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Recent jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) marks a striking shift towards a more restrictive interpretation of EU citizens’ rights. The Court's turnaround is not only highly relevant for practical debates about ‘Social Europe’ or ‘welfare migration’, but also enlightening from a more general, theoretical viewpoint. Several recent studies on the ECJ have argued that the Court is largely constrained by member state governments’ threats of legislative override and non-compliance. We show that an additional mechanism is necessary to explain the Court's turnaround on citizenship. While the ECJ extended EU citizens’ rights even against strong opposition by member state governments, its recent shift reflects changes in the broader political context, i.e., the politicization of free movement in the European Union (EU). The article theorises Court responsiveness to politicization and demonstrates empirically, how the Court's jurisprudence corresponds with changing public debates about EU citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

Recent debate has highlighted the importance of communication and arguments to explanations of the progress and results of international negotiations. Various studies have indicated that member states taking part in EU negotiations do indeed use arguments, either owing to a normative conception of arguing as a ‘truth seeking discourse’ or a conception of strategic arguing. We also know that contextual conditions, such as the extent to which negotiations are publicized, or the characteristics of the issue being negotiated, affect the degree of arguing. This contribution takes a different view, focusing on actor-specific use of arguments. I find that some member states are more inclined to use arguments than others and try to find explanations that could account for this variation. I hypothesize that the availability of power resources derived from bargaining theory should affect the use of arguments. The subject under investigation here is the EU Intergovernmental Conference leading to the Treaty of Amsterdam (1997). By means of an automated content analysis of member states' position papers, I show that member states who have good alternatives to the agreement being negotiated are less likely to use arguments. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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]

This paper investigates whether different capitalist varieties in Central and Eastern Europe have different records of post-accession compliance. Drawing on an explorative cluster analysis of 25 EU member states and additional case study evidence, its results suggest that there are two broader clusters of Central and East European countries, which are associated with different Varieties of Capitalism and privilege certain explanatory factors for (non-) compliance over others: I identify a cluster comprising the Baltic States and Slovakia that leans toward a liberal market economy type. I argue that post-accession compliance processes in this cluster are dominated by market-based modes of coordination, in which government ideologies and effectiveness gain greater explanatory power. The second cluster is associated with coordinated market economies marked by a more inclusive political process that privileges the interplay of preferences of various state and non-state actors to explain compliance after EU accession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

This paper adapts and then uses principal-agent (PA) theory to conceptualize and thereafter to analyse the EU-level development of the Open Method of Co-ordination (OMC), a crucial component of the Lisbon Strategy as a 'governance architecture'. The PA model theorizes the continuous interaction and power struggle between the Commission ('agent') and the member states ('principal') in the emergence and institutionalization of the OMC. It is innovative for several reasons: first, it acknowledges that the member states and Commission interact in a PA logic prior to a contractual agreement; second, it recognizes that the 'principal' does not only control and monitor the 'agent', but also (re-)defines features of the OMC via political initiatives; third, it underlines the importance of the ideational action of the 'agent'. On the basis of the model, two hypotheses are formulated: first, that the 'agent' will be more influential in defining the OMC when it is nascent; and second, that the 'principal' will be more influential in the reconfiguration of the OMC. The model is tested and the hypotheses are confirmed via a longitudinal analysis (1992 to 2005) of the OMC in employment policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the extent of euro area policy convergence during the third stage of EMU. The policy convergence hypothesis from international political economy posits that euro zone national economies should become more similar over time in terms of economic growth, employment and inflation outcomes as a result of using a common currency and taking the same regional monetary policy. Yet the descriptive data show little evidence of euro area policy convergence post-1999. One possible explanation for the lack of macroeconomic convergence within the euro zone is advanced (fiscal policy divergence), and the implications of policy divergence for the long-term viability of EMU are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous scholars have argued that economic governance in the European Union (EU) has undergone an undemocratic shift as part of the crisis, with accountability moving from parliamentary to executive powers. This paper challenges this view, arguing that the crisis has led to a shift from economic to political accountability. I define economic accountability as the market-led accountability regime enshrined in EU Treaties and contrast it to the current political accountability regime, by which creditor states and monetary institutions have supplanted markets as a forum for rewarding and disciplining market actors. This 'substitution effect' has been sustained by European Court of Justice (CJEU) jurisprudence, with the CJEU positing a functional equivalence between market-driven pressures and political conditionality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between economic crises and social policy change for 13 European countries. Based on the degree of policy expansion and dismantling, we identify three potential crisis-coping strategies, namely ‘Muddling Through’, ‘Social Protectionism’ and ‘Austerity’. By means of multinomial logistic regression analysis, we test the effect of various factors on governments’ choice of crisis-coping strategies for 45 economic crises between 1980 and 2013. Our analysis reveals that Austerity becomes a more likely scenario in crisis times. Moreover, we demonstrate that governments in consensual systems do not deviate from their true policy preferences when facing economic hardship. In majoritarian systems, by contrast, this pattern is strikingly reversed. Here, left-wing governments resort to Austerity, while right-wing parties opt for Social Protectionism. This indicates that both blame avoidance and the capabilities to mediate unpopular reform decisions can convert political parties from ‘Saul to Paul’ and vice versa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

There is a large literature on Member State influence in the European Union, typically focusing on a combination of preferences of the Member States and their strategies with an emphasis on Council negotiations. However, prior to Council negotiations Member States also seek to influence the Commission's development of legislative proposals. This paper argues that Member States need scientific expertise, experiential knowledge and target group support to make this strategy work and that the availability of these resources is partly shaped by domestic institutions, such as the territorial organization of the state, the recruitment principles of governmental departments, and the structure of government's relationship with business groups and societal interests. As a plausibility probe for our argument we have conducted a case study of the Dutch government's strategy regarding the REACH Regulation. [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 investigates the effects of administrative reform in the Commission on policy implementation and outcomes through a study of EU Cohesion policy auditing. It argues that the growth in audit has taken a distinctively compliance-oriented form, in contrast with the performance audit model adopted in other countries that have embraced administrative modernization agendas. Further, the link between organizational efficiency and governance effectiveness postulated by other studies of Commission administrative reform is challenged, as the underlying audit and control problem in Cohesion policy – the high error rate – remain unresolved. Lastly, the proliferation in Cohesion policy auditing is presented as a classic example of unintended consequences: originally intended to improve policy performance and accountability, it has in fact undermined the strategic performance of the policy and is even threatening its sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

So far, political scientists have paid very limited attention to the 'plumbing' of economic and monetary union (EMU), that is payment services and the clearing and settlement of securities. This paper evaluates the analytical leverage of 'bureaucratic politics' approaches - in particular, the 'bureau shaping' theory - against the empirical record of a variety of policy initiatives taking place in the two fields mentioned above. It is argued that an adapted version of the theory of bureaucracy sheds novel light on to the policy process and the bureaucracies involved in it, namely the Commission and the European Central Bank. This research also highlights the politics involved in these seemingly 'technical' activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

Despite efforts in the EMU IGC to keep authority for the exchange rate in the hands of ministers, it was in the event substantially passed to the ECB, along with responsibility for monetary policy. As a result the ECB acquired exclusive control of the only instruments available for influencing the exchange rate in liberalized market economies - key short-term interest rates and exchange-market intervention - and considerable hurdles were put in the way of governments exercising their traditional power over exchange-rate policy. In the event the euro has been worryingly unstable since its launch, and the instability seems likely to persist. This is an unsatisfactory situation that should be remedied, provided it can be done without sacrificing price stability. This paper recalls the relevant treaty rules and how they have been interpreted; assesses the variability of the euro and its predecessors over the past quarter-century; suggests what regime changes would be needed for a policy of euro stabilization; and recommends moving in that direction. In doing so the paper addresses important questions of economic governance in EMU. [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]

This paper addresses the question of when and why institutional conflicts break out over decision-making competencies in the European Union. It argues there is untapped potential in constructivist approaches to explain the occurrence of such conflicts. Rationalist institutionalist (RI) models based on the idea of the Commission as a ‘competence maximizer’, while serving as shorthand for understanding institutional dynamics, risk producing simplistic accounts of institutional conflicts. Tensions between broad collective understandings of policy issues and formal institutional rules can help explain why the Commission initiates institutional conflict in specific instances. This general argument is formulated as a social mechanism termed therupture mechanism, its potential demonstrated by evidence from an in-depth process tracing study of one of the most controversial institutional conflicts between the Council and the Commission in the 2000s. [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]

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 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]

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]

This paper reconceptualizes the challenge of legitimate governance in the European Union (EU) as a multilevel polity. Legitimacy is defined as one possible motivation for accepting political rule; it roots in citizens’ affiliation with a balanced set of core values and their structural realization. This article argues that any attempt to legitimize the EU faces two distinct challenges. First, owing to the co-existence of states and individuals as political subjects, national legitimacy standards – defined by their balance of negative freedom, political equality and welfare – cannot be reproduced. Second, the legitimacy of both the Union and its member states depends upon the compatibility of values across levels. Empirically, legitimacy is hard to disentangle from other motivations behind acceptance, such as self-interest or fear of sanctions. By analysing the EU's constitutional evolution as a ‘structural proxy’ for its underlying values, we capture shifts in the supranational value configuration and identify potential incompatibilities with established national balances. Such incompatibilities, we argue, are a hitherto neglected challenge to the normative justifiability of both the EU and its member states. [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 objective of this paper is threefold: First is to produce a broad framework of the ways that state regulatory policies are interdependent. Second is to examine the factors that determine the nature of that interdependence. Third is to discuss the governance implications of different types of regulatory interdependencies. This analysis is applied to the spread of a new international fish inspection regulatory regime. I propose three modes of regulatory interdependence: competitive, coordinative, and informational. The key assumption in the competitive mode of regulatory interdependence is that states are caught in a prisoner's dilemma - either because states use social regulation as a protectionist tool or because states undercut each other's regulations in a race to the bottom. In the coordinative mode of interdependence it is assumed that there are certain benefits to having regulations that are compatible with those of other states – sometimes resulting in a race together, or a race to the top. Finally,in the informational mode of interdependence, it is assumed that states are coping with massive uncertainty as to their best policy options. The regulatory choices of other states provide signals (and often much data) to good policy options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the European Union (EU) is promoting a liberal model of welfare through social regulation. Focusing on the liberalization and regulation of the electricity sector, the article asks how and for what reasons social protection of vulnerable consumers was introduced into this sector, and what kind of welfare policy this represents. This article shows that social measures grew substantially between the second and third directives on electricity sector liberalization (2005–2009), advanced by the European Parliament and reluctantly adopted by the Commission. This development runs counter to our understanding of electricity sector reform as focused primarily on liberalization, competition and efficiency. It is argued that the introduction of social protection advanced the process of economic reform, even when the measures introduced were in themselves inefficient. This social regulation, however, not only reflects a liberal, targeted and minimal understanding of welfare, but also pushes social policy in member states in this same direction. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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 new High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (HR) and the European External Action Service (EEAS) have emerged after the Lisbon Treaty as a potential driving force in European foreign policy. This article critically reviews the first two years of the existence of the EEAS to find out whether these new players have managed to shape the direction of the European Union's (EU) external activities. Building on a typology of agenda-setting strategies in the EU developed by Princen (2011), it successively examines how the HR and the EEAS have been trying to ‘build credibility’ and ‘to gain attention’ for their priorities. The empirical analysis shows that priority has been given to addressing the ‘credibility challenge’, with a particular emphasis on capacity-building. The strategies of mobilizing partners and arousing interest through framing still leave scope for improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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]

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]