Confederacy for now: European (dis)integration as virtuous circle or vicious cycle?

Working paper


Corkin, J. 2019. Confederacy for now: European (dis)integration as virtuous circle or vicious cycle? Leuven European Commission.
TypeWorking paper
TitleConfederacy for now: European (dis)integration as virtuous circle or vicious cycle?
AuthorsCorkin, J.
Abstract

This paper contrasts three visions of European (dis)integration – nationalist, federalist and confederalist – to conclude that Europeans need not choose between a disintegrative nationalism, or the excessive juridification and hierarchy of a state-like European federal order that subsumes their states into a supranational constitutional unity. The confederal alternative offers a constitutional theory of the EU that respects the historical contingency of the nation state, as Europeans’ chosen vehicle for democratic self-determination – an undeniable sociological constraint on integration – without reifying the nation state in the way that nationalism does. It reads the EU and its members instead as combining to “complete” one another’s constitutionality, in a non-state-like constitutional construct that integrates states (not peoples) through a precarious balance of supranational law and intergovernmental politics. This order obliges them to forgo unfettered sovereignty, reining in their tendency to discount the effects of their democratic self-determination on equally democratically legitimated neighbours when exercising national legal independence in a factually interdependent world.
While the EU cannot constitutionalise itself into a legitimate sovereign through procedural engineering alone, the better its procedures are, the more Europeans will accept it as a legitimate part of a confederal order that, on the one hand, acknowledges their desire to go on realising their democratic self-determination primarily through national political communities, but on the other, insists they submit the external effects thereof to at least some supranational scrutiny, while also enabling them to make some law together on matters that have moved beyond their unilateral reach. Their sense of connection – their cross-border solidarity and justice, perhaps even the idea that they might one day become a single European people – grows through the process of respecting one another’s legal independence by tempering their own, and by making some law together; all through processes that they deem legitimate for the purpose. If the EU gets it wrong – unnecessarily and counter-productively forcing the issue with a vision of integration that is too federalist – it runs the risk of achieving the opposite: a disintegrative vicious cycle, instead of an integrative virtuous circle.

PublisherEuropean Commission
Place of publicationLeuven
Publication dates
Print30 Nov 2019
Publication process dates
Deposited28 Nov 2019
Accepted26 Nov 2019
Output statusPublished
Additional information

RECONNECT Working Paper No. 5

Web address (URL)https://reconnect-europe.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/RECONNECT-WP5.pdf
LanguageEnglish
Permalink -

https://repository.mdx.ac.uk/item/88q38

  • 33
    total views
  • 0
    total downloads
  • 0
    views this month
  • 0
    downloads this month

Export as

Related outputs

The liberal order: holed below the waterline or a ship that we can rebuild at sea?
Corkin, J. 2019. The liberal order: holed below the waterline or a ship that we can rebuild at sea? in: Ahmed, T. and Fahey, E. (ed.) On Brexit: Law, Justices and Injustices Edward Elgar Publishing. pp. 253-271
Endogenous transformation in European public administration: soft-law, transnationally-networked governance as a self-reinforcing trend
Corkin, J. and Boeger, N. 2014. Endogenous transformation in European public administration: soft-law, transnationally-networked governance as a self-reinforcing trend. in: Bohne, E., Graham, J., Raadschelders, J. and Lehrke, J. (ed.) Public Administration and the Modern State: Assessing Trends and Impact Palgrave Macmillan UK. pp. 223-237
Experimenting constitutionalism in the EU: co-ordinating legal difference through mutual recognition, mutual law and mutual learning
Corkin, J. 2014. Experimenting constitutionalism in the EU: co-ordinating legal difference through mutual recognition, mutual law and mutual learning. in: Joerges, C. and Glinski, C. (ed.) The European Crisis and the Transformation of Transnational Governance: Authoritarian Managerialism versus Democratic Governance Hart. pp. 359-382
Accountability and the new separation of powers
Corkin, J. 2016. Accountability and the new separation of powers. in: ten Napel, H. and Voermans, W. (ed.) The Powers that Be: Rethinking the Separation of Powers Leiden University Press. pp. 89-110
Refining relative authority: the judicial branch in the new separation of powers
Corkin, J. 2018. Refining relative authority: the judicial branch in the new separation of powers. in: Mendes, J. and Venzke, I. (ed.) Allocating Authority: Who Should do What in European and International Law? Hart. pp. 159-182
Who, then, in [European] law, is my neighbour? Limiting the argument from external effects
Corkin, J. 2017. Who, then, in [European] law, is my neighbour? Limiting the argument from external effects. in: Bardutzky, S. and Fahey, E. (ed.) Framing the Subject and Objects of Contemporary EU Law Edward Elgar Publishing . pp. 72-102
Institutional path-dependencies in Europe’s networked modes of governance
Boeger, N. and Corkin, J. 2017. Institutional path-dependencies in Europe’s networked modes of governance. JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies. 55 (5), pp. 974-992. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.12546
Evaluation of BEREC and the BEREC Office
Pierre, P., Hanssens, S., Szenci, K., Kauffmann, A., Simpson, S., Boeger, N. and Corkin, J. 2012. Evaluation of BEREC and the BEREC Office. European Commission.
The resilience of sector-specific regulation in the liberalized sectors: structural necessities or institutional inertias?
Boeger, N. and Corkin, J. 2013. The resilience of sector-specific regulation in the liberalized sectors: structural necessities or institutional inertias? in: Heide-Jørgensen, C., Neergaard, U., Poulsen, S. and Bergqvist, C. (ed.) Aims and Values in Competition Law Djoef.
Are expert networks driving the trend towards soft transnational coordination?
Corkin, J. and Boeger, N. 2013. Are expert networks driving the trend towards soft transnational coordination? in: Jurcys, P., Kjaer, P. and Yatsunami, R. (ed.) Regulatory hybridisation in the transnational sphere De Gruyter Brill.
How regulatory networks shaped institutional reform under the EU telecoms framework
Boeger, N. and Corkin, J. 2012. How regulatory networks shaped institutional reform under the EU telecoms framework. Cambridge Yearbook of European Legal Studies. 14, pp. 49-73. https://doi.org/10.5235/152888712805580462
Reconciling European integration and national sovereignty with a conflict of laws method: conceptually compelling, practically problematical?
Corkin, J. 2009. Reconciling European integration and national sovereignty with a conflict of laws method: conceptually compelling, practically problematical? in: Nickel, R. (ed.) Conflict of laws and laws of conflict in Europe and beyond: patterns of supranational and transnational juridification Oslo, Norway Advanced Research on the Europeanisation of the Nation-State (ARENA).
Constitutionalism in 3D: mapping and legitimating our lawmaking underworld
Corkin, J. 2013. Constitutionalism in 3D: mapping and legitimating our lawmaking underworld. European Law Journal. 19 (5), pp. 636-661. https://doi.org/10.1111/eulj.12019
Misappropriating citizenship: the limits of corporate social responsibility
Corkin, J. 2008. Misappropriating citizenship: the limits of corporate social responsibility. in: Boeger, N., Murray, R. and Villiers, C. (ed.) Perspectives on corporate social responsibility Cheltenham Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd..
European law as conflicts law: the implications for individual autonomy.
Corkin, J. 2006. European law as conflicts law: the implications for individual autonomy. in: Furrer, A. (ed.) Europäisches Privatrecht im wissenschaftlichen Diskurs. Bern Stämpfli.
Science, legitimacy and the law: regulating risk regulation judiciously in the European Community
Corkin, J. 2008. Science, legitimacy and the law: regulating risk regulation judiciously in the European Community. European Law Review. 33.