Cultural diversity in post-Maastricht Europe

Abstract:

This article asks whether regional integration affects socially sensitive policies, representative of the cultural idiosyncrasies of a country. It looks at Nordic (Finnish and Swedish) alcohol control policy and Dutch drug policy to explore this question. Second, it will evaluate the explanatory power of two competing approaches to European integration - state-centric theories and multilevel governance models - in addressing the case of diminishing cultural diversity. It concludes by noting that the real agent of change is the movement of goods and people and that neither state-centric nor multi-level governance models fully explain the cases of alcohol and drug policy. Rather, these two examples from three countries suggest that state officials are able to strike special deals with relevant EU institutions, but that such agreements cannot control the costs of increased mobility related to the success of the Single Market.