Suchergebnisse

In the US context, research on ambivalence has established that individuals often simultaneously possess positive and negative considerations on a political object. Yet little is known about ambivalence in support for European integration. This article proposes a measure that distinguishes ambivalence from indifference in attitudes towards the European Union (EU). Using data from Eurobarometer wave 63.4 and the Chapel Hill expert survey I find that the causal logics of ambivalence and indifference are sharply different. Multinomial regression analysis reveals that levels of ambivalence towards the EU increase with political sophistication. Also, citizens are more ambivalent, less indifferent, and less positive about the EU when elite division on European integration is more pronounced. Finally, trust in EU institutions and attachment to Europe decrease indifference and ambivalence about the EU.

Democracy requires an active and informed citizenry. Citizen engagement is all the more critical in complex environments such as the European Union (EU). This article examines how having an informed public matters for support for European-level policy competencies. Is public skepticism of EU authority shaped by a lack of knowledge, or are attitudes about policy jurisdiction in Europe's multilevel system unbiased by information? Our analysis of collective opinion in 27 issue areas reveals that, in nearly every case, a paucity of knowledge about the EU reduces popular support for European policy control. Further analyses show that possessing knowledge of Europe's institutions affects support for EU authority in areas involving cross-border political issues. In contrast, we find no consistent biasing effect on opinions about control over economic issues.

Support for European integration is a function no longer only of `hard' economic and utilitarian predictors but also of `soft' predictors such as feelings of identity and attitudes towards immigrants. Focusing on the issue of the potential membership of Turkey in the European Union (EU), this study demonstrates that the importance of `soft' predictors outweighs the role of `hard' predictors in understanding public opinion about Turkish membership. The study draws on survey data (N = 1630) and applies a series of regression models and structural equation modelling to show in addition how the effects of utilitarian considerations are mediated through `soft' indicators, further accentuating the importance of identity considerations and anti-immigration sentiments. The findings are discussed in the light of public support for and the legitimacy of further European enlargement.

Fabio Franchino provides an insightful and critical examination of the findings of my book Veto Power, as well as the volume by Finke et al., Reforming the European Union. Here I respond to some of the issues raised by Franchino. First, I discuss Franchino's replication of my main empirical results, and then I discuss my treatment of intergovernmentalism.

This article examines the factors that shape parties' motivation to invest time and other resources in scrutinizing European Union policy proposals. We distinguish between two different motivations to engage in scrutiny activities. First, parties use such mechanisms to influence the national position directly. Second, parties play a two-level game and use scrutiny to manipulate their negotiator's domestic constraints. Both arguments depend on a set of conditions, namely the government's relative strength in Brussels, the transparency of the European Union decision-making process as well as the government's relative strength and cohesion in the domestic arena. On the empirical side, we study scrutiny at the level of committees in the national parliaments of Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, and the United Kingdom over a 13-year period, during which 32 governments are covered. Our findings suggest that parties deploy scrutiny to shift the domestic constraint strategically, but only if such a shift can be communicated convincingly to the international bargaining partners. Moreover, our findings suggest that opposition parties employ such measures to influence the position of a weak government.

Informal trilogue meetings are the main legislative bargaining forum in the European Union, yet their dynamics remain largely understudied in a quantitative context. This article builds on the assumption that the negotiating delegations of the European Parliament and the Council play a two-level game whereby these actors can use their intra-institutional constraint to extract inter-institutional bargaining success. Negotiators can credibly claim that their hands are tied if the members of their parent institutions hold similar preferences and do not accept alternative proposals or if their institution is divided and negotiators need to defend a fragile compromise. Employing a measure of document similarity (minimum edit distance) between an institution's negotiation mandate and the trilogue outcome to measure bargaining success, the analysis supports the hypothesis for the European Parliament, but not for the Council.

Large variation exists in the extent to which national interest groups focus on European Union (EU) legislation and carry out their political activities in Brussels and Strasbourg. What explains this variation? We propose a series of hypotheses that suggest that business groups, and groups active in policy areas with high EU competence, are more Europeanized than other groups. The effect of group type, moreover, is conditional on the material resources a group possesses: we expect the difference between business and non-business groups to be largest for actors that are well endowed with material resources. Using novel data on 880 national associations, gained from a survey of interest groups in five European countries, we find support for these hypotheses. The article has implications for the literatures on lobbying, Europeanization, and theories of European integration.

Does income inequality increase political backlash against European and global integration? This paper reports research suggesting that it can. The article analyses party opposition to and support for trade openness, European Union integration and general internationalism of political party platforms in advanced industrial democracies between 1960 and 2008. It finds that inequality tends to increase anti-globalization positions of parties, net of pro-globalization positions, an effect that does not significantly differ across party families or levels of actual globalization. This effect, however, does depend on, and is diminished by, generous redistributive policies. These findings clarify socio-economic conditions underlying the backlash against political and economic globalization.

Abstract
This article provides an overview of cases decided by the Court of Justice of the European Union concerning contract law. The present issue covers the period between the beginning of July 2019 and the end of December 2019.