Suchergebnisse

This article seeks to analyse the changing nature of European policy making within national core executives. Using the Irish core executive as a case study, it sets out to map the process through which national EU policy is coordinated at the very heart of government, and to evaluate and explain the nature of adaptation over the past decade. The article is critical of traditional historical institutionalist accounts of domestic change that tend to downplay the nature and significance of adaptation to EU membership. Instead the study employs a distinctive strategic-relational network framework which aims to 'add value' to existing accounts in three main ways: first, by analysing shifting patterns of power dependency within the EU policy network; second, by exploring the way in which strategic actors interpret and shape the nature of change; and third, by offering a critical evaluation of the impact of adaptation. In this way the framework attempts to capture the fluidity, dynamism and wider significance of domestic change.

Although much has been written about Labour's policy towards the European single currency, few studies have explored the Treasury-led process of preparing Britain for changeover. The article attempts to address this by employing a strategic-relational framework to map the contours of the euro preparations network, to identify the key stakeholders and to chart its development between 1998 and 2008. It argues that by establishing an autonomous policy network, the government was able to pursue a highly effective strategy of depoliticisation by separating the logistical preparations for changeover from the political decision over whether to join the euro. The article also demonstrates the value of strategic networking as a flexible mechanism for managing political uncertainty and retaining institutional memory by placing the euro preparations process into hibernation after 2005.

This paper analyses the important changes to the European Union (EU) policy‐making process within the UK core executive introduced by the Blair government between 1997 and 2007. Employing a strategic‐relational network framework, it sets out to map the changing face of policy‐making within the Whitehall EU network, and to evaluate and explain the impact of adaptation. The article argues that Labour's reform strategy has been double‐edged: day‐to‐day coordination of EU policy has become increasingly informal, ad hoc and delegated downwards to departmental players while the role of the centre has been greatly strengthened in order to provide more effective strategic direction and political leadership. Despite these seemingly coherent reforms, however, many critical features of the process have been potentially detrimental to the projection of a more constructive European policy.