Research
Research Project: Differentiated Integration in Europe
The research project "Differentiated Integration in Europe" is jointly conducted by the Chair of European Politics at the ETH Zurich and the Chair of International Relations and Conflict Management at the University of Konstanz and jointly funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) and the German Research Foundation (DFG). The project aims at detecting instances of differentiated integration (DI), such as opt-outs and opt-ins, in the bodies of primary and secondary EU law, at compiling a comprehensive DI dataset covering the period 1958-2011 and at describing and explaining the extent of DI at the system, country and policy level using rational-intergovernmentalist, constructivist and institutionalist theories, on the one hand, and quantitative methods of the social sciences, on the other.
| Project Leaders: | Prof. Dr. Katharina Holzinger (University of Konstanz) |
| Prof. Dr. Frank Schimmelfennig (ETH Zurich) | |
| Project Staff: | Thomas Duttle, M.A. (University of Konstanz) |
| Sabine Christine Jenni, M.A. (ETH Zurich) | |
| Thomas Schäubli, M.A. (ETH Zurich) | |
| Thomas Winzen, M.A. (ETH Zurich) | |
| Project Duration: | 01.09.2010 - 31.08.2013 |
Doctoral Thesis: The Determinants of Differentiated Integration across the EU Member States
Within the research project, my doctoral thesis on "The Determinants of Differentiated Integration across the EU Member States" addresses the country level. It raises the research question as to what drives the variation in DI (i.e., the variation in opt-outs and opt-ins) across the 27 EU member states and over the period 1958-2011. To answer this question, rational-intergovernmentalist, neofunctionalist, constructivist and institutionalist approaches as well as multivariate analyses are employed. The empirical analyses rest upon the above-mentioned time-series-cross-section (TSCS) dataset on DI in the EU.
