Interest representation in Malta : identifying features of Europeanisation

Abstract

This paper explores how the ingrained characteristics originating from small-sized and remote member states affect the incorporation of, or resistance to, the external incentives and norms of EU governance into domestic polity structures. Research primacy rests on the role and character of interest groups involved in national policy-making and their interplay with governmental actors, as well as their participation in EU governance. The author supports Ulika Mórth (2003) in defining the unfolding term of Europeanisation as a process of institutionalisation in which new rules and new ways of thinking evolve, not only at the supranational level but, most importantly, at the domestic level as well. Considering the various generations of studies that have been undertaken to set the parameters and dynamics of Europeanisation, this is a rather simplistic definition which, however, is deemed useful for the scope of this paper. The study is marshalled from the perspective and empirical experience of the smallest member state, the Mediterranean island of the Republic of Malta. During its first years since EU accession in 2004, Malta is still experimenting with its European vocation without forgetting its Mediterranean roots. The two major variants of new institutionalism, namely rational choice institutionalism (RCI) and sociological institutionalism (SI) lie at the core of the applied scientific method to analyse the tension between imported change and the preservation of inherited features related to polity and politics.