Webster IR Professor, Dr. Jozef Bátora, and colleagues present new book: “Towards a Segmented European Political Order: The European Union’s Post-Crisis Conundrum.”
By Bridget Carter
Photo by Aika Maeda
Last week WVPU International Relations professor Dr. Jozef Bátora and co-editor John Erik Fossum presented their new book “Towards a Segmented European Political Order: The European Union’s Post-Crisis Conundrum” published by Routledge. Other chapter contributors included Bent Sofus Tranøy and Espen D.H. Olsen who also presented their research on segmentation and the EU’s post-crisis dilemma.
Photo by Aika Maeda
The EU has become increasingly differentiated with polarizing views on how to solve past, present, and emerging crises. As frequently discussed in both academic and political circles, the future development of the EU remains unclear. This book argues that post-crises EU is becoming more of a segmented political order with deeply rooted biases and constraints in policy making. The editors show in ideational and structural terms how EU member states constrain and condition EU action, and how this segmented political order manifests itself in the institutional and constitutional make-up of the EU.
Segments in the EU – similar to ‘iron triangles’ we know from political science literature on US policy making from authors such as Allison and Zelikow – represent established patterns of linking participants in policy-making ranging from EU institutions and governments in member states to parliamentary bodies, NGOs, and advocacy groups (see Christensen and Egeberg, 1979). They systematically “organize in”certain solutions to policy problems and “organize out”others. This increases efficacy in implementation of policies but, at the same time, often decreases democratic legitimacy of policy-making.
Segmentation has been growing in the EU as a reaction to crises. So, what exactly encapsulates the EU crisis? Crucial issues include the migration “crisis” beginning in 2015 when high numbers of migrants arrived in Europe. The influx of migration ultimately attracted strong resistance from some European countries (e.g. Hungary), while other countries developed pragmatic and more open approaches to managing the crisis (e.g. Germany, Austria and Sweden). Polarizing views on how to manage the issue made problem-solving a greater challenge.
Secondly, the European debt crisis (i.e. the Eurozone Crisis) that unfolded due to the U.S. financial crash in 2008 haltingly slowed economic growth and hit financial markets world-wide. Since then, EU countries like Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, and Spain have faced pressures on their public finances and banking sectors, thus creating potentially devastating economic ripple effects throughout the region. Sir Mervyn King, head of the Bank of England, alarmingly said the quandary was “the most serious financial crisis at least since the 1930s, if not ever.”
There are various forms of differentiation in response to EU crises, take Brexit for example. There are also various forms of closure in EU policy making – so, as posed by Bátora, “How come some solutions are adopted and others are not, and how do we capture this?” Co-editor Dr. Fossum stepped in to answer this complex question: “We took an inductive approach and combined conceptual methods with analyses,” he said. “We needed a term to capture increasingly differentiated and diverse EU crises responses, so we came up with a ‘segmented political order’.”
Photo by Aika Maeda
Segmentation, as defined by Dr. Bátora, is a stable pattern of linking participants who share common conceptions of problems, solutions, and choice opportunities in which governments, NGOs, private enterprises and political activists are interconnected. Dr. Fossum then introduced two forms of segmental logic: internal market rationality and securitization. Neo-liberal (or ordo-liberal) austerity policy, in relation to internal market rationality, crowds out all other solutions (like those imposed on Greece). Whereas, securitization is the propensity to think of issues and concerns as a matter of security (like Prime Minister Orbán’s anti-migration rhetoric framing migration as a “battlefield”).
Photo by Aika Maeda
As problems develop, new structures and institutional spheres are tailor-made to tackle these dire dilemmas. “Structural mutations of the EU are forming as a reaction to the EU crisis,” noted Bátora. Hybrid interstitial organizations like the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) and the European Union External Action Service are prime examples. But one may find it tricky to concisely define what exactly these hybrid organizations do, much less what they are. To clarify, Bátora defines these interstitial organizations as those emerging in interstices between various organizational fields; recombining physical, informational, financial, legal, and legitimacy resources stemming from organizations belonging to these different organizational fields.
Due to structural and political constraints, it can be challenging to adequately and effectively implement the goals of these hybrid organizations. As a response, hybrid structures like Frontex and the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) are formed to meet this challenge. Though these hybrid structures do not come without faults: unclear and overlapping responsibilities within these organizations make coordinated efforts also a challenge. At the same time, these interstitial organizations become carriers of segments – they provide a platform for coordinated action capability of EU member states but they also encapsulate particular ways of solving crises – "organizing in" certain solutions and "organizing out" others.
While presenting his research titled “What kind of crisis and how to deal with it? The segmented border logic of the European Migration Crisis,” Espen D.H. Olsen stated that we must look at this issue from two angles: structure and agency. “Whose crisis are we looking at?” Olsen rhetorically asked. “The state’s, citizen’s or migrant’s?” These are crucial questions to ask when considering the decision-making process.
As the evidence suggests, the EU as a multi-structured entity is a complex phenomenon that calls for various theoretical approaches for better understanding its problem-solving mechanisms. Bátora and Fossum’s book, “Towards a Segmented European Political Order: The European Union’s Post-Crisis Conundrum,” provides material for both academics and professionals to better grasp the inner workings of the EU as a segmented political order.
Photo by Aika Maeda
Bridget Carter
Co-Founder & Editor in Chief
Co-founder of World Dip magazine, Bridget is an International Relations graduate student at Webster Vienna Private University where her areas of focus include gender dimensions of post-conflict development. She was born in Texas, grew up in California, lived in Bangkok, and now calls Vienna home. Her background in the field of forensic science and journalistic writing give her a unique perspective from which to approach various topics of international relations. Her written work has been featured in Austin Monthly magazine, The Chronicle, The Ten-Twenty, and Metropole magazine.
Aika Maeda
Photographer
Aika is a photographer for World Dip Magazine and an undergraduate student at Webster Vienna Private University. She is from Osaka, Japan and came to Vienna to study Psychology. She does portrait and street photography as her hobby but also enjoys taking photos of university events.
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