1.1. Horizontal Europeanisation
The economic, legal and political integration of Europe has not only transformed the economies and polities of European nation-states, it has also changed the social life of European citizens. While in the post-war period social life primarily took place within the framework of nation-states, the European integration process broke open hitherto largely nationally regulated and delimited social fields and the national space that shaped the everyday life of citizens. European integration has fostered increasing cross-border contacts and a stronger transnationalisation of social interactions, attitudes and interpretations. Europe and more particularly the countries belonging to the European Union (EU) are evolving into a social space characterised by dense transnational social, political, administrative and economic relations. In contrast to the vertical Europeanisation of domestic policies, this can be designated as the horizontal Europeanisation of social life. It has transformed patterns of social relations and practices in Europe by increasing cross-border interactions and relationships between Europeans, by increasing Europeansâ awareness of the state of affairs in other countries and by enabling the free movement of people and goods between EU countries.
This growing interconnectedness and interdependence in the transnationalised fields of academic, professional, administrative and industrial relations as well as in the transnationalised social space of private individuals has given rise to not only new forms of transnational cooperation, but also to new conflicts and cleavages among European citizens. On the one side, European integration has created new cleavages because some citizens feel attachment to and benefit from the open borders, while other Europeans are more locally or nationally oriented, less mobile and more critical towards Europe, as indicated by the rise of protectionist-nationalist movements and the erosion of trust in the EU institutions and national elites during the recent eurozone, illiberal democracy, Brexit and refugee crises. This transnational cleavage between the winners and losers of Europeanisation is also shaping an emerging conflict between the protagonists and antagonists of increased transnational solidarity (for example concerning the redistribution of the costs of European integration). On the other side, transnational challenges and conflicts not only increase the need for cross-border cooperation, but also an awareness of its necessity. The current European crises might therefore not only give rise to transnational conflicts and cleavages, but also to collaborative efforts in dealing with the resulting challenges and interdependencies. Consequently, in some social fields and in the everyday world of citizens, which the authors of this volume designate as social space, there are indicators for the rise of transnational interaction, collaboration and solidarity.
Both the transnationalisation of social conflicts and cleavages and closer transnational interdependencies and cooperation reflect a fundamental societal transformation in Europe, the Europeanisation of the social space and social fields. This book focuses on horizontal Europeanisation processes in academic, bureaucratic, professional and associational fields, as well as the related conflicts and their impact on patterns of social inequality. In addition, the authors of this volume look at the Europeanisation of the social space, focusing specifically on the transnationalisation of human mobility, solidarity and perceptions of social inequalities. The theoretical framework underlying this book departs from the concepts of the social space and social fields proposed by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu.
1.2. Structure of the book
In addition to new research material, this book also offers a novel analytical approach. The empirical research material, which the authors of this volume are going to comprehensively present for the first time in this book, consists of detailed empirical analyses of Europeanisation processes for three facets of the social space (solidarity, networks and inequality) and in four social fields. This novel analytical approach explains the transformation of the national space and social fields on the basis of increasingly open social borders and emerging transnational patterns of conflicts, cleavages and cooperation.
In Chapter 2, the editor will present the theoretical framework underpinning this volume. Chapter 2 starts with a review of the state of the art in the sociology of European integration, followed by our own approach that is based on the concepts of the social space and social fields to capture the dynamics and contested nature of horizontal Europeanisation. The process of European integration has fostered cross-border contacts among Europeans and thereby an increasing transnationalisation of social interactions, practices, interpretations and organisational strategies. Complementary to the âverticalâ political integration of the EU, this can be termed âhorizontal Europeanisationâ. This concept refers to the transnationalisation of both social fields (often as a result of EU policies and the related opportunities that are strategically exploited by individual and collective actors) and of the social space, as indicated by a transnationalisation of practices, attitudes and membership of social classes. This chapter proposes a set of conceptual tools for analysing the horizontal Europeanisation of social fields and the social space as the contested outcomes of bargaining processes and symbolic conflicts between domestic and cosmopolitan actors. It identifies four Europeanisation modes based on the usage of financial resources, power, norms and discourses. It furthermore highlights both commonalities and differences between the Europeanisation of social fields and of the social space. The chapter advocates a closer look at societal transformations induced by European integration, particularly cleavages and conflicts between the winners and losers of Europeanisation, multiple territorial frames of references and the Europeanisation of social inequalities.
In Chapter 3, JĂźrgen Gerhards, ZsĂłfia S. IgnĂĄcz, Florian K. Kley, Holger Lengfeld and Maximilian Priem discuss how strong European welfare solidarity is. The Great Recession and the ensuing eurozone crisis especially affected citizens in Southern European countries reliant on national welfare state provision. These developments have made the question of whether citizens support European welfare solidarity all the more salient. European welfare solidarity is a form of solidarity that transcends the nation-state and refers to solidarity with citizens of other European countries in the form of welfare state policies. The authors define different criteria for determining the strength of European welfare solidarity. Based on a public opinion survey conducted in 13 European countries, they then investigate the extent to which European citizens are willing to help vulnerable Europeans. Their main findings are that the overwhelming majority of respondents support social security measures at the European level. Affluent, right-leaning individuals who do not identify with the European Union are the primary opponents of European welfare solidarity. However, respondents from countries with well-performing economies and moderate inequalities also oppose solidarity measures. All in all, Gerhards et al. observe a high level of European welfare solidarity in the 13 countries surveyed, along with cultural and structural cleavages emerging in regard to the degree of this support.
Building on the transactionalist paradigm, in Chapter 4 Jan Delhey, Monika Verbalyte, Auke Aplowski and Emanuel Deutschmann analyse cross-border migration as a prime example of horizontal Europeanisation. The authors argue that expanding mobility rights for Europeans, combined with the European Unionâs territorial enlargements, contributed to the emergence of a more tight-knit and largely unified European social space. Using international migration data from 1960 to 2017 and applying social network analysis, their evidence indeed suggests advancing Europeanisation: The European migration network became more tight-knit over time; mobile Europeans increasingly prefer to stay within Europe; and from a global perspective, a distinct European migration cluster emerged in the 1970s and constantly grew until 2010 (since then, this trend has been reversed, mainly as a consequence of the influx of refugees from neighbouring conflict zones). Delhey et al. also investigate the internal structure of the intra-European migration network. It is characterised by a clear and persistent division into core (chiefly Western) countries and periphery (chiefly Eastern) countries. Most importantly, this sociometric core-periphery structure currently maps Europeâs economic hierarchy more closely than ever since the dissolution of the Eastern bloc. The authors suggest that this development at least complicates one important goal of the EU, namely to reach socioeconomic convergence among Member States. Overall, the results of Chapter 4 suggest that while the political integration of Europe contributed to the growing together of European societies via cross-border migration, this emerging European social space continues to be shaped by internal inequalities and is exposed to external influences.
In Chapter 5, Martin Heidenreich, Sven Broschinski and Matthias Pohlig discuss economic, political and cultural-cognitive influences on inner-European social inequalities and their perception. The common market has especially contributed to a decades-long economic convergence among the EU Member States. Since the financial and eurozone crises, however, income inequalities between Northern and Southern EU Member States have been rising again. In addition, income inequalities within EU Member States are growing, in particular in the Southern countries. As a consequence of the political management of the eurozone crisis, the already high levels of labour market segmentation â particularly in the Southern European labour markets â continued to grow during the eurozone crisis. Low-skilled and younger employees are strongly and negatively affected by the monetary union in which the labour market has become the main buffer against economic shocks. On the cognitive-cultural dimension, transnational standards of evaluation and also the impact of EU decisions on labour markets shape perceptions of economic stress. Thus, the chapter observes a clear and sometimes negative impact of European integration on the life circumstances of Europeans. This may explain the erosion of support for the EU.
In Chapter 6, Susanne Pernicka, Vera Glassner, Nele Dittmar and Klaus Neundlinger seek to better understand the contested Europeanisation of wage bargaining fields in the metal industry against the background of the global financial and European sovereign debt crises that unfolded after 2008. A key explanatory factor of (the lack of) their Europeanisation is the symbolic violence emanating from the European field of power. Given the higher appreciation of market competition in relation to collective solutions in governing the EU economy and wage setting being a competency of national bargaining actors, the authors of this chapter expect weak horizontal Europeanisation processes of collective bargaining fields. Research findings illustrate how the appreciation of German and Austrian collective bargaining fields can be converted by associational actors to reinforce field autonomy, albeit with varying degrees of institutional conversion (organised decentralisation) and erosion (shrinking bargaining coverage). In contrast, Italian collective bargaining agents had to undertake enormous efforts to compensate for their weak position within the European field of power. Unlike associational actors in Portugal or Spain, Italian agents were able to mobilise domestic resources, including the still relatively strong dispositions of trade unions and employersâ associations in favour of collective bargaining, to avoid a complete decentralisation of collective bargaining.
In Chapter 7, Vincent Gengnagel, Stephanie Beyer, Christian Baier and Richard MĂźnch analyse the European Research Council as an example of a European contribution to a global academic capitalism. For EU integration to gain traction as a socially significant process, the academic field is also required to convey its specific authority and actively invest significant amounts of its respective symbolic capital into âEuropeâ. This, in turn, cannot be vertically imposed, but requires the mobilisation of an academic sense of autonomy. Against this backdrop, the European Research Council (ERC), as the most respected representative of European academic excellence, is crucial for legitimating European research policy in academia, and thus makes for a perfect case study to trace processes of Europeanisation at the very core of academic autonomy. In doing so, this chapter presents a field-theoretical analysis of the transformation of science in Europe through the rise of academic capitalism, drawing on both qualitative and quantitative research. The authors analyse (a) how the ERC targets the construction of a European framework for academic competition and acts as a lever to open up national fields; (b) how this competition inherently creates inequalities and furthers existing status hierarchies; and (c) ultimately acts as a catalyst for a globally dominant form of academic capitalism under the US hegemony that it is supposed to challenge.
In Chapter 8, Christian Lahusen and Marius Wacker discuss the administrative cooperation of asylum agencies in the Dublin system as an example of a European field of public administration. In recent years, the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) has come under particular strain. Public and scientific debates have focused on political conflicts regarding adequate policy responses to forced migration, but have largely ignored the cross-national work of public administrations in this policy field. This chapter takes a closer look at the âDublin systemâ, which was established to allocate responsibilities for reviewing asylum applications within the EU+ territory. The authors discuss three questions: Has this system established a stable field of administrative cooperation? How is the division of labour structured cross-nationally? Which rationale governs this field? The chapter shows that the asylum agencies of âDublin Member Statesâ have indeed established a transnational bureaucratic field. Available data on the exchanges within the Dublin system have demonstrated that this field is patterned by core-periphery structures of cooperation. While administrations operate in the shadow of political contentions, this chapter shows that administrative cooperation is governed by a bureaucratic rationale with its own rules, challenges and contentions.
In Chapter 9, Sebastian M. BĂźttner, Steffen Mau, Lucia Leopold and Katharina Zimmermann analyse the features and obstacles of domestic EU professionals. Starting from field-analytical premises, this chapter examines the variety of EU professionals in local contexts and their role in the course of Europeanisation. The authors outline three major types of professional practices in local contexts (bargaining, executing and communicating EU affairs) which characterise different groups of domestic EU professionals. Major challenges and limitations of the professional intermediation of EU affairs in national and local contexts are also discussed. This contributes to an understanding of why the EU is still widely considered to be alien and dissociated from ordinary citizens, despite the fact that it now extends widely into the Member States.
In the concluding Chapter 10, Martin Heidenreich and Jenny Preunkert compare the patterns of horizontal Europeanisation in the previously analysed social fields and in the social space. This comparison discusses to what extent and in which ways cross-border patterns of interaction, interpretation and attitudes develop in the respective social field or space, which conflicts and bargaining processes take place between the organisations and individuals involved and how the seven Europeanisation processes analysed in Chapters 3 to 9 shape social practices, living conditions and interpretations of social inequalities. This conclusion in particular highlights the conflicts between the winners and losers of Europeanisation and the reinforcement of centre-periphery structures in Europe.
