When the outcome is in the process: a multilevel account of European integration dynamics

Abstract
Setting itself against existing theories of European integration, the presentation shows that integration dynamics can only be fully understood within a process of interaction and reciprocal feedback between actors at different levels of governance. The presentation further aims to address the false divide in studies of the European Union, between research on its coming about, and that on its functioning. Thus, the aim of the argument is two-fold. First, it consists in shedding light on possible integration paths by which interaction and reverberation effects between developments set in place by actors at different governance levels are essential to explaining integration dynamics. Second, it connects different paths of integration to the nature of European integration itself. Looking more specifically into one multi-level model of integration, called here ‘reversed intergovernmentalism’, the argument shows that final integration outcomes, both in terms of governance level and policy, correspond, in fact, to nothing any of the actors involved had initially intended.

Biography of the Speaker
Annabelle Littoz-Monnet is now Assistant Professor at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. She obtained her PhD in Politics at the University of Oxford in 2003. She was Assistant Professor in European Studies at the Central European University, Budapest, between 2005–2009. In 2007 she published The European Union and Culture: between economic regulation and European cultural policy (Manchester University Press). Her current research interests include European integration theory, European citizenship and constitutional patriotism, EU cultural policy and the European politics of commemoration.