Workshop: Capacity-Building in the EU

Call for papers: The Research Unit Reconfiguring Europe is calling for papers for a workshop on patterns of capacity-building in the EU. The workshop will gather around 25 scholars for an in-depth debate over two days.

The EUis facing massive challenges in important fields such as defence, supply chain security, digital technology, economic growth, infrastructure, climate, and migration. Coping requires not only EU regulation (i.e. the adoption of EU rules telling other actors what to do) but also EU capacity-building (i.e. the joint mobilization of fiscal, coercive, and administrative resources). Demand for EU capacity-building is high because it promises to improve the collective problem-solving competence through economies of scale, transnational solidarity and European strategic autonomy. Yet, capacity-building also threatens the member states: what if EU capacity fails to deliver on its promises, if the EU army is tied up in red tape and indecision, if EU funds distribute resources away from the national economy, if capacity building creates a political backlash among nationalist voters? Fearing control loss, the member states rarely go all-in with EU capacity-building even though sometimes they do as the creation of the European Central Bank clearly shows. But they also rarely refuse capacity building altogether. The EU budget was a key project from the very beginning and even defence procurement is no longer a purely national concern. There is little support for the European superstate with its own monopoly of violence and taxation. But support for disintegration and the purely national mobilization of core state powers seems equally low.

We assume that most capacity-building happens in the middle-ground between complete centralization and untrammeled nationalism. Policy makers do not sacrifice national control to EU competence, or vice versa, but seek ways to mix and match them in productive and politically viable ways. This may involve the creation or reinforcement of substantial EU-level capacities such as the ESM or the Single Resolution Fund, Frontex, or the leveraging of the EU budget through NextGenEU or more recently through SAFE. Yet, these capacities are usually created with very many strings attached, as the member states try to hedge their risks. Various arrangements can serve to balance the competence-control trade-off in capacity-building, some closer to the control-end and some closer to the competence-end of the continuum. Options include (but are not limited to):

• coalitions of the willing: All capacities remain national but their operation is subject to informal agreements and peer pressure. Member states with aligned policy interests agree on the coordination of their core state powers outside the EU framework on an ad hoc basis. Defense cooperation is an example.
• regulation: All capacities remain national but their operation is subjected to EU regulatory disciplines. EU rules may put constraints on national capacity use in order to prevent negative externalities. Think of the Stability and Growth Pact. Other rules coordinate national capacities to realize synergies. Think of social protection for mobile workers. Sometimes, however, the regulatory mobilization of national capacity involves the relaxation of EU rules. Think of the suspension of the Stability and Growth Pact or the EU state aid regime during the Corona pandemic. 
• joint operation: Capacities remain national but the EU operates them on the member states’ behalf. The clearest example may be joint procurement of COVID vaccines during the pandemic: the Commission negotiated framework agreements with industry for the member states. The member states then signed up and paid for national shares of these agreements. 
• reinsurance: the EU creates its own capacities but not to displace the capacities of the member states but to ensure their functionality in crunch times when national capacities are temporarily or structurally overwhelmed and therefore cannot contribute sufficiently to joint problem-solving (e.g. SAFE or SURE). Additional EU capacity is often small compared to the sum of member state capacities. Member states retain national control unless they draw on the EU capacity back-stop.
• genuine European capacity: the EU creates own capacities, funds them from own sources and assumes full operational control. The EU capacities do not simply support or leverage national capacities but have their own independent policy role, if only in a restricted policy area. The ECB is the most obvious examples. Less prominent examples include RescEU stockpiles or the consolidation of debt management in the Commission.

The purpose of the workshop is twofold. Empirically it aims to describe patterns of capacity-building in the EU, map their emergence, explain their political logic and dynamic, and assess their institutional and policy outcomes across issue areas and over time. Theoretically, it explores the potential of analyzing capacity-building as a collective attempt to balance tradeoffs between EU problem-solving competence and national control. The workshop is open to all plausible methods and approaches (qualitative and quantitative, descriptive and analytic, observational and experimental) and to scholars at all levels of seniority. It targets political scientists but is also open to other disciplines. The workshop seeks to address four sets of questions in particular:

• descriptive: When and where does capacity-building happen in the EU? What form does it take? Which patterns does it follow? What are differences over time and across sectors? 
• comparative-static: what explains the institutional choice for capacity building. How do competence-control considerations shape differences in approach, size, mandate, or governance of individual projects of EU capacity building? 
• dynamic: what happens to EU capacities once created? Do they grow in size and scope, driven perhaps by positive returns to EU competence? Or do they atrophy and fall into disuse, for instance, because tight national control make their use all but impractical?
• evaluative: do EU capacities deliver on their promises? Is there evidence to suggest that they empower the EU through unity, solidarity, or economies of scale? Or are they mostly wasteful and erode rather than increase collective problem-solving competence? 

The workshop will gather around 25 scholars for an in-depth debate over two days. Travel and expenses will be covered by the organizers (within the bounds of reason). Papers discussed at the workshop should ideally be around 5-6000 words. They should present a substantial argument and preliminary evidence but need not be publication-ready. 

1 March 2026: send abstracts (max 300 words) to Markus Jachtenfuchs ([email protected])

1 April 2026: notification of participants
28 September 2026: final paper submission (5-6000 words)

15-16 October 2026: workshop at Hanse Wissenschaftskolleg Delmenhorst