The European Union Post‐Brexit: Static or Dynamic Adaptation?

• Published date: 01 March 2017
• Date: 01 March 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/eulj.12206
• Author: Giandomenico Majone

The European Union Post-Brexit: Static or

Dynamic Adaptation?

Giandomenico Majone*

Abstract: The choice facing the leaders of the European Union, after Brexit, is between a

static adaptation, leaving the current approach to integration essentially unchanged, and a

dynamic adaptation, which recognisesthe need for radical changes. Dynamic adaptation re-

quires institutional leadership—something apparently incompatible with the basic principle

of the equality of all the Member States. The clearest indication of a deficit of leadership

is the failure to define the real purpose of the collective activity. This failure is at the root

of Brexit, as may be seen from the explicit re jection of the indefinite goal of ‘e ver closer

union’by the Britishprime minister in November 2015.An alternative approachto European

integration finds a good theoretical foundation in Buchanan’s theory of clubs. The essential

principleof a functional organisationat supranational level is that activities would be selected

specifically and organised separately. A strict ly functional approach to integration could

revive an interestin political union in the formof a confederation. As Tocquevillehad clearly

understood long ago, the weakness of confederations increases in direct proportion to the

extent of their nominal power. What is most important today is to distinguish between the

general idea of European integration and one particular implementation of that idea, such

as the European Union.

I Introduction: Adaptation and its Modes

Adaptation, in biology, is the process by which an animal or a plant becomes fitted to its

environment. The ability to adapt to its environment is the characteristic that enables the

animal or the plant to survive the requirement of a changing world. Biologists point out

that many organisms today have structures or physiological mechanisms that are useless

or even somewhat deleterious, but which were useful for survival in earlier times when

the organism was adapted to a rather different environment. There are many different

modes of adaptation(such as structural, physiologicor colour adaptation),but in all cases,

biological adaptation is the outcome of evolution. Psychologists, for their part, emphasise

the importance of human adaptation to the environment. Such adaptation, they argue, is

the key to understanding both what intelligence is and what it does. Particularly relevant

to our discussionis the distinction between staticand dynamic adaption. By staticadapta-

tion, clinical psychol ogists mean such an adaptat ion to changes as leaves the wh ole

character structure unc hanged and implies only the ad option of ordinary respon sive

behaviour. Instead, in dynamic adaptation, there is no one-to-on e relation between an

isolated stimulus and its response. Sociologist Philip Selznick has applied this distinction

to the study of organisations. The first type of adaptation occurs in organisations when

the existing structure is assum ed to be competent to meet issues as they ar ise without

* Emeritus Professor at the IUEVia Roccettini, 14, 50014 San Domenico di Fiesole, Firenze.

European LawJournal, Vol. 23, No. 1-2,August 2017, pp. 9–27.

© 2017 John Wiley& Sons Ltd.

internal crisis: ‘As the dai ly work proceeds, changes o ccur, but normally these do n ot

significantly affect the nature of the enterprise or its leadership’.

1

There are, however, decisions that cannot be understood as simple problem solving, in

which the organisation remains essentially intact. This is the area of critical experience,of

‘character defining’commitments, which affect the organisation’s capacity to control its

own future. It is the area wher e leadership counts. The no tion of leadership, Selz nick

notes, is too often associated with the personal relation of leader and followers, but this

view leads us away from the role of leadership in making critical decisions. Institutional

leadership deals with current issues not for themselves alone but according to their long-

run implications for the role and meaning of the organisation. It is the role of the institu-

tional leader to definethe ends of the enterprise, to design an institution distinctly adapted

to these ends and to see that thatdesign becomes a living reality. When such leadership is

lacking, the institution drifts, being readily influenced by short-run opportunistic trends.

The clearest indication of a deficit of leadershipis the failure to set goals. This failure to

define the purpose of the activity is often due to the wish to avoid conflicts with those, in

and out of the organisation, who would be threatened by a sharp definition of purpose

with its attendant claims and responsibilities.

2

Precisely for this reason, it is important to

emphasise the leader’s responsibility to define the mission of the enterprise. By contrast,

much of the literatureon European integration takesthe main purpose of the EU as given,

whereas precisely this is what is problematic today. Failure to specify the real purpose of

the integration process permits EU leaders to use institutional survival as the criterion of

success. Theproblem is that a polity led by bureaucratsand politicians who disagreeabout

the final goal to be achieved may fail dismally while steadily growing larger and appar-

ently more secure. Failure to agree on a common goal of collective activity is certainly

at the root of Brexit.

II Static Adaptation, Path Dependence and ‘Lock-In’

As we saw, staticadaptation to change does not affectsignificantly the nature ofthe enter-

prise. The way the crisis of monetary un ion has been managed so far provides a good

example of this kind of adaptation. Even experts who were convinced that ‘the euro was

adisaster’now look for ways to rescue it. In the last chapter of his book, The Shifts and

The Shocks, Martin Wolf compares European monetary union to a bad marriage. The

opening lines of thatchapter express one of the most severe assessments of what wascon-

sidered, until recently, a major achievement of the European Union (EU):

The eurohas been a disaster. No otherword will do. A projectintended to strengthensolidarity, bring pros-

perity and weaken German economic domination of Europe ha s achieved precisely the opposite: it has

underminedsolidarity, destroyed prosperity and reinforced German domination, at least fora while.

3

And then he adds:

Proponentsthought that creatinga currency union would bringthe peoples of the Eurozonecloser together.

Crises divided them into contemptuous creditorsand resentful debtors instead. This has been a march of

folly.

4

1

P. Selznick,Leadership in Administration (Harper & Row,1957), at 34.

2

Ibid., at 35–37.

3

M. Wolf, The Shifts and The Shocks(Allen Lane, 2014), at 289.

4

Ibid., at 291–292.

The European Union Post-BrexitAugust 2017

© 2017 John Wiley& SonsLtd.10