The Limits of Europe: Membership Norms and the Contestation of Regional Integration

✍ Scribed by Daniel C. Thomas

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Year: 2022
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 286
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Where does Europe begin and end? How have the European Union and its precursors decided which countries are eligible to join the community and which are not? Few issues are more hotly debated, more important for the course of European integration, or more consequential for individuals in and
around the EU.

As this book demonstrates, the limits of Europe are determined by the values shared at particular moments in time by the leaders of the community's member states, regardless of their particular policy preferences. These membership norms shape the community's decisions on enlargement by empowering
certain political forces and disempowering others. And contrary to conventional wisdom, these norms have changed considerably over time.

The Limits of Europe: Membership Norms and the Contestation of Regional Integration uses a novel combination of normative genealogy, statistical analysis and detailed tracing of EU decision-making on Greece, Spain, Turkey and Ukraine to demonstrate that changing membership norms have had a stronger
impact on the community's enlargement since the 1950s than treaty rules, the location of the states seeking membership, or even the commercial or security interests of member states.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
The Limits of Europe: Membership Norms and the Contestaion of Regional Integration
Copyright
Preface and Acknowledgements
Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
Note on Archival Sources
PART ONE: QUESTIONS AND ARGUMENTS
1: The Question of Membership
1. The question and its significance
2. Insights and gaps in the scholarly literature
3. Defining membership eligibility
4. The argument and alternative explanations, in brief
5. Empirical design and methods
Regional case selection—why study Europe?
Country-caseselection—which cases and why?
Dependent variables and analytical methods
Genealogy of membership norms
Statistical analyses of eligibility positions
Causal-processtracing of eligibility decision-making
6. Plan of the book
2: Explaining Membership Eligibility
1. A constructivist theory of regional community
The nature of regions and regional community
The nature of membership norms
The contestation and evolution of membership norms
External challenge
Internal challenge
Rhetorical inconsistency
Shift in public opinion
How membership norms matter
Normative guidance
Normative empowerment
Membership norms and community decision-making
2. Alternative explanations
Physical geography
Treaty rules
Regime type
Commercial interests
Security interests
3. Conclusions
PART TWO: MEMBERSHIP OUTCOMES
3: The Evolution of EU Membership Norms
1. A community of non-Communiststates, 1957–1961
2. A community of parliamentary democracies, 1962–1969
3. A community of liberal democracies, 1970–2005
4. A divided community, 2006–2020
5. Conclusions
4: EU Membership Eligibility in Statistical and Comparative Perspective
1. Data and methods
2. Explanations and hypotheses
Membership norms
Geography
Treaty rules
Regime type
Commercial interests
Security interests
3. Cross-tabulationanalysis
Membership norms
Geography
Treaty rules
Regime type
Commercial interests
Security interests
4. Discussion of cross-tabulations
5. Logistic regression analysis
6. Qualitative Comparative Analysis
PART THREE: MEMBERSHIP PROCESSES
5: Membership Eligibility in a Europe of Non-CommunistStates, 1957–1961
1. Opening to Greece
2. Opening to Turkey
3. Opening to Spain
4. Conclusions
6: Membership Eligibility in a Europe of Parliamentary Democracies, 1962–1969
1. Rejecting Spain
2. Confirming the opening to Turkey
3. Suspending the opening to Greece
4. Conclusions
7: Membership Eligibility in a Europe of Liberal Democracies, 1970–2005
1. Reopening to Greece
2. Reopening to Spain
3. Reaffirming the opening to Turkey
4. ‘Neither open nor closed’ to Ukraine
5. Conclusions
8: Membership Eligibility in a Divided Europe, 2006—2020
1. Bargaining over the opening to Turkey
2. Bargaining over Ukraine
3. Conclusions
PART FOUR: CONCLUSIONS ANDIMPLICATIONS
9: Rethinking Europe, Rethinking Regions
1. The construction of Europe
Quantitative analyses
Normative eras and decision-makingeffects
An illustration: Greece and Europe over time
Alternative explanatory
2. Understanding regions and regional integration
3. The future of Europe
The future of enlargement
The Turkey question
Differentiated integration and disintegration
The EU as a bastion of liberal democracy
The orientation and effectiveness of EU foreign policy
APPENDIX: Imputing missing Freedom House data from V-Dem data
Bibliography
Index