Search

This paper examines the 'making' of Capital Markets Union (CMU) through the theoretical lens of 'actor-centred constructivism', by considering the 'policy narratives' that bureaucratic actors have employed strategically to promote the project. It is argued that two main narratives were articulated by the European Commission in order to mobilize the political support necessary to push forward CMU and reduce potential opposition to it. The first narrative was to boost the size and internal and external competitiveness of European Union capital markets. The second narrative was the increased funding to the real economy, especially to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and infrastructural projects. The Commission used these narratives instrumentally in 'framing' CMU as a positive-sum game, rather than a zero-sum game with potential winners and losers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the evolution of food safety policy at the level of the European Union (EU) from a discourse-analytical perspective. First, the article traces the political saliency of food safety since the food scares of the late 1990s, such as ‘mad cow disease’, and explores the consequent breakdown of the historically sedimented policy approach. Specifically, I highlight key moments of institutional transformation at the EU level by considering the role of scientific expertise and the meaning of national borders in the overall policy approach. Subsequently, the paper uses discourse analysis to address the mobilization of Europeanization in food safety policy since the 1990s, and identifies the ‘integrative nodal points’ that have helped sustain this policy discourse: notions of being a member of the food chain, of being a stakeholder, and of being a consumer. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This contribution introduces a selection of the best papers presented at the 2015 European Union Studies Association’s biennial conference. It uses these papers as a jumping off point to consider whether European Union (EU) studies suffers the same ‘gap’ with real-world problems that is seen to afflict some portions of the academy and to ask whether EU studies is at an inflection point. It argues that EU studies are closely linked to the substance of the European project. It identifies how the contributions to this collection speak to different aspects of the EU: closer co-operation; policy-making within a ‘normal’ political system; the implications of European integration for its member states. Given this link between the substance of the European project and the focus of EU studies, this contribution argues that the challenges currently confronting the EU – the lingering eurozone debt crises; the migrant/refugee crisis; the prospect of a British exit; and recent terrorist attacks – may mark an inflection point in EU studies. The reason is that for the first time ‘less Europe’ has emerged as a serious option in response to crisis. This possibility reignites questions of (dis)integration and calls into question the assumption the EU policy only accumulates. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Do interest groups have an impact on transposition of European Union (EU) directives? This paper offers an analysis of interest group communities of member states and links the concept of diversity to legal implementation. In order to accommodate diverse interests, member state governments allow for some deviations when transposing EU legislation into national law. Therefore, successful transposition is hard to achieve in member states with diverse interest group environments. This paper tests this argument by applying a large N study including 19 directives and 15 member states. The results show that correct transposition is likely to be negatively affected by high levels of diversity of national interest groups; however, this effect is conditional on the discretion granted to member states by EU legislation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although enlargement increases the preference diversity in the European Union (EU), this paper shows that enlargement has not led to a deterioration of compliance with EU law. In three of the EU’s four enlargement rounds, the new member states comply better with EU law than the old member states. The Southern enlargement in the 1980s is the only one that led to a substantial increase in non-compliance. Particularly surprising for the main compliance theories, which focus on state power, adjustment costs, administrative capacities or legitimacy, is the good performance of the post-communist Central and Eastern European new member states after the Eastern enlargement in the 2000s. Our analysis suggests that the use of pre-accession conditionality in the Eastern enlargement explains why these new members perform so well – unlike their Southern counterparts who faced equally unfavourable country-level conditions for compliance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Europeanization literature assumes that European integration affects domestic policies, politics and polities; yet, the impact on domestic corporatist patterns, which characterize policy-making in small European states, has received little attention so far. While contradictory theoretical expectations exist, this paper argues that European market-making policies tend to weaken domestic corporatist policy-making by offering new opportunities to domestic actors, in particular the executive. This allows them to bypass policy concertation. However, the impact depends on the usage domestic actors make of the European policies and is mediated by domestic factors. A comparison across policy sectors in two countries – Belgium and Switzerland – largely confirms these arguments. This means that domestic institutions such as corporatist policy-making are not only mediating factors in the process of Europeanization, but themselves subject to change. This effect even goes beyond the borders of the European Union, affecting policy-making in Switzerland as well. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The aim of this paper is to investigate citizen views on the free movement of workers within the European Union (EU). We are interested in how situational and relational factors affect labour market chauvinist attitudes. Drawing on the threat theory, we advance new hypotheses on the role of intertemporal relative deprivation in amplifying chauvinist inclinations. From the intergroup contact theory and transnational approaches, we borrow insights on the role played by cross-border experiences and inclusion in discursive and associational networks in containing chauvinism. The analysis uses the original ‘Reconciling Economic and Social Europe’ (REScEU) survey conducted in six EU countries (i.e., France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and Sweden) in the fall of 2016. The article shows that - though rooted in class and status positions - chauvinist attitudes are clearly sensitive to contingent situations and lifeworld experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The absence of explicit reference to sport in the European Union (EU) treaties has allowed the Court and the Commission room to require sport to adjust to the standards required by EU law. Sporting federations typically assert a need for a wider zone of autonomy than the Court and Commission have been prepared to grant, but, unable to persuade the Member States that they deserve exemption from the application of the Treaty, sports bodies have increasingly been induced to develop strategies of co-existence with the EU. This paper shows how they were able to exert influence in both the Convention on the Future of Europe and the subsequent intergovernmental conference in order to secure recognition of sport's special characteristics within the Treaty, albeit in ambiguous form. Sports bodies engage with the EU precisely in order to minimize its impact. The relevant provisions of Treaty of Lisbon dealing with sport are examined to show that they leave open scope for future contestation about the interaction between EU law and policy and the systems of sports governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we re-examine early neofunctionalist concepts of spillover, spill-around and build-up, and apply them to the case of the Open Method of Co-ordination (OMC) in education and training policy. We show that even an EU at ‘the end of integration’ can bind its Member States more closely together over time. In this way, we add to recent analyses of unanticipated spillover in ‘hard’ policies by showing that such can be the outcome of ‘soft’ policies too, and set out a hypothesis to guide future investigations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper assesses whether EU compliance is still a ‘black hole’, reviewing two decades of research on this topic. It is argued that the first wave of scholarship was rather eclectic in nature, suggesting numerous legal and politico-administrative explanations. The second wave focused on the goodness of fit hypothesis. As the empirical support for this hypothesis has been rather disappointing, the consensus now seems to be that domestic politics needs to enter the equation in a more explicit fashion. The current challenge is to theorize and research the exact role and effects of domestic politics on processes of compliance. In doing so, scholars are advised to pay more attention to methodological issues, such as case selection. Finally, scholarship on compliance should shed more light on the actual size of the implementation deficit, especially when it comes to application and enforcement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article evaluates the institutional capacity of the EU for policy transfer. It identifies the variables shaping transfer processes and outcomes: the mode of decision employed; the veto-points at which the model may be thwarted or modified; and the institutionally embedded policy preferences against which the model is evaluated. Transfer outcomes are classified on a scale from mere influence , through synthesis , to emulation. The empirical part of the paper is based on research into the liberalization and re-regulation of the European electricity sector following a " first mover' initiative on the part of the UK. Unanimity requirements, it is argued, opened up veto opportunities for member states to modify the UK model in accordance with domestic policy preferences. At the same time, EU feedback effects modified domestic preferences. Thus whilst transfer outcomes fell short of emulation, the result was more than merely a synthesis of national approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the reason why the EU had such a great deal of trouble committing to the Ottawa Process to ban landmines. Though a number of EU member states were key proponents of a comprehensive ban, the 1997 Joint Action on landmines fell well short of wholehearted support for a ban. In the Joint Action, the EU restricted the transfer and production of anti-personnel mines but not their use or stockpiling, despite the fact that all but one of the member states were prepared or already had banned the weapons outright. The paper argues that an intergovernmental explanation of the agreement on the 1997 Joint Action requires an account of the Europeanizing influence of regular EU meetings, the role of the Council presidency, and the relative transparency of intra-EU negotiations. The paper describes European involvement in the campaign to ban anti-personnel mines and the reasons why landmines were an issue in the CFSP; explains the development of EU policy on the landmines ban up to and including the 1997 Joint Action; and concludes with the implications of this analysis for the EU's ability to act on complex foreign and security policy issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the claim that the fusion between executive and parliamentary majority (that marks parliamentary regimes and thus most EU member states) makes the development of a proactive collective role of national parliaments as a political force in the European multilevel system unlikely – irrespective of growing attempts to formally empower national parliaments. Conditions for inter-parliamentary activism – defined as joint parliamentary activities that aim at enhancing parliaments’ political influence or interests in a multilevel polity – are critically examined by a comparative study of the nature of inter-parliamentary activities in three federal systems whose constituent units are characterized by most different executive-legislative relations. In line with theoretical expectations, inter-parliamentary activism is strongest in the US (separation of powers) and non-existent in Canada (parliamentarism), with Switzerland located in between (separation of powers bridged by party ties). With the EU being most similar to Canada when it comes to executive-legislative relations on the ‘lower’ member-state level, the findings support those skeptical towards national parliaments’ potential to jointly become a politically active player in the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Under which conditions does the open method of co-ordination match the standards for demoi-cracy? To answer this question, we need some explicit standards about demoi-cracy. In fact, open co-ordination serves three different but interrelated purposes in European Union policy: to facilitate convergence; to support learning processes; and to encourage exploration of policy innovation. By intersecting standards and purposes, we find open co-ordination is neither inherently ‘good’ nor ‘bad’ for demoi-cracy, as it depends on how it has been put into practice. Therefore, we qualify the answer considering the empirical evidence on how normative principles hit the road of implementation. In the final part of this paper, we look into the demoi-cratic effects of the Eurozone's economic and financial crisis on our findings. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although the EU has become an increasingly prominent actor on the international stage, only EU member states and not the EU itself formally enjoy full membership in most international organizations. In the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), the EU only has observer status and its formal autonomy and authority are limited. On this basis one might expect that it lacks cohesiveness to turn into an effective external actor in UNGA negotiations. Nevertheless, the member states often develop common negotiation stances for UNGA resolutions. The paper argues that having a common position is essential, but not sufficient for the EU to turn into an effective external actor in international negotiations. In order to exert influence over UNGA resolutions the EU needs to adopt tied-hands strategies if EU member states' votes are crucial, or unbiased argumentative strategies in situations where passing resolutions do not require the support of EU members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the European Union's (EU) energy relations with Russia through new institutionalist concepts that understand ideas to be powerful within policymaking processes, in conferring credibility on certain governance norms as well as in contesting existing institutions. Explanations of the deterioration in EU–Russia energy relations have emphasized divergence in perspectives on energy, and how it should be governed, between these actors. Here it is argued that the proliferation of different ideas about energy within EU institutions has significant implications for this relationship. The paper analyses EU energy policy as a whole, including climate policy, and outlines what ideas have been influential over policymaking processes and with what consequences. Internal ideological differences challenge the dominance and credibility of market liberal ideas and policies, the EU's ability to speak with one voice in energy and attest to an increasingly complex and contradictory EU energy policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The smooth adoption of the European Union (EU) defence procurement directive in 2009 is puzzling, because member states had fiercely opposed legislation for the sensitive defence-industrial sector before. We argue that the Commission's strategic usage of judicial politics changed member states' opportunity structure and, by this, transformed a blocking majority of member states into legislative consensus. As it drew on new case law, the Commission pushed member states and threatened to leave the regulation of defence procurement uncontrolled to the European Court of Justice (ECJ). In parallel, it promised member states to restore legal certainty and political control if they would approve EU legislation on defence procurement. Following a process-tracing logic, we compare the failed Commission initiatives until 2005 with the adoption of the directive in 2009. Finally, the available evidence is checked against alternative explanations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper contributes to the discussion surrounding interest groups in the European Commission. We inspect the Commission's lobbying register and assess the density and diversity of the interest group population per policy domain. The results suggest that while at the system level élite pluralism with its preponderance of business interests is a credible hypothesis, this is not the case at the sub-system level, where chameleon pluralism better conceptualizes variation of the interest group populations as a function of the age of the Directorate General (DG), capacity of the DG, nature of the policy domain, and involvement of member states. Bridging theoretical considerations on input/output legitimacy with informational approaches, we argue that different policy domains demand different types of legitimacy that are supported by the provision of different types of information (technical/political). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The extent to which democracy functions successfully in the European Union is a hotly debated issue. Some citizens feel that EU democracy functions well as it is, whereas others perceive a democratic deficit. Which factors contribute to this variation in opinion? In this paper, we focus on the effect that the quality of national institutions has on citizens' perceptions of the democratic performance of the EU. From voter survey data from 21 EU member states (N = 32410), we find that better quality national institutions correlate to lower rates of satisfaction with the EU's democratic performance. In addition, this effect is stronger amongst citizens who are more knowledgeable about national politics. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for our research field in particular and for society in general. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Member states of the European Union (EU) respond differently when they get caught for violations of European law and face prosecution. While Portugal tends to settle its non-compliance cases quickly and at an early stage of the EU's official infringement proceedings, Italy and Belgium like to sit them out and do not even comply with rulings of the European Court of Justice after being convicted twice – first for violating EU law and then for not acting upon the court's original judgment. This paper explores the explanatory power of prominent compliance theories to address these diverging patterns of persistent non-compliance across EU member states and tests a set of hypotheses that accounts for the non-compliance dynamics across the different stages of the EU's infringement proceedings and over time. We find that both differences in capacity and power explain the variation in longitudinal non-compliance patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Each year, small Member States receive a disproportionate share of the European Union's (EU's) budget. A prominent explanation for this is that Council decision-making involves a healthy dose of vote selling, whereby large Member States offer small states generous fiscal transfers in exchange for influence over policy. But nobody has investigated whether net budget contributors actually get anything for their money. In this paper I identify the vote selling model's observable implications and find virtually no evidence consistent with Council cash-for-votes exchanges. I also show that a compromise model – the leading model of EU decision-making to date – modified to incorporate vote selling does not outperform a standard one that assumes votes are traded rather than sold. Taken together, the results suggest that Council decision-making operates with little or no vote selling, and that regardless of whatever they think they might be buying, net budget contributors get little or nothing in return for their money. These findings call for further investigation into how Member States approach the issue of fiscal transfers, and into the factors other than formal voting weight that affect the power of actors engaged in EU decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The work of Burley and Mattli, Alter, and Stone Sweet, taken together, provides the dominant political science explanation for the supremacy of European law. This review identifies a range of empirical and theoretical difficulties with this explanation, including the lack of a specified alternative outcome, an overemphasis on national constitutional rights, a limited understanding of the possible relationships between national law and ‘ordinary’ treaty obligations, ambiguity on the essential question of whether national political institutions could unilaterally legislate contrary to European law, and the failure to provide an explanation for state behaviour compatible with European law supremacy. The paper then sets out a research agenda, emphasizing the need to identify independent variables which could produce, depending on their values, outcomes like the EU which rely on states accepting the supremacy of treaty obligations or, alternatively, tit-for-tat regimes like the World Trade Organization which rely on bilateral reciprocity enforcement mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper studies the effects of the Lisbon Strategy on the way in which national executives co-ordinate EU policy at the domestic level. Comparing seven countries (Denmark, the United Kingdom [UK], Austria, Slovenia, Spain, France and Poland) it finds evidence that the Lisbon Strategy has been advancing (further) centralization and politicization in national patterns of EU policy co-ordination, empowering core executives. The Lisbon Strategy's ideational elements ('grand' goals and politically visible targets) as well as organizational requirements (Spring Council, national programming and annual reports) are factors behind this phenomenon. These results have implications for the literature on Europeanization, international politics, and governance studies in what is eminently an empirical research agenda about how far and how changes in international governance architectures affect the redistribution of power within national executives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Europe is a heavyweight in global finance. But does it have a presence in global financial governance to match? This paper employs a principal-agent approach to analyse patterns of policy-making delegation in the EU to explore this question. It finds a U-shaped relationship between the extent of delegation and the 'European presence' in global financial governance: when member states either remain in control of policy or delegate extensive competencies, European stakeholders are well represented. In contrast, intermediate levels of delegation can undermine the European presence by tying member states' hands without sufficiently empowering supranational agents to fill the gap. Patterns of delegation are traced to the heterogeneity of member state interests and the pre-existence of international governance arrangements. These arguments about the origins and consequences of delegation patterns are supported by evidence from three core domains of financial governance: banking regulation; accounting standards; and capital market regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European Union (EU) negotiations take place within the framework of a set of formal and informal institutions. Member states negotiate in the organizational context of the Council and the European Council, take decisions through alternative procedures and decision rules, and sustain a set of norms for the conduct of negotiations. While the effects of these institutions on negotiation behaviour and outcomes have received extensive attention, the question of why these particular institutions have been established or evolved remains underexplored. This contribution makes an argument in favour of systematic attention to the design of negotiation institutions in the EU, and suggests that we should draw on general theoretical approaches to institutional design for these purposes. Moreover, rather than engaging in the exercise of trying to prove or falsify theoretical approaches, we should exploit the potential for explanatory complementarities in concrete empirical domains. To this end, the paper advances a domain-of-application approach to institutional design and illustrates its applicability to EU negotiation institutions through four empirical illustrations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the domestic characteristics of 'leaders' and 'laggards' in environmental policy in 21 European countries as well as the USA, Mexico and Japan from 1970. Data with regard to environmental policy strength are related to a set of potentially explanatory domestic factors. By way of the so-called gap approach, the distance or gap between current policy in a given country and the strictest policy available in the sample at the time is established. This is done for 40 environmental policy issues in all 24 countries and at four points in time (1970, 1980, 1990 and 2000). Mean country gaps for each point in time provide a picture of changing 'leaders' and 'laggards' in environmental policy, conforming only partly to conventional wisdom. Apparently, the international reputation of environmental 'pioneers' is not always matched by equally ambitious domestic policies. Statistical analysis identifies EU membership as the most important factor explaining a strong domestic policy output, whereas environmental problem pressure, institutional structure (neo-corporatism) and the level of economic development appear to be of secondary importance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the supremacy of European law was established, public interest group litigation before national courts is regularly presented as a promising instrument of decentralized law enforcement capable of effectively remedying compliance problems. It has, however, attracted little empirical research. In this paper, I analyse the limits and possibilities of this enforcement instrument on the basis of new empirical evidence. After having identified the conditions under which the instrument should work, I present the results of an in-depth comparative study on the implementation of the Natura 2000 Directives in France, Germany and the Netherlands. In all these countries, environmental organizations turned to their national courts in order to enforce key provisions of the Directives, yet with very differential effects. I argue that the instrument is in principle able to remedy compliance problems, but only if a set of demanding conditions is met. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regulatory impact assessment (RIA) has emerged on the political agenda of the member states of the European Union (EU). RIA is the cornerstone of programmes for ‘better regulation’ and ‘good regulatory governance’. This article argues that the diffusion of RIA has not produced convergence. The lack of convergence is explained by the different political contexts – measured in terms of types of bureaucracy, government's capacity to handle distributional conflict, policy processes, and actors' preferences. These findings stand in contrast to the explanation for the adoption of regulatory policy tools based on the need to protect efficient markets. EU governments adopt RIA for a variety of reasons, and consequently the outcomes of the diffusion process differ markedly. Further, the evidence shows that ideas can travel more easily than the content of policy tools – a result at odds with the notion that changes in policy ideas are the most fundamental type of policy change. However, when ideas travel lightly, they may well stimulate the introduction of some instruments that are similarly labelled ‘impact assessment’, but RIA practice may exist only on paper, and in some cases basic assessments of administrative burdens are disguised under the RIA label. The diffusion of a common RIA ‘bottle’ has not produced similar ‘wines’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why are some municipalities constrained and others not in using the new EU opportunities for subnational government? With this leading question, the paper considers the impact of the EU on Dutch local government politicaladministrative institutions. The key explanation of why this impact varies from municipality to municipality involves the actual receipt of EU funds. Then not only 'absorption' but also 'organizational adaptation' and in some cases 'proactive attempts' are institutionalized. The bigger a municipality, and possibly the worse its social economic position, the more it makes use of EU opportunities. Location in a border region does not appear to be a factor that can explain variations among municipalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the conditions under which epistemic communities define the preferences of European Union (EU) policy-makers. The paper examines how one epistemic community, using the critical loads approach, has influenced EU acid rain policy.The article contends that actors seeking to change EU policy must pursue collective entrepreneurship. Epistemic communities can provide such entrepreneurship, but they only operate in very defined circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to give an overview of the debate and issues pertaining to flexible integration in the 1996 IGC. In order to meet this aim, the article attempts to answer three questions: (1) How has the political and academic debate on flexibility evolved? (2) What are the main examples of flexibility both inside and outside the EU? (3) How could flexibility be managed within the Union's framework? The article argues that the debate on flexibility has emerged mainly for two reasons: first, to cope with the reluctance of some of the current member states to pursue deeper integration and, second, to manage enlargement. It is also suggested that flexibility is the single most important politico-institutional issue of the 1996 IGC. Hence, an essential task for the IGC is to find ways and means to manage flexibility. It is suggested that the principle of flexibility could be articulated in the treaties in the form of a general clause accompanied by separate provisions specific to closer co-operation within each pillar. In addition, ten conditions for the coherent management of flexibility are examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union (EU) has tried to bridge decisionmaking by qualified majority and unanimity over the years by expanding qualified majorities (consensus) or by making unanimities easier to achieve. I call this decisionmaking procedure q-‘unanimity’ and trace its history from the Luxembourg Compromise to the Lisbon Treaty, and to more recent agreements. I analyze the most recent and explicit mechanism of this bridging (article 31(2) of the Lisbon Treaty) and identify one specific means by which the transformation of qualified majorities to unanimities is achieved: the reduction of precision of the decision, so that different behaviors can be covered by it. I provide empirical evidence of such a mechanism by analyzing legislative decisions. Finally, I argue that this bridging is a ubiquitous feature of EU institutions, used in treaties as well as in legislative decisionmaking. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article offers an alternative perspective to those which view ‘new modes of governance’ as evidence of a democratic-participatory turn in the European Union. The temporal dimension in public policy analysis is emphasized. New modes of governance, such as the Open Method of Co-ordination and civil dialogue, are unlikely to reduce the democratic deficit in the short term. Indeed by enhancing the role of unelected institutions and allowing national executives to bypass sceptical electorates, such processes may undermine democracy in the Union. Over the long term, however, new modes of governance and their accompanying narrative may have an important role to play in the European integration process, even contributing to the ‘invention’ of a people for the European Union. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

How can we perceive a European administrative space (EAS), given the persistent diversity between public administrations of the member states? To overcome theoretical and conceptual hurdles, I argue that a suitable pragmatic approach is to start from typology that presents ideal types of supranational instrumentation. The distinct actor constellations between supranational and national levels that are linked to each type entail divergent dynamics of an integrating administrative structure. Despite the external promotion of a metaphorical single administrative space during the Eastern enlargement, the driving dynamics of the emerging EAS remain based on mechanisms that respect and sustain differences between increasingly interdependent national public administrations. The theoretical framework and empirical application provide a first step for further research towards a comprehensive understanding of multi-level public administration and a systematic account of the varying effects that EU governance has on domestic public administrations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

I argue that the intra-European integration of services trade, even if it threatens to impose costs on third countries in the short run, on average makes the European Union (EU) more open to foreign service providers. The reasoning is that third countries are likely to respond to discrimination in ways that ensure continued openness of the EU. This may be achieved by (a combination of) concessions that entice a change in the EU's policies, unilateral policy changes, or threats that force EU policy adjustments. Regional integration in the service sector thus does not result in Fortress Europe but in Open Door Europe. I show the plausibility of this argument by analysing the external consequences of three steps towards completing the Single Market in the area of financial services. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Political feasibility (or infeasibility) is often associated with target-group support (or opposition) of specific policy alternatives. We argue that target-groups' capacity to influence the spectrum of politically feasible policy options tends to be higher when (1) target groups control resources needed by decision-makers, that (2) are agenda-setters and/or veto players in the decision-making process. In the 2008 revision of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) exemptions from the basic principle of full auctioning of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions allowances can all be traced to target-group interest representation by single veto players or blocking minorities in the European Council and the Council of Ministers. Our analysis indicates that target groups succeeded in constraining the spectrum of politically feasible policy options to the extent that their positions were unified and threats to shut down or relocate activity were perceived to be relevant, severe and credible. Our findings confirm both the significance and the limits of portfolio assignment in the Commission. Even with Directorate General (DG) Environment in an agenda-setting role, target groups acquired exemptions through their relations with veto players in the Council. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union (EU) began to develop copyright policies as early as the 1980s even though no competence existed in the Treaties. The formulation of EU policies in the area of intellectual property has been the object of heated policy debates between a diverse range of stakeholders, at the heart of which are some fundamentally different conceptions about the nature of intellectual property and its role in the information economy. Thus, EU copyright policy is the complex outcome of the interplay between subnational, national and EU-level policy actors that were all trying to ‘frame the policy debate’ in order to control policy and policy outcomes . This article explains why certain policy choices were made in the formulation of EU policies, when several policy options were, in principle, available. It argues, essentially, that insofar as the locus of decision-making shifted towards the EU level as a result of European institutions' use of their agenda-setting and judiciary powers , policy outcomes were, in a second stage, more likely to favour liberal policy solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews the literature on lobbying in the European Union. After initial surveys of the landscape of non-governmental actor participation, theoretical investigations have focused on the modes of network governance and later on the phenomenon of Europeanization. Yet studies have increasingly moved away from considering EU lobbying as a sui generis phenomenon. Normalizing the study of interest group participation in the EU and understanding the opportunities and constraints that are characteristic for it has led more and more scholars to adopt a comparative perspective. The most interesting parallels exist between Washington and Brussels, but unfortunately there have been very few attempts to explore the connection between the American literature on lobbying and EU studies. This article makes a first step towards such a comparison and points to concepts common in comparative politics that could provide considerable insight into the study of EU lobbying. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite extensive research examining the implications of European integration, the determinants of national adaptation to EU legislation remain poorly understood. There is particular debate as to whether successful adaptation is determined by the compatibility of national and European procedures and practices ('goodness-of-fit'), or domestic institutional veto points. When implementing the Packaging Waste Directive, Britain introduced new legislation swiftly despite severe mismatches between European and national standards and regulatory styles. However, the German government encountered prolonged difficulties negotiating domestic veto points despite making only incremental changes to existing legislation. Whilst this contradicts 'goodness-of-fit' explanations of integration, the situation was reversed for implementation of the Directive's environmental objectives, with Germany exceeding European requirements but Britain struggling to achieve compliance. It is argued that although institutional vetoes are important during transposition, national resistance is often prompted by poor policy fit during both legal and practical implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A number of high profile crises and disasters have driven the EU to increase cooperation among its member states in the area of civil protection and to enhance its capacity to conduct civil protection operations in Europe and around the world. However, in the light of recent transboundary crises in the EU, manifested by the refugee crisis, terrorist attacks, and natural disasters, it is far from clear how effective such cooperative EU arrangements can be due to differences in the way national civil protection has been organized and due to the question of whether sufficient trust exists within and between the involved organizations. In this article, drawing from a unique study of civil protection agencies in 17 EU member states, and utilizing theories on crisis management, public administration and trust, we shed light on the factors that promote national and EU-level effectiveness in civil protection and crisis management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiple ways of legitimating policy in a multi-level system of states are now creating cross-level challenges to European Union (EU) policies. At the national level referendums are challenging EU policies by claiming that demands arising from a direct democratic ballot have the highest legitimacy. By contrast, the EU legitimates its policies by means of the legal rationality of the policymaking process established by international treaties and confirmed by the representative credentials of the European Parliament and member state governments endorsing its actions in the European Council. Referendums are no longer held to confirm a national government’s decision to become an EU member state. There has been a paradigm shift since 2005; most votes in countries are holding EU referendums have rejected policies approved by their elected representatives. The EU has successfully responded using strategies that involve legal coercion; instrumental calculations; secondary concessions; and avoidance of the risk of a referendum veto through differential integration. However, the legal legitimation of an EU policy without frustration by national referendums does not ensure policy effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the role of politics for member states’ absorption problems of European Union (EU) funds. Existing research relies solely on the influence of administrative capacities, but more recent evidence points at the additional relevance of politics as the party politicization of the implementation process. Drawing on this evidence, I argue that parties alternating in control of EU funds change implementation priorities and even management staff according to their preferences. These changes interrupt implementation, weaken capacities, and thereby also contribute to absorption problems. The argument is tested in a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis of 17 operational programmes building large infrastructure in the new member states of the EU. The results strongly support a role of frequent party alternation and low capacities leading in conjunction to absorption problems. Low capacities are found to be an important, but crucially not a sufficient condition for absorption problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comparative federalism contributes to a better understanding of the relationship between ‘Brussels’ and member states in international trade policy. Analysing the understudied field of international procurement liberalization and comparing the European Union (EU), the United States (US) and Canada, the article observes that sub-federal resistance has differed across federations. It finds that the more ‘voice’ sub-federal executives enjoy, the less they ‘exit’ from international commitments. Voice hinges on their representation in federation-wide decision-making (council or senate) and the sectoral nature of vertical relations (collaborative or competitive). In the US senate federation, effective means of joint policy-making have not evolved in this non-coercive field, inciting states to exit. In Canada, increasing collaboration has compensated provinces for senate federalism’s low voice, reducing their resistance. EU ‘second chamber federalism’ proves peculiar for constituent units’ decisive role and its dense and trusting regime of collaboration. Member states’ high voice has encouraged their low resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union has gone through major crises of its two flagship integration projects of the 1990s: the euro and Schengen. Both crises had structurally similar causes and beginnings: exogenous shocks exposed the functional shortcomings of both integration projects and produced sharp distributional conflict among governments, as well as an unprecedented politicization of European integration in member state societies. Yet they have resulted in significantly different outcomes: whereas the euro crisis has brought about a major deepening of integration, the Schengen crisis has not. I put forward a neofunctionalist explanation of these different outcomes, which emphasizes variation in transnational interdependence and supranational capacity across the two policy areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International terrorism can generate a ‘race to the top’ in counterterrorist regulations among countries potentially exposed to terrorist attacks. This ‘regulatory competition’ can be smoothed by international co-operation and an agreement on common minimum standards in counterterrorist regulations. We argue, and show empirically, that European Union members states have implemented a significantly lower number of counterterrorist regulations than countries that do not belong to the European Union. This finding supports the argument that the implementation of a minimum regulatory standard reduces the competitive upward pressure in counterterrorist regulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union (EU) has been hit by financial and economic crises since 2008. To shed light upon the impact of these crises, this article reviews punctuated equilibrium theory (PET) to develop expectations that are tested against two cases of financial regulation and privatization policy. In one, despite the demand for a new model from EU leaders, limited change occurred; in the other, despite legal limitations, significant change emerged. Analysis of the cases reveals a new form of policy venue, and the suggestion that the EU PET literature must consider more systematically and explicitly the role of veto players in shaping policy change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Notwithstanding its maturity, the literature on European Union (EU) compliance tends to overlook the implementation stages beyond the legal transposition of single-market regulatory reforms. This article explains the cross-national variation in the actual implementation of the EU regulatory reform of rail market among the EU-15. The empirical findings highlight the importance of the establishment of national regulatory agencies. Member states with an independent regulatory agency converge faster towards the EU model of liberalization. This conditional effect of EU railway harmonization is enhanced by the presence of new entrants that activate the institutional functions of national independent agencies as enforcers of EU legislation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

European Union (EU) asylum and immigration politics and policies have witnessed a major change since theircommunitarizationin the early 2000s. Studies on EU migration, however, do not agree on the impact that EU institutions now have on policy outputs and outcomes. While some argue that supranational institutions are able to impose ‘liberal constraints’ on member states, other studies consider them unable to shift the ‘policy core’ of EU migration policies. Many of these disagreements stem from unspecified theoretical assumptions and very different methods to assess influence and change. This research agenda demonstrates how drawing on new institutionalism and policy analysis literature can generate new insights in three important areas of migration policy research: the dynamics of preference formation of member states and EU institutions, the relative power and influence of member states and EU institutions, and their impact on the domestic politics and policies of member states. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This contribution argues that the three dominant approaches to European integration cannot fully explain why the two most recent crises of the European Union (EU) resulted in very different outcomes. Liberal intergovernmentalism and neofunctionalism can account for why the euro crisis resulted in more integration, but fail to explain why the EU has been stuck in a stalemate in the Schengen crisis. With regard to postfunctionalism, it is the other way around. To solve the puzzle, we have to consider that depoliticization through supranational delegation during the euro crisis has ultimately led to more, not less politicization. Moreover, both crises were about identity politics. Political controversies over the euro crisis have centred predominantly on questions of order, i.e., what constitutes Europe as a community and how much solidarity members of the community owe to each other under which conditions. The mass influx of migrants and refugees changed identity politics, since Eurosceptic populist parties framed the Schengen crisis in terms of borders, advocating for an exclusionary ‘fortress Europe.’ In contrary of a more inclusionary discourse, the dominance of exclusionary positions in the politicization of EU affairs has impaired an upgrading of the common European interest in the Schengen crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Policy implementation in the European Union is most prominently analysed taking compliance as a conceptual starting point. However, compliance has an inherent top–down and state-centred bias. To overcome this limitation, a conceptual framework that links dimensions based on top–down/bottom–up implementation and vertical/horizontal multilevel governance is proposed. The thus derived four ideal-types of implementation in multilevel settings – centralization, agencification, convergence and networking – are complemented by functional expectations about policy-makers’ strategic choices over these types. A screening of existing research completes the contribution. The results show that the suggested conceptualization offers indeed a comprehensive framework to describe the implementation strategies to propose avenues for future explanatory studies on strategic choices over implementation types. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]