Rediscovering Europe in the Netherlands - St Antony's College ...

ediscovering europe in the netherlands
52
Increases in scale and differentiation of scale
In the first place, the processes of upscaling (such as globalisation and
Europeanisation) and scale differentiation (such as localisation and functional
differentiation) put permanent pressure on the efficiency of the
levels of scale at which politics and administrations are organised. This has
the added effect of making the existing bond of trust between politicians
and administrators, on the one hand, and citizens, on the other, more
precarious and complex. The increased mobility and the rise of the information
society have contributed to a stronger orientation by the highly
educated groups in particular towards the national political community
and towards transnational communities. Moreover, many of these highly
educated groups are increasingly over-represented in politics and administrative
positions, while those with lower-educations have rapidly fallen
even further down on the social and political participation ladders (Bovens
2006b). While the well-educated are increasingly at the forefront of interactive
policy formulation, large groups of people with less education are
discovering that their influence in this representative ‘diplomacy democracy’
is dwindling and that politicians and administrators are less responsive
to their social needs (Bovens 2006b). This, in combination with the
processes of globalisation and Europeanisation mentioned above, leads to
socio-economic and cultural uncertainty as well as a sense of powerlessness
and alienation among these groups (wrr 1995: 15-25).
Sensitive issues
In the second place, a deepening and broadening of European integration
has taken place in a number of politically sensitive and complex policy
areas. The benefits of co-operation for individual member states in these
areas are therefore sometimes less clear-cut than the benefits derived from
‘old’ projects such as negative market integration or lasting peace in Western
Europe. Moreover, a number of these policy domains impinge directly
upon (the image of) traditional national sovereignty and for that reason
alone they are particularly politically sensitive and controversial. For example,
the Economic and Monetary Union (emu) project was hedged in by a
variety of differing views regarding the need for – and ultimate purpose of
– co-operation (a political union, a confederation or a European economic
government?). It was also affected by the uncertainty regarding the effects
it would have on prosperity as well as fears that it would undermine the
national institutions of the welfare state. These concerns were translated
into left-right dichotomies on Europe within the European Parliament
and, on a more limited level, within the national parliamentary debates
on Europe. Right-wing parties often took a positive view of eu policies
regarding economic liberalisation and market integration, while left-wing
parties mainly supported eu policies that gave certain powers to European