Under Construction @ Keele 2019 summer 2019, vol 5 issue 1 | Page 26

agreements on a broad time frame of ‘5 years of policy development’. 23 This could, however,
be one of many ‘incentives’ at play here. 24
Givens and Luedtke’s use of ‘two-level games’ provides a compelling account of why
the EU will never be able to influence the future course of immigration policy. Ultimately, the
restrictive and expansive nature of harmonization relies on the political alignment (left or
right) of the national government in question. 25 Moravcsik refers to this as ‘institutional
choice’, which highlights that member states are willing to pool their sovereignty to ‘formalise
credible commitments’ regarding integration, but these powers are ‘limited’ to areas of
external policy. 26 Having said that, the authors’ decision to focus on the capacity of national
institutions, in terms of immigrant rights, in Germany, France and the UK is never really
justified. 27 This is inconsistent with LIG, which emphasises asymmetric interdependence: how
the most powerful states can influence decisions during intergovernmental conferences. An
attempt to remedy this is made after the authors refer to the IGC, but they neglect to show
how this group (Germany, France, and the UK) shaped the preferences of other member
states during the IGC conference.
A criticism often directed at RCI, as pointed out by Green and Shapiro, is the lack of
attention it pays to competing theories. 28 In this case, however, Menz offers a very insightful
overview of immigration literature and positions himself against two main theories of
European integration: neofunctionalism and liberal intergovernmentalism. Having said that,
23
Menz, “The promise of principal-agent approach,” 321.
Pollack, “Delegation,” 108.
25
Givens and Luedtke, “The Politics of the European Union,” 158.
26
Andrew Moravcsik, The Choice for Europe: Social Purpose and State Power from Messina to Maastricht (New
York: Cornell University Press, 1998), 67.
27
Givens and Luedtke, “The Politics of the European Union,” 161.
28
Donald Green and Ian Shapiro, Pathologies of Rational Choice Theory: A Critique of Rational Choice Theory
(Yale: Yale University Press, 1994).
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