ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 identifies, through historical and empirical analysis, the elements that shaped the political initiatives and the institutional environment underlying the emergent Europeanisation process. Focusing on the historical record, the chapter examines the political climate and other factors that contributed to the process of Europeanisation (where the latter is understood along the lines of Radaelli’s definition, i.e. that ‘Europeanisation consists of processes of construction, diffusion and institutionalisation of formal and informal rules, procedures, policy paradigms, styles […] incorporated in the logic of domestic discourse’ (Radaelli, 2004: 3,4)). The first section of this chapter explores historical events, contributing factors, actors, policy procedures and treaties that, through causation analysis, are identified as relevant to the Europeanisation process. The second section investigates the role of corporatist/interest groups in political decision-making and their impact on the Europeanisation process.
