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1. Imagined States: Nationalism and Internationalism -- 2. At the Crossroads: Ireland's Path to Europe -- 3. Hopes and Handouts: Adapting to Membership -- 4. A Tiger in the Zoo: Growth and Greed -- 5. The Bonds that Tie: Crisis and Cooperation -- 6. Four Green Fields and 12 Gold Stars: Nationalism in Internationalism.

In this article, we address recent claims that executive-- legislative relations in parliamentary democracies are undergoing important changes owing to either a 'presidentialization' or a 'Europeanization' of domestic political systems. Therefore, we test empirically whether parliamentary democracies are indeed experiencing changes in executive--legislative relations and whether these developments can, in part, be explained by an increase in European integration. Using data on ministerial selection in Swedish cabinets during the years 1952--2006, we find that there appears to be a slight tendency towards 'presidentialization', which is indicated by a decrease in ministers with a parliamentary background being appointed, and that there exists some support for the notion that Sweden's political and economic integration into the European Union is part of the explanation for this change. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright holder.]

With the increasing prominence of fundamental rights within the EU it increasingly interferes in the core competence of the Council of Europe. This book traces the EU and the Council of Europe relationship in the field of human rights ₆ marked by mutual interferences and overlap ₆ and explores which factors trigger cooperation or conflict between the two organizations. Investigating the cases of data protection, the fight against terrorism, challenging Roma discrimination, the Memorandum of Understanding and the Fundamental Rights Agency through the lens of an implementation literature and management studies-perspective, this book contends that the biggest threat to interorganizational cooperation is organizational self-interest, despite a shared policy outlook. The book furthers the agenda set by the literature in this field by providing a new theoretical framework and an in-depth empirical study of two main actors in the field of human rights protection in Europe from a political science perspective.

Do legal rulings from the Court of Justice promote European economic integration? This article examines lawsuits where governments are found guilty of breaching their commitment to the common market. In these cases, governments are required to adopt reforms which, correctly applied, should promote intra-European trade. Using a novel dataset of trade-liberalizing rulings, I show that although they do prompt some increases in trade, the effect is contingent on domestic politics. When the defendant government has many political constraints, both institutional and partisan, it is less likely to expand its trade with the European Union. Domestic politics obstructs the policy reforms—and active enforcement—necessary to deepen economic integration. The findings highlight obstacles to the completion of the single market and limitations of the court.

The construction of a monetary union with a single currency in Europe raises serious concerns for those who understand the democratic process as one in which social groups compete on different ideological programs. This is because it increasingly constrains national governments of different partisan hues to follow similar fiscal & monetary policies. Recent empirical studies indicate that these concerns might be somewhat misplaced since there is evidence that partisan convergence on macroeconomic policy predates these institutional developments. One problem with these studies, though, is that they fail to include the electoral system as a constraint on partisan behavior. Since electoral systems generate centripetal & centrifugal tendencies, we should expect to find strong evidence for partisan differences only where electoral rules encourage dispersion. We test this argument using data on fiscal policy from European Union countries between 1981 & 1992. We find that there is still no systematic evidence for partisan differences. Given this, it is hard to see how EMU can add to the democratic deficit in the European Union. 1 Table, 3 Figures, 72 References. [Copyright 2002 Sage Publications Ltd.]

Committees of national officials play a major role in the decision-making of the European Union's main legislative body, the Council of Ministers. The study investigates the conditions under which bureaucrats decide on legislative dossiers without direct involvement of ministers. A statistical analysis is performed to examine this question, using an original data set of 439 legislative proposals. The results of the analysis indicate that formal institutional features such as the voting rule in the Council and the involvement of the European Parliament affect committee decision-making, whereas no effects of committee socialization and preference divergence among member states are identified. The results diminish concerns about the democratic legitimacy of Council decision-making to some extent, as the findings demonstrate that bureaucrats tend to decide only the less salient and more complex proposals. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright 2007.]

"Leadership in the European Union" published on by Oxford University Press.

Within the last several years, new data have become available to test the various theoretical models of EU decision-making, and, in doing so, to assess actor influence. This article examines the extent to which the recent DEU and DEUII datasets provide sufficient information to distinguish between competing theoretical models of legislative decision-making, and accurately assess the power of the different branches of EU government. It argues that insufficient attention has been paid to measurement error in these data. Once measurement error is accounted for, it becomes clear that these data do not provide sufficient information to distinguish between most models of legislative politics. Moreover, empirical models that fail to account for measurement error are likely to lead researchers to erroneous conclusions about actors' legislative influence. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright holder.]

This article critically examines the recent wealth of institutionalist rational choice literature on the EU. It appraises the major fault lines & debates. It argues that non-cooperative game theory provides a thorough set of tools to examine the effects of different sorts of institutions upon the powers & limitations of different institutional actors. In certain areas scholars have not fully utilized the models applied to other political systems, but EU scholarship has taken a great leap forward in the past few years. Fully specified models with proper predictions are now being developed, though there is a tendency for modelers to introduce too many new assumptions that make empirical comparison with earlier models problematic, as it is sometimes hard to see which new assumptions are of most import. But we are into a new phase of normal science rational choice institutionalist explanation of the EU. 98 References. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd.]