Using go-it-alone power to overcome intergovernmental deadlock
National vetoes, credible threats, and multi-speed Europe in the British budgetary rebate crisis
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9537510 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Lucas Schramm (0000-0002-3836-0496, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 59 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 847-865 |
| Publication date | 2024-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Acta Politica (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0001-6810 • E-ISSN: 1741-1416 |
| Publisher | Springer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1057/s41269-023-00313-7 |
| OpenAlex | W4387048048 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 24 |
Differentiated integration, and the prospect thereof, is a prominent feature of European integration and policymaking. This article theorizes and demonstrates an explicit link between the threat of differentiated integration and the resolution of major European integration crises. Based on archival sources and secondary literature on differentiated integration, it shows how and why, in June 1984, the United Kingdom and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher agreed to increase the European Community’s (EC) financial resources, despite their years-long insistence on budgetary restraint and their formal right to veto such a decision. The article argues that the prospect of a ‘multi-speed’ Europe, represented by Franco-German ‘go-it-alone’ power, threatened to exclude recalcitrant member states. Lacking more promising alternatives to continued membership in a reformed EC, the British government consented to European financial objectives. It also joined the other national governments towards deeper political integration and, eventually, a European Union, despite its actual rejection of European federal ambitions. The article’s theoretical expectations and empirical findings on ways to overcome intergovernmental deadlock based on formal national veto rights have broader implications also for more recent European integration crises
Comparative politics · Deadlock · Economic policy · Economics · European integration · European union · Financial crisis · Historical institutionalism · Law and economics · Macroeconomics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Veto · European Union Policy and Governance · Law · Political Systems and Governance · Public Administration · Social Policy and Reform Studies
The EU's Decision Traps
Process-Tracing Methods
The Council of Ministers
Ruling the World
Policy-Making and Diversity in Europe
The Thorny British Question
An awkward partner
Common Market Law Review
The Differentiation Paradox of European Integration
The privileged partnership
Differentiated integration in the European Union
Embedded Bilateralism, Integration Theory, and European Crisis Politics
Building ‘Next Generation’ after the pandemic
Preferences and Power in the European Community
Negotiating the Single European Act
The future of the European Community
A high price to pay? Britain and the European budget
Leadership in Hard Times
Bringing together or driving apart the union? Towards a theory of differentiated integration
Re‐Structuring the EC Budget
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |