The analysis of basic characteristics of British and German administrative traditions, as they are defined by the distinctive macro-institutional context given in both countries, provides us with the necessary background knowledge in order to assess the institutional scope of European adaptation requirements. In other words, we are able to identify whether European requirements for sectoral adjustments imply challenges of the core or remain within the core of national administrative traditions.

I have argued, however, that, notwithstanding the general stability and continuity of administrative traditions, exceptional changes in these core arrangements cannot be fully precluded. Although not putting into question the validity of our institutional explanation (based on the concept of adaptation pressure), such developments reduce its predictive reliability. As pointed out in chapter 3, this problem can partly be captured by identifying the structural potential for administrative reforms, which is itself an institutionalised feature of the macro-institutional context and hence might may vary from country to country (Knill 1999). The concept of national administrative reform capacity serves as indicator for the overall reliability of the institution-based hypotheses on domestic administrative adjustments in the light of European requirements, although we can predict neither the occurrence nor the timing of administrative reforms.

The national capacity for administrative reforms depends on the number of formal and factual institutional veto points administrative actors have at their disposal in order to influence and resist political reform initiatives.

The underlying study was written in the context of a broader research project on ‘European Integration and the Transformation of the State’ which was funded under the Leibniz Programme of the German Science Foundation (DFG) and conducted by Adrienne Héritier. I am particularly grateful to Adrienne not only for her continuous support and encouragement, but also for providing me with the great opportunity to carry out my work at three of Europe's ‘finest addresses’ in political and social science: the University of Bielefeld; the Max-Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne; and the European University Institute in Florence.

I am also particularly indebted to Yves Mény. It was on the basis of his initiative that I was able to carry out a research project on ‘The Impact of National Administrative Traditions on the Implementation of EU Environmental Policy’ at the Robert-Schuman Centre of the European University Institute. This project, which was financed by the European Commission, is of major theoretical and empirical relevance for the underlying study. I am grateful to Yves for the provision of administrative and logistical support through the Robert-Schuman Centre as well as his scientific commitment to the project and his continuous advice. Furthermore, I want to express my particular thanks to Roland Czada, the director of the Institute of Political Science at the University of Hagen.

The starting point of this study was to investigate the impact of European policies on national administrations. To what extent can we expect administrative change at the national level in order to comply with European policy demands and to what extent does domestic change lead to administrative convergence across member states? How can the observed patterns of administrative transformation be explained? In addressing these questions, the purpose of this concluding part is twofold, namely, to illustrate our theoretical and analytical considerations from a comparative perspective and to assess the extent to which these considerations can be generalised.

The Irish not only are Catholic in name, belonging to an imaginary religious community, but are also devout practitioners. In 1990, 82 percent of Irish Catholics attended weekly Mass, the highest proportion of any population in the world. The Irish became and remained more Catholic than most other Catholic Europeans if measured by devotion, church attendance, and conviction. The “Irish Devotional Resolution” reflected the loss of language and cultural identity during the nineteenth century and was nourished by the growing resistance to Anglicization. Not until the 1850s, however, did institutional Catholicism plant itself firmly in the Irish mentality. The Great Famine (1845–49) destroyed the livelihood of a rural underclass, whose main religious practices included magic. The famine, which killed nearly one million people and forced another million to seek their fortunes overseas, led to the disappearance of this vast rural underclass and introduced new ideas about land ownership and inheritance rights. The Catholic elite and tenant farmers encouraged the adoption of new rules on ownership with a view to modernizing Ireland and from then on priests, brothers, and nuns became important fixtures in the average Irish household. After the famine disaster, the modernizing state handed over the task of civilizing the Irish population to the Church, which assumed responsibility for fostering discipline, education, and civility. By the time that the Irish Free State was founded in 1922, Catholic ethics were internalized in the minds and hearts of the Irish to the extent that they viewed no conflict between individual autonomy and definition of the good life and that of the Church.

A good society, according to Nordic definitions, checks human passions that produce drunkenness, lewdness, and rituals of anti-social behavior. A society that fails to civilize its members confronts self-centered hedonism. Married to a strong belief in social engineering, successive generations of elected officials endeavored to minimize the consumption of alcohol and to ban recreational drug-taking. Sweden, like Finland, was part of the vodka-belt and occasions of sociability were often an excuse to get extremely drunk. For more than a century, this style of drinking provoked little concern although distilled spirits were the subject of a lengthy political struggle between the Swedish monarchy and the peasantry. But the bone of contention was the discretionary right to impose excise taxes on distilled liquor and to sell surplus spirits. The Swedish monarchy depended on alcohol taxes to finance its budget and repeatedly tried to take away from the peasant communities the right to produce and sell vodka. In 1824, the monarchy admitted defeat and the production, sale, and distribution of spirits fell into private hands. By the 1850s, according to the official historiography of Swedish drinking, the nation was succumbing to permanent drunkenness, as each man, woman, and child was said to consume as much as 46 liters of brännvin or Swedish vodka per year, which was the equivalent of nearly half a liter of pure alcohol per week. Other figures cited the annual production of 22 million gallons of pure alcohol for a population of 3 million.

Rather suddenly, drinking rituals, which dated from the introduction of spirits in Sweden in the eighteenth century, became a major concern in the late nineteenth century.

A 1992 report by the European Parliament made the allegation that the power of criminal organizations was growing at an alarming rate and was having serious effects on society and on the political institutions of the member states. It continued to note ominously that organized crime undermined the foundations of the legitimate economy and threatened the stability of the states of the Community. In this ongoing debate on international crime, much attention is given to the aberration of Dutch drug policy with its open retail trade in cannabis and tolerance for the petty trade in hard drugs. At the same time, many member states have in fact incorporated selected features of the Dutch method into their own systems. In 1994, the German Federal Court urged the Länder to differentiate drug offenses according to the nature of the stimulant. Belgium, Denmark, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Spain have also dropped the US-style “war on drugs” model. Chiefs of government, however, are hesitant to openly endorse a moderate anti-drug approach, as opposed to local authorities, which are willing to experiment with new anti-drug methods. Of course, there is a core group of countries (France and Sweden) that unconditionally rejects drug toleration and they carry the upper hand in official EU deliberations since the EU itself perceives drugs as an internal security challenge.

Internal security dominates the official discussion on drugs in Brussels and at intergovernmental meetings because European cooperation arose from numerous attempts to deepen policing, custom, and judicial cooperation. In other words, drug policy coordination falls under the remit of the Ministers of Home Affairs and Justice.

In spite of its notoriety, Dutch drug control policy resembles that of many other advanced industrialized countries. Emma Bonino, the former Commissioner for Consumer Policy and for Humanitarian Affairs of the European Union came out in public in favor of Dutch-style decriminalization of cannabis, after the European Drugs Observatory issued a report showing “little relationship” between strict prohibitionist policies and reductions in the number of drug offenses. Nevertheless, the Netherlands is known as Europe's drug Mecca. The aim of this chapter is to highlight how Dutch drug policy diverges from conventional standards, why this particular form of intervention is representative of Dutch collective selfidentity, and how institutions and interests interpret and rationalize the Dutch way of doing things.

The Netherlands deviates from the rest of Europe in that it views the circulation of illicit drugs as a public health issue rather than a law and order crisis. Like Nordic alcohol policy, Dutch drug policy aims to reduce harm to the individual and society so that assistance and prevention go hand in hand with detection and prosecution of punishable offenses. Three government departments are involved in drug policy deliberation and implementation: Interior, Justice, and Public Health. The latter is in charge of overall coordination. Of course, as every tourist will testify, the most striking facet of Dutch drug policy is the coffee shop. This establishment sells small amounts of hashish and marijuana for personal use alongside ordinary refreshments. First opened in Amsterdam, coffee shops are now found across the country.

In the past fifteen years or so, the scope and density of European Union activities have increased immensely. This study seeks to understand how these developments affect the normative and causal beliefs of the member states. The research design I employed examined singular or deviant morality frameworks, which endured in spite of the ascendance of very different models of behavior in the rest of the European Union. I argued that these morality standards survived new styles of thought and practices because of their centrality to the definition of collective self-identity. Collective ideas on controversial matters, such as drinking alcohol, drug use, or abortion, which deviate from mainstream thinking, foster a sense of national belonging.

Institutional action and political decisions in the spheres of abortion, alcohol, and drugs disclose deeply held beliefs on the self, personhood, and state governance. In the Western world, the self is considered subjective and aspires to autonomy and personal fulfillment. We find our identity through acts of choice and we are not dependent on the authority of religion or traditional morality. Notions of personhood vary greatly from culture to culture and variations reflect different social, political, and economic arrangements as well as different legal, religious, and philosophical legacies. I have argued in this book that Nordic alcohol control policy and the Irish proscription on abortion deviate from the European or Western conceptualization of the self in that they continue to subordinate the freedom to choose to the right of a higher authority to make decisions.

Charles Mackay (1814–89), a Scottish poet, journalist, song-writer, and author of Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions, once wrote that nations, like individuals, have their whims and their peculiarities, their seasons of excitement and recklessness. If nations have indeed such things as national personalities and habits, then the past ten years offer an intriguing glimpse of how they have adapted to post-Maastricht Europe. This book examines the fate of national cultures, defined here in anthropological terms as everyday socialization, beliefs, norms, institutions, and common behavior in light of the challenges brought by European institution- and market-building. To be sure, numerous studies explore the challenges faced by national governments as they attempt to preserve or redefine national identities or cultures. My contribution to this debate is twofold. First, I describe the formation of national identity and institutions emblematic of the national traits of a country. I concentrate on the national governance of socially sensitive policies and will argue that variations in morality norms shed light on some of the most important aspects of state and national identity. My examples are Dutch drug policy, more liberal than the rest of Europe, Nordic alcohol control policy, more restrictive than the rest of Europe, Markets and moral regulation and Irish policy towards sexual morality, more conservative than the rest of Europe.

Second, I will discuss how constitutive rules, specifying proper behavior, cope with pressures emanating from the expansion of European governance, policies, and institutions. This book's overall conclusion is that national peculiarities are shrinking and that a modest rate of cultural convergence has occurred.

This book is about the impact of market integration and supranational institution–building on Europe's cultural diversity. Europe is known for its rich mélange of cultures and this diversity, many observers agree, impedes the task of building a genuine political union. I ask in this study whether cultural diversity is diminishing and, if so, how this process unfolds, and what the actual consequences will be for Europe. My findings indicate that member governments are experiencing a loss of national sovereignty in the cultural sphere and that external pressures result in an ever so slight convergence of different styles of thought and actions. But I also show that the actual pace of adaptation is extremely gradual and that the immediate effect on the European Union is modest. My case studies are alcohol control policy in Finland and Sweden, drug policy in the Netherlands, and abortion in Ireland. I selected these issue areas because each sheds light on the conviction and collective rules of the national polity and thus opens a window on to Dutch, Irish, Finnish, and Swedish culture. At their most basic, drug and alcohol policies are public measures to regulate the circulation of mind-altering substances in society. But the way in which governments define the challenge and the kinds of measures they pursue communicates how a national community assesses the risks of intoxication for the individual and society. In turn, that assessment is colored by specific legal, historical, social, and institutional factors and is embedded in a public discourse and narrative. Likewise, the Irish constitutional ban on abortion encapsulates the centrality of Catholic teaching in Irish politics, culture, and institutional structures.

Drinking is a social activity and different cultures assign different meanings to alcohol. Rituals in the Nordic countries centered on drinking distilled liquor outside mealtimes and the main objective was to get drunk. Social occasions were frequently accompanied by binge drinking (sporadic bouts of excessive drinking) and drunkards were a common sight in public spaces. All forms of inebriation arouse moral and political opposition and are considered legitimate terrain for government control. After the 1880s, binge drinking was considered offensive. Temperance associations, growing out of Christian evangelical movements, preached first against spirits and then against drinking, and blamed weak selfcontrol for destructive drinking practices, incompatible with a modernizing society. For many Finns, moreover, binge drinking was indicative of the nation's underdevelopment. National officials argued that the taciturn introvert Finn metamorphosed into an aggressive drunk after drinking even modest amounts of alcohol because Finland was a primitive and insular community and did not yet possess the trappings of higher civilizations. Destructive binge drinking was both a cause and a symptom of Finland's backwardness.

In actuality, Nordic statistics on alcohol production and consumption do not validate this savage imagery of a nation filled with aggressive drunks. Many within agrarian European societies drank excessive amounts of alcohol and “boozing” is typically associated with the use of spirits, not with the level of development of the nation. In both Finland and Sweden, anti-alcohol sentiments arose, not because society was teetering on the verge of permanent intoxication, but rather because social tolerance of a particular drinking style declined. Gradually, the rejection of certain drinking styles spilled over into a rejection of alcoholic beverages generally.

As soon as Finland and Sweden joined the European Union, the state alcohol monopoly companies – Alko and Systembolaget – encountered a whole set of fresh challenges. By 1995, political and social pressure against drinking restrictions had already been growing and European Union membership intensified public impatience with the state monopoly companies. Finnish and Swedish citizens were acquainted with non- Nordic regulatory regimes and increasingly came to value the concept of the sovereign individual with autonomous decision powers. State regulations to direct consumption publicly were seen as a violation of this treasured autonomy. Until quite recently, it was considered normal for the state to tell people what makes them happy. But with the new mood since the late 1980s, Nordic people prefer to tell the government what makes them happy. Accession to the European Union only deepened the new ideological orientation towards individualism and personal responsibility, as seen in many different political economy domains.

The expert community contributed to the Europeanization of drinking attitudes. Specialists emphasized science and applied theoretical models to whole populations thereby lifting the moral burden off the drinker. No longer did public servants pretend to identify specific risk groups or individuals and no longer did they pass moral judgments on drinking per se. Only the consequences mattered and individuals were encouraged to assess the costs of their actions independently. The public health perspective normalized drinking, and subsequently, convinced people to demand less state intervention.

Nevertheless, genuine reform, let alone the abolition of state monopolies, was not on the agenda in the 1980s. Many critical observers anticipated enormous parliamentary resistance to proposals for limited deregulation and privatization and thus dismissed the possibility of altering the status quo.

The revitalization of Western Europe

The 1980s witnessed dramatic changes in world society. Political orders that seemed to be rigidly fixed changed within only a few years. The sudden acceleration of West European integration is a case in point and the topic of this volume. To be sure, another historic event needs mentioning. In the short time between November 1989 – the fall of the Berlin Wall – and the end of 1991 – the official dissolution of the Soviet Union – the East–West conflict, which had marked the postwar era, became history.

In a booklet distributed at Seville's 1992 Universal Exposition, the European Community (EC) presents itself to the world as follows:

Since the post-Cold War world order is mentioned in the above quote, the coincidence in time of the Treaty on European Union – agreed by the heads of state and government of the European Community at their summit in Maastricht in December 1991 – along with the dissolution of the Soviet Union and German reunification could suggest that state-building in Europe and the end of the East–West divide are related. However, this is a mistaken perspective. Western Europe embarked on its path to a new and additional form of statehood as early as the first half of the 1980s, as manifested in the Single European Act signed in February 1986 by the then twelve member states.