Browsing: neofunctionalism and intergovernmentalism

Introduction. The European governance is an institutional arrangement enabling the cooperation and the competition among the states, the individuals and the pressure groups looking to maximize their welfare. The European governance system is a multi-level non-hierarchical structure, and authority is shared among the supranational bodies, as well as among the latter and the Member States. The structure of the European governance system is influenced by the need to achieve a political balance among the stakeholders, in the environment of a permanent conflict among the public interest regulations and the “captive” regulations, the latter being determined by the rent extraction/ rent seeking.

Aim of the study. In this short analysis I describe the European governance, taking into account the policy-making framework under, “Two-pack”, “Sixpack”, and the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union (TSCG) that increases the power of the supranational bodies. For this purpose I embarked on two different approaches: the economic theory of regulation (G. Stigler, G. Tullock, S. Peltzman, R.Posner) and the normative theories on power distribution.
Keywords: Economic theories of regulation, normative theories on power distribution, interjurisdictional competition, neofunctionalism and intergovernmentalism, competitive federalism, principal – agent.