Rebel governance? A literature review of Boko Haram and the Islamic State in West Africa Province
The literature on rebel governance has fundamentally challenged the idea that ‘governance’ is the sole prerogative of ‘government’. Despite important advances over the past decade, studies have largely addressed rebel governance from an ‘institutionalist’ approach. This review seeks to go beyond an ‘institutionalist’ approach, by understanding ‘governance’ as the ‘whole set of practices and norms that govern daily life in a specific territory’. Drawing on a thorough review of literature on Boko Haram and the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP), this working paper analyses five under-examined independent variables that shape rebel governance in Nigeria’s north-east and Niger: illegitimate state practices, community resilience, and cohesion, external counterinsurgency actions, ‘big men’, and ideology.
Differentiated Integration and EU Outsiders: A Norwegian View
A non-EU state and member of the European Economic Area (EEA) since 1994, Norway enjoys a unique legal, political and practical relationship with the EU. This policy paper discusses what the EU’s increased openness to differentiation in association models and decision-making procedures could mean for a highly integrated third country like Norway, especially within foreign, security and defence policy. Based on interviews conducted in 2020 and 2021, we highlight three observations: First, Norway’s current association model – the EEA agreement plus some 70 bilateral agreements – is generally seen to have served Norwegian interests well, although both Europhile and EU-sceptic interviewees see EU–Norway relations as asymmetric. Second, the EU’s openness to differentiated solutions is generally welcomed, and considered to give Norway opportunities and leeway. Finally, Norwegian EU membership is unlikely to happen in the foreseeable future. Reasons include well-functioning association agreements, two negative votes on EU membership, and the continued and growing strength of EU-sceptic political parties in the Norwegian Parliament.
Heading Forward in Response to Crisis: How the Ukraine Crisis Affected EU Maritime Foreign and Security Policy Integration
This chapter discusses the impact of the Ukraine crisis on EU foreign and security policy integration. It finds that the EU has responded to Russia’s aggression by deepening cooperation in areas not directly linked to Ukraine. Two least likely cases are analyzed: The EU’s Maritime Security Strategy and the EU’s Arctic policies. In both of these cases, agreement among the EU member states to adopt a common EU policy was driven mainly by Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. This crisis functioned as a critical juncture, moving EU security policies to the top of the EU agenda and affecting reluctant member states’ positions in favor of forming common policies. In the foreign policy domain, crisis triggers more integration as the EU member states reactively seek to address common challenges.
EU–US Relations in Times of Crises
In light of the crises discussed in this volume, and US foreign policy shifts under Donald Trump and beyond, scholars and observers have started questioning the viability of the transatlantic relationship and the liberal order more broadly, including its implications for Europe. This chapter asks how crises have affected EU–US relations and what, if any, has been the impact of changing transatlantic relations on EU foreign policy integration. We discuss the transatlantic partners’ increasingly diverging foreign policy orientations following a changing US focus and geopolitical environment. We also examine how the new transnational cleavage influences contemporary and future EU–US relations. We find evidence in support of a weaker EU–US relationship. Findings also suggest that the EU mainly has become more unified in response to this crisis in transatlantic relations.
European Union Crisis: An Introduction
What is the impact of crisis on European Union (EU) integration? This chapter unpacks the concept of crisis and ways to conceptualize it. We outline three conceptual scenarios on the EU’s putative response to crisis and subsequently apply them in all chapters of the volume. The chapter sums up the key findings from different parts of the Handbook on the impact of crisis on EU policies and institutions, as well as the applicability of existing theories. The volume finds overall that the EU has been surprisingly resilient in the face of crises due to its ability to adapt and absorb, and if necessary, change, in response to crisis. The chapter also discusses the EU’s responses to democratic challenges and their broader implications for our wider understanding of the EU polity.
The Financial Crisis: An Introduction
This section discusses the origins of the Eurozone crisis in European Monetary Union before discussing various dimensions of how the Eurozone coped, its impact on integration, and the crisis’ implications for the future of the EU. While the authors all show that the EU’s response to the financial crisis reflected the scenario ‘muddling through,’ they have different perspectives on the future of integration post crisis. Rosén and Olsen point out that the austerity policies implemented after crisis resulted in collective protest movements across Europe. Tranøy and Stenstad highlight the failure of financial sector reforms to reset the social role of finance in a more equitable way. Caporaso analyses the unintended consequences of differentiated integration during crisis by exploring the impact of the Eurozone crisis on Brexit and the migration crisis.
Theoretical Approaches to Crisis: An Introduction
This chapter sums up the key arguments made in this section of the Handbook. The nine chapters discuss essential EU integration and International Relations approaches and how they study, understand, and explain crisis’ putative impact on the EU: Liberal Intergovernmentalism, Classical Realism, Neo-realism, Neofunctionalism, Institutionalism, Organizational Theory, Cleavage Theory, Social constructivism, and Deliberative Theory. For this purpose, each chapter sets out the theory’s basic assumptions before addressing the following questions: (1) How does each theoretical perspective expect crisis to influence EU institutions and policies? What are the causal mechanisms to account for continuity or change in public policy and governing institutions? (2) To what extent has the perspective so far been able to explain change or continuity in the EU in the face of crisis?
Brexit: An Introduction
This section examines the consequences of the United Kingdom (UK)’s decision to leave the EU. Though chapters acknowledge that most will depend on the outcome of the UK–EU negotiations as Brexit will be an unpredictable case of differentiated disintegration. This section offers contributions that aim at stimulating the debate on how Brexit might be understood and analyzed. Will Brexit cause breakdown, heading forward or merely continuous muddling through? The case of Brexit serves as a research laboratory in which we can test existing theories of European integration. Are they able to explain patterns of disintegration equally to integration, or do we need new theoretical and conceptual toolboxes in order to explain European integration in reverse gear.
The Legitimacy Crisis: An Introduction
This section examines how the crisis of democratic legitimacy shapes the prospects for further integration. All the authors find evidence for ‘muddling through’ by the EU in response to its legitimacy crisis. Raube and Costa Reis show how the Commission and European Parliament took incremental steps of starting infringement proceedings against Hungary and Poland in response to breaches in the rule of law by elected populist governments, yet partisanship undermined the EU’s response. Holst and Molander discuss the democratic pitfalls of technocratic decision-making in response to crisis and detail the kinds of reforms needed to enhance accountability and citizen nonexpert participation in policy. De Wilde examines the Eurobarometer polls after recent crises afflicting the EU and considers the long- and short-term effects of crisis on public trust in EU institutions.
The Migration Crisis: An Introduction
In 2015, the EU and its member states struggled to coordinate, communicate, and cooperate on the migration crisis as the chapters in this section show. Schilde and Wallace Goodman point out that while border security contains examples of deeper integration, asylum management policy has followed the scenarios of breaking down and muddling through. All the authors highlight the Dublin convention as particularly ill-devised and thus paving the way for the refugee crisis. Bosilca finds evidence for breaking down in addition to minimal reforms of border security policy that constitute muddling through. Crawford argues that the migration crisis provides evidence both of muddling through and heading forward and is thus more optimistic than either Schilde and Wallace Goodman or Bosilca about the prospects for EU integration in this policy area.