Political europeanisation

Abstract

This chapter furthers an exploration of domestic actors’ contributions to the process of Europeanisation. More specifically, it seeks to explain how the activities of the domestic actors tend either to accelerate or decelerate the process. In order to do so, it is organised into three sections. The first section explores the tactics and strategies that both catalysts and antagonists tapped into in the achievement of their aims. The second section looks at the barriers that have been faced by the domestic actors in each country. Finally, the chapter concludes by discussing the capacity of each different domestic agent group to influence the policy-making process, together with their limits, in order to contribute to the view that Europeanisation is a twofold process, which comprises both the push from the EU and the pull by the domestic actors. While the previous chapter found that it was the social norms and values that mostly shaped the domestic actors’ perceptions of the Europeanisation of WFLR, this chapter contends that it is rational choice institutionalism (RCI) that dominates domestic actors’ inputs to the process. Yet, that is not to say that domestic actors have become completely rational actors throughout the process. Shared norms and values still continue to play a salient role, especially while forming collaborations. Domestic actors consciously prefer to collaborate with the players that they see as ideologically close to themselves. In other words, it is still sociological institutionalism (SI) that forms the collaborations among different domestic actors. This finding relates to the key aim of the chapter, which is to explore the behaviour, and suggests that domestic actors are likely to leave their social norms and values aside to a certain degree and act more rationally in order to reach their initial goal.