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Ideational explanations of policy change are popular in the fields of political economy, comparative politics and policy analysis. And yet, to make the case for ideational explanations, we must make further progress on the nature of ideas, where they come from, what they consist of, and how they change over time. We highlight four critical building sites concerning the definitional aspects of ideational explanations, micro-foundations, mechanisms and the difference between ideational and cognitive analysis. We make recommendations on how to carry out work in the building sites and describe the range of suggestions and ways forward found in the articles of this Symposium. We also suggest cross-fertilising political science with the findings of neighbouring disciplines that have developed empirically robust models of ideation and cognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the political impact of European integration on Italian politics with the help of two different research studies.

This conclusion sums up the main findings of the contributions to the volume as regards policy change and the role of discourse in Europe. It discusses these results focusing on four key themes that cut across the case studies presented. These four themes refer to discourse; learning; the relationship between the power of ideas and interests as seen through discussions of arguing versus bargaining; and Europeanisation. The case studies provide a very rich resource in our search for theoretical generalisations on these main themes, largely because they illustrate policy change and the role of discourse in Europe under very different sets of institutional and organisational rules (from the WTO to the European Union and domestic settings)., This conclusion sums up what we have learned comparatively about policy change and the role of discourse in Europe. It presents the results of this volume by focusing on four [...]

With the move in EU studies from a focus on European integration to Europeanisation, that is from the process of EU formation to its impact on member states, the number and range of theories and methodologies have proliferated. This article embraces such pluralism. Only by considering a full range of factors policy--problems, legacies, preferences, political and institutional capacity, and discourse--from a variety of perspectives--interest-based rationality, historical path-dependencies, social constructions of action, ideas and discourse--can a complete picture of policy change in Europe emerge. Discourse deserves to be emphasised, however, because it is an often missing, but important, approach to explanation. Discourse, as a set of ideas and a process of policy formulation and communication, helps complete our understanding of policy change when put in relation to other factors and perspectives. Where it helps explain--in which institutional settings and when it helps--by exerting a causal influence--are matters for empirical investigation that are explored in the essays included in this volume., Since the mid-1980s, the European Union, together with its member states, has undergone a major process of transformation. First with the race to the single market by 1992, then with [...]