04.03.2026
12:30-13:30

From European Integration to EU Polity Formation

WIFO Research Seminar
Veranstalter: Österreichisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (WIFO)
  • Redner:
  • Waltraud Schelkle (Europäisches Hochschulinstitut)
Sprache: Englisch
WIFO, Helene-Lieser-Saal oder online via Microsoft-Teams
How did the European Union (EU) survive a series of crises, each one of them severe and of-ten unprecedented? Second, and relatedly, what makes the EU so susceptible to crises?

For answers, Waltraud Schelkle, with Kate Alexander-Shaw, Maurizio Ferrera and Hanspeter Kriesi, analyse its features as a novel political system, a compound polity that has boundaries, authority and capacities with which citizens identify to various degrees as "Europeans" (Ferrera, M., Kriesi, H.,  & Schelkle, W., 2024). Schelkle and her colleagues argue that what makes this political form susceptible to crises can often explain its ability to pull through crises, in some cases without really resolving the underlying policy problem, in other cases with an astounding ability to create policy turnarounds. This challenges existing accounts of the EU, which can no longer be seen as an integration scheme in which nation-states engage in particularly close international relations. They illustrate the distinct character of the EU's political form by analysing how the EU has created central fiscal capacity, which resembles neither a central federal budget nor complete decentralisation of a confederation.

Bitte beachten Sie, dass dieses Seminar aufgezeichnet und in digitaler Form veröffentlicht wird.