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This article investigates how informal rules in the European Union change in the periods between formal treaty revisions. On the basis of a case study on the White Paper on Governance presented by the European Commission in July 2001, it shows how institutional change is driven by conflict between the Commission and the European Parliament. The conflict concerns the development of informal rules to structure the interaction of the Commission and the Parliament with Europe's civil society. The interaction with civil society organisations is very important for the EU bodies because it allows them to acquire resources that are indispensable in order to fulfil and expand their organisational role. An additional aim of this article is to examine how these institutional developments might influence the long-term development of formal treaty rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the effect of national partisanship and Euroscepticism on individuals’ causal responsibility attribution in European multilevel democracies. It is particularly focused on the average differences in responsibility attribution in federal and non-federal states, as well as in countries belonging to different European Union enlargement waves. Using a pooled dataset of the 2004, 2009, and 2014 European Election Studies, results show that when poor economic outcomes are at stake, partisans of the national incumbent in federal states are more likely to assign responsibility to regional governments following a blame-attribution logic, while this logic is absent in non-federal states. Likewise, Eurosceptic individuals are more likely to assign responsibility to European authorities when they hold negative views of the economy and they belong to countries that have been European Union members for a longer period. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article offers an institutional approach to accountability in representative democracies. Theorising accountability comprises both settled polities with well-entrenched institutions and unsettled polities with weak or contested institutions, and it is argued that agency theory and formal principal–agent models giving priority to compliance and control usually make assumptions that are unlikely to apply to the latter type of polity. An institutional approach challenges principal–agent assumptions regarding what accountability means and implies, what is involved in demanding, rendering, assessing and responding to accounts and assigning accountability, and how accountability institutions work and change. Accountability is related to fundamental issues in democratic politics and the paper treats distributions of information, normative standards of assessment, authority and power relations as endogenous to democratic politics. The paper also holds that institutions affect actors’ identities and roles through socialisation, internalisation and habitualisation, as well as through external incentives. An aspiration is to take a modest step towards understanding areas of application for competing approaches to democratic accountability. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper models the correlates of parties’ positions on the issue of European integration, asking why some parties are in favour of European integration, while others are less favourable or even opposed to it. The paper builds on existing work which has identified three sets of explanatory factors predicting parties’ positions on integration: the electorate, parties and party system characteristics. By employing multilevel modelling using data on over 220 parties in 14 Western EU member states for the years 1984 to 2006, the effects of party- and context-level predictors of parties’ positions on EU integration are assessed. The findings demonstrate that parties’ positions are primarily influenced by EU preferences of the general electorate, parties’ left–right ideological extremes and incumbency status. The results also show that the impact of party characteristics is moderated by the electoral context in which parties operate. Moreover, the interaction between both levels offers further insights as to the nature of these associations. Specifically, party size is a robust predictor of integration position only when accounting for the levels of party system's fractionalisation and polarisation. Additionally, parties oriented towards the centre of the ideological spectrum are even more likely to favour European integration within highly polarised systems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Theoretical debate about the effects of politicisation on the democratic legitimacy of the European Union has tended to focus on the potential of conflict between European political parties or member state governments. At the same time, empirical sociological studies demonstrate that controversy about Europe continues to unfold primarily within national public spheres. There is as yet no genuine Europe-wide party system or public debate. This reveals a gap between the normative theoretical assessment of EU politicisation and empirical sociological analysis of this phenomenon. To reconcile this discrepancy, this paper develops three actually-existing trajectories of politicisation: the remote conflict, the international conflict and the domestic conflict. Each trajectory carries unique challenges and opportunities to the democratic legitimacy of the Union. It is argued that the domestic conflict trajectory is most promising from a normative democratic perspective. Paradoxically, this does not necessarily imply a renationalisation of the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Taking into account the attempts to render the European integration process a new cultural and value-based quality on the one hand, and the prevalence of sceptical positions on the other, the role of religion as a factor shaping the process of European integration and its accompanying features such as Euroscepticism deserves special attention. It may be argued that the entire EU is a project inaugurated and pushed along primarily by Christian Democratic forces and inspirations. However, the EU is currently characterised by an advanced state of secularisation in most of its member states and high levels of religious and cultural pluralisation. This article raises the question to what extent religious, in particular Christian, actors such as religious parties and the churches have strayed from this integrationist past and contributed to Euroscepticism. Furthermore, the second question is whether a confessional pattern of Euroscepticism can be identified. The paper addresses these questions by empirically and comparatively analysing the positions and influence of religious actors on Euroscepticism in a selected group of EU member states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the increasing relevance of Islam and religion in the institutional arrangement of the EU post-Maastricht and the future policy implications for the complex political system of the EU. By adopting a combination of qualitative methodologies that are theoretically rooted in historical institutionalism and in a systemic view of the EU, the paper studies the emergence of Islam and religion as policy issues in two institutional settings, the European Commission and the European Parliament, during the 1990s and up to the first decade of the twenty-first century. The analysis shows a growing attention to faith communities on the part of the Commission, in the post-Maastricht context, culminating in the elaboration of semi-official avenues for encounter and dialogue with religious groups. It also indicates how, in turn, these semi-official practices and the ideas behind them have gradually imposed themselves upon multiple levels of the EU political system, thus opening up an institutional space in the EU for consultations with and 'informal policies' towards faith communities, both within and outside the EU borders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article asks why the European Commission lost control over the policy process in one of the most contested areas of policy-making in the European Union in recent years. The article finds that after years of vigorous political controversy over the framing of the issues at stake, the EU finally shifted into a Schattschneiderian mode of politics. The policy conflict expanded dramatically and a previously unrelated set of actors and interests united along new lines of policy debate. The analysis underscores how the political mode of EU decision-making can shift during the process of policy-making. In particular, it stresses how policy conflicts affect the mobilisation and demobilisation of political contestants and the realignment of political actors in the European Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2005 the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders (Frontex) was founded. Contrary to the widely used principal-agent approaches, it is more promising to analyse Frontex through the lens of experimentalist governance. This paper has two lines of argument. First, it argues that Frontex may only succeed if Frontex has a sufficient degree of organisational independence and enjoys appropriate and steady support by all member states. This is especially virulent when many member states fail to provide significant contributions in terms of material and human resources as well as time, leading to a suboptimal reduction of duration, scope and operational impact of Frontex's missions. The second argument is concerned with the accountability of Frontex. Contrary to the experimental approach, this article takes a sceptical stance, arguing that important (supra-)national actors are sidelined and relevant legal rules are ignored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses how the EU regulatory state expands into fiscal surveillance and what conflicts arise in the process. That the EU should have gone down the route of regulating budgets is puzzling. In Majone's original concept, the regulatory state is meant not to interfere with member states' budgetary redistributive policies. Yet the revision of the Pact strengthened the regulatory content of fiscal surveillance by reformulating the policy problem, strengthening delegated monitoring by the Commission, with Eurostat rather than DG Ecfin at its helm, and by extending control through specialised information. The analysis implies that the revision of the Pact in March 2005 cannot simply be dismissed as a watering down of its fiscal rules. However, there are limitations to regulatory expansion. One limitation is the inherent tension between the requirements of control and the economic justification of fiscal rules, another that economic justifications remain ambiguous and contentious. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The turbulent ratification of the Treaty of European Union has given a new sharpness to old debates about democratic representativeness in the European arena. The crisis of representation after Maastricht was, however limited in terms of who and what was criticised: Maastricht was a crisis of intergovernmentalism. There are several alternative ways for establishing links between the citizen and Europe. This paper focuses on the role of subnational intermediaries in day-to-day policy making. The first part of the paper places subnational mobilisation in a broader understanding of the Euro-polity. Three competing conceptualisations: a state-centric model, a supranational model, and multi-level governance make distinct predictions about the features, opportunities and constraints for subnational mobilisation. Next, the contemporary variety of subnational mobilisation is compared with each model. The final section points at some implications for representative democracy in the Euro-polity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to stabilise the post-Soviet region, the European Union seeks to transform the domestic structures of the Newly Independent States. In light of high adaptation costs, the lack of a membership perspective, and low levels of democracy, the prospects of Europeanisation appear to be limited. The Southern Caucasus belongs to the most corrupt countries in the world. While being least likely cases, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia have responded to the EU's demands for good governance introducing formal institutional changes. Moreover, despite their differences in statehood, democracy, and power (a)symmetries with the EU, domestic institutional changes look very similar. This double puzzle is explained by differential empowerment. Instead of liberal reform coalitions, which are largely absent in the Southern Caucasus, the incumbent regimes have instrumentalised the EU, selectively implementing anti-corruption policies to gain and consolidate political power. As a result, the EU stabilises rather than transforms its neighbourhood. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Research on interest group participation in European Union politics has mushroomed since the end of the 1990s. What role citizens should play in the political process - should they participate through elected representatives or through interest groups and so-called 'civil society organisations'- has taken a central place in political and academic debates surrounding the alleged EU's democratic deficit. Here I critically analyse the literature dealing with the potential value of interest groups and 'civil society organisations' to the development of democracy in the EU. The existing empirical case studies lead to the conclusion that the elite characteristics of these actors question their capacity to increase democratic legitimacy. Finally, future research should be designed around large-scale quantitative and qualitative empirical studies that investigate participation designs and effective participation in the EU and other political systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Party competition over European integration is structured by two main dimensions of political conflict: a socio-economic dimension (market liberalisation vs. a more regulated economy) and a socio-cultural dimension (libertarian, cosmopolitan values vs. authoritarian, nationalist values). This article investigates the relationship between these conflict dimensions and parties' positions towards EU issues across time and space, in particular focussing on two 'critical junctures' in the European unification process. For this purpose, analysis is made of the election manifestos of parties competing in European Parliament elections (Euromanifestos) from 1979 to 2014. First, it is found that the key moment of the Maastricht treaty significantly reshaped party competition over Europe. After Maastricht, positions towards European integration have become less connected to the economic dimension and much more related to the cultural dimension in Western Europe. Second, it is contended that the Euro crisis has not dramatically restructured political conflict over European integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article traces the role of the EU institutions in the process leading up to the EU–Turkey Action Plan and EU–Turkey Statement. The EU–Turkey deal is the proverbial 'orphan' in EU crises management, with none of the key actors and institutions eager to claim ownership. Yet when judged from the perspective of process management, the deal resulted from effective inter-institutional collaboration, which stands in stark contrast to the EU's handling of the relocation schemes or the Dublin reform. Using insights from the informal governance literature, the article maps the inter-institutional network that managed this process, traces the activities within the network, and determines the effects these had on the final outcome. On an analytical level, the mechanism contains five key elements of informal institutional governance: linking, bridging, shielding, laying out the tracks and creative fixes. The conclusion reflects on the wider applicability and scope conditions of this mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution examines whether and how economic divergence between the EU core and its southern and eastern peripheries relates to the emerging political divergence within the EU. Data show that persistent and growing economic disparities are linked to EU member states moving apart with regard to their democratic quality, but not as straightforwardly as the literature claims. This gives rise to two puzzles: first, economic divergence does not always go together with political divergence. While all countries in the eastern and southern periphery marked by low or declining levels of democratic quality are poor, not all poor countries are weak democratic performers. The contribution argues that weakness of state institutions as exemplified by high levels of corruption constitutes a crucial condition under which economic divergence is likely to promote political divergence. Corruption makes poor countries more likely to backslide or to perform poorly with regard to their democratic quality. Second, economic convergence is not necessarily linked to political convergence. Even in times of economic development, identity politics that caters to a strong perception of relative deprivation is likely to drive democratic backsliding in the peripheries. This mechanism is also at work in EU core countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Western European democracies opposition to the European Union is commonly found at the ideological extremes. Yet, the Euroscepticism of radical left-wing and radical right-wing parties has been shown to have distinct roots and manifestations. The article investigates whether these differences are mirrored at the citizen level. Using data from the European Election Study (2009/2014) and the European Social Survey (2008/2012) in 15 West European countries, it is found that left-wing and right-wing citizens not only differ in the object of their Euroscepticism, but also in their motivations for being sceptical of the EU. Left-wing Eurosceptics are dissatisfied with the current functioning of the EU, but do not oppose further European integration per se, while right-wing Eurosceptics categorically reject European integration. Euroscepticism among left-wing citizens is motivated by economic and cultural concerns, whereas for right-wing citizens Euroscepticism is solely anchored in cultural attitudes. These results refine the common ‘horseshoe’ understanding of ideology and Euroscepticism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The banking union constitutes not only a major advance in supranational economic integration but also increases differentiated integration among the member states of the European Union. Although the banking union is open to all EU member states, only euro area countries participate. Other member states have been opponents, bystanders, or interested non-participants. This article explains the variation in participation as a result of path-dependency arising from the original differentiation between euro area countries and the rest of the EU. In the euro crisis, these two groups of member states were subject to differential pressure to integrate further. In addition, the banking union reinforced the causes that had led to the original differentiation of the monetary union. This path-dependency overrides variation in sector-specific economic interests, governance capacity, and policy paradigms that might otherwise explain governmental preferences in banking regulation. These factors can, however, partly explain variation in preferences among the non-euro area countries. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article analyses the links between populist radical right parties and their voters regarding European integration in 11 European countries. It does so by using data from the 2008 European Social Survey and the 2006 UNC-Chapel Hill Expert Data Base on political parties and European integration. In addition to mapping the Eurosceptic orientations of political parties and their voters, the article examines the degree to which attitudes towards the EU and voting for populist radical parties are connected to each other. The results lend support to the hypothesis that most populist radical right parties have managed to establish links with their voters regarding European integration. The analysis also shows that links between populist radical right parties and their voters tend to be stronger for those parties that adopt more extreme negative positions towards European integration. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Does lobbying success in the European Union vary systematically across interest group type? Interest groups lobby the European institutions in order to achieve policy decisions that are in line with their own preferences. While some argue that different types of interest groups are equally able to shape European policy-making, others contend that lobbying success is systematically biased towards some powerful interest groups. The empirical evidence is contradictory as previous studies focused either on a specific interest group type or on a specific policy area so that it is difficult to draw general conclusions. This study therefore presents an extensive empirical analysis of lobbying success across a wide variety of interest groups and policy issues by combining a quantitative text analysis of Commission consultations with an online survey among interest groups. The findings are promising as they indicate that lobbying success does not vary systematically across interest group type. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article makes a contribution to research on soft or 'new' governance in EU policy making by examining the recent history of telecommunications policy as a case study, a sector hitherto not widely recognised for displaying this kind of governance. Training its focus on the process leading to the agreement of the latest iteration of the EU's Electronic Communications Regulatory Framework, the article finds strong evidence that soft governance has been used within hard governance legislative frameworks primarily as a tool of political compromise, in respect of the classic problem of securing a balance of regulatory power distribution between the national and EU level. Soft governance employed in this way casts doubt over its ability to achieve openness, common purpose, innovativeness and regulatory efficacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on institutional innovation in European governance has been dominated by an inward-looking focus on the European integration process. However, in the context of a highly integrated and interdependent world, it is not possible to understand the evolution of European governance without taking into account developments in the international institutional environment. This article aims to contribute to the study of the interaction between global and European modes of governance by examining the impact of EU's engagement with the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), and its predecessor the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC) on the institutions of European accounting regulation. Following an analysis of the politics of international accounting harmonisation, it is demonstrated that EU's decisions to adopt the standards produced by the IASB, and to establish a new, differentiated European accounting regulatory mechanism, were driven by its desire to bolster European influence in the context of the IASC/IASB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In spite of the enormous amount of attention devoted to the process of European integration, the study of protest actions that take the European Union as their target is only incipient and suffers from a lack of up-to-date systematic information. This research note presents new data on protests in the member states which, directly or indirectly, targeted the Union between 1992 and 2007. These data show that the increase in protest mobilisation anticipated by previous scholars has not taken place and that the advances in formal European integration have not been matched by any corresponding increase in protests targeting the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The debate on the politicisation of the EU should consider its consociational nature. Comparing the EU to Switzerland and Belgium, this article discusses S. Hix's and S. Bartolini's contrasting views on politicisation. S. Hix's recipe for bipolar politicisation is based on some incorrect assumptions. It is not obvious that the EU is evolving towards more Left-Right polarisation. Even if this were the case, the nature of the EU implies that compromises are indispensable. Therefore, Hix's suggestions would not suffice to clarify political choice, and Euroscepticism would not be reduced. The consociational nature of the EU also makes less credible S. Bartolini's fears of possible negative consequences for governability. The politicisation of constitutive issues can even help to integrate Eurosceptic segments of public opinion. The authors suggest a middle way regarding EU politicisation based on lessons from consociational polities, and the coupling of a system of 'negotiation democracy' with mechanisms of direct popular participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking as starting points the (growing) political significance of religion and increasing scepticism towards European integration, this study sets out to investigate the impact of religious divides and religiosity on attitudes towards the EU, both on the micro and on the macro level. In addition to considering direct effects, it focuses on the mediated nature of relationships between religion and Euroscepticism through immigration attitudes and authoritarian value orientations. Drawing on data from the 2006 European Social Survey the authors find that individuals' religious attachments have only indirect relevance for explaining Euroscepticism when controlling for immigration attitudes and value orientations. Religious context, however, does contribute to explanatory models of Euroscepticism, with citizens of Protestant countries being more Eurosceptic than those in religiously mixed or in Catholic countries. The authors furthermore show that both authoritarianism and anti-immigration attitudes are to some degree influenced by individuals' denomination and level of religiosity and in turn predict Euroscepticism. Yet, even indirect effects of religion on Euroscepticism are small or appear to cancel each other out. The article concludes that religion on the micro level is largely irrelevant for explaining Euroscepticism, whereas it is an important macro-level explanatory variable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Defence Agency (EDA) works in a policy area traditionally characterised by high diversity among actors regarding basic notions of what level of integration and which principles of interaction in the defence sector are appropriate for the EU, which countries should participate in defence cooperation, and what coordination mechanisms and instruments should be used. In all these dimensions, the EDA has been a flashpoint of institutional logics representing different visions of how various aspects of defence integration in the EU should be organised. There are tensions between the logic of supranational regulation and the logic of intergovernmental networking; between the logic of defence sovereignty and the logic of pooled defence resources; between the Europeanist and the Euro-Atlanticist logic; and finally between the logics of liberalisation and Europeanisation of the defence market. Studying the ways in which the collisions of institutional logics are being accommodated by the EDA can contribute to greater understanding of the emerging political order of European defence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Commission has developed an analysis of supplementary pensions which constructs the policy area as regulatory by separating 'allocative' issues, such as smoothing lifetime income and promoting saving, from traditional 'redistributive' or 'budgetary' welfare concerns, such as ensuring an adequate minimum income. In the allocative sphere, it promotes market-oriented values, notably 'actuarial fairness'. However, the progress of European measures on supplementary pensions is impeded by alternative approaches. The social partners play a large role in regulating supplementary pensions, and they provide an approach to regulation that is antagonistic to the adoption of common EU rules. Member states might be expected to view EU-level regulatory activity more favourably as providing a lever for pension reforms, but several states which had already embarked on substantial changes to their pension systems did not welcome EU-led reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The discussion of the Services Directive from 2004 onwards showed an unprecedented extent of politicisation of a single-market issue. Coinciding with the Eastern enlargement in 2004, the easing of the services freedom through the Directive raised significant redistributive issues, given the differences in labour costs. The article analyses why mutual recognition is so controversial in services, by contrast with its acceptance in developing the internal market in goods. It is shown that the problem of trust in the regulatory systems of other member states that arises under mutual recognition is being addressed through administrative cooperation, but the problem of inequality between workers that arises from the application of home country regulations has not been resolved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the EU is not a tax state in itself, European regulations have a considerable impact on national tax policies. This article analyses the role of the EU by a comparison of two forms of corporate tax competition: general competition on rates, and targeted competition in the form of preferential tax regimes. The EU failed to coordinate tax rate competition but managed to curtail 'harmful' targeted competition by a combination of soft and hard law. The authors argue that the differing performance of the EU is due to differences in the underlying conflict structures between small and large countries. Whereas both small and large countries are equally affected by targeted competition, small countries are usually winners of general tax competition on rates. By restricting its problem definition to 'harmful' targeted competition, the EU was able to make some headway in that area, but this only reshaped rather than impeded overall corporate tax competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last 15 years the nature and process of European treaty reforms changed significantly. The underlying reasons comprise enlargement, a shift of the reform agenda beyond economic coordination and procedural innovations, in particular the invocation of the Convention on the Future of Europe. Against this background, the present article revisits two classic propositions of liberal intergovernmentalism: (1) the power of the largest member states; and (2) the irrelevance of procedural constraints. This analysis compares the positions of national governments at Amsterdam, Nice, and the Constitutional IGC along the two most prevalent dimensions of intergovernmental conflict. Locating the EU treaties in this intergovernmental conflict space, it finds that the reforms of Amsterdam and Nice reflect a sequence of equilibrium and disequilibrium. Both treaty reforms are best understood as minimum compromise between all member states, instead of a deal struck between the most powerful members. However, the Constitutional IGC reveals a slightly different picture as the unanimity win-set for reform has been almost empty. The fact that member states nevertheless signed the Constitutional Treaty hints towards the importance of procedural innovations, in particular the Convention method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can we meaningfully compare within a single theoretical framework the politics of interest representation in the European Union with its counterparts in the United States and other national political systems? We address this question by first considering several candidate explanations for the lack of broad-ranging comparative research on interest representation, focusing in the end on the problem of context. We then argue that much of the recent progress in the literature is a result more of segmentation of theoretical issues. The third section discusses how this successful strategy of segmentation has unfortunately raised new theoretical barriers to comparative analysis. This argument is explored by comparing work on organised interests in the EU with two other cases - the hyper-pluralistic interest politics of the United States and the neo-corporatist politics of the Netherlands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A wide range of approaches on EU interest representation rely on an (explicit or implicit) notion of 'political opportunity structure'. Through a systematic review of four literatures (social movements and political contention, resource exchange in EU interest representation, venue shopping, and the political construction of scale), we show that these approaches exhibit close affinities in the way they use and conceptualise a notion of political opportunity structure. At the same time, these literatures reveal two distinct perspectives: one that views opportunity structures as a fixed external constraint on interest group behaviour (what we call an exogenous perspective) and one that views them as the outcome of social and political processes in which interest groups themselves participate (an endogenous perspective). We argue that theoretical and empirical progress can be made by systematically and explicitly analysing the dynamic interplay between the exogenous and endogenous elements of opportunity structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many efforts have been made to identify general patterns of interest intermediation in the EU, ranging from early studies about clientela relations to recent depictions of protest politics. This review covers studies that aim at cross-sectoral generalisations as well as analyses that are confined to specific sectors, policy areas, and issues. While many analyses are rooted in the debate on corporatism and pluralism, since the 1990s the conceptual range has extended to the study of policy networks and communities. More recent studies identify a simultaneous trend towards greater politicisation and institutionalisation of EU interest intermediation. Altogether, this literature has yielded inconclusive results. It is unclear whether the EU is marked by cross-sectoral patterns or whether it is more meaningful to focus on policy areas or sectors as units of observation. The discussion suggests that part of the controversy surrounding these findings stems from problems inherent in the typological logic that frames these analyses. It is also argued that the explanatory aspects of this literature need to be strengthened and linked more explicitly to studies examining the democratic stability and economic performance of the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does enlargement affect the EU system of interest group intermediation? We introduce an analytical framework to conceptualise the impact of enlargement. 'Enlargement waves' do not only result in a 'top-down' process of Europeanisation of national interest intermediation systems, but also have a 'bottom-up' effect. This comprises uploading national organisational features and a broader scope of activities onto the EU system of interest representation. The enlargement impact can be seen on the structural properties (organisational features and resources) and the agenda content (scope of associational agenda, policy direction, inter-group balance) of EU-wide interest associations ('Eurogroups'). The magnitude and scope of impact are conditioned by two groups of parameters linked with the source and target of the impact. The first group refers to the particular features of each 'enlargement wave' (e.g. which and how many countries are involved, national system of interest intermediation) and the second to Eurogroup attributes (e.g. willingness to broaden membership base, organisational and decision-making structures). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an overview of the study of the European Union since the doldrums of the 1970s. We focus on three debates that have helped to shape the field. Has European integration centralised state control or is European integration part of a process of dispersion of authority? What is the role of identity in framing preferences over European integration? And, finally, is European integration part of a new political cleavage? We observe that the European Union is a moving target. It has a habit of throwing up new and unexpected facts which wrong-foot extant theories. We have no grounds for believing that this will not continue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the notion that the policies and politics of states and nations constitute distinct worlds or clusters. We begin by examining the concept of clustering as it has emerged in the literature on policy regimes and families of nations. We then address a series of empirical questions: whether distinct worlds persist in an era of policy convergence and globalisation, whether policy antecedents cluster in the same ways as policy outcomes and whether the enlargement of the EU has led to an increase in the number of worlds constituting the wider European polity. Our main conclusions are that country clustering is, if anything, more pronounced than in the past, that it is, in large part, structurally determined and that the EU now contains a quite distinct post-Communist family of nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses how differences in domestic institutional constellations shape the representational roles of member state officials when attending the EU Council of Ministers. The conceptual framework used draws on theories of political representation, institutional theories and the Europeanisation literature. Our primary argument is that role perceptions are considerably conditioned by actors' domestic institutional embeddedness. Comparing Belgian and Swedish officials attending working groups within the Council of Ministers substantiates this argument. Belgian officials are more supranationally oriented than their Swedish counterparts. This difference is related to varying levels of vertical and horizontal specialisation, federalism, competition among veto-players, the role of the Foreign Ministry, and the level of trust in domestic government compared to the level of trust in the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Provides a comparative analysis of organizational change within three European Green parties. Adaptation of party change of Harmel and Janda; Identification of the key factors impacting upon processes of organizational change within the Greens; Process of evolution within the Green parties.