'integration through Law’: (still) the EU’s Identity? Analysing EU Law-Making from a Strategic Constructivist Point of View

Is European integration becoming looser, or is this integration still based on integration through law? With regard to judicial powers, the EU is considered as one of the most highly institutionalised supranational political systems in the world (Alter 2001, 2009, Stone Sweet and Caporaso 1998, Kelemen). One of the most recent explanations for this can be found in Genschel and Jachtenfuchs (2013) argument of the supranational integration of state core powers. According to these authors, the demand for integration grows largely from the desire of member states to limit policy externalities and to realize economies of scale. Once executive, legislative, or judicial powers have been delegated to independent agents – be they governmental agencies or courts – these powers are difficult to rescind. However, given the increasingly loud and visible resistance to the EU do we see a slowdown of integration through law? Or in other words, do increasingly critical publics lead to less integration through law?

The aim of this article is to apply a strategic constructivist approach to this question. Rejecting the basic assumption of actors only behaving according a presumed material cost-benefit analysis, strategic constructivism allows us to link cognitive frames of legal actors, more precisely the internal legal logic of their argument, to their presumed strategic behaviour.