Institution, inertia and European Union research policy

Explanations of the failure of integration are a natural preserve of intergovernmentalism. It is not difficult to blame the failure to integrate on recalcitrant states - and they are in fact often largely responsible. This article examines how European institutions can impede deeper integration. It sets out an analytical framework that distinguishes three pathways of institutional resistance to change, and applies the framework to the case of EU research policy. In the face of American scientific and technological superiority, European leaders have long articulated the goal of better research policy co-ordination. But distinct national research policies persist; no significant supranational integration has taken place. The institutionalization of EU research policy in the framework programme (FP) - a funding stream for researchers alongside much larger national programmes - is part of the reason. Since the 1980s, increasingly large and complex programmes have absorbed the administrative and political energies of the Commission and generated clienteles attached to the status quo. European institutional legacies, and not simply national interests, have undercut efforts to create a 'European Research Area' marked by the better co-ordination and integration of national policies.