Showing papers in "West European Politics in 2010"

Two Concepts of Accountability: Accountability as a Virtue and as a Mechanism

Abstract: This paper distinguishes between two main concepts of accountability: accountability as a virtue and accountability as a mechanism. In the former case, accountability is used primarily as a normative concept, as a set of standards for the evaluation of the behaviour of public actors. Accountability or, more precisely, being accountable, is seen as a positive quality in organisations or officials. Hence, accountability studies often focus on normative issues, on the assessment of the actual and active behaviour of public agents. In the latter case, accountability is used in a narrower, descriptive sense. It is seen as an institutional relation or arrangement in which an actor can be held to account by a forum. Here, the locus of accountability studies is not the behaviour of public agents, but the way in which these institutional arrangements operate. The present paper argues that distinguishing more clearly between these two concepts of accountability can solve at least some of the current conceptual conf...

The Populist Radical Right: A Pathological Normalcy

Abstract: In recent years more and more studies have pointed to the limitations of demand-side explanations of the electoral success of populist radical right parties. They argue that supply-side factors need to be included as well. While previous authors have made these claims on the basis of purely empirical arguments, this article provides a (meta)theoretical argumentation for the importance of supply-side explanations. It takes issue with the dominant view on the populist radical right, which considers it to be alien to mainstream values in contemporary western democracies – the ‘normal pathology thesis’. Instead, it argues that the populist radical right should be seen as a radical interpretation of mainstream values, or more akin to a pathological normalcy. This argument is substantiated on the basis of an empirical analysis of party ideologies and mass attitudes. The proposed paradigmatic shift has profound consequences for the way the populist radical right and western democracy relate, as well as for how t...

The New Cultural Divide and the Two-Dimensional Political Space in Western Europe

Abstract: While the endorsement of universalistic values by the New Left led to a first transformation of political space in Western Europe, the counter-mobilisation of the extreme populist right resulted in a second transformation in the 1990s. This article focuses on the discursive innovations and normative foundations that have driven the emergence of a conflict opposing libertarian-universalistic and traditionalist-communitarian values. An analysis using data from the media coverage of election campaigns confirms that the New Left and the populist right represent polar normative ideals in France, Austria, and Switzerland. A similar transformation of political space occurred in the absence of a right-wing populist party in Germany, Britain, and the Netherlands. In these contexts, the author hypothesises the value conflict to prove less durable and polarising in the longer run. The analysis of an election in the mid 2000s confirms that party systems evolve in a path dependent manner in the two contexts.

Accountability and Transparency: Siamese Twins, Matching Parts, Awkward Couple?

Abstract: This paper contrasts three possible ways of thinking about the relationship between accountability and transparency as principles of governance: as ‘Siamese twins’, not really distinguishable; as ‘matching parts’ that are separable but nevertheless complement one another smoothly to produce good governance; and as ‘awkward couple’, involving elements that are potentially or actually in tension with one another. It then identifies three possible ways in which we could establish the accuracy or plausibility of each of those three characterisations. One is a search for true essences that would separate true from spurious meanings. A second is to dimensionalise each of the concepts and explore the matrix of connectivity between the dimensions. A third is to explore the multiple frames for thinking about accountability and transparency that come from the neo-Durkheimian analysis of the limited number of elementary ways of life developed by the late Mary Douglas and her followers. The analytic utility of this a...

Accountability and Multi-level Governance: More Accountability, Less Democracy?

Abstract: This paper seeks to explain why the trend towards more cooperative forms of policy-making, though in all likelihood necessary for policy efficiency and even at first glance promising with respect to inclusiveness and pluralism, can have negative consequences for democratic accountability. The paper first explores the properties of multi-level governance that lead to a deficit in democratic accountability (lack of visibility, uncoupling from representative institutions, composition of networks, and ‘multi-levelness’ itself) before coming to more general conclusions on the characteristics and limits of accountability mechanisms in multi-level governance and on their consequences for democracy.

Exploring Governance in a Multi-Level Polity: A Policy Instruments Approach

Abstract: The study of public policy instruments in national settings has contributed significantly to our understanding of policy, political systems, and relations between state and citizen. Its promise for the EU, where instrument-centred research has hitherto been limited in coverage and method, remains by contrast largely unfulfilled. This article discusses the political sociology approach to instruments, developed by Lascoumes and Le Gales as an alternative to the traditional functionalist perspective, and highlights its value in opening new perspectives on EU policy-making and its consequences. It presents an overview of the findings of an original set of case studies, which demonstrate the usefulness of the approach in providing new insights on classic questions of EU decision-making, uncovering hidden dimensions of EU policy development, and revealing the limits of the organisational capacity of the EU as a system, as well as challenging established narratives.

Restructuration of Partisan Politics and the Emergence of a New Cleavage Based on Values

Abstract: The cleavage concept is a very demanding concept that limits the possibilities of finding any new examples of cleavages. And, indeed, many authors, some of whom contributing to the present volume, mainly perceive a decline of cleavages, or at best a stabilization of old cleavages, but hardly anything new. However, new cleavages may be hard to find, because we look in the wrong places for their structural basis: it might just be that their value/normative element is contributing crucially to the structural closure of the groups involved – as it did in the case of religion previously. If we take such a possibility into account, several of the contributions to the present volume provide evidence for the emergence of a new value-based cleavage, which has mainly, albeit not exclusively, been driven by the challengers of the New Left and the new populist right.

A New Phase of European Integration: Organized Capitalisms in Post-Ricardian Europe

Abstract: In the past, economic integration in Europe was largely compatible with the preservation of different national varieties of capitalism. While product market integration intensified competition, member states could build on and foster their respective comparative advantage. Today, this no longer unequivocally holds true. This article contends that a new, ‘post-Ricardian’ phase of European integration has emerged in which the Commission's and the European Court of Justice's (ECJ's) attempts to promote economic integration systematically challenge the institutions of organised capitalism. It demonstrates this by discussing recent disputes over the Services Directive, the Takeover Directive, and company law. In the current phase of European integration, the Commission's and the ECJ's liberalisation attempts either transform the institutional foundations on which some of the member states' economic systems rely or they create political resistance to an extent that challenges the viability of the European project.

Credibility, Complexity and Uncertainty: Explaining the Institutional Independence of 29 EU Agencies

Abstract: The delegation of policy-making tasks to EU agencies and their remarkable growth in number over the past two decades mark a striking new development in the EU's institutional make-up. While most of the nascent literature on the EU's ‘agencification’ addresses the conditions for agency creation and the implications of agency governance from the perspective of democratic accountability, there is a lack of empirical research systematically scrutinising the institutional structure and degree of formal-institutional independence of these agencies. This article offers a comprehensive empirical assessment and measure of the variation in institutional independence displayed by the entire set of 29 EU agencies operating under the EU's three pillars and tests hypotheses explaining variation in formal independence among agencies.

Exploring the Stabilization of a Political Force: The Social and Attitudinal Basis of Green Parties in the Age of Globalization

Abstract: About 30 years after gradually gaining parliamentary representation, Green parties have become established political actors throughout Western Europe. Based on a comparative analysis of 12 countries, this study argues that the stability this party family has achieved is the result of an enduring coalition with groups of voters who not only share a particular set of attitudes but also several specific social characteristics. Such a structural perspective clearly contradicts earlier approaches in the literature that primarily explained the Green vote as being issue- or value-based and sometimes simply as representing political protest. Green voters, by contrast, are young, highly educated, work as social-cultural specialists or are students, are predominantly urban, and less attached to Christian churches. These structural components are connected with environmental, libertarian, and pro-immigration attitudes. With respect to new divides caused by globalization processes, especially the latter issue explici...

The Development of the Education Cleavage: Denmark as a Critical Case

Abstract: Over recent decades scholars have documented the increasing electoral salience across Western Europe of a new post-materialist or libertarian–authoritarian dimension. The theoretical status of this new dimension and its relation to extant cleavage structures – notably the class cleavage – has, however, been debated. This paper demonstrates that the dimension reflects a new education-based cleavage that has come into existence since the mid 1980s. Thus, analyses of Danish election surveys and party manifestoes show the linkage between the voters' educational level, their values, and their voting for authoritarian or libertarian parties – i.e. the existence of an education cleavage. Due to its status as one of the more advanced countries, Denmark can be seen as a least likely case for the existence of a structurally based cleavage; hence, the existence of the education cleavage in this country indicates that similar cleavages lie underneath the authoritarian–libertarian dimension in other countries as well.

The Career of the Open Method of Coordination: Lessons from a ‘Soft’ EU Instrument

Abstract: This article examines the career of the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) as a policy instrument. Looking at the European Employment Strategy and the Lisbon Agenda, it shows that more has been accomplished than is often realised. It argues that the OMC's apparent fragility reflects an intrinsic tension, termed here the ‘soft-law dilemma’: it must ensure a constant supply of items to feed the EU agenda, whilst at the same time guaranteeing a level of institutional stability sufficient to allow effective policy delivery. To maintain both legitimacy and effectiveness, the OMC has learned to navigate between the extremes of all-out policy activism and bureaucratisation. As a result, the OMC has become an established form of socio-economic governance at EU level. A decade later, EU actors have the resources to take action in areas long associated with national sovereignty, thereby widening the scope and potential for a politicisation of the EU.

Hard Questions, Hard Solutions: Proceduralisation through Impact Assessment in the EU

Abstract: An important proposition in public policy analysis is that the design and selection of policy instruments is a manifestation of power relations; in other words, ‘politics determines instruments’. However, except where it degenerates into tick-the-box routines, instrumentation can also generate its own political effects at the implementation stage – the ‘instruments determine politics’ argument. Examining the impact assessment (IA) element of the EU's Better Regulation agenda of the European Union, this article argues that procedures and meta-instruments are chosen by policy-makers when there is disagreement on fundamental issues of power. Policy-makers activate meta-instruments that do not address fundamental issues directly, but change procedures of policy formulation. In so doing, however, they create a new structure of opportunity, which produces its own effects on politics. Our findings point to unintended effects of IA, such as administrative coordination and organisational learning, as well as stren...

Structural and ideological voting in age cohorts

Abstract: In most West European countries the effects of long-term determinants of the vote − in particular social class, religion and left–right ideology − have slowly weakened since the late 1980s. This paper first describes differences between the EU member states in the extent of structural and ideological voting in the period 1989–2004. It then focuses on the causes behind the changes over time. It is hypothesised that the decline is partially caused by generational replacement (H1). More specifically, it is assumed that structural voting is most important for the generation born before 1950, and politically socialised in the years of the mass party (H2) and that ideological voting is most important for the generation born between 1950 and 1970, who were politically socialised after the decline of cleavages and before the fall of the Berlin Wall (H3). To test these hypotheses, the study employs the European Elections Study 1989, 1994, 1999 and 2004. The country by year combination provides data from 62 politic...

The Paradox of Gender Mainstreaming. The Unanticipated Effects of New Modes of Governance in the Gender Equality Domain

Abstract: This article examines gender mainstreaming as a paradigmatic example of the EU's new modes of governance, which have involved a shift away from the classical method of integration (the ‘Community Method’). It considers the form and significance of this atypical policy instrument, introduced as a ‘new’ instrument to revitalise a policy deemed inadequate since the beginning of the 1990s and as an alternative to the regulatory and corrective tools of equal treatment and equal opportunities. It also investigates the ambiguous impact of gender mainstreaming on the evolution of the gender equality policy. The institutionalisation of this soft and flexible instrument has induced profound changes in the content, scope and nature of the EU gender equality policy. From a specific regulatory policy on discrimination against women it has become a softer and more diverse policy ranged against a broader spectrum of discrimination.

Debating Islam in Austria, Germany and Switzerland: Ethnic Citizenship, Church–State Relations and Right-Wing Populism

Abstract: This article explores public debates regarding Islam and Muslim immigration in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. The authors are interested in which issues dominate the debates, which actors participate, which positions are taken, and which arguments are mobilised. Exploring three countries with an ethnic model of citizenship allows them to control for important cultural factors and to focus on three other explanatory variables: the dominant model of political participation, the relationship between the state and church/Islam, and the strength of right-wing populism. To test their arguments, they rely on a new dataset based on content analyses of quality newspapers from 1998 to 2007 that enables them to go beyond existing studies, which concentrate on state activities or on mass-level attitudes. The authors demonstrate that above all the relationship between the state and church/Islam, i.e. issue-specific opportunity structures, influences the debates to a great extent.

Partnership as an EU Policy Instrument: A Political History

Abstract: Partnership is an idea whose time has come. It has been a prominent instrument of EU regional policy since 1989, requiring as a condition of funding that member states establish partnerships in each assisted region to oversee spending decisions. Over time, the requirement has become more precise to ensure the participation not only of state actors from various territorial levels, but also non-state actors. Using the political sociology approach to policy instruments, this article considers the creation and development of the partnership instrument and analyses the key debates and issues that have informed its evolution. It argues that while partnership has been generally presented as a technical device aimed at improving decisional efficiency and policy effectiveness, it is a highly political instrument with very different purposes and effects in different contexts.

The Lega Nord Back in Government

Abstract: Following the 2008 general election, the Italian regionalist populist party Lega Nord returned to government as part of a centre-right coalition led by Silvio Berlusconi. Since then, the party has been able to thrive thanks to its holding of key ministries and its consolidation of ‘issue ownership’ over its main themes of federal reform and immigration/law and order. In this period, it has also made major gains in the 2009 European Parliament and 2010 regional elections. This article analyses the Lega's success since 2008 by considering the actions of the party (in particular the legislation it has sponsored and the narrative offered of its time in government) as well as the reactions of mid-ranking leaders and activists. The authors argue that, contrary to the expectations of scholars, populists serving as junior coalition partners are not necessarily destined to tame their rhetoric, face splits or see their electoral support decline. On the contrary, by focusing on selected themes and policies and adopt...

Policy Instruments in the Common Agricultural Policy

Abstract: Policy changes in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) can be explained in terms of the exhaustion and long-term contradictions of policy instruments. Changes in policy instruments have reoriented the policy without any change in formal Treaty goals. The social and economic efficacy of instruments in terms of evidence-based policy analysis was a key factor in whether they were delegitimized. The original policy instruments were generally dysfunctional, but reframing the policy in terms of a multifunctionality paradigm permitted the development of more efficacious instruments. A dynamic interaction takes place between the instruments and policy informed by the predominant discourses.

Meeting the Challenges of Representation and Accountability in Multi-party Governments

Abstract: In systems of proportional parliamentarism political parties play a double role. On the one hand they make delegation and accountability work; on the other they add complexity to the delegation regime, as minority situations require inter-party cooperation. Because coalition government usually involves policy compromises, the question arises how the coalition parties can ensure that the ministers stick to the coalition deal. Employing the principal–agent framework, this paper shows that coalitions can use several control mechanisms to pursue this goal. The authors consider ex ante mechanisms such as policy agreements that set the agenda for future policy decisions and coalition screening of ministerial candidates. Next they discuss the effects of ex post mechanisms such as strong committee systems and institutional checks like ‘watchdog’ junior ministers. Employing a simple spatial model, they illustrate how these instruments work. Using control mechanisms is not costless, however, and actors may want to ...

Elite-Level Conflict Salience and Dimensionality in Western Europe: Concepts and Empirical Findings

Abstract: This paper uses the Comparative Manifestos Project to explore both the changing salience of different issues on the party-defined political agenda and their structuration in Western Europe from the 1950s through the early 2000s. These measures of the political space, the most extensive time series measures constructed to date, allow the paper to weigh in on elite-level claims of the de-alignment thesis, a complement to analyses operating at the mass level. All in all, the paper finds mixed evidence for the de-alignment thesis. While the rising salience of valence issues and declining salience of references to social groups provide some support for de-alignment, other changes such as the emergence of the post-materialist conflict and the continuing structuration of the political agenda are more commensurate with re-alignment. Arguably contrary to both, however, is the extent to which the same political conflicts dominate the political agenda today as in the past.

Governing Despite its Instruments? Instrumentation in EU Environmental Policy

Abstract: Demonstrating how the political sociology approach to policy instruments generates new insights even in densely studied areas, this article investigates the evolution of policy instruments and the link between policy instruments and policy change in EU environmental policy over the past three decades. Examination of the politics of choice and combination of policy instruments reveals, first, that EU environmental policy is primarily structured by its instruments. Second, the article argues that, contrary to those in the literature who have claimed a pioneering role for the Union in this field, EU environmental policy is populated not by new or innovative policy instruments, but by instruments mainly derived from the member states or other international organisations. Third, it argues that the EU's tendency to import measures from elsewhere explains the apparent contradiction between the EU's policy activism, on the one hand, and the modest domestic impact of EU legislation, on the other.

Good Instructions in No Time? Domestic Coordination of EU Policies in 19 Small States

Abstract: As a prerequisite to shape EU policies in day-to-day negotiations, states have to know what they want and have to quickly produce good instructions. This paper analyses how domestic coordination practices influence the timing and quality of national positions. Are some states in a better position to develop instructions quickly? Are some states more likely to end up with low quality positions? In effect, three factors are crucial to the production of timely and good instructions: good cooperation between Permanent Representations and the lead ministries, autonomous lead ministries that prioritise EU work and good inter-ministerial conflict resolution systems. States such as Luxembourg and Ireland are close to these ideal practices and tend to develop good instructions swiftly, while others, such as Greece and Cyprus, frequently end up with delayed and suboptimal instructions that make it difficult for them to actively participate in EU negotiations.

On the Politicisation of the European Union: Lessons from Consociational National Polities

Abstract: 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 d...

From ‘Old’ to ‘New’ Governance in the EU: Explaining a Diagnostic Deficit

Abstract: The literature is now exploring the wider implications of the governance ‘turn’ in the European Union. This article develops this work by looking at the administrative demands associated with the use of ‘new’ (and principally network-based) instruments of governance. In the past, the main instrument used to integrate environmental concerns into other sectors was regulation. But in the 1990s, the Cardiff Process was established at EU level to promote a newer and more network-based approach to delivering this objective. Drawing upon an analysis of how well national administrative systems have responded to the demands associated with networks, it argues that both the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ instruments of governance are reliant on the presence of sufficient administrative capacities. It concludes that decision-makers in the EU have traded the ‘old’ governance of regulation for the ‘new’ governance of networks without sufficiently diagnosing the administrative demands associated with either.

Positioning accountability in European governance: an introduction

Abstract: The special issue of which this paper forms the introduction takes as its central focus one particular aspect of democratic governance: accountability. It attempts to position a broad understanding of the notion of accountability within the overall context of the evolving political system of governance in Europe and in particular of the European Union. With accountability at the centre, we consider its relationship to a fairly wide range of other themes in any given political system. This introduction first looks to the concept of accountability as it stands alongside and within other major themes of contemporary political systems. The issue of accountability beyond the national democratic state is then considered, and in particular within what Sbragia has termed the ‘ecology’ of governance. The introduction concludes with summaries of the papers included in the special issue.

Explaining Chief Executive Empowerment : EU Summitry and Domestic Institutional Change

Abstract: This article questions the claim that the way German governments have responded to Muslim demands for accommodating Islam fits a German national model. The empirical focus is on Islamic religious instruction in five German Lander. The evidence presented shows that there is not one but several German models. Lander with Christian Democratic dominance were more supportive of confessional religious instruction than Lander where the left was stronger. At the same time Christian Democrats initially were more reluctant to extend the privilege of religious instruction to Muslim groups. In Lander where Article 7 III of the German constitution applied, corporatist hurdles were an obstacle for Muslim groups, but this was less the case in Berlin. Religion-state institutions are important for understanding how European countries have dealt with the growing presence of Islam, but it is equally important to understand the politically contested nature of these institutions.

Patrimonial Economic Voting: Legislative Elections in France

Abstract: Patrimonial economic voting has been neglected in favour of classical economic voting studies. This assertion holds less, however, with French election investigations, where the neglect is relative rather than absolute. Whereas classical economic voting holds the economy to be a valence issue, patrimonial economic voting regards the economy as a positional issue. Voters who own more property, in particular high-risk assets, are held to be more right-wing in their political preferences. This patrimonial effect shows itself to be statistically and substantively strong in one of the few election data-sets with sufficient measures available – surveys on the National Assembly contests of 1978, 1988, 2002. The electoral effect exceeds that from the traditional ‘heavy variables’ of class and income. Moreover, further work might show its impact comparable to that of classic sociotropic retrospective evaluations of the national economy. Certainly a case can be made for further study of patrimonial economic voting,...

Electoral Rewards for Personal Vote Cultivation under PR-STV

Abstract: Generally the assumption is that legislators act to maximise their chances of re-election, with their optimal behaviour determined by the party-centred or candidate-centred nature of the electoral system in use. Existing evidence of the impact of members' actual behaviour on subsequent electoral performance is inconclusive. This research explores whether or not legislators who choose to focus on cultivating personal votes reap rewards from the electorate under the Single Transferable Vote (STV) electoral system. Exploring electoral reward under STV is particularly significant because some legislators face intra-party competition for votes while others do not – a key determining incentive for cultivating personal votes. This study uses a survey of Irish legislators in 2002 and 2007 to measure constituency orientation and effort. The data suggest an electoral reward for personal vote cultivation, although the relationship between intra-system incentive and reward is apparently not always as expected.

Instruments and intentionality: civilian crisis management and enlargement conditionality in EU security policy

Abstract: This article applies a public policy instrumentation approach to two instruments of EU security policy – civilian crisis management and enlargement conditionality. Both have come to be portrayed, by policy-makers and observers alike, as deliberate and efficient responses to specific policy challenges. Our analysis of the processes behind their adoption challenges such claims. In a complex institution like the EU, and in a sensitive sector like security, the development of new policy instruments requires negotiation within dense institutional settings. The resulting instruments do not necessarily match the initial intentions of their creators. The focus on unanticipated – albeit in retrospect not necessarily undesired – consequences in the development of the instruments of EU security policy also contributes to the broader research agenda on policy instruments, which problematises the selection of policy instruments yet nevertheless tends to perceive them as part of a deliberate strategy of policy change.