Autonomy Without Collapse in the European Union

The European Union's history exhibits numerous episodes in which Member States have sought to re-enforce their national autonomy in the face of deepening integration. Efforts to re-gain autonomy, however, are often accompanied by legitimate concerns that autonomy will lead to dis-integration or will have wider destructive consequences. The EU thus faces a dilemma. Calls for autonomy cannot all be dismissed as mere populist rhetoric or national egoism but instead represent a legitimate questioning of the degree of uniformity that EU law and politics presently carry. At the same time, the fear that greater autonomy may carry dis-integrative effects is also legitimate -uniformity is not an accidental by-product of the EU's construction but intrinsically related to its policy goals. Giving too much room for autonomy might create an opportunity structure for the loss of collective goods, deficits in problem-solving, and perhaps even to self-destruction.

The EU requires autonomy, but in doing so, it must also avoid collapse. Can it achieve it, and if so, how? Autonomy without Collapse is devoted to exploring innovative answers to this question. It draws together scholars in law and political science interested in exploring how to overcome the central dilemma of preserving sustainable yet real autonomy in the future European Union.

Mark Dawson, Professor of European Law and Governance, Hertie School, Markus Jachtenfuchs, Professor of European and Global Governance, Hertie School

Mark Dawson is Professor of European Law and Governance at the Hertie School in Berlin. He was previously an Assistant Professor at Maastricht University and obtained his PhD from the EUI in Florence where he was in 2019 Fernand Braudel fellow. His research focuses on the relationship between law and policymaking in the EU. Currently, he is the Principal Investigator of LEVIATHAN, a European Research Council project exploring the legal and political accountability structure of EU economic governance. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the European Law Review and co-editor of the book series Cambridge Studies in European Law and Policy.


Markus Jachtenfuchs is Professor of European and Global Governance at the Hertie School and Co-Director of the Jacques Delors Centre. His main research interest is the study of multilevel governance in the EU and in the international system. In 2010, Jachtenfuchs was the Pierre Keller Visiting Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School and the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. Before joining the Hertie School in 2006 he was Visiting Professor at the University of Greifswald and Professor of Political Science at Jacobs University Bremen. He received his PhD from the European University Institute in Florence in 1994, after studying political science in Mainz, Paris, Berlin and Bruges.