Suchergebnisse

The role of the European Parliament (EP) under the consultation procedure has been widely neglected by rational choice models of legislative decision-making in the European Union (EU). This paper offers a new understanding of the procedure by means of a computational model in which lobbyists provide legislators with policy options. Transaction costs of assimilating information lead to rationing of access to the agenda-setter (i.e. the Commission). In this context, consultation converts the EP into an indirect channel to the agenda-setter for some lobbyists. I argue that the resulting pool of policy options, together with the right to be heard by the Commission and the latter's degree of rational ignorance, provides the EP with a legislative power that the literature has not so far recognized. The implications of this finding extend to other legislative procedures of the EU and to consultative committees in other political systems.

Cover -- Contents -- List of figures, tables and boxes -- List of abbreviations -- Preface -- Introduction -- Objectives and approach of the book -- EU environmental policy matters -- Outline of the chapters -- Chapter 2 The Global Context -- The rise of the environment on the political agenda -- The formation of a global environmental governanc earchitecture -- The EU and other global actors in international environmental politics -- Conclusions -- Chapter 3 Actors and Institutions -- European Commission -- European Parliament -- Council -- European Council -- Court of Justice -- Agencies -- Conclusions -- Chapter 4 Policy-Making -- Policy formulation -- Policy implementation -- Conclusions -- Chapter 5 Lobbying and Interest Representation -- Functions and strategies of interest groups in EU environmental policy-making -- Environmental NGOs -- Business lobby groups -- Influence of interest groups -- Conclusions -- Chapter 6 Environmental Policy Instruments -- Regulatory instruments -- Planning instruments -- Market-based instruments -- Information instruments -- Governing with new environmental policy instruments? -- Conclusions -- Chapter 7 Traditional Sectors of Environmental Policy -- Waste and product policy -- Air policy -- Water policy -- Nature protection and biodiversity policy -- Soil policy -- Noise policy -- Transversal strategies for sustainable development -- Conclusions -- Chapter 8 GMO Policy -- The precautionary principle and the contested nature of GMOs -- The EU's GMO policy framework -- GMO policy in an international context -- Conclusions -- Chapter 9 Climate Change Policy -- Gradually overpowering environmental policies -- Main elements of the EU's climate policy -- Achievements and effectiveness -- Conclusions -- Chapter 10 The EU in International Environmental Politics -- External representation and internal coordination.

Noncompliance and differentiated integration are two strategies to cope with heterogeneity between European Union member states. This article explores the relationship between the two strategies of coping with heterogeneity. We start from the observation that research has linked cross-country variation in differentiated integration and noncompliance to similar root causes—diverging preferences and differential capacity. Addressing the same issues of heterogeneity, we hypothesize that differentiated integration is likely to reduce member states' noncompliance. In order to test this hypothesis, we combine novel data on differentiated integration and noncompliance. We find that differentiation increases rather than reduces the likelihood of noncompliance. We conclude by discussing why differentiated integration does not serve as a strategy to prevent noncompliance.

Experience and loyalty have been identified as major explanations for why Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) are selected as committee rapporteurs in the European Parliament. Yet, existing research implicitly assumes that these explanations operate in isolation of what the report is about. In this article, we hypothesize that the effects of experience and loyalty on MEPs' chances to become rapporteurs should be conditioned by the complexity of the Commission's legislative proposal. We show that party group coordinators indeed distribute the most complex legislative tasks to highly experienced MEPs but cannot confirm such a conditional relationship for the effect of loyalty. Our study contributes to the literature on the legislative organization in the European Parliament by highlighting the role of proposal complexity for the report allocation process.

Chapter 1: Crises and European integration -- Chapter 2: Outcomes of crises of European integration -- Chapter 3: Pathways of crisis outcomes -- Chapter 4: Stagnation -- Chapter 5: Adaptation -- Chapter 6: Transformation -- Chapter 7: Regression -- Chapter 8: Evaluation and conclusions.

We examine whether collective memories on the aid and reform programs chosen to handle the 2010 European debt crisis differ between citizens from borrower and lender countries. We use new international survey data for non-experts and experts in member countries of the euro area. The results show that non-experts from borrower and lender countries remember aspects of the programs in different manners; indicating biases for assessments of how the crisis outcomes are perceived in borrower and lender countries. Nation-serving biases may well explain that the 2010 European debt crisis has reduced the sense of belonging rather than bringing European citizens closer together.

Acknowledgements -- List of abbreviations -- Introduction -- Structure, culture, and management: the status quo ante -- The European Commission and the process of enlargement -- The Kinnock reforms : preparing for enlargement, changing culture? -- The outsiders come in : self-selection, selection, and socialization of entry-level staff -- Fitting in or standing out? : the arrival of managers from the new member states -- Nationality : why it matters less than expected -- Gender : why it matters more than expected -- Language, culture, and management : the impact of enlargement on language use in the commission -- Conclusions -- Bibliography

What determines how 'European' a party's manifesto is? This article examines the salience of European issues in national parties' Euromanifestos during the 1979–2004 period. I argue that domestic politics, including voter, party, and party system factors, influence the European content of a party's Euromanifesto. Using data from the Euromanifestos Project for 14 member states, I find that the differential emphasis on European issues in the national party system, intra-party dissent on European integration, voter ambivalence on membership of the European Union, and party type all influence the salience of European issues in a party's manifesto. These findings have important implications for understanding both how parties use manifestos to manipulate the political agenda and the dimensions of contestation in elections to the European Parliament.

This study addresses a central aspect of the micromanagement of the European Parliament, the determinants of rapporteurship allocation. Focusing on the period from 1995 to 1999, I match rapporteurship assignments in the committee on environment with occupational, group membership, ideological and national data. The study asks which of the two distinct features of committees, distributional concern or informational provision, determines rapporteurship selection. My analysis shows that the group of rapporteurs does not mirror the composition of the full plenary. Moreover, the results are consistent with the view that a multifaceted combination of the two concepts of 'demanding' and 'informative' committees promises a richer explanation of rapporteur assignment than any one of those theories alone.

"This book assesses the implications of the Covid-19 pandemic for the European Union, as well as its response in dealing with an overarching, multidimensional crisis with consequences extending beyond public health safety to political, economic, legal, and institutional arenas. It argues the pandemic represents a symmetric crisis cutting across countries with different social, economic and political characteristics and which yet - despite favouring cooperative solutions at the supranational level - has largely been met with initial responses of a national, even local, nature. So, how well did the EU perform as a crisis manager in the pandemic crisis? This book will be of key interest to scholars, students and readers of crisis, pandemic and health management, European Union politics and governance"--

European integration scholars have paid little attention to the visual dimension of Europeanization. We fill this gap by analysing how European Union integration reshapes political parties' most visible symbols: their logos. We examine 579 party logos in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe before and after countries became European Union members, obtained the status of candidates or joined the European neighbourhood policy. Our difference-in-differences models show that European Union integration corresponds to a decrease in extremist and nationalist symbols as well as national flag colours. This 'visual Europeanization' process, prompted by population ecology and rebranding, cannot be solely explained by democratization or economic growth. Our analysis considers potential mechanisms that explain this correlation, including Europarty membership and normative diffusion, and discusses implications for the Europeanization literature.

This conjoint study investigates the type of mandate a referendum confers in the political decision-making process. While a majority of citizens in general believe that the government should follow the results of a referendum on European Union membership, its perceived legitimacy in the eyes of the public heavily depends upon the level of turnout, the size of the majority, and the outcome of the specific referendum in question. Thus, whether a referendum legitimizes a political decision in the eyes of the public is conditional upon these three dimensions.

Comparative Politics; Political Economy; European Union Politics; Drug Safety and Pharmacovigilance

The European Commission has proposed a refugee distribution key, which yields respective quotas for European Union/European Free Trade Association member states. It is based on four quantities: GDP, population, asylum applications per capita in the past, and unemployment rates. I show that the given distribution key has properties which contradict the European Commission's intentions. Exemplarily, states with low (high) unemployment may experience a lower (higher) quota when unemployment is taken into account compared to when it is not. These deviations are single-digit percentages. As a remedy, I propose an alternative distribution key, which avoids the undesired properties. It is modeled in the spirit of the European Commission's proposal and is based on the same four quantities. Deviations between the two distribution keys are up to two-digit percentages.