Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://dspace.mediu.edu.my:8181/xmlui/handle/123456789/5590
Title: The Amsterdam Process: A Structurationist Perspective on EU Treaty Reform
Keywords: intergovernmental conferences
constitutional change
Amsterdam Treaty
structuration theory
polity building
administrative adaptation
agency theory
differentiated integration
European law
integration theory
intergovernmentalism
treaty reform
political science
Issue Date: 30-May-2013
Publisher: ECSA-Austria
Description: Intergovernmental Conferences are generally seen as key events in the design of the European Union. This paper challenges this traditional view. Arguing that treaty reform should be regarded as a continuous process rather than a series of events, the paper develops a procedural understanding of constitutional change based on structuration theory. In such a perspective, analytical attention is re-directed from the political limelight of largely ceremonial events to the more obscure 'valleys' the periods between the IGC summits in which the more momentous developments of European integration occur. The study of past instances of constitutional change as well as an analysis of the IGC leading to the Amsterdam Treaty demonstrate the significance of a wider set of actors and of the structural environment: the trajectory of past decisions, the multilateral generation of reform agendas, the institutionalised patterns of negotiation and decision-making and the constitutionalisation of the EU order. This severely limits the ability of national governments to negotiate on the basis of 'national interests' and thus dissolves one of the cornerstones of intergovernmentalism the over-arching significance of IGCs.
URI: http://koha.mediu.edu.my:8181/jspui/handle/123456789/5590
Other Identifiers: http://eiop.or.at/eiop/texte/1999-001.htm
http://www.doaj.org/doaj?func=openurl&genre=article&issn=10275193&date=1999&volume=3&issue=&spage=1
Appears in Collections:Law and Political Science

Files in This Item:
There are no files associated with this item.


Items in DSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.