1,720,970 research outputs found
"Service bureaux of decision-makers or successful spin-doctors: Assessing interest group influence in the EU and the US"
Full text linkIt is generally held amongst scholars of interest intermediation that interest groups are quite influential for policy-making. This has been demonstrated in studies of the national level and features very strongly in studies of US lobbying. It is also evident in the fact that interest group activities at the European level have been studied in great detail and are considered an important element of the EU’s system of multilevel governance. In the context of these studies, recent research by the author has come to a surprising result: in six case studies of day-to-day EU policy-making in the transport and IT sectors, private actors and interest groups could only influence the smaller details of legislation. In addition, they were only influential when the general political will of the decision-makers was either in support of their demands or indifferent to them. These findings lead to the question of what determines the success of interest groups, especially in light of the fact that studies of US lobbying come to very different results. Why is interest representation in the US so influential when it seems that at the EU-level this is not quite the case? This paper compares findings on the influence of US lobbying with that of the EU-level and discusses what this means for democratic governance and the relationship of decision-makers to societal groups
What’s in a Convention? Process and substance in the project of European constitution-building. IHS Political Science Series: 2003, No. 89
Full text linkThe paper studies aspects of the process and substance of the deliberations of the Convention on the Future of the Union, against the backdrop of the longer term development of a Constitution for the European Union. It examines some of the issues which have arisen over the course of the longer term debate about European constitutionalism, including the normative basis of a putative Constitution for the EU. In the main part of the paper, the primary objective is to elaborate in more detail the ways in which the Convention’s work was structured by the complex procedural and substantive heritage of the Union’s constitutional acquis. It focuses on the Convention as an addition to an already complex and multi-facetted constitution-building process, and looks at some of the principles which it has proposed to bring into the constitutional architecture, such as the explicit articulation of the supremacy principle. It concludes that at times the fit between the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ in the constitutional process and substance developed by the Convention is far from satisfactory
Policy Networks. IHS Political Science Series: 2003, No. 90
Full text linkModern democratic governance occurs only rarely via traditional Weberian hierarchies or pure ‘markets’. Rather, public policies are made via some kind of hybrid arrangement involving a range of different actors, including some representing private or non-governmental institutions. The concept of policy networks - clusters of actors, each with an interest, or ‘stake’ in a given policy sector and the capacity to help determine policy success or failure - has been developed and refined as a way to try to describe, explain and predict the outcomes of policy-making via such hybrid arrangements. Governance by policy network is rife at the level of the European Union because it is such a highly differentiated polity which is dominated (in important ways) by experts and highly dependent on ‘government by committee’. Research on EU policy networks has produced useful results but we remain some distance away from an agreed, plausible ‘theory’ of policy networks
Assessing Conditions for Influence of Interest Groups in the EU. IHS Political Science Series: 2005, 106
Full text linkAn important factor for the ability of interest groups to contribute to democratic decisionmaking is the balance between their input and the political autonomy of decision-makers. This article focuses on the results of four case studies of decision-making in the fields of IT and transport in the EU. These case studies show that private actors do contribute to decision-making, but they are less influential for EU politics than anticipated. Based on the case studies, this article assesses how and to what extent interest groups contribute to decision-making in the two sectors, in the context of the EU’s political structure and, notably, its alleged democratic deficit
Europe Divided? Elites vs. Public Opinion on European Integration. IHS Political Science Series: 2003, No. 88
Full text linkThis article compares preferences for Europeanizing thirteen policies among European elites, national elites, and public opinion. Elites are more willing to cede national authority in sovereignty areas, but citizens are more favorable to EU social policies. Are there contrasting logics at work? The answer is two-sided. Elites and public preferences are similar in that both are least enthusiastic about Europeanizing high-spending policies. Here is a common distributional logic: shifting authority could de-stabilize vested interests. However, as the single market intensifies labor market volatility, the public seeks to contain this distributional risk through selectively Europeanizing market-flanking policies. In contrast, elite preferences are consistent with a functional rationale, which conceives European integration as an optimal solution for internalizing externalities beyond the national state
Unraveling the Central State, But How? Types of Multi-Level Governance. IHS Political Science Series: 2003, No. 87
Full text linkThe reallocation of authority upwards, downwards, and sideways from central states has drawn attention from a growing number of scholars in political science. Yet beyond agreement that governance has become (and should be) multi-level, there is no consensus about how it should be organized. This article draws on several literatures to distinguish two types of multi-level governance. One type conceives of dispersion of authority to general-purpose, non-intersecting, and durable jurisdictions. A second type of governance conceives of task-specific, intersecting, and flexible jurisdictions. We conclude by specifying the virtues of each type of governance
Europe Divided?: Elites vs. Public Opinion on European Integration
Full text linkAbstract: This article compares preferences for Europeanizing thirteen policies among European elites, national elites, and public opinion. Elites are more willing to cede national authority in sovereignty areas, but citizens are more favorable to EU social policies. Are there contrasting logics at work? The answer is two-sided. Elites and public preferences are similar in that both are least enthusiastic about Europeanizing high-spending policies. Here is a common distributional logic: shifting authority could de-stabilize vested interests. However, as the single market intensifies labor market volatility, the public seeks to contain this distributional risk through selectively Europeanizing market-flanking policies. In contrast, elite preferences are consistent with a functional rationale, which conceives European integration as an optimal solution for internalizing externalities beyond the national state.
Unraveling the Central State, But How?: Types of Multi-Level Governance
Full text linkAbstract: The reallocation of authority upwards, downwards, and sideways from central states has drawn attention from a growing number of scholars in political science. Yet beyond agreement that governance has become (and should be) multi-level, there is no consensus about how it should be organized. This article draws on several literatures to distinguish two types of multi-level governance. One type conceives of dispersion of authority to generalpurpose, non-intersecting, and durable jurisdictions. A second type of governance conceives of task-specific, intersecting, and flexible jurisdictions. We conclude by specifying the virtues of each type of governance.
'Policy Networks'
Full text linkAbstract: Modern democratic governance occurs only rarely via traditional Weberian hierarchies or pure 'markets'. Rather, public policies are made via some kind of hybrid arrangement involving a range of different actors, including some representingprivate or nongovernmental institutions. The concept of policy networks - clusters of actors, each with an interest, or 'stake' in a given policy sector and the capacity to help determine policy success or failure - has been developed and refined asa way to try to describe, explain and predict the outcomes of policy-making via such hybrid arrangements. Governance by policy network is rife at the level of the European Union because it is such a highly differentiated polity which is dominated (in important ways) by experts and highly dependent on 'government by committee'. Research on EU policy networks has produced useful results but we remain some distance away from an agreed, plausible 'theory' of policy networks.
What's in a Convention?: Process and substance in the project of European constitution-building
Full text linkAbstract: The paper studies aspects of the process and substance of the deliberations of the Convention on the Future of the Union, against the backdrop of the longer term development of a Constitution for the European Union. It examines some of theissues which have arisen over the course of the longer term debate about European constitutionalism, including the normative basis of a putative Constitution for the EU. In the main part of the paper, the primary objective is to elaborate in more detail the ways in which the Convention's work was structured by the complex procedural and substantive heritage of the Union's constitutional acquis. It focuses on the Convention as an addition to an already complex and multi-facetted constitution-building process, and looks at some of the principles which it has proposed to bring into the constitutional architecture, such as the explicit articulation of the supremacy principle. It concludes that at times the fit between the 'old' and the 'new' in the constitutional process and substance developed by the Convention is far from satisfactory.
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