The Dynamic of Institutions Establishment: State Aids, the European Commission, and the European Court of Justice

Abstract : This work takes a dynamic perspective on institution building and studies the interactions between the European Commission and the European Court of Justice in the construction of the European Union. We focus on how these two bodies attempt to strengthen their legitimacy by making decisions. The Commission is mandated to deepen the EU integration, while the Court is aimed at establishing the rule of law. To do so we focus on the decision of both bodies related to state aids; i.e. subsidies granted by national governments in favor economics players involved in the provision of services related infrastructures. Relying on an original database covering all state aids programs (6,000) between 2000 and 2015, we show that the Commission tends to reject programs originating from countries who are resistant to the EU integration. On the other hand, we show that when firms or national governments appeal the decision made by the Commission, the reversal of the Commission decision by the European Court of Justice is positively correlated with the transposition deficit. Since the Commission acts before the Court, we interpret these two results as evidences showing that the Commission is actually biased against countries with greater resistance to European integration, while the Court corrects the bias created by the Commission. Overall our analysis suggests that both institutions make their decision according to their different mandates.

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Should Immigrants Culturally Assimilate or Preserve Their Own Culture? Host-society Natives' Beliefs and the Longevity of National Identity

Abstract : We develop and empirically test a theory concerning host-society natives' beliefs about whether immigrants should culturally assimilate into the host society or preserve their own cultural norms. We argue that when national identity is a source of intrinsic utility, the longevity of national identity influences a national identity's perceived resilience to an ostensible immigrant threat and, thus, affects natives' beliefs about the need for immigrants' cultural assimilation. Empirical evidence based on data from countries of wider Europe supports our theory. An expert survey-based measure of the longevity of national identity, first, exhibits a robustly negative effect on the strength of natives' preferences in favor of immigrants' cultural assimilation and, second, is an important contextual moderating variable that shapes the effect of individual-level characteristics on their beliefs. Thus, host-society natives' beliefs about the necessity of immigrants' cultural assimilation versus accommodation of cultural diversity reflect a historically-rooted sense of national identity.

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Whose Values Support European Institutions? Inter- and Intra Country Value Polarization in Europe

Abstract : According to the Lisbon Treaty, the European Union has been founded on a set of shared liberal, cosmopolitan values. This image of European societies has been increasingly challenged by those that see a Christian tradition as the cornerstone of European identity, or those that deny that European nations have much in common at all. In this paper, we ask to what extent the European population supports the image of Europe that is portrayed in the Lisbon Treaty. Using WVS data from 26 European nations, we analyse the beliefs people hold on a selection of defining topics and first find that all people can be described based on three archetypes, each representing an ideal-typical configuration of values, attitudes and beliefs with which people more or less identify. While one of these archetypes (which we label ‘the post-modern liberal’) reflects the liberal, cosmopolitan set of values espoused in the Lisbon Treaty, the other two archetypes (religious conservative and leftist conservative) conjure up images of Europe that are decidedly less liberal. Each individual is a combination of these extremes, with most people tending towards the conservative types forming the majority of the European population. Secondly, we find that the fault lines between people run across member states rather than between them. People resembling each archetype can be observed in each and every member state individually, although they differ in their degree of prominence in different countries. We conclude that the vision of society underpinning the European project is not widely shared among the European population. What is more, the contestation of European identity takes place within rather than between member states, and occurs along similar lines in each of them. Inter-country differences are actually relatively small compared to intra-country heterogeneity. European societies are united in sharing the same diversity.

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