Suchergebnisse

Defence date: 31 October 2014 ; Examining Board: Professor Adrienne Héritier, European University Institute (Supervisor); Professor Laszlo Bruszt, European University Institute; Professor Renaud Dehousse, Sciences-Po Paris; Professor Mark Thatcher, London School of Economics. ; In order to fill the 'EU regulatory gap' caused by the mismatch between the single market programme and the lack of EU regulatory capacity, a number of EU regulatory agents were created. Committees, networks and EU agencies mushroomed in order to fulfill different regulatory functions. The thesis aims at explaining the variation of these delegation patterns between sectors and over time. Combining an innovative and refined functional-institutionalist approach and power-distributional factors, the thesis first argues that the distribution of implementing competences has a crucial effect on the delegation pattern. While nationally based implementation would explain the establishment of EU regulatory networks, expert committees would be found where most implementing competences are in the hands of the Commission. Second, the gradual reinforcement of networks and committees up to their possible transformation into EU agencies is addressed by a dynamic relationship between functional and distributional forces unfolding over time through feedback loops. Keen on keeping their power, policy-makers set up weak agents before expanding their power at a later stage after realizing they lacked the means to achieve the policy objectives assigned to them. The empirical analysis, based on three case studies (the regulation of food safety, electricity and telecommunications) confirms and completes the conjectures by pointing at additional factors such as the presence of independent regulatory agencies at the national level, the technicality of the sector and sociological pressure. In addition to providing a wealth of new insights on regulatory delegation in the EU, the thesis offers a sophisticated adaptation of the principal-agent framework in multiple principals configurations and makes a strong case for refining the conceptualization of functional pressure and colouring the study of institutional choice, otherwise dominated by distributional and institutional factors, with a revamped functional approach.

This open access book provides an exhaustive picture of the role that annulment conflicts play in the EU multilevel system. Based on a rich dataset of annulment actions since the 1960s and a number of in-depth case studies, it explores the political dimension of annulment litigation, which has become an increasingly relevant judicial tool in the struggle over policy content and decision-making competences. The book covers the motivations of actors to turn policy conflicts into annulment actions, the emergence of multilevel actors' litigant configurations, the impact of actors' constellations on success in court, as well as the impact of annulment actions on the multilevel policy conflicts they originate from. ; -- 1 The neglected politics behind EU annulment litigation -- 2 Towards an analytical framework to study annulments in the European -- 3 The legal background -- 4 Studying annulment actions -- 5 Motivations : when conflict leads to litigation -- 6 Litigant configurations : turbulence and the emergence of complex configurations -- 7 Litigant success : how litigant configurations relate to legal outcomes -- 8 The political side of EU annulment litigation

This open access book provides an exhaustive picture of the role that annulment conflicts play in the EU multilevel system. Based on a rich dataset of annulment actions since the 1960s and a number of in-depth case studies, it explores the political dimension of annulment litigation, which has become an increasingly relevant judicial tool in the struggle over policy content and decision-making competences. The book covers the motivations of actors to turn policy conflicts into annulment actions, the emergence of multilevel actors' litigant configurations, the impact of actors' constellations on success in court, as well as the impact of annulment actions on the multilevel policy conflicts they originate from.