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Christiansen, Thomas; Føllesdal, Andreas; Piattoni, Simona --- "Informal governance in the European Union: an introduction" [2004] ELECD 23; in Christiansen, Thomas; Piattoni, Simona (eds), "Informal Governance in the European Union" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2004)

Book Title: Informal Governance in the European Union

Editor(s): Christiansen, Thomas; Piattoni, Simona

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781843763512

Section: Chapter 1

Section Title: Informal governance in the European Union: an introduction

Author(s): Christiansen, Thomas; Føllesdal, Andreas; Piattoni, Simona

Number of pages: 21

Extract:

1. Informal governance in the European
Union: an introduction
Thomas Christiansen, Andreas Føllesdal and
Simona Piattoni

INTRODUCTION
The study of European integration tends to focus on formal aspects of the inte-
gration process: formal decision-making procedures, the role and functioning
of institutions, the provisions contained in the treaties, the operation of regu-
latory regimes in the various policy areas. This is hardly surprising: what is
distinctive about the integration process in Europe ­ what distinguishes inte-
gration in Europe from international cooperation in other parts of the world ­
is the creation and growth of a unique institutional and legal framework struc-
turing the relations between the participating states.1 An early and still impor-
tant contribution to the understanding of the integration process has been the
`integration through law' school which regarded the development of a supra-
national legal order as the key factor in the explanation of the integration
process (Cappelletti et al. 1986).
If the formalization of interstate relations is regarded as the essence of the
integration process, it is hardly surprising that scholars should concentrate on
the formal procedures and the institutionalized arenas for decision-making.
However, as has become increasingly evident in the course of recent devel-
opments in the European Union, there is an important undercurrent to the
formal integration process. This concerns the operation of informal networks
which link policy-makers to client groups as well as actors across EU,
national and sub-national institutions, and influence (or at least seek to influ-
...