Reforming European institutions of governance

Abstract:

The European Union has combined a belief in institutional engineering with the experience that comprehensive reform is difficult to achieve. The long-term development has been in a consistent direction. Yet, the history of the Union is one of founding acts and deliberate institution-building, as well as informal and gradual institutional evolution where common practices have been codified into formal-legal institutions. Institutional arrangements are contingent and malleable, but not necessarily in a voluntaristic way. A simple model of institutional engineering, assuming predetermined political will, understanding and power, is not likely to capture processes of comprehensive reform in complex and dynamic political orders like the EU. This does not deny that there are several options for deliberate intervention in existing structures. EU reformers may both reduce the need for reform and make reform more feasible.