour that co-ordinate actions and expectations in a society. Capacities refer to money, staff, equipment and other material resources that allow governance actors to produce public goods and services on society's behalf. Rules and capacities both enable governance but in fundamentally different ways. Rules facilitate decentralised co-ordination by defining standard ways of doing things. They tell actors what to do and how to do it. They solve problems of decentralised enforcement by proscribing socially harmful and prescribing socially beneficial behaviours. Rules tell actors what not to do: not to cheat, not to defect and not to free-ride. Rules increase transparency, decrease behavioural risks, lower transaction costs, and thus allow for complex patterns of co-operation and exchange (Keohane, 1984). Capacities, by contrast, fund the centralised provision of public goods and services on which a society depends for viability and welfare but which no individual member of society could or would produce individually: defence, law and order, social security, infrastructure, education and so forth (Besley and Persson, 2011). Capacities enable governance actors to mobilise the material resources of society for common purposes. They constitute the core powers of the state: no sovereign state without coercive, fiscal and administrative resources (Genschel and Jachtenfuchs, 2014). Capacities create order by enabling collective action; rules create order by constraining individual action. In European nation-states, rule-making and capacity-building coevolved in a mutually reinforcing process (Strayer, 2005; Tilly, 1992).1 The central regulation of property rights, contract law, and product and process standards allowed for the emergence of a nationwide market. The market unleashed efficiencies of scale and scope, which increased the resource surplus available for state extraction. State extraction facilitated the accumulation and centralisation of core state powers, which, in turn, improved market efficiency through better monitoring, adjudication, and enforcement of regulations, the provision of nationwide infrastructures and services, and protection from external military or economic threats. Strong rule-based governance begot strong capacities in core state powers and vice versa. The close association of rule-making and capacity-building is notably absent in the EU. Regulatory integration has greatly outpaced European capacity-building in scope and extent. The EU is strong on rules but weak on capacity. It has extensive regulatory competence over the Single Market and adjacent policy areas, including core state powers such as taxation, state aid, budgetary policy, public procurement or internal security. Yet the EU's competence to tax, spend, coerce or administer on its own is modest at best (Kelemen and McNamara, 2022); 80% of member state legislation allegedly originates in Brussels (Letta, 2024, p. 3) but only 2% of public spending. The EU's administration is miniscule. There is no EU army, tax or long-term debt. Majone (1997) famously concluded that the EU was a ‘regulatory polity’ and not a ‘positive state’ (see also Joerges, 1996). Whilst the notion of the regulatory polity is intuitive, it is also potentially misleading for three reasons. First, constitutionally, the EU was never meant to be rule-making only. The founding treaties all provided for substantial capacity-building in core state powers: the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) Treaty empowered the Community to levy taxes and issue debt to fund supranational spending (Art. 49 and 50 ECSC Treaty); the (failed) European Defence Community (EDC) Treaty provided for a common European army and budget (Art. 1 EDC Treaty); the Euratom Treaty invested the Community with a monopoly to procure and own nuclear material on behalf of the member states (Art. 53 and 54 Euratom Treaty); and the European Economic Community (EEC) Treaty planned for ‘own resources’ (Art. 201 EEC Treaty) to fund supranational spending for instance on agriculture (Art. 40 EEC) and active labour market policy (Art. 123 EEC). If the EU ended up as a regulatory polity, it was by default, not by design. Second, functionally, many experts argue that the EU needs more capacity-building. The string of crises since the 2010s has highlighted the need for EU-level core state powers: a common fiscal backstop to quell financial contagion during the Eurozone crisis, common border management to control mass migration into the Schengen Area, common procurement of Covid-19 vaccines to ensure equitable protection throughout the EU, a common defence posture to deter Russian aggression or common purchasing arrangements to cope with sudden stops in energy supply. Policy experts call for more capacity-building in defence, research, industrial policy and infrastructure so that the EU can stand its ground in a new, challenging geopolitical and geoeconomic environment (Draghi, 2024; Letta, 2024; Niinistö, 2024). The apparent unwillingness of the new US administration under Donald Trump to underwrite European defence and provide aid to Ukraine further increases the external pressure. Political economists warn of internal challenges calling for more EU capacity. In their view, the EU's high regulation–low capacity asymmetry is unviable because regulatory integration creates spillover effects that can only be contained through capacity-building (Genschel and Jachtenfuchs, 2018; Jones et al., 2016; Kelemen and McNamara, 2022). Finally, historically, the EU has engaged in projects of capacity-building right from the start, though often with limited success. Just think of the (failed) EDC or Euratom (whose Supply Agency never actually supplied anything) in the 1950s. The Luxembourg Treaty gave the EU ‘own resources’ in 1970. Starting from the oil crisis, the EU set up a string of de novo bodies to provide emergency finance to member states including the ESM in 2012 and the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) in 2020 (Hodson and Howarth, 2024). It set up the ECB in the 1990s, now arguably the second most powerful central bank in the world. In the defence field, it created various de novo bodies including EU battlegroups, the European Defence Agency (EDA), the European Defence Fund (EDF) or the (planned) ‘Rapid Deployment Capability’ (Hoeffler, 2023) to pool and leverage capacity. In public administration, various new executive agencies like Frontex, the European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA) or the disaster relief programme rescEU provide services directly on the ground in the member states (Freudlsperger et al., 2022). In this section, we argue that EU capacity-building is closely associated with integration without supranationalism because it raises control problems for the member states to which integration without supranationalism provides a response. Theories of integration generally agree that the promise of joint gain is a main driver of integration: policy competence is pooled or delegated to EU bodies because powerful actors within and across member states (interest groups, voters, parties, state elites and elected politicians) consider European policy-making as more conducive to their interests than national policy. Integration proceeds because the EU promises solutions that member states cannot offer. However, integration implies risks as well as gains. Some risks are functional: new EU competencies may fail to deliver collective or even cause collective for example, through time or risks are even collective they may not Some member states or domestic actors may or even Finally, there are political As and NI actors not only how they are but also by and European integration creates a that political entrepreneurs can to mobilise against Integration risks of domestic et al., 2024). Whilst the of integration the of EU the risks control et al., EU is EU is a is because competence and control risks are mutually more competence to do also implies more competence to do and vice versa. Whilst this is for integration by rule-making and by capacity-building the specific control problems between both rule-making and capacity-building promise efficiency from governance rules fiscal between national budgetary increase and and thus create and for government debt. 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They the state aid for national industrial policy EU-level public and The of regulatory co-ordination are often modest because the transaction are high (Letta, 2024). Yet the member states control of core state powers. Second, to the member states in European capacity-building at they it narrow and They tailor-made de novo bodies to general-purpose institutions and their mandates to rather than national capacity. prominently, the European of national novo bodies such as the or rescEU provide a European for national capacities in of The ESM member states to during a national border at particularly external rescEU provides and equipment to national during or 2024). that the member states there is gain and high in to 2022). 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The Stability and or the European Asylum are of EU rules of domestic National governments are no longer the of coercive, fiscal or administrative capacities but to by European competence for and At however, they of national their continued EU by contrast, challenges both national and national The member states are no longer the only with coercive, fiscal or administrative but the EU of of its the EU to of and and to back of the central claim that the EU a – fund our In this view, the EU not only the with rules but also its capacity for national and The main control is to the national governments in EU capacity-building at they an intergovernmental that in they EU capacity by national capacity to a common pool rather than by it to a supranational The national to the pool a claim a from that and it continued national in the management of the In both the member states to control over European core state powers. the EU budget The two most of the national and the tax ‘own are de national They are of the general budget of the member states rather than by The national constitute the member claim to a The is by the which the budget for specific spending in specific member states over a The member states the in the European Council so that government has the to as the of the national for the domestic of is the budgetary alone were for the new own resource in The member states are also in the of the EU most of which is through national rather than directly through EU Where executive such as Frontex, directly in the member they need the of the government (Freudlsperger et al., 2022). In political control problems explain the of intergovernmental arrangements for the and management of EU capacity-building is associated with integration without supranationalism because it raises problems of and political control to which the of integration without supranationalism provide solutions. these mutually reinforcing For instance, the narrow scope of de novo bodies not only the risks of joint capacity-building but also the political task-specific EU capacities are to national and than general-purpose however, control effects are mutually and strong in capacity and management may and political risks for the member but they increase They it that EU capacities are but also that they can be for purposes. The NI member state control but EU competence et al., and For instance, the of the EU budget are on intergovernmental and a strong on of the member states and member states against and but at the of from common spending. We that integration without supranationalism neither a of integration as the of the NI (Bickerton et al., nor a of integration state as (Schimmelfennig, but a mode of integration rather than We that capacity-building raises and problems of control, which the defining of integration without supranationalism co-ordination, and and de novo to We two main of our First, the association between capacity-building and integration without supranationalism is probabilistic rather than deterministic. increases the likelihood of intergovernmental co-ordination, de novo bodies, and and Yet it does not guarantee these It is neither a as the of the without nor is it a The delegation of policy-making competence to the ECB is an of capacity-building with supranationalism. Second, and not all capacity-building is the on the specific capacity the and of and political control problems can European debt is to than European tax it takes is a expert in Brussels are lower than for a tax administration, and risks of are more this is why EU fiscal capacity-building is focused on joint debt. a European of to member states is to domestic in member states than European emergency to member states cope with financial are more to a of a European of than financial et al., on the risks we different control arrangements to the variety of control problems to a variety of of integration without supranationalism. NI integration without supranationalism as a to a difference between and post-Maastricht integration. Yet the defining of this allow for considerable Integration without supranationalism in various and more or intergovernmental co-ordination, or of and and or lower of de novo activity. Our of capacity-building for this We would like to Puetter, Frank Schimmelfennig and for their by the in the of the and is acknowledged. and by