Suchergebnisse

<p>¿Cómo toma sus decisiones la Unión Europea? ¿Está el poder concentrado en manos de unos pocos, o está disperso? ¿A quién tendrían que dirigirse aquellos con intereses que dependen de decisiones legislativas europeas? Para responder a estas preguntas, el presente artículo revisa los principales procedimientos legislativos de la UE utilizando la metodología estándar de los modelos espaciales en la teoría de la elección racional. Después de un primer examen de las relaciones inter-institucionales entre la Comisión, el Consejo y el Parlamento, se procede a un examen más detallado de la toma de decisión en el seno de cada una de estas instituciones. Los principales argumentos son tres, dos más constructivos y uno más crítico. Primero, se puede demostrar que la UE se caracteriza por una dispersión calculada del poder. Segundo, a pesar de sus limitaciones, los modelos espaciales producen resultados satisfactorios en la explicación de los procedimientos de la UE, incluso cuando las decisiones de algunos actores parecen a priori irracionales. Tercero, y de manera más crítica, la dispersión del poder que caracteriza a la UE hace que varias teorías actualmente utilizadas para entender la UE, como la del principal-agente, no sean apropiadas.</p><p><strong>Recibido</strong>: 19.05.2016<strong><br /> Aceptado</strong>: 22.06.2016</p>

AbstractFollowing a historiographical tradition which emphasizes the individual agency of specific individuals, a recent article claims that Jean Monnet's 'path‐breaking' ideas and actions were a necessary condition for the Schuman declaration of 1950. I show that, like other deterministic claims about necessary conditions, this is at odds with current political science theory, and is also based on methodologically dubious inferences. Using less biased sources I develop an alternative explanation for the Schuman declaration, which emphasizes broad societal preferences, institutional constraints and international interactions. I find that Monnet did play his cards well, but also that there is no reason to believe that his ideas were original, or that any other competent French planning commissioner would not have acted similarly. I discuss the implications for academic debates between historians and political scientists, for policy‐makers who seek to learn from the European experience and for the construction of a new euro‐mythology.

According to neoliberal institutionalism, states create international institutions to limit information asymmetries, monitor compliance, and ensure the credibility of commitments to agreed-upon policies-in short, to minimize transaction costs. Although this view can help explain the delegation of powers to supranational bodies such as the European Commission, it cannot account for the signature of the Élysée Treaty between France and Germany in January 1963, which reversed the logic of supranational delegation. Understanding the causes and the consequences of this apparently anomalous event is therefore a major challenge facing scholars of international organizations, European integration, and German foreign policy alike. To start addressing the issue, this article develops an explanation based on incomplete contracts theory. In a nutshell, I argue that the Élysée Treaty aimed at securing the equal treatment of French and German interests in the process of European integration, thereby allowing the deepening of European integration.

This paper analyses the implications of collegiality in the European Commission for policy outcomes in European Competition Policy (ECP). The structure of the Commission creates a dilemma, since the antitrust regulator (DG COMP) can either submit its decisions to a vote in the College, or engage in costly strategizing to circumvent it. Relying on the College maintains organizational unity but also risks producing decisions unfavourable to DG COMP and the non-recovery of sunk costs. Forging external alliances, on the other hand, secures policy positions but may also lead to generalized crisis. In this game of strategy I identify the distance between DG policy preferences, the ability of DG COMP to rely on national competition authorities, and the costs of forging external alliances as the main variables affecting equilibrium strategies, and thus equilibrium policy outcomes. Additional empirical work, on ECP and other common policies, should follow.