ANALYZING THE EFFECTS OF MICROREGIONS ON MACROREGIONS: CAN EUROREGIONS LEGITIMIZE THE EUROPEAN UNION? By Aaron Russell Martin Submitted to the Faculty of the School of International Service of American University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts In International Affairs Chair: J \fam~ tv'itTTBLM·A-N ~ Dr. James Mittelman, Ph.D ' k.w~~ Dean Louis W. Goodman, School of International Service aooq 2009 American University Washington, D.C. 20016 AMERICAN UNiViRSITY LIBRARY UMI Number: 1468490 INFORMATION TO USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will .indicate the deletion. UMI® UMI Microform 1468490 Copyright 2009 by ProQuest LLC All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 ANALYZING THE EFFECTS OF MICROREGIONS ON MACROREGIONS: CAN EUROREGIONS LEGITIMIZE THE EUROPEAN UNION? BY Aaron Russell Martin ABSTRACT As a polity, the European Union (EU) is lacking in political legitimacy. Several failed referenda indicate that certain majorities within EU member states have actively rejected European treaties and concordantly, rule by Brussels. This thesis asserts that Euroregions, cross-border cooperative microregions, have the potential to become a local level interface that can connect the marginalized residents of the member states directly to the EU. In principle, the activities and projects taking place along the borders may persuade the people living within the jurisdictions of the Euroregions to look more favorably upon the EU's actions and therefore increase the legitimacy of the European macroregion. To test this hypothesis, France and Poland were taken as case studies and voting data analyzed to see if Euroregion residents are more or less likely to support Eurosceptic parties. Although the results were inconsistent, the potential for future study of Euroregions remains intriguing. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ................................................................................ .ii LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................ .iii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ............................................................ .iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ............................................................ v Chapters Introduction ......................................................................... 1 1. DEFINING THE TERMS ..................................................... 13 Weber vs. Habermas ...................................................... 14 The European Debate on Legitimacy ..................................20 The Euroregion ...........................................................29 Re-scaling Legitimacy ................................................... .34 2. CONTEXTUALIZING THE ARGUMENT ............................... .39 "New Regionalism" and the Euroregions ............................ .39 Connecting the Micro- to the Macroregion .......................... .43 Scale and Economics ...................................................... 45 Scale and Politics .......................................................... 48 Scale and Society .......................................... ; ............... 52 3. LOCATING THE ARGUMENT ............................................. 57 iii Redrawing Borders/Reshaping Identity............................... 57 Transferring Identification ................................................ 64 4. TESTING THE TRANSFORMATIVE OF EUROREGIONS ......... 70 Matching Funds and Per Capita Numbers ...........................73 Budgets and Accounting for Legitimacy .............................. 80 France and Support for Le Pen in the Euroregions ................. 85 Poland and the Eurosceptics in Euroregions .........................92 CONCLUSIONS ................................................................ 102 APPEND ICES ........................................................................... 108 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................................................... 116 iv LIST OF TABLES TABLE 1 French Euroregions: Budgets, Populations, and Per Capita Spending .......................74 2 Polish Euroregions: Budgets, Populations, and Per Capita Spending ....................... 75 3 Itemized Budget for Saarland-Moselle/Lorraine-Westem Palatinate Euroregion According to Priority and Type of Legitimacy .............................•........... 81 4 Kopecky and Mudde Model of Euroscepticism ........................93 5 Euroregion Budgets and Legitimacy Codes ........................... .108 6 Independent T-Test for French Presidential Election: Percentage Support for Le Pen ........................................... 112 7 Correlations Between Per Capita Spending and Presidential Candidates .............................................. 113 8 Independent T -Test Comparing Percent Support for Pro- or Anti-Europe Party Groupings ................................. .114 9 Independent T-Test Comparing Individual Pro- and Anti-Europe Parties (Percentage of Votes) .......................... .115 v LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FIGURE French Euroregions ....................................................... 72 2 Polish Euroregions ........................................................73 3 Comparison in Funding Distribution: Polish and French Euroregions ...........................................78 4 France: Per Capita Number Regions ............................................ 79 5 Poland: Per Capita Number Regions .............................................. 79 6 French Euroregions, Percentage of Total Spending: Projects Focusing on Input Oriented, Output Oriented, and Social Legitimacy ........................................83 7 Polish Euroregions, Percentage of Total Spending: Projects Focusing on Input Oriented, Output Oriented, and Social Legitimacy ......................................................83 8 Series Showing Relationship Between Per Cent Support for Le Pen And "Non" Vote on Constitutional Referendum .......... 87 9 Voting Results for Top Four Presidentital Candidates: Total Votes of Combined Departments Aggregated by Per Capita Number. .....................................90 10 The Effect of Per Capita Spending on Support for Aggregated Anti-Europe Parties ......................................... 94 11 The Effect of Per Capita Spending on Support for Euroenthusiast Parties .................................................... 9 5 12 Voting Results for Polish Sejm: Percentage of Votes Grouped by Political Orientation, Combined Powiats Aggregated by Per Capita Number ...................................... 97 13 Aggregated Euroenthusiasts Parties .....................................98 14 Aggregated Anti-Europe Parties ........................................98 vi 15 Dot Density with Six Largest Metropolitan Areas Highlighted: Euroenthusiast Parties vs. Anti-Europe Parties .......................99 vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CEEC Central and Eastern European Countries CBC Cross-border Cooperation CBR Cross-border Region EC European Community EEC European Economic Community EMU European Monetary Union EP European Parliament EU European Union FN National Front GDR German Democratic Republic IR International Relations NCG Non-Central Government PCN Per Capita Number QMV Qualified Majority Voting TPB Theory of Planned Behavior TEU Treaty on European Union viii INTRODUCTION Analyses of the European Union, its institutions, and its overall development derive from a singular space within the realm of international relations (IR). This is so partly because the European Union (EU), as a political institution, resists simple definition and partly because its ultimate goal is not clearly defined. Stating that the EU defies definition merely supports the claims that the polity is sui generis in nature. James Caporaso states, "To say that the EC is unique is simply a shorthand for saying that we have not yet developed the categories, abstract enough, to see the EC as an instance of a more general class of phenomena;" the EU must be contextualized using its own terms because there is nothing else like it. 1 Such difficulties in defining the polity confound analysis because observers find it easy to project on to the EU whatever they like, and these characterizations are colored largely by the intent or the ideology of the critic. This subjectivity could be mitigated ifleadership would define Europe not only as a project, but as a process and a product; however, because these qualifications do not yet exist, it is fair to say that the ultimate goals of the EU are undefined.2 Academic conjecture would be unnecessary were the Commission or the Council simply to pronounce that the final ambition of the entire process is a European superstate, a post- 1James Caporaso, et al., "Does the European Union Represent a n of 1?" ECSA Review X, No. 3 (Fall 1997): 1-5. 2Glyn Morgan, The Idea ofA European Superstate: Public Justification and European Integration (Princeton University Press: Princeton, New Jersey, 2005), 4-7.