The Politicization and Legitimacy of Regional Integration: A Cross-National and Longitudinal Approach

Public lecture by ACCESS EUROPE Visiting Professor Ruud Koopmans

Lecture

In this presentation, Professor Ruud Koopmans investigates the legitimacy and politicization of regional international organizations from a comparative perspective. Distinguishing performatory (output) and procedural (input) dimensions of legitimacy, he argues that, as the authority of regional organizations expands, both dimensions will become increasingly politicized, indicated by declining levels of support for concrete policies and regional actors and increased opposition against further expansions of authority. At the same time, because the expansion of regional authority benefits some actors more than others, opinions on regional policies and institutions will become increasingly polarized.

To empirically investigate these issues, he uses claims making data that allow comparisons along several dimensions. The data are drawn from two large projects: Europub (see Europub website), which focuses on European integration in the period 1980-2002, and CosmoCom (The Political Sociology of Cosmopolitanism and Communitarianism; see WZB website), which investigates emergent political cleavage around transnationalization in Germany, Poland, Turkey, Mexico and the United States in the period 2007-2011.

Koopmans first compares the politicization of the European Union in the EU 15 and EU12 countries as well as Turkey to politicization of NAFTA in the United States and Mexico. Second, he compares the politicization of regional organizations to politicization in the national politics of these countries, which serves as an important benchmark for determining whether politicization and polarization around international organizations should be seen as a sign of crisis or of democratic maturity. Third, within the European Union context, he compares trends of politicization and polarization over a period of three decades (1980-2011). Fourth and finally, he compares the positions of actors (party and non-party) on regional integration issues.  

He concludes that expansions of authority of regional organizations produce political spillover in the form of increased politicization and polarization. This may threaten regional integration projects altogether but also provides chances for their democratic consolidation.

About Ruud Koopmans

Professor Ruud Koopmans is director of the research unit "Migration, Integration, Transnationalization" at the Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB) and Professor of Sociology and Migration Research at the Humboldt University of Berlin. His research interests are: Immigration and integration politics; Right-wing radicalism; Social movements; European integration; Evolutionary sociology. He has published widely on these topics. Recent articles have been published in West European Politics, European Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, Political Psychology and Annual Review of Sociology. From 18 to 25 June, he is ACCESS EUROPE Visiting Professor for the "European Politics and Society" theme.

Published by  ACCESS EUROPE