Presentation
Conflicts around sovereignty form the core of the scholarly and lay narratives on European integration. More integration at the EU level is associated with a transfer of sovereignty from nation states to supranational institutions. Resistance to ‘ever closer union’ is taken as evidence of a reassertion of national sovereignty.
This project is premised upon the original hypothesis that the existential crisis faced by the EU over last decade is not a product of a conflict between national sovereignty and supranational institutions but rather the result of conflicts at the national level between different conceptions of national sovereignty, specifically the struggle between popular and parliamentary visions of national sovereignty.
This project will empirically test this hypothesis using three paradigmatic cases: constitutional reform in Poland regarding the rule of law, ratification of the EU Canada Comprehensive Trade Agreement (CETA) in Belgium and the UK’s decision to leave the EU (Brexit).
The project will combine documentary research and process tracing with semi-structured elite interviews and a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the discourse over sovereignty articulated by the relevant parties.
Promoters
- Christopher Bickerton, Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Cambridge
- Nathalie Brack, Ramona Coman and Amandine Crespy, Department of Political Science, ULB
Thanks to the Foundation’s support, Julia Rone has been hired as a postdoctoral researcher to work on this project.
Publication: Sovereignty in Conflict Political, Constitutional and Economic Dilemmas in the EU (Springer 2023) > read more.