Showing papers in "Journal of European Public Policy in 2002"

Corporate lobbying in the European Union: the logic of access

Abstract: The complexity and diversity of European interest politics is exem- plie ed by the multitude of channels and targets that private actors use to lobby in the EU multi-level system. The aim of this article is to investigate the logic behind the apparent ad hoc lobbying behaviour of private interests. A theoretical framework is developed in order to explain the access of business interests to the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers. The degree of access to these institutions is explained in terms of a theory of demand and supply of access goods. Access goods concern information that is crucial in the EU policy-making process. In order to gain access to an EU institution, business interests have to provide the access good(s) demanded by that institution. Organizational form is introduced as the innovative unit of analysis. It follows that associative business action is unconventionally studied in relation to two other organizational forms: individual company action and third- party representation.

Globalization, European integration and the discursive construction of economic imperatives

Abstract: While studies of globalization proliferate, we remain relatively under-informed about discourses of globalization and associated issues of power and knowledge. These issues come to the fore in the light of the intensive deployment of particular rhetorics of globalization and European integration within policy-making, journalistic and corporate communities. This paper seeks to contribute to the development of an institutionalist and yet social constructivist understanding of the appeal to external economic constraints (such as globalization and European integration) within contemporary European public policy and political economy. Through an attempt first to map the range of discourses of globalization and European integration in contemporary Europe and then to chart the (frequently) strategic deployment of such discourses in Britain, France, Germany and Italy, the paper attempts to move beyond an understanding of globalization discourse as the linguistic expression of exogenous interests. It shows how ide...

Policy Credibility and Delegation to Independent Regulatory Agencies: A Comparative Empirical Analysis

Abstract: Independent regulatory agencies are one of the main institutional features of the 'rising regulatory state' in Western Europe. Governments are increasingly willing to abandon their regulatory competencies and to delegate them to specialized institutions that are at least partially beyond their control. This article examines the empirical consistency of one particular explanation of this phenomenon, namely the credibility hypothesis, claiming that governments delegate powers so as to enhance the credibility of their policies. Three observable implications are derived from the general hypothesis, linking credibility and delegation to veto players, complexity and interdependence. An independence index is developed to measure agency independence, which is then used in a multivariate analysis where the impact of credibility concerns on delegation is tested. The analysis relies on an original data set comprising independence scores for thirty-three regulators. Results show that the credibility hypothesis can ex...

Theorizing EU Enlargement : Research Focus, Hypotheses and the State of Research

Abstract: Despite its indisputable political relevance, the enlargement of the EU has suffered from a theoretical neglect in studies of European integration. While theoretically informed studies have emerged recently, this literature suffers from a predominant focus on single cases and from not being linked to the more general study of international organizations in the social sciences. This article aims to structure the emerging debate in order to generate more generalizable and cumulative insights. First, we define enlargement as a process of gradual and formal horizontal institutionalization. We identify key dependent variables of a so-defined enlargement, for which we propose comparative research strategies. Second, we draw on two basic approaches to the analysis of international organizations - rationalist and sociological or constructivist institutionalism - to derive core hypotheses on the conditions of enlargement. Finally, we demonstrate the usefulness of these theoretical approaches in structuring the deb...

Political Parties, Institutions, and the Dynamics of Social Expenditure in Times of Austerity

Abstract: The containment of social expenditure growth has been (and still is) a core issue of public policy in advanced industrial countries since the 1980s and has received much academic attention during that period Among the most extensively discussed explanatory factors of social expenditure are partisan politics and political institutions, as well as the dependency of the real impact of the former on the latter The paper distinguishes five competing theoretical perspectives and explores their power to explain the empirical variation in the period 1982–1997 in 21 OECD countries The empirical analysis of short-term dynamics is performed in a time-series cross-section framework while long-term level effects are explored in a cross-sectional setting By using an interactive model specification the authors show that there is empirical evidence for this conditional effect, albeit it is neither thoroughly convincing nor leading to lasting long-term level effects Extensive specification tests show that the 1990s witnessed a weakening of partisan effects which were still present in the 1980s In total, the evidence tends to give most support to the “growth-to-limits” and the “new politics” perspectives Die Beschrankung des Wachstums der Sozialausgaben war (und ist) ein zentrales Anliegen staatlicher Politik in fortgeschrittenen Industrielandern seit den 1980er Jahren und hat in dieser Periode in der akademischen Debatte grose Aufmerksamkeit erhalten Zu den meistdiskutierten Erklarungsfaktoren zahlen parteipolitische Differenzen und politische Institutionen sowie die Abhangigkeit ersterer von letzteren Das Discussion Paper unterscheidet funf verschiedene Theorieansatze und untersucht ihren Beitrag zur Erklarung der empirischen Varianz im Zeitraum von 1982 bis 1997 in 21 OECD-Landern Die Analyse der kurzfristigen Veranderung erfolgt im Rahmen einer kombinierten Zeitreihen-Querschnittanalyse, wahrend die langfristigen Niveauunterschiede mittels einer Querschnittanalyse untersucht werden Mit Hilfe einer interaktiven Modellspezifikation zeigen die Autoren, dass empirische Belege fur diesen Konditionaleffekt vorhanden sind, die allerdings weder vollkommen uberzeugen noch langfristige Niveaueffekte zeitigen Ausfuhrliche Spezifikationstests deuten darauf hin, dass die Parteieneffekte, die in den 1980er Jahren vorhanden waren, in den 1990er Jahren deutlich schwacher wurden Insgesamt stutzen die Befunde die These des „Wachstums zu Limits“ und die These der „Neuen Politik“ am ehesten

Regulation after delegation: independent regulatory agencies in Europe

Abstract: Three aspects of the life of independent regulatory agencies (IRAs) after delegation are examined: their independence from elected officials, their relationship with regulatees; their decision-making processes. The article suggests that IRAs enjoy considerable insulation from elected politicians in terms of party politicization and tenure. The evidence for relations between IRAs and business regulatees is more mixed: the two have been relatively separate in terms of the professional origins and destinations of senior IRA staff and, in some countries, there has been considerable legal conflict between them. However, in an important and visible field such as merger control, IRAs have undertaken little activity. The greatest changes introduced by IRAs have been in decision-making processes, which they have opened up, in contrast to closed processes before delegation.

New social movements: the role of legal opportunity

Abstract: The article seeks to introduce the idea of legal opportunity into social movement theory. It suggests that while lobbying, litigation and protest have all been studied by political scientists as strategies for policy change, they have tended to consider the three in varying degrees of isolation. The article aims to remedy this by providing an integrated analysis of all three types of strategy, in a domestic and EU context. Four social movements - the women's movement, the environmental movement, the lesbian and gay movement, and the animal welfare movement - are used as examples in this respect.

Europeanization and the mechanics of economic policy adjustment

Abstract: Europeanization, differentiated from European integration as the impact of European policies on national policies, practices, and politics, has had differing effects on EU member states, depending upon a number of independent variables. These include the constraints imposed by EU decisions in any given policy area, that is, whether the decisions demand that countries follow highly specified rules of implementation, less specified rules, suggested rules, or no rules at all. But adjustment also depends upon certain mediating factors, including countries' vulnerability to global as well as European economic pressures, their political institutional capacity to respond as necessary, the 'fit' of European policies with national policy legacies and preferences, and the discourses that influence policy preferences by changing perceptions of economic vulnerabilities and policies and thereby enhance capacity. Only by putting the decision constraints together with the mediating factors can we adequately explain coun...

Powering, puzzling, and 'pacting': the informational logic of negotiated reforms

Abstract: Across Europe, contemporary negotiated reforms of economic and social policy are increasingly characterized by a logic of information rather than a logic of exchange. Unlike in neo-corporatist bargaining over incomes policies, states negotiate with the social partners not primarily to secure their acquiescence, but instead to enlist their active assistance in designing and mobilizing support for substantial reforms of public policy. State policy-makers lack the combination of technical, relational, and local information necessary to design successful blueprints for reform, and so they are dependent on the social partners to acquire this information. In systems in which unions and employers' associations can exercise dialogic capacity, policy innovation is more likely to come from the propositions of the social partners than from political parties or bureaucrats. Using this logic, the article undertakes a pairwise comparison of episodes of negotiated reform: pensions in France and Italy, and vocational tra...

Governance beyond the nation-state. Reflections on the democratic deficit of the European Union

Abstract: Many suggestions for an institutional improvement of European decision-making are based on the parliamentary model of government existing in the national member states. The widespread notion of 'democratic deficit' plays down the difficulties that will almost inevitably arise when transferring democracy from the national to the European level. Although the European Union has many features of a parliamentary federal state, it lacks a democratic foundation and substructure. The democratic problem is attributable, on the one hand, to institutional deficiencies of the electoral and party system; on the other hand, it refers to the absence of a common European identity that would be necessary for the acceptance of an at least partially majoritarian system. As the consequences of globalization call for a continuation of the supranational integration process, democratic reform in the EU must leave its impasse and be put on a new institutional basis. Two ways of democratization are suggested here: one includes th...

Courts and (epistemic) communities in the convergence of competition policies

Abstract: How much did national competition policies converge between 1950 and 2000, and what were the forces behind this? These are the questions the paper attempts to answer, for three countries whose competition policies differed substantially at the outset: Germany, Austria and the Netherlands. The paper measures the degree of convergence of national competition policies, and concludes that there has been convergence towards the stricter EU anti-trust norms. This can be explained by neither negative ('the market') nor positive ('the state') integration, as competition policy is one of the few policy areas where the EU has never explicitly tried to harmonize national legislation. Other forces must have been at work. We investigate the role of various actors, which each play a role in three theories of European integration: institutionalism, which stresses the importance of the central European institutions; neofunctionalism, which focuses on international business; and the epistemic community approach, which hig...

The politics of the European Central Bank: principal-agent theory and the democratic deficit

Abstract: The institutional design of the European Central Bank (ECB) has been the subject of considerable political debate. In particular, it has been argued that the Bank suffers from a 'democratic deficit'. This article applies the principal- agent approach to this debate so as to identify more dearly the logic that underpins the basic arguments about the democratic legitimacy of the ECB. Moreover, on the assumption that the Bank does suffer from a democratic deficit, the article also shows how principal-agent theory can point to the ways in which this problem may be addressed. Thus, the principal-agent approach is used as an heuristic device to help identify the empirical and normative claims that underpin the debate about the accountability of the ECB and how it might be reformed.

The demand-side politics of EU enlargement: democracy and the application for EU membership

Abstract: Most theoretical arguments about enlargement have sought to elucidate why the EU may have an interest in accepting CEECs. While these 'supply-side' arguments are essential building blocks of a comprehensive account of enlargement, they need to be complemented by a theory that seeks to understand the politics and economics of enlargement from a demand-side perspective. We show in a formal model how a transition country's demand for EU membership relates to both regime type and its willingness to implement economic reforms. Specifically, we argue that leaders in more democratic regimes had a greater incentive to push ahead with costly 'institution-building reforms' which, in effect, aligned their countries with EU rules and institutions. The impetus for continuing pro-integration regulatory reforms came from the greater electoral accountability of these leaders. We test this claim with a Cox continuous time survival model with time-dependent covariates. The results confirm the dominant impact of increasing ...

Analysing regulatory reform in Europe

Abstract: The volume examines changes in regulatory rules, organizations and policies across several European countries and policy domains, why these changes have taken place and their consequences. The 'regulatory state' hypothesis suggests that regulatory reforms involve a new mode of governance in Europe, with alterations in state functions, political arenas, institutions, actors and policy styles. The volume finds that although several features put forward by the 'regulatory state' model have spread, they remain limited and there is great diversity across countries and domains. It analyses the reasons for this, notably variation in international pressures for change and mediation by national factors. It looks at the effects of regulatory reform on participation in regulatory politics, relationships among actors, economic, social and market outcomes. An analytical framework based on different 'regulatory regimes' offers the best route forward to analyse regulatory reform across countries and sectors.

Personal data privacy protection in an age of globalization: the US-EU safe harbor compromise

Abstract: Hypotheses on the impact of global trade and information flows on state sovereignty and interstate policy convergence have proliferated ahead of empirical studies assessing their explanatory accuracy or predictive powers. The recent personal data privacy protection dispute between the European Union and the United States is a critical case study for examining and refining many of these hypotheses. Personal data privacy protection is a policy realm at once at the forefront of trade and information technology and one that implicates fundamental cultural beliefs and domestic practices. Thus, it is a dispute where the forces allegedly driving and resisting 'globalization' are present. This paper will analyze the 1998 EU Data Protection Directive and the 'safe harbor' compromise agreement between the European Union and the United States to advance the debate over the impact of globalization on state sovereignty, the respective importance and interplay of external and internal forces in shaping state policy, an...

The role of supranational actors in EU treaty reform

Abstract: Treaty reform, traditionally seen as the preserve of national governments, nevertheless involves supranational actors to a significant degree. This article, having re-conceptualized treaty reform as a broader process which includes, but goes beyond, the negotiations of IGCs, looks in some detail at the respective roles of Commission, Parliament and Council Secretariat in this process. In assessing the contribution which these institutions can make, the article concludes that their involvement is different from that of member states, but that their influence is nevertheless significant, pointing to issues such as the institutionalization of the treaty reform process, the legitimation of treaty changes and their command of specialist expertise in what are highly technical negotiations. Given their particular resources in this respect, supranational actors matter in the treaty reform process and ought to be the object of more systematic empirical analysis in the future.

The impact of the European Union on local government in the Netherlands

Abstract: 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.

Efficiency or Credibility? Testing the Two Logics of Delegation to the European Commission

Abstract: This article critically elaborates Majone's argument that there are two logics underlying the delegation of powers to the European Commission: the logic of efficiency and the logic of credibility. It analyses 601 provisions of secondary legislation and suggests a method to distinguish the two rationales. It then correlates executive powers with statutory constraints. A surprising result is that these constraints are more associated, in general, with credibility-based than with efficiency-based delegation; however, statutory constraints that facilitate control by national state actors are more likely to be associated with efficiency-based delegation. The article concludes by emphasizing that different strategies of control are related to different underlying motivations to delegate.

...Who is without sin cast the first stone: the EU's democratic deficit in comparison

Abstract: The renaissance of the EU and the introduction of the Euro have renewed concerns whether EU institutions are sufficiently accountable to the European electorate. Critics assert that the EU suffers from a 'democratic deficit.' But many democratic deficit arguments have a shortcoming: seeing the EU as sui generis , they treat it in a vacuum and fail to compare it to other polities. This study aims to systematically compare the European regulatory state with two federal democracies, Switzerland and the US, along seven established scales of democracy. The finding might surprise EU critics: On the whole, EU institutions compare favorably with those of the 'model democracies' the US and Switzerland. While there is much room for improvement, the EU does not suffer from a democratic deficit greater than that of the world's most liberal democracies.

The 1988 reform of the European Structural Funds: entitlement or empowerment?

Abstract: With the reform of the Structural Funds, regions have gained a key role in the design and implementation of regional policy. Yet some of the weakest regions were not equipped with appropriate institutional structures and have struggled to benefit. In evaluating the reform, we revisit concepts such as justice and equity. While the reform may have given regions an entitlement to participate, we argue that some have lacked the capacity to do so effectively. In this context, enlargement raises questions over the future of the Funds, and how far a commitment to cohesion and convergence can be maintained.

State power, transformative capacity and adapting to globalization: an analysis of French agricultural policy, 1960-2000

Abstract: What states can and cannot do under conditions of globalization remains an important question in current studies of public policy. Some stress that states are increasingly limited in the types of policies they can deploy, while others argue that states remain active and important players, but in different ways. This article argues that 'transformative capacity' rooted in links between the state and societal actors will be crucial for determining what options are available to governments. This argument is addressed by examining the evolution of agricultural structural policy in France over the past forty years. Globalization, regional economic integration, as well as environmental and social issues posed new challenges for policy-makers in agriculture beginning in the early 1980s, forcing a reconstitution of state-society relations, first vertically and then horizontally, as a basis for transformative capacity. In the process, the state has shifted from a reliance on rather closed bipartite corporatist pol...

The struggle over EU enlargement: a historical materialist analysis of European integration

Abstract: This article argues with the help of a neo-Gramscian perspective that neo-liberal restructuring is the social purpose underlying Austria's and Sweden's accession to the EU in 1995 as well as future enlargements towards Central and Eastern Europe. The way in which enlargement has come about has differed, however. On the one hand, class struggle occurred mainly at the Austrian and Swedish national level. While a historical bloc in favour of EU membership was established in Austria by internationally oriented capital and labour, Swedish transnational capital and labour only formed a strong pro-EU alliance, because transnational capital favoured the EU for its neo-liberal restructuring, while transnational labour hoped to regain control over capital at a higher level. On the other hand, neo-liberal restructuring in Central and Eastern Europe has to be secured externally via EU membership, based on an alliance between Central and Eastern European state elites and transnational capital, represented by the Commi...

Commercial consultancies in the European Union: the shape and structure of professional interest intermediation

Abstract: Commercial consultancies in the realm of public affairs and interest intermediation have become an important player within the European Union. This paper presents findings from a survey of commercial interest intermediation. It illustrates that the business has grown and established itself gradually as an accepted and legitimate route of monitoring and influencing European policy-making. Moreover, we perceive that a certain integration and concentration of the business is under way at the European and global level. It is argued that these developments have an impact on European interest intermediation, first, because this business makes public affairs and interest intermediation more systematic, plural and competitive, and, second, because the business serves as an interface between European and global, internal and external affairs.

Theorizing EU treaty reform: beyond diplomacy and bargaining

Abstract: This article argues that a comprehensive approach to treaty reform requires both a more inclusive and longer-term perspective. We re-conceptualize agency and structure in the process of treaty reform; examine theoretically as well as empirically the respective roles of interests, ideas and institutions in treaty reform; and seek to reconcile agency and structure, as well as ideas, interests and institutions, in a temporal perspective on treaty reform.

Beyond the EU membership-non-membership dichotomy? Supranational identities among national EU decision-makers

Abstract: This article poses the following question: Do national civil servants attending EU committees evoke supranational loyalties that transcend preestablished national and sectoral identities? Multiple institutional affiliations often trigger multiple identities. However, certain identities - like supranationalism - are fostered under particular institutional conditions. Three hypotheses on supranationalism are proposed. First, supranationalism reflects the EU membership of each nation-state. Second, intensive and sustained participation on EU committees among national civil servants leads to supranational allegiances among the participants. Finally, supranationalism is associated with the general lack of national coordination prior to EU committee meetings. The empirical analysis employs survey data of 160 Scandinavian government officials with various experience from EU committees. Additionally, forty-seven face-to-face interviews supplement the survey data. The main empirical observations are twofold. First...

Liberal community and enlargement: an event history analysis

Abstract: This article presents the findings of a statistical analysis of the major enlargement events of the European Union, NATO, and the Council of Europe - the establishment of institutionalized relations between the organization and outsider states, outsider states' application for membership, accession, and exclusion or suspension of membership. It is designed to test the 'liberal community hypothesis' about enlargement according to which the likelihood of these enlargement events depends on the degree to which states adhere to the constitutive liberal values and norms of these three regional organizations. The main results of the event history analysis corroborate the liberal community hypothesis: compliance with democratic standards is the only variable that is robustly significant across different organizations, events, and time periods.

How intergovernmental are Intergovernmental Conferences? An example from the Maastricht Treaty reform

Abstract: In the 1991 Intergovernmental Conference (IGC), conflicts over social policy endangered the whole treaty reform package. The path-breaking innovations that finally occurred (although initially for eleven members only) regarding both competence and procedures made the Maastricht Treaty a turning point for European social policy. For these reasons, the Maastricht Social Agreement represents an important case for testing the proposition that dynamics beyond power and intergovernmental bargaining can play a decisive role in EU reform. The insight that both a Euro-level process of preference formation and Euro-level actors mattered here indicates that state-of-the-art research must pay attention to such dynamics as potentially relevant factors in all instances of EU treaty reform. EU reform, even at the constitutional level of treaty change and even in formal IGCs, can be much less 'intergovernmental' than the name 'Intergovernmental Conference' suggests.

Sectoral Dynamics of EU Eastern Enlargement: Advocacy, Access and Alliances in a Composite Policy

Abstract: Theoretical studies of EU enlargement have mainly focused on the macro-level of enlargement, namely under which conditions the EU decides to enlarge We still lack a conceptual framework to analyse the sectoral dynamics of enlargement that specifies under which conditions the preferences of the candidate countries are accommodated in EU policy I argue that an accommodation of the candidates' preferences depends crucially on policy advocates in the EU The influence of these policy advocates is structured by the nature of enlargement as a composite policy, in which sectoral decisions are negotiated between the group of policy-makers with primary responsibility for enlargement as such, and various groups of sectoral policy-makers The policy advocates' impact on sectoral policies thus depends (1) on their access to decision-making, which is shaped by the structure of the policy process , as well as (2) their ability to build alliances with sectoral policymakers Crucially, alliance-building depends not onl

National adaptation to European integration: institutional vetoes and goodness-of-fit

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