Suchergebnisse

This book, newly available in paperback, examines a hitherto under-researched aspect of the European Union's policy process - the extent and the nature of the involvement of central governments in the implementation of EU public policy. It discusses how the co-ordination of these institutions affects their capacity to shape the way in which the commitments that they make in Brussels are turned into concrete reality at the national level. It shows that the nature of their involvement in implementation reflects the pattern of their involvement in the formulation of EU policy.However, since implementation unfolds over long periods of time, its patterns can change over time. The author draws on empirical evidence regarding the liberalisation of public procurement to demonstrate how the institutions of central governments bring about change. Comparing the central governments of Greece, France and Britain over a twenty-five year period, the author demonstrates that - far from being the passive conduits of pressure emanating from the EU - the institutions of national central governments actively steer the implementation of EU public policy

Do parties matter when EU policy is implemented in France? This article examines this question first in the context of cleavage theory and the literature on party positioning on European integration that draws attention to the origin and the nature of party preferences, and second in light of empirical evidence from the implementation of the Working Time Directive in France. It shows that, when faced with the same issue, governments of different ideological orientation responded in a way that reflected their historically defined référentiel rather than an EU Diktat. The argument here, then, is that far from ending domestic political contestation on the Left-Right axis, European integration and its concrete domestic manifestations in France are in fact subject to it.

AbstractThe explanatory capacity of ideas has been contested on two grounds. First, ideas have been dismissed as epiphenomenal. Second, ideational explanations have been criticized for the limited importance that they ascribe to agency. This article examines the involvement of the European Commission in previously uncharted territory, namely the regulation of professional sport in Europe. It demonstrates that, in conditions of ambiguity and uncertainty created by the need to implement broad Treaty-based principles in new areas of socio-economic activity, ideas, first, act as road maps that direct the executive activity of the European Commission, legitimize it, and set limits to it by identifying the relevant deeply embedded conceptions of the nature of a given activity and by linking them to a wider, historically defined normative order. Second, ideas are also powerful political weapons used by political actors in their quest to advance their interests.