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Explaining Policy Conflict across Institutional Venues: E uropean U nion‐Level Struggles over the Memory of the H olocaust
Author(s) -
LittozMonnet Annabelle
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
jcms: journal of common market studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.54
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 1468-5965
pISSN - 0021-9886
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-5965.2012.02317.x
Subject(s) - competition (biology) , core (optical fiber) , position (finance) , identity (music) , political science , narrative , resizing , political economy , sociology , economics , international trade , computer science , european union , ecology , linguistics , philosophy , finance , biology , telecommunications , physics , acoustics
After the 2004 eastern enlargement, the E uropean U nion has become a terrain of competition between different memory narratives. At the core of the debate is the status of the H olocaust and its role in the identity‐definition process of E uropean societies. This article asks why similar memory debates have resulted in different policy outcomes when taking place in different institutional settings at the EU level. It finds, along with Schattschneider's analysis of policy conflicts, that the choice of the venue of the conflict determined what the conflict was about and how people were divided. Policy outcomes were determined by which of the different possible conflicts gained the dominant position and this, in turn, depended on ‘losers’ in the policy debate being able to choose the right venue for the defence of their concerns.