Europe: Demise of Government?

by Alberto Di Felice

January 2007

Abstract

Governance carries with it a wide range of positive connotations. They are mainly attributed to the fact that political decisions are not an expression of hierarchy but are based on “reflexive self-organization.” [1] The implicit core meaning underlying the concept is that governance significantly lessens the authority of national governments—i.e. states. Governance, in the current acceptation of the term, means “governance without government.” [2] This paper aims to test for this premise by looking at how the institutional arrangement of the EU allows for non-state interest representation through the legislative process. It is argued that the government/governance dichotomy is to a large extent fictitious, and that states still manage to preserve the bulk of authority thanks to Europe’s prevailing style of government: consociational accord.

Introduction

The study of the EU traditionally revolves around the opposite ends of nation-states and supranational superstates. The two main original approaches in the literature—neo-functionalism and intergovernmentalism—had a diverging view about the centrality of the state as the pivotal actor in European integration.
In broad terms, the bulk of the dispute was centered on the power that “the coming together of the nations of Europe” [3] would accord to the institutions born thereof. According to classic neo-functionalist thinking, which had its roots in the expectations of the founding fathers of the European Coal and Steel Community, the creation of institutions such as the High Authority (later to become the Commission), able to behave somewhat independently of member state governments in a limited number of policy areas, would progressively—and more or less automatically—shift the focus of action from intergovernmental power play toward deeper institutionalized political integration in other areas. The concept of “functional spillover” described the dynamics by which integration would spread from one sector to another. [4]
In contrast, advocates of two-level games theory and intergovernmentalists alike—while acknowledging that, because of pressures arising in domestic politics, the outcome of negotiations could not so readily be explained as the result of unconstrained agreement among sovereign nation states—maintained that national governments would remain the overall gatekeepers that launch and at key points direct and redirect the process of integration, in that any transfer of powers to European institutions would as a whole be the result of the converging preferences of the member states. National governments would still act as a filter between Europe and the national polities; the latter would simply provide governments with policy demands which states would have to take to the supranational (i.e. European) arena for interstate bargaining. In the words of Andrew Moravcsik, “only where the actions of supranational leaders systematically bias outcomes away from the long-term self-interest of member-states can we speak of a serious challenge to an intergovernmental view.” [5]
Both these theoretical approaches see institutions as functioning in conformity with their own premises. Within the neo-functionalist perspective, European institutions become key sponsors of further integration. Within the liberal intergovernmentalist model, institutions provide a continuing forum for articulating positive-sum bargains; according to Moravcsik, it may even be in the states’ interest to shelter behind the mist of established EU rules to offset unwelcome domestic pressures. [6]
As the scope of the remit of the European institutions has grown larger, new paradigms have come to the fore. Most of these come under the umbrella of the governance literature, which—unlike that associated with neo-functionalism and intergovernmentalism—takes interest in the very functioning of the everyday politics of the EU itself to try and unravel its internal complexity. The EU is now analyzed as a policy system.
Multi-level governance is at the cusp of this strand of theoretical and analytical work. It holds that because of the diffusion of authority across multiple jurisdictions there are a number of levels at which significant games are played. As a consequence of the intricacy and uncertainty of decision-making processes, states are not able to fully predict and control integration outcomes. Subnational (e.g. local authorities) and supranational actors at the EU level can take an entrepreneurial role in fostering and exploiting contacts that outflank national executives. Multi-level governance observes that other actors between, below and over the supranational and national arenas are also playing a role in the EU policy process. Member states are not the only influential actors, since there are a variety of interests from different levels that also want to shape the EU decision and policy-making processes. In other words, subnational, national, supranational, European and international actors participate in and interact within the EU policy process. Multi-level governance looks empirically at how “low politics” is conducted; it considers the interaction of actors at different territorial tiers to note transformations in governance patterns across different sectors.
It is commonly accepted that neo-functionalism and intergovernmentalism on the one hand and governance theories on the other express different approaches. The former are said to understand European integration in terms of international relations, while the latter has the only aim of explaining European governance through the micro-lens of comparative politics analysis. In an attempt to combine the two, seemingly irreconcilable dimensions, John Peterson  suggests that we should use these approaches according to the outcomes that require explanation, so that each has its own analytical level to serve. [7] Thus, if we are willing to explain “high politics” and history-making bargains (e.g., treaty reforms), liberal intergovernmentalism and/or neo-functionalism tend to offer the best explanation; when turning to secondary, day-to-day “low politics,” governance theories are best suited to understand how decisions are taken. However, Stephen George convincingly argues that multi-level governance is in fact a general theory of European integration—and one that closely resembles neo-functionalism. It holds that once national governments surrender part of their authority to European institutions, dynamics will emerge that will force them, whether willing or not, to relinquish further authority across multiple layers. [8]

Institutions and Networks

As illustrated by the multi-level governance model, actors other than the state are part of the decision making of the EU.
As we have seen, intergovernmentalists value institutions as they allow for positive-sum bargains. These could not occur if the actors involved (i.e. self-interested governments) did not have an accurate perception of each other’s preferences. Put crudely, institutions reduce the transaction costs connected with the attainment of this kind of information; once information is made available, states can cooperate efficiently in pursuit of their own interests. Moreover, institutions are a guarantee of abidance by the commitments made. An almost identical view of institutions is taken by the rational choice version of the institutionalist literature, which—like intergovernmentalism—conforms to the idea of calculating, self-interested actors.
Similarly, liberal intergovernmentalism describes “societal groups” that “compete for political influence.” [9]
Moving beyond this conceptualization of institutions and civil society forces, historical/sociological institutionalism and actor-based models—namely, the literatures on epistemic communities and advocacy coalitions—emphasize their ability to purposefully shape policy making.
Institutions can make autonomous contributions to the development of policies. The various institutions of the EU—most notably the Commission—have often turned out to be skillful at making good use of the opportunities they have to set the agenda and to structure the choices which individuals and states have to make. In particular, through the repetition of bargaining action over time institutions can create “path dependency.” This is defined as the process by which the solutions put in place in past negotiations tend to set up practices and precedents on which future decisions will depend.
In addition, a multitude of other organizations representing the different interests potentially affected by policy decisions combine with the representatives of national governments and EU institutions to create policy networks. These are “venues for the pooling and/or exchange of information and resources” that are useful to actors “bound together in a series of relations of dependency.” [10] Their presence is essential to the “liberal” side of the theory, which sees national governments engaged in domestic and international games to the end of securing the support of their constituencies. State preferences are formulated in domestic politics through the dynamic interaction and cooperation of societal actors, and are then transposed to the supranational level where interstate bargains are reached through diplomatic exchange. As previously said, though, governments are seen as the filters that control all long-term integration outcomes.

The networked polity is a structure of governance in which both state and societal organization is vertically and horizontally disaggregated (as in pluralism) but linked together by cooperative exchange (as in pluralism). Organizational structures in the networked polity are organic rather than mechanistic, which means that both knowledge and initiative are decentralized and widely distributed. Horizontal relationships within and across organizations are at least as important as vertical relationships, and organizational relationships in general follow a pattern of many-to-many (heterarchy) rather than many-to-one (hierarchy). [11]

Both institutions and networks represent “vessels” within which preferences are formed and negotiations take place. The former are usually associated with formal bodies and formal sets of rules, while the latter give prominence to informal contacts and informal operations and procedures. Their basic function is to provide frameworks of knowledge which actors will take into account when planning and deciding policies.
March and Olsen describe an institution as a “relatively enduring collection of rules and organized practices, embedded in structures of meaning and resources that are relatively invariant in the face of turnover of individuals and relatively resilient to the idiosyncratic preferences and expectations of individuals and changing external circumstances.” [12] Institutionalism—with the aforementioned exception of its rational choice variant—is interested in the cognitive aspects of decision making and rejects the claim that actor preferences are devised exogenously to the institutional setting. Rather than being neutral containers, institutions—broadly defined to encompass rules both formal and informal as well as organizations—actually mold the ways of political confrontation and its effects:

The basic building blocks of institutions are rules, and rules are connected and sustained through identities, through senses of membership in groups and recognition of roles. Rules and repertoires of practices embody historical experience and stabilize norms, expectations and resources; they provide explanations and justifications for rules and standard ways of doing things. [13]

As briefly discussed above, institutions have a tendency to “lock in” actors and produce path dependencies. One of the features of institutions is that they do not change easily. Change is often gradual and evolutionary. Path dependency is a by-product of feedback mechanisms through which actors in an institutional environment profit from behaving in ways that are in agreement with their past behavior; as a result, they are encouraged to behave similarly in the future. This happens because once a particular policy or decision-making style has been institutionalized, actors accumulate knowledge about how it works and are hesitant to deviate from it. Over time, the range of new possible choices is fixed by the set of elements brought about by this process of accumulation. Institutions are construed as much more than simple formal rules and contracts that constrain actors’ possibilities: they are shapers of ideologies, identities, shared cultural understandings and interpretations of problems and viable courses of action. Institutions “fashion, enable and constrain political actors as they act within a logic of appropriate action. Institutions are carriers of identities and roles and they are markers of a polity’s character, history and visions.” [14]
In other words, “institutions influence behaviour by providing the cognitive scripts, categories and models that are indispensable for action.” [15] Actors and institutions exert mutual influence upon each other. Actors may start an institution with precise goals in mind (i.e. to build a “bargaining venue” for the fulfillment of their exogenously-defined needs), but in the long run the interplay of formalities and informalities in the new setting is likely to delineate different parameters for choice that will ultimately determine actors’ preferences. Actors’ adaptation evolves through a series of small, incremental, at first hand seemingly unrelated steps that set the parameters for future institutional developments. To summarize: behavior reflects the routines followed in the institutional context within which preferences are defined.
Looking at how EU politics works, we can attend to the close reciprocal action between institutions and networks. The directorates of the Commission, for example, need the support of assorted networks when drafting legislation because the Commission, which has to take the first step in all formal proposals, lacks the technical expertise that most national governments acquire as a consequence of their more direct responsibilities. The need to procure valuable knowledge and information in a great number of different domains—which are oftentimes impenetrable to the layman—pushes actors to seek advice. This is usually offered by groups of professionals with recognized competence in a given field, which are commonly referred to as “epistemic communities.” An epistemic community is “a network of knowledge-based experts or groups with an authoritative claim to policy-relevant knowledge within the domain of their expertise. Members hold a common set of causal beliefs and share notions of validity based on internally defined criteria for evaluation, common policy projects, and shared normative commitments.” [16] Such communities are called on by politicians to translate complex sectoral information into condensed and simplified forms on which deliberations will be based. This gives experts room to present the information so as to direct decisions toward particular goals. When experts in various fields frequently meet colleagues from other nations to exchange views over problems and possible solutions, their respective positions tend to converge around the prevailing view of the international community to which they belong. As a result, international cooperation is promoted as politicians from different nations receive similar information and consequently share similar views. [17]
A related yet separate actor-based perspective focuses on the role of different kinds of organizations in winning important changes in legislation. An “advocacy coalition” consists of a variety of actors at all levels (e.g. government agencies, associations, civil society organizations, think tanks, academics, media institutions, prominent individuals) who share basic beliefs and/or policy goals and who seek to lobby political institutions and actors in order to achieve these goals. While epistemic communities are marked by their technocratic nature, the advocacy coalition framework depicts networks of contacts and cooperation among societal actors who intentionally join together to obtain policy outputs. Both approaches, however, concur on the point that “there exist influential forms of non-state authority that acquire power through access to and expression of knowledge,” [18] and that communities in which all participants interact frequently with each other promote agreement on policy beliefs, trust, and hence reliable cooperative action among their members.

Navigating the Governance Thicket

The Commission’s White Paper on European Governance [19] states that the legitimacy of the EU today “depends on involvement and participation. This means that the linear model of dispensing policies from above must be replaced by a virtuous circle, based on feedback, networks and involvement from policy creation to implementation at all levels.” [20] It argues that “leaders throughout Europe are facing a real paradox. On the one hand, Europeans want them to find solutions to the major problems confronting our societies. On the other hand, people increasingly distrust institutions and politics or are simply not interested in them.” [21] The problem is that many Europeans “feel alienated from the Union’s work” and “do not understand who takes the decisions that affect them and do not feel the Institutions act as an effective channel for their views and concerns.” [22] What it takes is “to open up policy-making to make it more inclusive and accountable. A better use of powers should connect the EU more closely to its citizens and lead to more effective policies.” [23] Let us see how institutions and society are interconnected in the EU legislative process. [24]
Virtually every proposal for new directives and regulations has to be initiated by the Commission before being forwarded to the legislature (i.e. the EU Council of Ministers and the European Parliament). If we consider the variety and the amount of functions assigned to it, the Commission is a relatively understaffed organization. It lacks the in-house capacity to collect the extensive and comprehensive information necessary to develop adequately substantiated policy proposals likely to be endorsed by the Council and the Parliament. As a consequence, the Commission seeks the support of experts from the member states. By and large, these groups include national officials coming from national administrations or authorities, scientists, academics and interest group representatives (e.g. representatives of private firms, trade unions, employers’ federations, industry associations, consumer groups, NGOs and other civil society organizations). [25] Such groups connect the interests concerned with the proposal at hand and allow the Commission to build consensus around it. “The result is an ongoing bargaining process between the Commission and the representatives of state and non-state national interests” through which the Commission “aims to discover policy ideas that accommodate as many national preferences as possible in the hope that excluded interests can be incorporated at a later stage.” [26]
The treaties of Maastricht and Amsterdam, respectively, introduced and reformed the operation of the co-decision procedure (co-decision I and II), under which the powers of the European Parliament have been expanded. Under co-decision II, specifically, the removal of the third reading secured the EP a balance of power vis-à-vis the Council. [27] Committees in the Parliament have the fundamental task of scrutinizing in detail every proposal before suggesting amendments. Similarly to the Commission, the EP lacks the technical capacity and knowledge it needs to manage the legislative process effectively. For this reason, committees and individual MEPs frequently request the help of interest groups. “Indeed it is often rumoured that representatives from European interest associations have written significant portions of some EP reports.” [28] Committee meetings often open up possibilities for public discussion and coordination, since representatives of the Commission and the Council—usually represented by the rotating presidency—participate in the meetings and defend their proposals. At the same time, interest groups find an additional favorable occasion to get updated about—and influence—the evolutions in the legislative process.
In the Council, committees and working groups made up of member state representatives carefully look over the proposals. Customarily, governments are represented by civil servants from the relevant departments, often accompanied by a staff member of the permanent representation. It is not uncommon that the same people who take part in expert groups set up by the Commission also represent their respective states in working groups in the Council. Their position, however, is now different, since they have to toe the line drawn—frequently through compromise among distinct departments—by their national governments. Civil servants from the relevant directorate-general or service also take part. The result of negotiations is then placed into the hands of COREPER (the Committee of Permanent Representatives in Brussels), which eventually passes its revised proposal on to Council meetings for ministerial approval. The country that holds the presidency of the Council is the causal agent for action in the working groups as it chairs the discussions. The whole legislative process is monitored by the General Affairs Council, to which proposals are referred if agreement cannot be reached. As national representatives are usually appointed for long periods of time, working groups in the Council reinforce horizontal and vertical cooperation among them. Especially in areas where interests are shared and compromise easier, this often serves as a route toward the establishment of a European esprit de corps. [29]
Lastly, when decisions made by the legislature are to be enforced, “comitology” steps in. To further specify legislation with a view to application, national governments usually adopt regulations following laws passed by the Parliament; similarly, the EU legislators delegate implementation to the EU executive—the Commission. Comitology committees serve as precautionary measures for the Council (i.e. the member states) to counterbalance the Commission’s implementing authority. Committees—which as a general rule are composed of national government officials, but may also comprise experts and representatives of interest groups—are appointed to assist the Commission in exercising the implementing powers it has been delegated. They are to be consulted by the Commission before it can adopt any implementing measure. There exist three types of comitology committees: advisory, management and regulatory committees. While advisory committees can only provide opinions, following prescribed procedures management and regulatory committees can even refer implementing measures back to the Council. Following repeated criticism from—and activism of—the EP, which disapproved of the Council’s supposed “back door” manipulation of legislation during implementation, Parliament has been given some limited powers of review and transparency has been increased by granting public access to information about procedures and decisions. Besides enabling the Council to control implementation activities undertaken by the Commission, comitology also makes implementation more effective and efficient by way of closer contact between national administrations and the EU executive.
To complete the picture, some regulatory powers are delegated to quasi-autonomous nongovernmental organizations (quangos), among which is the European Food Safety Authority in Parma. These are independent regulators whose function is clearly distinct from policy making. The rationale behind them is to ensure that decisions affecting key economic sectors are shielded from short-term political considerations. [30]

Government and Governance

Joe Painter identifies two uses of the term “governance.” The first use concerns the variety of actors involved in policy making, of which government is only one but many constituent elements. The second relates to the nature of policy-making practices. It contrasts “the top-down control in coordination through hierarchy” against “coordination through networks and partnerships.” “Writers adopting this usage commonly refer to a shift in the nature of coordination in contemporary societies from government (‘hierarchy’) to governance.” [31]
The European Commission defines “European governance” as “the rules, processes and behaviour that affect the way in which powers are exercised at European level, particularly as regards openness, participation, accountability, effectiveness and coherence. These five ‘principles of good governance’ reinforce those of subsidiarity and proportionality.” [32] In the Commission’s view, governance equals “good governance.” In his reconstruction of the evolution of the term, Cris Shore draws a rather sarcastic comparison between the definition given by the Commission and the meanings associated with the word in 16th-century England: governance for the Commission, he argues, is the modern equivalent of “‘wisdom’, ‘virtue’ and setting a country in good order.” [33]
As we have seen from our account of the EU legislative process, this translates into the involvement of societal interests, in all their guises, in the various phases of law-making from initiation to implementation.
Simon Hix sees the European system of interest representation as a “constant interaction between consociational accommodation of national interests and pluralist, neo-pluralist and corporatist intermediation of transnational socioeconomic interests.” [34] Hix’s explanation links the patterns of interest representation in the EU (i.e. patterns of EU governance) to transformations of economic and political institutions which have channeled the demands of key private actors into new directions.
The globalization of markets has transformed the need for protectionist measures into an urge for neo-liberal policies to foster worldwide competitiveness. Private companies, especially multinationals, have abandoned the old domestic corporatist strategy to pursue their objectives directly in Brussels. Here, the Commission and the European Parliament are more than happy to grab an opportunity that can strengthen their position against the Council. The centralization of decision-making in Brussels also creates an incentive for non-business groups to stick up for their interests at the EU headquarters. [35] In sum, argues Hix, the concentrated interests of the business lobby are countervailed by the protection of national interests and, hopefully, diffuse public interests that are starting to reach beyond national boundaries. At face value, this version argues in defense of multi-level governance – and its ancestor, neo-functionalism. Firms have “shifted their loyalties” away from national executives toward EU institutions. [36] Commission and Parliament favor the further mobilization of transnational interests as it advances their reputation while reducing the relative power of the member states. Nonetheless, while interest groups at the European level endeavor to achieve unity among their national members, interests still tend to reproduce the “territorial-cultural” divides that dominate across European societies. The upshot of this is that EU policy making reflects the structure of a “consociational cartel” “designed to accommodate most, if not all, national preferences, cultures, styles and traditions.” [37] This is because both governments—including their representatives in the Commission’s expert groups—and MEPs must attend to the wants and needs of their national constituencies to make sure they will be re-elected. [38] Contrary to the claims of governance theories, such dynamics clearly echo two-level games and liberal intergovernmentalism. [39]
A similar narrative is offered by Bob Jessop, who attempts a theoretical mediation of multi-level governance by using a strategic-relational approach. He traces governance patterns to fundamental changes in statehood and capitalism. [40]
Jessop observes three general trends: the “de-nationalization of territorial statehood,” the “de-statization of the political system” and the “internationalization of policy regimes.” These are the result of the political repositioning of economic and social policies. In the post-war years, the nation-states of western Europe needed to rebuild their domestic economies and bring stability to their societies. To this end, each of them pursued welfare-oriented social policies in relatively isolated mixed economies. Changes in the economy in the late 1970s, however, forced governments to sacrifice social cohesion for market deregulation to keep their countries flexible and competitive in an environment substantially modified by an increased volume of transnational economic activity. An essential part of the new course of action was the creation of “subjects to serve as partners in the innovative, knowledge-driven, entrepreneurial, flexible economy” through a transfer of functions “upwards, downwards, and sideways.” [41] This is what Rosenau calls “fragmegration.” [42]
Again, although Jessop sets forth that the state-centric perspective is not satisfactory, his periodization is perfectly consistent with some of its political economy variants. Alan Milward, for example, claims that governing elites agreed to jointly administer particular policies as means to achieve goals that were of capital importance for the future of their respective nations, but which none of them acting on their own could possibly reach. Integration, far from weakening the states of Europe, did in fact “rescue” them. [43] Much to the same point, Wolfgang Wessels maintains that governments used integration as a solution to common problems deriving from substantial domestic transformations in governance patterns due, in the main, to growing global interdependence. [44] All these analyses converge around the position that major social and economic changes can explain the forces and motions behind governance.
Cris Shore contends that EU governance is driven by “the imperatives of neo-liberal economics, New Public Management, and the logic of inter-governmental and supranational elite bargaining.” [45] New Public Management reforms that have been adopted throughout Europe and the developed world since the 1970s have significantly blurred the borderline between public and private. New governing practices have come about that have replaced centralized administration with managerial behavior meaning to reduce the costs of delivering public services by reproducing standardized market models in the public sector. Efficiency, as opposed to bureaucracy, has become the reference point. [46] The shift from government to governance is a logical consequence of these new guiding principles. Forms of direct state intervention have been supplanted by steering mechanisms which allow the state to coordinate decision-making processes that are now open to much wider public discussion. This entails the adoption of less detailed regulatory measures that are mainly formulated through informal exchanges between governmental and societal actors. In this context, the state does more “steering” and less “rowing.” [47]
A notable characteristic of this flexible and to a great extent unconstrained way of producing policy outcomes is that it is predestined to break loose from ordered institutional structures. Peters and Pierre illustrate the potential dangers arising from the informal nature of governance. [48] The absence of clearly defined institutional arrangements, they argue, may in fact provide valuable opportunities for strong players—i.e. national governments—to promote their will at the expense of weaker actors. Indeed, this connects with Jeffery’s criticism that multi-level governance mistakes mobilization for influence. [49]
Peters and Pierre also envisage a related problem in the loss of accountability to which the loose and often confused governance method may lead. They use the idea of a “Faustian bargain” “in which core values of democratic government are traded for accommodation, consensus and the purported increased efficiency in governance.” [50] In truth, “the system of governing that is implied may not really be a system of governing.” [51] The same point is made by Wessels’ “fusion hypothesis.” It describes “a merger of public resources at several ‘state’ levels for which the ‘outside world,’ i.e. the average European citizen, but also many experts, cannot trace the accountability, as responsibilities for specific policies are diffused.” [52]
Furthermore, Peters and Pierre’s analysis is noteworthy for the reason that it highlights one major shortcoming of the governance approach: its rejection of authority. In a world where everything is governance and government is nowhere to be seen, everyone is a player—but there’s no referee. Governance works as a game where players are constantly busy trying to puzzle out what their respective positions, competences and interests are; the bargaining process is expected to be highly consensual and harmonious as purposes are shared among participants at different levels; accordingly, the resulting decisions are not imposed on the actors. Yet, argue the authors, most factual evidence suggests that’s clearly not the rule because the various national and sectoral interests are usually opposed—and even fiercely so. The assumption that no authority is needed patently fails to consider the agenda-setting powers of national governments, their persisting centrality in establishing goals and their role as intermediaries between diverging interests. [53] An apparently opposite—but actually tightly related—critical judgment is behind Rosenau’s preference for the concept of “spheres of authority” over that of multi-levelness. His rendition of multi-level governance looking at the empirical example of the EU contradicts the dominant thinking and emphasizes the inherent exercise of hierarchy and authority it implies. “At some higher level there are authorities who have the ultimate sanctions even if compliance at lower levels is achieved through negotiated requests couched in harmonious language.” [54] Rosenau states categorically that such reasoning is “faulty” and goes on to classify six types of global governance that in his view better reflect the different spheres of authority underlying fragmegration; even so, all of his six models “involve governance and government.” [55] What we can draw for our purposes from his contribution is a recognition of the fact that governance needs government and forms of authority, although not always unidirectional. Much to the same point, Wolfgang Wessels maintains that governments used integration as a solution to common problems deriving from substantial Subnational authorities and other non-state actors may well be involved in policy making, but this does in no way mean they also have better chances to bring home the bacon.

Conclusion: Consociational Metagovernance

As will be apparent from the foregoing discussion, there are substantial flaws in the way that the government/governance dichotomy is construed. More to the point, it may as well be that such distinction does not bear any significant meaning. This is because government, as an expression of sovereignty, is wrongfully posited to be all about unidirectional and autonomous commands issued on passive recipients. It clearly is not, for the simple reason that the interest of democratic governments stands with that of their populace. Going back to Painter’s double definition of governance, it seems to the writer that the first use identified does the term justice. Painter holds that “to some extent this definition is a belated recognition that the coordination of complex social systems and the steering of societal development have never been the responsibilities of the state alone, but have always involved interaction between a range of state and non-state actors.” [56] From this point of view, government and governance are synonyms.
What the distinction really signifies, perhaps, is simply that government by the state has been forced to change and reposition itself in a world where its territorial boundaries are no longer impermeable to external pressures. A state-centric perspective can still offer reasonable accounts. Karl-Orfeo Fioretos, for instance, provides a valuable improvement to two-level games theory by factoring in the impact that growing economic interdependence has on domestic demands. [57] Similarly, as already seen, Wessels explains integration as the result of epochal transitions in governance within the member-states in the wake of a global economy. [58] In this changing environment, states have strong incentives to share their sovereignty—or, perhaps more appropriately, they simply have no alternative.
Hix’s analysis of interest representation in the EU suggests that consociational accommodation of national interests is still predominant. If so, maybe theorists of consociationalism can provide the ultimate explanation of the way things are actually decided in Europe. The works of Paul Taylor and Arendt Lijphart describe the cooperative behavior of national political elites to build institutions where decisions can be taken on a proportional and consensual basis. [59] The operation of qualified-majority voting in the Council, its reform in the Nice Treaty and the absolute-majority requirement for the second reading in the EP seem to confirm these predictions. [60] Consociationalism also depicts governmental action to counteract the transnational activity that springs as a result of integration. States try to keep their respective societies politically divided in order to preserve their power. This explains why EP elections are fought over national issues, why interest representation is still predominantly nation-based, the democratic deficit and the absence of a European demos. [61]
Alternatively, European integration can be narrated as an institutional arrangement brought about by broader changes in global capitalism and statehood that require new modes of government. The EU may be a useful tool for states to organize “the conditions for governance” through “the judicious mixing of market, hierarchy, and networks to achieve the best possible outcomes.” [62] Bob Jessop calls it “metagovernance,” a word choice which is yet another recognition that “governance” is not a brand-new phenomenon. Once again, what it tells us is that states do more “steering” and less “rowing.” Either way, they still retain considerable leverage. Most of all because decisions, regardless of how they are formulated, necessarily need authority to enforce and be held accountable for them.

NOTES

1. Bob Jessop, “Multi-Level Governance and Metagovernance,” in Ian Bache and Matthew Flinders (eds.), Multi-Level Governance (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 57. [↩]
2. Ben Rosamond, Theories of European Integration (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000), p. 109. [↩]
3. Schuman Declaration, cited ibid., p. 52. [↩]
4. See ibid., pp. 50–65. [↩]
5. Cited ibid., p. 143. [↩]
6. See ibid., p 138. [↩]
7. See ibid., p. 111. [↩]
8. See Stephen George, “Multi-Level Governance and the European Union,” in Bache and Flinders, Multi-Level Governance, pp. 113–5. [↩]
9. Moravcsik, cited in Rosamond, Theories of European Integration, p. 137. [↩]
10. Ibid., p. 124. [↩]
11. Christopher K. Ansell, cited in Jessop, “Multi-Level Governance and Metagovernance,” p. 60. [↩]
12. James G. March and Johan P. Olsen, Elaborating the “New Institutionalism,” Working Paper, No. 11, March 2005, p. 4. [↩]
13. Ibid., p. 10. [↩]
14. Ibid., p. 5. [↩]
15. Hall and Taylor, cited in Rosamond, Theories of European Integration, p. 119. [↩]
16. Edward Cunningham, based on Peter M. Haas, “Introduction: Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination IO,” 46:1, Winter 1992. [↩]
17. See Mikael Sundström, “A Brief Introduction: What is an Epistemic Community?,” 2000. Available at http://www.svet.lu.se/joluschema/epistcomm.pdf [↩]
18. Rosamond, Theories of European Integration, p. 125. [↩]
19. Governance in the European Union: A White Paper, Commission of the European Communities, 2001. Available at http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/site/en/com/2001/com2001_0428en01.pdf [↩]
20. Ibid., p. 11. [↩]
21. Ibid., p. 3. [↩]
22. Ibid., p. 7. [↩]
23. Ibid., p. 8. [↩]
24. The following discussion is largely based on Guenther F. Schaefer, “Demystifying Comitology,” in EIPASCOPE, (special issue) 2006, pp. 47–52. [↩]
25. “Expert groups explained,” the European Commission website, http://ec.europa.eu/transparency/regexpert/faq/faq.cfm?aide=2. Accessed January 10, 2007. [↩]
26. Simon Hix, The Political System of the European Union (Basingstoke, U.K.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), p. 223. [↩]
27. See ibid., pp. 108–9. [↩]
28. Ibid., p. 228. [↩]
29. See ibid., p. 82. [↩]
30. See ibid., p. 49. [↩]
31. Joe Painter, cited in Shore, European Governance or Governmentality? Reflections of the Career of a Concept, Unpublished paper, 2006, pp. 9-10. [↩]
32. What is governance?, the European Commission website, http://ec.europa.eu/governance/index_en.htm. Accessed January 12, 2007. Emphasis added. [↩]
33. Shore, European Governance or Governmentality?, p. 14. [↩]
34. Hix, The Political System of the European Union, p. 231. [↩]
35. See ibid., pp. 225–7. [↩]
36. See Rosamond, Theories of European Integration, p. 66. [↩]
37. Hix, The Political System of the European Union, p. 223. [↩]
38. See ibid., p. 90. [↩]
39. See Rosamond, Theories of European Integration, pp. 135–41. [↩]
40. See Jessop, “Multi-Level Governance and Metagovernance,” pp. 63–9. [↩]
41. Ibid., p. 68. [↩]
42. James N. Rosenau, “Strong Demand, Huge Supply,” in Bache and Flinders, Multi-Level Governance, pp. 34–5 [↩]
43. See Rosamond, Theories of European Integration, pp. 138–9. [↩]
44. See ibid., pp. 140–1. [↩]
45. Shore, European Governance or Governmentality?, p. 3. [↩]
46. Luigi Cominelli, L’internazionalizzazione della pubblica amministrazione, Scuola Superiore della Pubblica Amministrazione, Rapporto di ricerca, 5-7. [↩]
47. See ibid., pp. 11–2; 17–20. [↩]
48. See B. Guy Peters and Jon Pierre, “Multi-Level Governance and Democracy: A Faustian Bargain?,” in Bache and Flinders, Multi-Level Governance, pp. 86–7. [↩]
49. See George, “Multi-Level Governance and the European Union,” pp. 123–4. [↩]
50. Peters and Pierre, “Multi-Level Governance and Democracy,” p. 85. [↩]
51. Ibid., p. 88. [↩]
52. Cited in Rosamond, Theories of European Integration, p. 140. [↩]
53. See Peters and Pierre, “Multi-level Governance and Democracy,” p. 86. [↩]
54. Rosenau, “Strong Demand, Huge Supply,” p. 40. [↩]
55. Ibid., p. 43. Emphasis added. [↩]
56. Cited in Shore, European Governance or Governmentality?, p. 10. [↩]
57. See Rosamond, Theories of European Integration, pp. 139–40. [↩]
58. See ibid., p. 140. [↩]
59. See ibid., pp. 149–50. [↩]
60. See Hix, The Political System of the European Union, pp. 83–9; 96–9. [↩]
61. See ibid., pp. 192–6; 206–7. [↩]
62. Jessop, “Multi-Level Governance and Metagovernance,” p. 70. [↩]