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The Amsterdam Process: A Structurationist Perspective on EU Treaty Reform

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dc.creator Thomas Christiansen
dc.creator Knud Erik Jørgensen
dc.date 1999
dc.date.accessioned 2013-05-30T13:05:26Z
dc.date.available 2013-05-30T13:05:26Z
dc.date.issued 2013-05-30
dc.identifier http://eiop.or.at/eiop/texte/1999-001.htm
dc.identifier http://www.doaj.org/doaj?func=openurl&genre=article&issn=10275193&date=1999&volume=3&issue=&spage=1
dc.identifier.uri http://koha.mediu.edu.my:8181/jspui/handle/123456789/5590
dc.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.
dc.publisher ECSA-Austria
dc.source European Integration Online Papers
dc.subject intergovernmental conferences
dc.subject constitutional change
dc.subject Amsterdam Treaty
dc.subject structuration theory
dc.subject polity building
dc.subject administrative adaptation
dc.subject agency theory
dc.subject differentiated integration
dc.subject European law
dc.subject integration theory
dc.subject intergovernmentalism
dc.subject treaty reform
dc.subject political science
dc.title The Amsterdam Process: A Structurationist Perspective on EU Treaty Reform


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