“Theorizing the Crises of the European Union” is a volume edited by Nathalie Brack and Seda Gürkan. The title of the book reflects the twofold focus: on the one hand, the puzzling theme of EU crises, of great interest both to EU policy makers, citizens and EU scholars in terms of crisis management; on the other, theories of European integration.
What the authors aim at is a comprehensive comparison of classical integration theories, connecting them to contemporary debates and episodes of crisis. This exercise has the final goal of understanding how useful the existing theories are to analyze EU crises. The variety of approaches ranges from new/liberal intergovernmentalism and neo/post functionalism to sociological approaches, new regionalism and differentiated integration.
The main arguments brought about by the authors are that the conceptualization of crisis should be broadened in order to include the implications for European integration; secondly, turning to the focal point of the understanding and analysis of EU crises, integration theories remain useful – through adjustments and/or combined with other ones – to address singular phases or events, but are “unable to provide a full explanation of the polycrisis faced by the EU” (p. 252).
This review will proceed by looking more closely at two chapters of the volume. These are not only illustrative of the main arguments of the volume just cited – crisis conceptualization (Chapter 2) and application of integration theories (Chapter 6) – but also represent two of the different kinds of contributions forming the book. The review will then provide some concluding remarks, including the other kinds of contributions present and the place of this volume within the literature of reference.
The first contribution here analyzed as part of this volume is the one by Christopher Lord, titled “Legitimacy crisis in the European Union” (Chapter 2). This chapter's input to the entire book lies in specifying the type of crisis which the Union could go through.
Lord starts his argumentation from the classification of the EU as a political order, since “there can only be a problem of legitimacy where there is a significant exercise of political power” (p. 22). The thesis brought forward by Lord is that the Union does need legitimacy because “it contributes to constraint and coercion” (p. 23).
This argument is supported through the description of the political powers possessed by the Union: encompassing, monopoly, final, exit and coercive powers. The author also extensively clarifies why the Union possesses these powers, i.e., for the management of externalities between the Member States, needed “if they are to deliver their own obligations to their own publics” (p. 27). Without coercive and final powers, the EU could not fulfil this role.
Lord successively introduces three types of legitimacy crises. These deal with the categories of direct, indirect, input, throughput and output legitimacy. The author adds that probably when the Union goes through a legitimacy crisis, it would be a combination of these factors.
On the one hand, Member States legitimate the EU through their consent and participation in the decision making – amounting to input and throughput legitimacy. Output legitimacy would then come with successful externalities’ management by the Union through the decisions adopted. Thus, the standard here constructed is one of “indirect-input-throughput-output legitimacy” (p. 34), i.e., relying on the Member States.
This dependence is a “special source of vulnerability” (p. 38). Lord underlines indeed that the Union's legitimacy crisis has more profound roots than the multiple crises since 2008: it originates from those arrangements according to which the Union was drawing indirect legitimacy from the Member States. This has become problematic not only considering the externalities coming from other systems – e.g., financial, demographic – but also due to the power relations created by the close participation of executive branches in Union's decisions. These relations, creating asymmetries and democracy-on-democracy domination, cannot represent anymore the legitimation basis of the EU.
Turning to Chapter 6 of this volume, the authors Lefkofridi and Schmitter focus on neofunctionalism as an integration theory and the decade of crises undergone by the EU. The question asked is what neofunctionalism can tell us about what has happened and potentially subsequent outcomes of the crises.
First, neofunctionalism's explanatory power is assessed by underlining that this theory does address disintegration through the concept of “spill-back” (p. 102). In addition, the crucial role of crises in the theory is also made explicit and the authors mention the potential positive effects of such events. The chapter then focuses on the variable of politicization, the opportunities created by the crises, the mobilization of citizens and finally the potential of Brexit.
Starting from politicization and the main expectations coming from the theory, the authors underline that neofunctionalism sees the integration process as bringing changes in internal politics, too (p. 104). Connected to this is the expectation of the process becoming increasingly politicized as more “high politics” issues are decided at the EU level.
What neofunctionalists were not expecting was the mobilization of civil society deriving from this development to go against further integration. The authors highlight that prior to crises, citizens were ill-informed and were unaware both of their rights and constraints as EU citizens but also of the EU decision-making process. In addition, Brussels was used as an alibi by mainstream parties when introducing unpopular legislation. This environment was according to Lefkofridi and Schmitter a fertile ground for populists, which seized their chance.
The authors focus particularly on the absence of a European party system as the main cause for concern. According to them, citizens lack the right channels to voice their preferences and the current system fails to stimulate “transnational political debate” (p. 107). In addition, cleavages such as Right/Left are evoked as still majorly present.
The subsequent sections of this contribution examine the 2019 elections and Brexit, drawing some conclusions regarding the explanatory power of neofunctionalism. First, this theory is regarded as capable to explain Brexit in terms of imports/exports with countries external to the EU and the latter's impact on interest in integration. However, the great potential of Brexit as a crisis bringing the “mother of all spillovers” (p. 113) has not been fulfilled.
Thus, to answer the initial question, neofunctionalism is able to explain Brexit and could predict the mobilization of civil society – but not the latter's direction. According to the authors, the potential positive effect of crises has not developed as desired in terms of political debate on the future of the EU.
In conclusion, this volume is a very ambitious project. Its exceptional contribution lies not only in the number of theories touched upon, but also and especially in linking the latter to contemporary EU discussions and examples of transboundary crises undergone by the Union.
Of great interest for current debates is the main role attributed to the variable of politicization. This addition makes the book even more salient and comprehensive. On the one hand, this richness makes the book noteworthy in its field – as other authors only focused on single theories, single country or crises cases or the crisis management capacity of the Union in procedural terms.
On the other, the rationality behind the contents might benefit from further guidance by the authors. As anticipated in the introduction, the contributions range from differentiating between types of crises (Chapters 2 and 3 on sovereignty, Chapter 4 on cleavage politics), to singular theories applied to singular crises (Chapter 5 on intergovernmentalism and Euro crisis, Chapter 11 on comparative regionalism and ASEAN), to singular theories trying to explain the whole decade of challenges (Chapters 6 and 8 on sociological approaches, Chapter 9 on European Communion and the planetary organic crisis), to combined theories’ explanatory power (Chapter 7 on different streams of functionalism) and even further processes such as the Europeanization of the research agenda (Chapter 10) and differentiation (Chapter 12).
The purpose of the volume to uncover the connection between integration theories and the decade of EU crises is certainly achieved. Also looking at the chapters here deeply analyzed, the answer to the initial question on the potential more profound crisis behind this decade seems positive. The challenge is opened on framing the direction of influence between political integration and transboundary EU crises.
