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Journal of European Social Policy 2019, Vol. 29(1) 3­–12 Disproved or vindicated? Stein © The Author(s) 2018 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions Rokkan’s ‘impossibility theorem’ DOI:https://doi.org/10.1177/0958928718804932 10.1177/0958928718804932 on welfare democracy and journals.sagepub.com/home/esp European integration

Maurizio Ferrera Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy

Abstract In the mid-1970s, the great Norwegian scholar Stein Rokkan argued that the consolidation of the national welfare state was going to set definite limits to European integration. While the impetuous strengthening of the latter – from Maastricht to Lisbon – has largely disproved Rokkan’s factual expectations, developments during the last decade seem to have vindicated the theoretical insights which underpinned his original argument. If appropriately re-elaborated, such insights can help us to identify the conditions under which the economic and social dimension of the European Union might be reconciled in the future.

Keywords Stein Rokkan, European integration, state-building, boundaries, welfare

Introduction Stretching a bit my language – for the sake of argu- ment and debate – Rokkan’s reasoning might be The Norwegian social scientist Stein Rokkan (1921– defined as a sort of ‘impossibility theorem’: the 1979) remains an endless source of inspiration and nationalization of the citizenry inherent in the demo- fascination for scholars working on European poli- cratic welfare state was going to set definite limits to tics with a longue durée perspective. The big passion Europeanization. In the context of his theory, the of Rokkan was the development of ’s nation full-fledged consolidation of the national, demo- states and their transformation into mass democra- cratic and welfare state left no space for taking fur- cies. He had no time to systematically research what ther steps and building a supranational political he saw as the last formative step of the nation state: entity founded on ‘a genuine community of trust’. the expansion of public welfare. Nor did he seriously consider European integration – a novel process which had just taken off in the 1960s, at the height of Rokkan’s scientific trajectory. Yet, in a relative Corresponding author: Maurizio Ferrera, Dipartimento di Scienze Sociali e Politiche, unknown paper written in 1975, Rokkan formulated Università degli Studi di Milano, Via Conservatorio, 7, 20122 a short, but crystal clear argument which linked, pre- Milano, Italy. cisely, the welfare state and European integration.1 Email: [email protected] 4 Journal of European Social Policy 29(1)

The aim of this short article is to revisit Rokkan’s allocation and at the same time potential targets of impossibility theorem: has it been disproved or vin- contention (Ferrera, 2018). dicated? After summarizing in the first section the In order to unravel the internal logic of ‘bounded tenets of Rokkan’s theory and his specific argument, structuring’, Rokkan built on the work of Albert O the second section will show how the latter was ini- Hirshman (1970) and conceptualized the process in tially disproved by factual developments, while the terms of an interdependence between the external clo- third section will argue in favour of (delayed) vindi- sure of a given space and its internal differentiation. cation. The fourth section will suggest some correc- Historically, state formation implied a gradual fore- tions to the Rokkanian perspective with a view to closure of exit options for actors and resources, the making it more suitable for prospective – in addition establishment of ‘system maintenance’ institutions to retrospective – analysis. Somewhat paradoxically, capable of eliciting domestic loyalty and the provision in my reformulation Rokkan’s perspective can be of channels for internal voice, that is, claims addressed turned from a pessimistic argument about the obsta- to national centres (their authorities) from social and cles to Europeanization into an analytical spring- geographical peripheries (their actors). board for identifying possible pathways for further Figure 1 visualizes Rokkan’s model of bounded integration. structuring. State-building, nation-building, mass democracy and the welfare state are the four ingredi- Bounded structuring and the ents and at the same time the four time phases of ‘impossibility theorem’ territorial system-building in modern Europe. Loyalty is placed towards the end of the system- How were the European states and nations ‘built’? building line, to connote the set of we-feelings and To address such a grand question, Rokkan labori- affectual/traditional attachments (identity) to the ter- ously weaved together a theoretical framework in ritorial community resulting, precisely, from increas- which the notions of boundaries and structuring ing social and system integration. occupy a central role. Structuring (that is, structure The fusion between territorial control and iden- formation) connotes the stabilization of social inter- tity, mass democracy and the welfare state produced actions and institutional forms within a given territo- very solid and highly integrated political systems. rial community through the creation of specific While recognizing the importance and to some coalitions among actors and government institutions. extent the inevitability of cross-border economic In the wake of some critical historical junctures, transactions, Rokkan seemed to think that such pro- centre–periphery relations and cleavage structures cesses could be managed through the establishment got ‘crystallized’ or ‘frozen’, that is, they came to be of appropriate legal frameworks – creating modern embedded in, and supported by, a particularly dense analogues of the medieval lex mercatoria. network of organizations (especially corporate and Writing in the 1960s and 1970s, Rokkan remained partisan organizations, but also service bureaucra- very sceptical about the overall import and prospects cies), whose main effect was (and still is) precisely of European integration. And here we come to the that of reproducing the structures themselves. ‘impossibility theorem’. In his 1975 paper, the Structuring processes are typically associated with Norwegian scholar came to argue that the interweav- the presence of boundaries – the second fundamen- ing of cultural identities, democratic participation tal concept. ‘Boundary’ identifies virtually any kind and social sharing within the nation state container of marker of a distinctive condition, relevant for the would foreclose any type of genuine Europeanization life chances of a territorial collectivity and perceived of democracy and welfare. European integration was as such by the collectivity itself. In line with the tra- deemed to remain circumscribed to a form of admin- dition of Max Weber, boundaries are fundamental istrative cooperation for economic exchanges. The mechanisms of territorial and social closure and thus impossibility theorem can be summarized in a num- sources of group formation, instruments for resource ber of distinct propositions:2 Ferrera 5

Figure 1. The process of “bounded structuring” of the European Nation State.

1. Mass democracy has strengthened territorial juxtaposition between the nationalization of identity identities, mobilized citizens and entrusted and solidarity and any substantial progress of Euro- them with direct electoral control of political pean integration? To what extent has the impossibil- authorities and their decisions. ity theorem been disproved or vindicated? 2. The welfare state has completed the nation- alization of the citizenry and sealed the Empirical grounding but gradual perimeter of genuine communities of trust. disproval 3. A key component of the latter is a general- ized belief in the efficiency and fairness of Let us locate ourselves in the 1960s and try to observe the territorial government. developments through Rokkan’s eyes. The integra- 4. Counter-pressures for external transactions tion project had taken off with grand intentions. Most – especially of an economic nature – will not of the Founding Fathers were ambitious federalists, disappear and may require extensive forms driven by ethical commitments (the fight against bel- of cooperation among executive bodies. ligerent nationalisms and the promotion of inter-state 5. Any transfer of substantial authority (i.e. peace and prosperity) and practical goals (setting up exclusive decision-making prerogatives) from a supranational authoritative infrastructure to uphold territorial governments under direct demo- security in the new cold war environment). The pro- cratic control to agencies untied from the lat- posed establishment of the European Defence ter ‘will prove very difficult’. Community – meant to evolve into no less than a ‘European Political Community’ – was a huge and At this point, we can raise the key question of this brave effort undertaken by would be centre-building article: was Rokkan right in positing an irremediable elites. The plan failed, and it did so after the vote of 6 Journal of European Social Policy 29(1) the French Parliament: it was notably a democratic and ambitious attempt at system-building (Flora, institution under direct popular control that blocked 1993). New functional competences were attributed the initiative. After this failure, the integration project to supranational institutions, including in the area of was de facto downgraded to an economic process of employment and social protection. What is more cross-border liberalization and, until the early 1970s, important in our perspective is that a common mem- the European Economic Community (EEC) operated bership space was put in place under the authority of essentially as a market making machine regulated by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), law and based on executive cooperation. Whether greatly expanding the two basic sets of rights which directly or indirectly, factual developments were per- Rokkan had associated with citizenship in the fectly in line with Rokkan’s theory and possibly European tradition: ‘rights to options’ and ‘right to grounded its very elaboration. roots’ (Flora et al., 1999: 172). Founded as it was on With the benefit of hindsight, let us now start our nondiscrimination (first and foremost in terms of assessment by looking more closely at the 1970s. nationality: rights to roots) and free movement (for This was a problematic and turbulent decade (the taking advantage of the opportunities available any- breakdown of the Bretton Woods monetary regime, where in the Union: rights to options), EU citizen- two oil shocks, an intensification of the cold war ship has indeed created that level-playing field after the Prague Spring): these upheavals might well which is a precondition for a territorial government have shattered the fragile EEC building. What hap- to become (and being perceived by its citizens) as pened instead was more integration. The customs efficient and fair. union was completed and ambitious plans started to With all their limitations, these developments be outlined for a fully fledged economic and mone- have trespassed the ‘definite limits’ posited by the tary union (EMU). After experimenting with a cur- first four propositions of the impossibility theorem. rency ‘snake’, the European monetary system was In terms of bounded structuring, the EU has clearly created in 1979. The decade also witnessed the moved beyond centre formation and has proved to somewhat silent birth of the European Union’s (EU) be able to fully engage itself not only in state-building social dimension: minimum standards for domestic but also in experimenting with democratization and labour markets and social protection systems, anti- (in a more limited way) redistribution. If this diagnosis poverty programmes, funds for territorial cohesion is correct, we can tentatively conclude this section and regional development, as well as the expansion by saying that, while the original impossibility theo- of social security coordination (Ferrera, 2005). The rem had indeed an empirical grounding in the way first direct elections of the European Parliament things had worked during the initial phase of integra- (1979) inaugurated in their turn the gradual align- tion, factual post-Rokkanian developments have dis- ment of supranational decision-making with the proved the Maestro’s theoretical scepticism. There normative code of democratic legitimation. All are, however, other chapters in the story. these innovations were made possible by a poorly visible, but very significant change of the political Delayed vindication and cultural climate within the ruling elites, both political and intellectual. During the 1970s, national During the 2000s, a number of novel developments leaders became increasingly aware of shared inter- increased the socio-economic impact of a deeper and ests and – encouraged by an increasingly proactive wider integration – especially in the old member Commission – developed a modicum of we-feelings states. The most important transformation was the and higher mutual trust (Ferrera and Burelli, Eastern enlargement, which extended the number of Forthcoming; Van Middelaar, 2013). member states to 28 and hugely increased the inter- The fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 opened an nal diversity of the EU in terms of economic and unexpected window of opportunity for a political welfare state development. The Eastern enlargement quantum leap. With Maastricht (1992), the newly drastically altered the structural profile (to use born European Union embarked upon a deliberate Rokkan’s concept) of the Union, generating a fertile Ferrera 7

Figure 2. EU building and national de-structuring. ground for the emergence of new strains and lines of implies an ‘unfreezing’ (unsettling, deranging) of divisions. Let us think of the vast migration flows pre-existing voice channels and organizations and a from East to West after 2004, the new competitive de-stabilization of the underlying centre–periphery pressures due to the posting of workers, to freedom and cleavage constellations. of services (the famous Polish plumber), to company The re-visitation (and broad generalization) of relocations to low cost member states. In the wake of Rokkan’s theory in the face of EU-building has been EMU, EU leaders tried to strengthen political union masterfully provided by Bartolini (2005). His mes- by establishing a fully fledged European Constitution. sage is clear: institutional democratization and the But the popular rejection of the Constitutional Treaty direct connection between the dynamics of suprana- in the Spring of 2005 in France and the Netherlands tional integration and those of national mass marked a political watershed: those referendums in are deemed to generate an ‘explosive mixture of fact sealed the irreversible entanglement between problems’ (p. 409). As is well known, the euro-crisis European integration and mass politics, confirming and the ensuing great recession have heavily aggra- with a vengeance the first warnings of the early vated the problematic mixture. Building on a 1990s (the Danish and French referendums on the Rokkanian background, Hans Peter Kriesi and his Maastricht Treaty in the Summer of 1992). Political collaborators have conceptualized and investigated elites were able to orchestrate a bypass and adopt the the new conflict constellation which emerged in the Lisbon Treaty in 2009. But ever since, it has become wake of EMU, the Eastern enlargements and the cri- clear that the ‘mass politicization’ of integration trig- sis (Kriesi, 2010; Kriesi et al., 2012). The EU as such gers off centrifugal dynamics and neo-nationalist has become a major source of contention, originat- backlashes. ing a novel ‘integration–demarcation’ cleavage. Figure 2 visualizes how Rokkan’s model can be At this point, let us get back to the impossibility applied to EU-building. The latter may, in principle, theorem. Recent developments seem to clearly vindi- be conceptualized as a novel higher order process of cate its theoretical logic and its predictive validity. boundary reconfiguration and internal re-structuring. We must however speak of vindication a contrario. In this case, however, supranational system-building Initially, factual developments have disproved the can only take place at the expense of national sys- theorem’s expectations by showing that European tems. For the latter, EU-building works, as it were, integration was indeed able to move beyond ‘definite as state-building in reverse. In this case, Rokkan’s limits’. That transfer of substantial authority from theory predicts ‘destructuring’. This general process national governments to supranational institutions 8 Journal of European Social Policy 29(1)

(which for Rokkan was very unlikely) has indeed such resources reach all sectors/strata of the popula- taken place. Developments have been slow-moving, tion, however weak and peripheral. To these general generating incremental, sometimes unintended and conditions, Rokkan adds an important caveat: cumulative effects. And, with some delay, they have ‘whether such claims are substantiated or remain given rise to a process implicitly predicted (a con- purely verbal is a matter of resources and organiza- trario) by Rokkan’s theorem: integration has eventu- tion: how far can the state extract resources … and ally clashed with nation-based democracy and social how far the political system makes it possible to sharing, unleashing dangerous and destructive con- spread such resources?’ (Flora et al., 1999: 264). flicts. In the theorem, Rokkan suggested that the Historical processes of national system-building nationalization of the citizenry inherent in the welfare greatly varied in the way they addressed these chal- state would not necessarily imply ‘an increase of lenges and in the solutions found. Tensions were feelings of xenophobia and distance from others’ especially marked in culturally divided societies. (Flora et al., 1999: 265). In certain countries, right Rokkan investigated the Swiss case in particular wing formations have unfortunately fomented xeno- depth. According to the Norwegian scholar, system- phobic and even racist orientations and actual behav- building could come to completion in Switzerland iours which have gone beyond Rokkan’s wildest mainly thanks to two factors: (1) the crisscrossing of dreams. The last decade has unearthed the structural religious and linguistic oppositions, which did not contradiction (to use Bartolini’s words) between the coincide with cantonal borders and thus allowed for dynamics of EU-building and the preservation of the the formation of cross-local, functional alliances and cultural, redistributive and political capacities of coalitions; (2) the fact that two main languages, national governments. In such a context, can the new German and French, enjoyed equal prestige, were supranational centre really ‘hold’? Or are we faced adequately spoken by the elites and thus facilitated with an unstoppable spiral of system disintegration, their communication. in the wake of an increasingly loud ‘voice for exit’ The unifying potential of these two factors pro- (the UK case)? vides some promising insights for EU-building. After all, also in the Union many oppositions crisscross Trapped inside the theorem? each other, national languages have equal dignity and a lingua franca – English – facilitates (elite) commu- In order to address this question within a Rokkanian nication and bonding. European system-building has framework, we must elaborate on propositions 2 and already centralized significant financial and organi- 3 of the theorem. Their key elements are ‘the forma- zational resources. The orders of magnitude are tiny. tion of a genuine community of trust’ and its neces- But this element should not be overestimated, let sary underpinning, that is, ‘a generalized belief in alone dramatized. The common budget is indeed the efficiency and fairness of the territorial govern- small (1% of the total Gross EU Product), but the ment’. How might the latter be achieved? Under right to extract dedicated resource is a formalized what conditions does system-building generate ade- prerogative of the EU, with no temporal limits. In quate trust and, ultimately, legitimation? ‘Territorial Switzerland, to this day the Bund’s taxing powers government’ has a very general connotation. For need to be periodically reconfirmed by the citizens Rokkan, it basically refers to any form of political through a national referendum. In its turn, the organization that (1) claims the validity and suprem- supremacy of EU law as well as its scope – at least in acy of its decisions beyond and above all temporary some sectors – is higher than in Switzerland. The EU bargains in society; (2) claims the right to represent problem lies less in resources and organization per se the common interests of the citizenry; (3) claims to than in the logic which inspires their use – within the embody the solidarity and shared cultural identity of greater institutional and policy design of the Union’s the community; (4) commands enough resources for political system. Regardless of its genetic drivers, the safeguarding internal order and cohesion and sus- new conflict constellation described above signals an taining territorial redistribution; (5) makes sure that increased distrust in the ‘efficiency and fairness’ of Ferrera 9

Figure 3. Historical change between structures and choices. the EU government. What is explicitly and vocally From impossibility to possibilities challenged by Eurosceptic formations is, precisely, the Union’s claim to represent common interests and There is no programmatic or built-in determinism in to safeguard solidarity. As regards the former, the the theory of Rokkan. He explicitly distanced him- main indictment is that ‘opening’ and EMU have self from economic functionalism and argued that become a threat for the economic and social security his model of Europe sought to combine the tradition of national citizens, do not create growth and jobs of Marx with those of Weber and Durkheim. In his and generate asymmetric advantages among the work, however, he largely neglected the role of member states. Furthermore, instead of being con- actors and choices in historical contingencies (Tilly, structed from below (the citizenry), the common 1990). Rokkan was interested in what he called ret- interest is unilaterally decided at the top, and largely rospective diachronics: ‘given an observed contrast shaped by unelected elites. As regards solidarity, the in the values of variables at time tₓ, what combina- indictment is that the EU not only lacks a caring face, tion of variables for earlier phases tₓ₋₁, tₓ₋₂ etc. can but that it undermines national sharing models and best account for these differences?’ (Flora et al., employment structures. The refugee crisis has ampli- 1999: 15). His retrospective focus was mainly on fied both indictments. On the one hand, the EU macro-structures: social cleavages, party-systems, dictates (or so it is perceived) where immigrants cultural/symbolic systems and so on. Rokkan was should be admitted and what rights they should enjoy. not equally interested in transition processes, which On the other, it does not provide assistance or require prospective diachronics, that is, the identifi- resources for the (perceived) ‘asymmetric’ damages cation of developmental alternatives within extant of immigration. macro-constellations and of the contingent options Should we then conclude that the EU is trapped available for situated actors on whose choices his- inside the impossibility theorem and that even pru- torical change ultimately hinges.3 dent modes and forms of political federalization are Figure 3 shows how the Rokkanian framework can deemed to fail under the counter-pressures that they be reformulated in a prospective direction. The start- themselves inevitably generate, in line with Rokkan’s ing point is still structural: historical change takes expectations? An increasing number of scholars now place within ‘structured constellations’ populated share this view, even if their starting points are not with institutions, political and social organized necessarily Rokkanian (e.g. Bootle, 2012; Scharpf, groups, established practices and ideational frames, 2010, 2016; Streeck, 2014). Let me suggest how to cleavage and centre–periphery structures. The overall possibly escape from this theoretical predicament by substantive profile of such constellations originates proposing a reformulation and an analytical correc- broad constraints and opportunities: certain paths of tion of the Rokkanian framework, without losing its developments are foreclosed, other are favoured. At basic thrust. the edges, so to speak, of a given structured 10 Journal of European Social Policy 29(1) constellation, there is, however, a ‘possibility space’, vast majorities still support the EU and believe that it i.e. a plastic frontier where all forms of conflict take could (and should) be strengthened (Ferrera and place (social, political, institutional, ideational and so Pellegata, 2017, 2018; Gerhards et al., 2018). On this on) and where alternatives and options for future backdrop, it seems exaggerated to argue that the developments take shape (say: deepening as opposed EU’s current predicament leaves no margins whatso- to widening of integration; deepening through supra- ever for the emergence of a Rokkanian ‘genuine national as opposed to intergovernmental arrange- community of trust’. Nationalized citizenries have ments and so on). Political actors move within this not entirely fallen prey to those anti-EU orientations possibility space and, with their choices, serve as which characterize vocal minorities. Survey evi- “ferrymen” who transform one possibility (among dence reveals an unexpected degree of readiness to the many) into actual reality, thus bringing about his- support steps for making the EU government fairer torical change. and more capable of spreading resources to all sec- The task of prospective analysis is that of formu- tors/strata of the population, however weak and lating grounded possibility judgements (i.e. are peripheral (Ferrera and Pellegata, 2017). There is, developments A, B, or C plausibly feasible, given however, a big obstacle for moving in such a direc- the status quo?), starting from structural constraints tion. Given the inadequate level of cross-national and opportunities, proceeding to examine the avail- political structuring, the organization of voice from able alternatives and options confronting each other below around such issues encounters huge obstacles. within the conflict-ridden possibility space and then Even if a fairer and solidaristic EU might actually closing in, as much as possible, towards those near match popular preferences, for the time being it is surroundings that shape actor motivations and not realistic to expect the emergence of bottom-up decisions. demands and large-scale transnational mobilizations The notions of possibility spaces and possibility in support of euro-social objectives. Is there an alter- judgements (as well as the ‘ferryman’ metaphor) native pathway? constitute my correction to the Rokkanian frame- In historical processes of welfare state building, work and are drawn from Weber (1978). For Weber big leap forwards in terms of both social and territo- and the neo-Weberians (e.g. Lepsius, 2011), observed rial solidarity resulted on several occasions from a historical contexts and their possibility spaces are top-down logic, based on the interest/wish of incum- inevitably torn by conflict. But the latter is not nec- bent political leaders to preserve stability and con- essarily harmful: if appropriately channelled and solidate the whole polity in the face of pressing managed, it can indeed carry out important func- functional challenges, social unrest or dire emergen- tions, not least to create links between groups and to cies (Flora and Alber, 1981). This pathway is possi- produce a fertile ground for constructive (as opposed bly the only one from which some advancement to disruptive) change, under the guidance of respon- might be expected today. The first impulse for sible leaders. enhancing the efficiency and fairness of the EU gov- How can we use my prospective reformulation ernment should come from above, that is, on the side and correction of Rokkan’s framework to identify of leaders motivated by farsighted system-building the developmental possibilities, the alternatives and objectives and capable of creatively building on the options which are available for the EU and its lead- existing conflict constellation in order to forge broad ers in the current predicament? Are there margins for cross-interest coalitions. Unfortunately, during the actors to set themselves free from the impossibility last decade the EMU elite has made long steps in the theorem? opposite direction, emphasizing difference and It would be foolish to deny the significance of apartness between national communities and their Euroscepticism and of the newly emerged ‘con- governments, denigrating, also symbolically, any straining dissensus’ (Hooghe and Marks, 2009) that mechanism of mutual support, promoting a histori- has formed around integration at the domestic mass cally unprecedented rule-based formalization of level. But – save for the United Kingdom, of course political authority. Among the potentially available – survey and electoral results indicate that relatively alternatives and options, EU leaders seem to have Ferrera 11 chosen those with the highest potential of political effects on national social contracts. But as Rokkan disintegration. We must admit that the exercise of a noted in his early commentary to Hirschman, while leadership capable of re-forging collective identities opening (exits/entries) inevitably has a destructuring has become difficult in a world increasingly based potential, it can also be a potent generator of positive on fluid social relationships. But it still remains, in (i.e. virtuous) institutional innovation (Rokkan, 1974). my view, within the horizon of political possibility. EU studies are today permeated by pessimism. There is still room to steer away from disintegration. The impossibility theorem is being resurrected in In the Eurozone countries, there still are, apparently, other guises (neo-Marxist, neo-institutionalist, post- substantial pro-EU ‘silent majorities’. An ambitious functionalist and so on) (Ferrera, 2017). What is strategy of electoral cultivation on the side of enter- needed is a shift of focus in our debates from con- prising leaders could well leverage on their potential straints to opportunities, from economic and institu- support for more integration in order to corner and tional necessities to possibilities, choices, actors and side-line the very aggressive, but still minoritarian ultimately leadership. And, if appropriately updated Eurosceptic challengers. and re-elaborated in prospective terms, Rokkan’s approach can remain a precious starting line for moving in this direction and open a constructive dis- Conclusion cussion forum on the prospects for (social) Europe. Rokkan’s theorem was definitely right in underlying To repeat ’s words at the very end of his the solidity and resilience of the democratic and wel- Introduction to the 1999 volume: ‘by looking into fare nation state and in predicting that European the past, Rokkan points to the future’ (p. 91). integration would encounter many obstacles. And yet integration has gone on, moving well beyond Acknowledgements administrative cooperation for facilitating economic The author first presented the ideas and arguments of this transactions. In combination with parallel and con- article in his Rokkan Memorial Lecture 2017, held at the tingent developments (in particular the financial cri- University of on 5 September 2017. A warm thank sis and the great recession), the advancement of to the event organizers and participants, for their questions integration has however vindicated the logic of the and precious comments. theorem. Political centralization has activated those destructuring dynamics theorized (even if primarily Funding a contrario) by Rokkan. The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial The nation state is likely to remain the strongest support for the research, authorship and/or publication of guarantor of political and welfare rights, the prime this article: This article has been written in the context of legitimate space for the practices of electoral democ- the REScEU project (Reconciling Economic and Social racy and social sharing. The logic of ‘closure’ will Europe, www.resceu.eu), funded by the European Research Council (grant no 340534). continue to encourage strategies of national defence and preservation. Based as it must be on the logic of Notes ‘opening’, European integration will in its turn con- tinue to operate as a destabilizing force for both 1. The paper was written in English for an International nation-based electoral democracy and social sharing. Association seminar held in Paris in Institutional and political tensions between these two January 1975. In published form, it only appeared in Italian (Rokkan, 1975), thus went largely unnoticed logics and processes will not subside any time soon. at the time. Some excerpts of that paper have been But institutional collapse and political disintegration included in the volume edited by Flora et al. (1999). can be avoided through anticipatory strategies and Flora’s volume contains a masterful reconstruction of delicate balancing acts. For all those who attribute Rokkan’s theory, through a systematic re-assemblage paramount importance to participation, equality and of his key writing. solidarity, opening and integration are today mainly 2. The original formulation of the argument in Rokkan’s looked on with preoccupation and suspicion for their own words can be found in Flora et al. (1999: 262–5). 12 Journal of European Social Policy 29(1)

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