Does the European Union have a reverse gear? Policy dismantling in a hyperconsensual polity

Abstract

The financial crisis has triggered demands to halt and even reverse the expansion of European Union (EU) policies. But have these and previous demands actually resulted in policy dismantling? The existing literature has charted the rise of dismantling discourses such as subsidiarity and better regulation, but has not examined the net effect on the acquis. For the first time, this contribution addresses this gap in the literature through an empirical study of policy change between 1992 and 2014. It is guided by a coding framework which captures the direction of policy change. It reveals that, despite its disposition towards consensualism, the EU has become a new locus of policy dismantling. However, not all policies targeted have been cut; many have stayed the same and some have even expanded. It concludes by identifying new directions for research on a topic that has continually fallen into the analytical blind spot of EU scholars.

Voluntary instruments for ambitious objectives? The experience of the EU Covenant of Mayors

“…This finding is in keeping with those of recent policy dismantling research on the environmental sector (e.g. Gravey and Jordan 2016).…”

“…Third, whilst still speculative it is also timely to assess how far such disequilibria affect the integration process and the EU environmental sector. A growing scholarship suggests that the EU may not be dismantling its environmental policy, but there is a greater rhetorical drive to 'fight red tape' and moderate environmental ambitions that may have long-term consequences (Burns and Tobin 2016;Gravey and Jordan 2016;Steinebach and Knill 2017). The contributions assembled here explore the nature and trajectory of EU environmental policy in this more uncertain context.…”

An inflection point in European Union studies?

“…Wunsch (2016) investigates the impact of accession to the EU on the domestic political influence of non-governmental organizations. Gravey and Jordan (2016) consider whether EU environmental policy has been dismantled. These contributions therefore represent rigorous social scientific efforts to explain political phenomena of consequence, even if they are not the issues dominating the news of the day.…”

“…This is a type of question familiar to scholars of the politics of democratic states. Gravey and Jordan (2016) establish that some EU environmental policies have been dismantled. Although they contrast this developed with the expectation that European policies are expected always to expand, the phenomenon they describe is familiar to students of domestic politics as deregulation, which is explicitly their point of departure.…”

“…In addition, they bring a candidate-centered approach to the study of European Parliament elections. Gravey and Jordan (2016) investigate whether deregulatory pressures have resulted in the dismantling of European environmental policy. They find that despite the multitude of veto players created by the EU's 'hyperconsensual' policy process, some policy dismantling has indeed occurred.…”