Revisiting the asymmetry thesis: negative and positive integration in the EU

van den Brink, Martijn, Dawson, Mark and Zglinski, Jan ORCID: 0000-0002-5653-9254 (2023) Revisiting the asymmetry thesis: negative and positive integration in the EU. Journal of European Public Policy. ISSN 1350-1763

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Abstract

The ‘asymmetry thesis’, articulated by Fritz Scharpf, holds that EU governance is characterized by an asymmetry between positive and negative integration. The EU has well-developed capacities for negative integration but only limited capacities for positive integration. The present paper challenges the orthodoxy that this thesis has become in EU law and political science scholarship. It argues that the asymmetry thesis no longer accurately depicts European integration, revisiting its key legal and institutional assumptions. Taking the internal market as the most likely case to test the thesis, we show that negative integration has become weaker, positive integration has gained in strength, and both developments have had an impact on the substance of EU law and policymaking, which is promoting non-economic concerns and market-correcting policies to a greater extent than it used to. These shifts, so we contend, could be even more pronounced in other areas of European integration.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/rjpp20
Additional Information:	© 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
Divisions:	Law
Subjects:	K Law J Political Science
Date Deposited:	20 Dec 2023 10:39
Last Modified:	01 Apr 2024 08:40
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/121115

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