Crises as opportunities? Reconceptualising the EU-member states relationship in the age of permanent emergency

When: Thursday, March 16, 2023 - Friday, March 17, 2023, 9:06 AM - 6:06 PM
Where: 9 rue de Constantine, 75007 Paris

This seminar is the last preparatory step for a forthcoming Special Issue in Comparative European Politics. The Special Issue brings together established and early career researchers, offering contributions that employ diverse theoretical frameworks to shed light on the evolving EU-member states relationship in the context of continuous crises.  

This seminar is the last preparatory step for a forthcoming Special Issue in Comparative European Politics. The Special Issue brings together established and early career researchers, offering contributions that employ diverse theoretical frameworks to shed light on the evolving EU-member states relationship in the context of continuous crises.  Drawing from an ECPR Joint Session Workshop (Edinburgh, April 2022) and from direct contacts with leading scholars in the field, collectively the papers deploy a vast array of methods, both qualitative and quantitative, to deal with the following questions:  

• Did the multiple crises of the last decade change the modes and mechanisms of Europeanization? In particular, are new, more coordinative modes of Europeanization complementing or even supplanting coercive forms of Europeanization and containing de-Europeanization trends?  
• Is EU policymaking becoming more consensual because of the crises?  
• Can we observe inter-crisis policy learning, both at EU and member state level, and, if so, under what conditions and following what mechanisms is this taking place? 
• Have the crises led to an expansion of the formal and/or informal roles of EU institutions in policy fields which have thus far pertained exclusively to the member states?  
• To what extent have the emergency responses to the crises been institutionalized? How is this happening and to which effect?  
• Is there evidence of an increased role of the State and an increased awareness of interdependence in the design and implementation of EU policies? 
• Has the EU become more resilient and better fit for future crises or have the crises, and the European Union’s responses to them, exacerbated existing weaknesses and cleavages within the Union? 

This event is coordinated by Dr Stella Ladi, Reader at Queen Mary University of London (s.ladi@qmul.ac.uk).