Suchergebnisse

Abstract. As the European Union (EU) has evolved, the study agenda has shifted from 'European integration' to 'EU politics'. Missing from this new agenda, however, is an understanding of the 'cognitive constraints' on actors and how actors respond, i.e. the shape of the EU 'political space' and the location of social groups and competition between actors within this space. The article develops a theoretical framework for understanding the shape of the EU political space (the interaction between an Integration–Independence and Left–Right dimension and the location of class and sectoral groups within this map), and tests this framework on the policy positions of the Socialist, Christian Democrat and Liberal party leaders between 1976 and 1994 (using the techniques of the ECPR Party Manifestos Group Project). The research finds that the two dimensions were salient across the whole period, explains why the party families converged on pro–European positions by the 1990s and discovers the emergence of a triangular 'core' of EU politics.

Examines constraints on national party federations meant to establish a link between mass opinion and public decisions of the European Union, and some positive developments.

Defence date: 1 December 1995 ; Examining Board: Prof. Maurizio Cotta, Università degli Studi di Siena, Supervisor ; Prof. Giandomenico Majone, EUI, co-supervisor ; Prof. Peter Mair, Rijksuniversiteit Leiden ; Prof. Roger Morgan, EUI ; Prof. Alberta Sbragia, University of Pittsburgh ; First made available online: 5 August 2016 ; Chapter 1 begins with a discussion of the limitations of the traditional approaches to parties and politics in the EU, and introduces an alternative framework which combines the theory and method of 'comparative politics'. In Chapter 2, the two theoretical levels are brought together in a "comparative politics theory of parties in the European Union". This theory is subsequently tested in three empirical chapters, each covering a different aspect of party federation behaviour in the EU: party organisational development (Chapter 3); the changing shape of party policy competition (Chapter 4); and the ability of parties to reap policy rewards from the European Council (Chapter 5). A description of the data and the methods used in the analysis is set out in a series of Appendices. Finally, the empirical and theoretical conclusions of the research are drawn together in Chapter 6.