Professor William Phelan

Title

Europe's Constitution: Encompassing Institutions and International Public Goods

Summary

The project is to provide a new, generalisable explanation for the unique, 'constitutional' effectiveness of the European Union's transational legal order - an explanation which emphasises features of the democratic political institutions of the participating states. Current scholarship tends to explain the decentralised provision of international public goods among equals by tit-for-tat specific reciprocity - for example, the enforcement of WTO legal obligations through trade sanctions. In the EU, however, similar legal obligations - to follow international obligations which impose costs on organised groups - are followed even without tit-for-tat sanctions between the member states. This project uses Olson's theory of collective action to provide an explanation: while groups representing small constituencies have incentives to pursue redistribution of income at the cost of collective welfare, cohesive groups representing cohesive large constituencies - 'encompassing groups' - have incentives to unilaterally accept costs in return for the provision of public goods. If decision-makers are appointed by cohesive large constituency coalitions (as is pervasive among governments in contemporary Europe), the encompassing nature of these political institutions provides similar incentives to accept costs to support the collective good of stable international markets. The ability of the EU member states to reliably submit to costly international obligations even without state-to-state sanctions gives the EU legal system its 'constitutional' character. This research project therefore contributes to one of the broadest research questions of international relations theory - the provision of public goods outside the Weberian state - as well as the study of international organisation, international political economy, the politics of international law, and the politics and law of the European Union.

Funding Agency

IRCHSS, €38,000

Date From

2008

Date To

2010

Title

Jean Monnet Chair in EU Politics and Law

Summary

Funding Agency

European Commission

Date From

2017

Date To

2020