Overview

In 2007 the farm subsidies of the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy took over 40 percent of the entire EU budget. How did a sector of diminishing social and economic importance manage to maintain such political prominence? The conventional answer focuses on the negotiations among the member states of the European Community from 1958 onwards. That story holds that the political priority, given to the CAP, as well as its long-term stability, resides in a basic devil's bargain between French agriculture and German industry. In Farmers on Welfare, a landmark new account of the making of the single largest European policy ever, Ann-Christina L. Knudsen suggests that this accepted narrative is rather too neat. In particular, she argues, it neglects how a broad agreement was made in the 1960s that related to national welfare state policies aiming to improve incomes for farmers. Drawing on extensive archival research from a variety of political actors across the Community, she illustrates how and why this supranational farm regime was created in the 1960s, and also provides us with a detailed narrative history of how national and European administrations gradually learned about this kind of cooperation. By tracing how the farm welfare objective was gradually implemented in other common policies, Knudsen offers an alternative account of European integration history.

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Farmers on Welfare is a must-read for serious scholars of European integration. Its core argument that the CAP is a type of social policy and should be viewed as a key component of an international agricultural welfare state rather than simply as a commercial agreement is both provocative and well-documented. Its emphasis on the role of ideas as well as its use of historical institutionalism as an organizing framework resonates with ongoing theoretical debates in the social sciences. Ann-Christina Knudsen has written an important book that deserves attention. Alberta Sbragia, Jean Monnet Chair ad personam Director, European Union Center of Excellence, University of Pittsburgh

<p> Farmers on Welfare is an important work that provides the most detailed account to date of the creation of the Common Agricultural Policy. Employing newly tapped archival sources, Ann-Christina L. Knudsen challenges much of the received wisdom about the formation of the CAP and, in doing so, offers valuable new insights into the nature of European politics and about policymaking in general. -Adam Sheingate, The Johns Hopkins University

Author Information

Ann-Christina L. Knudsen is Associate Professor in the Department of European Studies at Aarhus University, Denmark.

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