The Europeanization of welfare – the domestic impact of intra-European social security

Abstract:

Studies of Europeanization have demonstrated that the impact of European integration differs between Member States and across policies. Although Europeanization research has been expanded and clarified in recent years, we still know relatively little about the factors mediating the national processes of change that thus condition impact. This article examines the impact of European social security integration on national welfare institutions in Denmark and Germany, and it traces the Europeanization process, which may explain the diverging impact of a common input in these two Member States. In order to understand how the same process of integration may cause a diverging impact on national institutions, two sets of mediating factors are examined: firstly, the institutional and de facto exposedness to European integration; and, secondly, the national political, administrative and legal responses to integration. It is argued that these intervening variables are decisive for how common European demands are mediated nationally and are likely to explain impact variations referring to the same cause.