Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - GEM-STONES (Globalisation, Europe and Multilateralism - Sophistication of the Transnational Order, Networksand European Strategies)

Teaser

GEM-STONES’ underlying puzzle is whether the externalisation of European governance and the internalisation of global imperatives are facilitated or hindered by the growing complexity born from the proliferation of international institutions. This is framed in terms of...

Summary

GEM-STONES’ underlying puzzle is whether the externalisation of European governance and the internalisation of global imperatives are facilitated or hindered by the growing complexity born from the proliferation of international institutions. This is framed in terms of assessing the EU’s capacity to provide purposeful regime complex management, where purposeful regime complex management is defined as the “conscious efforts by any relevant actor or group of actors, in whatever form or forum, to address and improve institutional interaction and its effects”(Oberthür & Schram Stokke. 2011).

Indeed, such purposeful management is of vital importance to the EU considering its specific history, distinctive preferences, unique regional integration process and the fact that its external action is reliant on comprehensive and institutionalized forms of interactions. As a result, both scholars and practitioners of the EU have sought to understand and frame its function as a uniquely advanced laboratory of institutional proliferation management. The research programme’s individual and collective deliverables will assess if interactions between Globalisation, Europe and Multilateralism, have improved purposeful regime complex management in response to the growing Sophistication of the Transnational Order, Networks and European Strategies (GEM-STONES).

Overall, the project’s object of study – i.e. purposeful regime complex management - can either be hierarchical or polycentric. More centralized coordination can reduce redundancies and create a level playing field, yet it can simultaneously decrease the potential for adaptation. Conversely, enhanced adaptability is central to more flexible modes of management alternatively called “non-hierarchical orchestration”, or “cooperative arrangements”, yet such set-ups regularly face challenges to their transparency and enforceability. Collectively, the project explores whether, and how such hierarchical and non-hierarchical forms of institutional governance coexist through a cross-section of specific (empirical) cases that are significant to the study of the European Union, be it in theoretical or practical terms.

Work performed

The mid-point at its associated report marks the end of the so-called “consolidation phase” (m1-18) of the project where all 15 ESRs were expected to work together as a group, either through interdisciplinary methods training provisions, or through joint research effort coordinated within each of the project’s four work packages. During said consolidation period, training focussed on individual methods acquisition, the development of a common lexicon and the collective compilation of a joint dataset. To this effect, the first year focused on methods training through education structured along three topical methods workshops. Progress over the subsequent 6 months (m12-m18) was driven within each of the 4 WPs as ESRs were invited to a WP-wide research workshop aimed at working towards the compilation and ultimate publication of a scientific edited volume. As such the second half of the consolidation phase favoured a training through research perspective. Overall, all seven of the scheduled workshops (three methods ones and four topical ones) were hosted as foreseen and fellows have either accomplished or are finalizing the associated work. The main collective achievements of the first 18 months of the project – beyond the individual achievements of each of the 15 ESRs all of which have successfully integrated into the program, jump-started their dissertation work and completed both the local and project-wide training obligations they had to successfully accomplish – are the submission of a final draft manuscript of a Methods textbook involving all 15 ESRs and the compilation of a first draft of the manuscripts for each of the four scheduled edited volumes.

In terms of management and impact GEM-STONES has been successfully set-up as a functioning consortium, all necessary Double Doctoral Degree Agreements were agreed upon institutionalising the supervisory environment of all 15 ESRs, an integrated and active communication strategy launch (incl. a.o. a website, a twitter account, and a Facebook page). Lastly, policy-outreach efforts were set-up to see some of the insights gleaned through the research communicated to practitioners. Accordingly, two mixed events involving both the researchers from across the project and Brussels-based European practitioners were organised so far (a third one is scheduled for the end of the project).

Final results

Overall, GEM-STONES’ research programme places it both at the forefront and cross-roads of the prevailing theoretical and empirical debates in SSH. The expected innovation by the end of the project will thus contribute towards bridging the three major epistemic divides, which today stand in the way of more integrated understanding of complex social phenomena:

1. positivist assessments rooted in logics of consequentialism;
2. constructivist approaches rooted in logics of appropriateness;
3. communicative approaches associated with argumentative logics

As set up, the aforementioned research deliverables – i.e. four scheduled edited volumes and the 15 expected doctoral dissertations - will collectively reflect: an original take on some fundamental epistemic debates within SSH; innovative theoretical crosspollination between EU governance studies and regime complex theory; new empirical insights broadening the scope of regime theory; as well as new methods and approaches.

Moreover, in terms of doctoral training (both in terms of methods and transferable skills) the project aims at establishing renewed best-practices which are to be durably embedded in a set of training platforms aimed at outlasting the project itself, such as a self-sustaining interdisciplinary summer school, a Methods textbook and a Highly qualified job-seekers manual.

Website & more info

More info: https://gem-stones.eu/.