Arndt Wonka

Measuring the size and scope of the EU interest group population

We present a new data set enumerating the population of organizations listed and/or registered as lobbyists in the European Union. In the first part of the paper we describe how we arrived at the population data set by drawing on three independent sources (CONECCS; Landmarks; European Parliament registry). We briefly discuss the validity of these registers in the context of recent substantial changes to each of them. In the second part, we present descriptive information on the number and type of groups as well as their territorial origins. In the final section, we outline potential research questions that can be addressed with the new data set for further research on the role of groups in the EU policy process.

Credibility, Complexity and Uncertainty: Explaining the Institutional Independence of 29 EU Agencies

The delegation of policy-making tasks to EU agencies and their remarkable growth in number over the past two decades mark a striking new development in the EUs institutional make-up. While most of the nascent literature on the EUs ‘agencification’ addresses the conditions for agency creation and the implications of agency governance from the perspective of democratic accountability, there is a lack of empirical research systematically scrutinising the institutional structure and degree of formal-institutional independence of these agencies. This article offers a comprehensive empirical assessment and measure of the variation in institutional independence displayed by the entire set of 29 EU agencies operating under the EUs three pillars and tests hypotheses explaining variation in formal independence among agencies.

Decision-making dynamics in the European Commission: partisan, national or sectoral?

Its monopoly power to formulate policy proposals and set the European Unions (EUs) legislative agenda guarantees the European Commission considerable prominence in EU legislative studies. It is commonly conceptualized as a unitary actor, acting cohesively – often in its own supranational interest – in EU decision-making. Recent theoretical developments and empirical studies, however, cast doubt on this conceptualization. This paper takes up these matters and investigates the decision-making mechanisms and dynamics of the Commissions executive politics. Two case studies show that the formal division of power along portfolios puts formally responsible Commissioners in a privileged position to influence the content of legislative proposals in internal decision-making. This influence, however, is circumscribed by the opposition of other Commissioners. At least in the cases studied here, Commissioners’ position-taking and conflict in internal decision-making follow a national and, to some extent, a sectoral rather than a partisan pattern.

Introduction: agency governance in the European Union

The literature on European Union (EU) agencies has proliferated rapidly since the first essay collection on EU agencies was published by the Journal of European Public Policy in 1997. This collection picks up three thematic threads contained in the initial collection and provides state-of-the-art treatises on these different themes. The first theme addresses the causes and dynamics of the creation and design of regulatory bodies in EU governance, focusing not only on EU agencies but also on alternatives to the agency format, such as regulatory networks. Second, once agencies are established the consequences and trajectories of governance with and by EU agencies will be explored. Third, the design of EU agencies as independent, non-majoritarian institutions poses pressing questions with a view to their legitimacy and accountability.

The party politics of the Euro crisis in the German Bundestag: frames, positions and salience

Abstract The Euro crisis has a strong impact on European Union (EU) politics and the EU polity. Crisis-related issues were debated across Europe and governments and EU institutions introduced several institutional instruments which are meant to make EU economic governance more effective. This paper investigates the scope, timing and divisiveness of political contestation, i.e. politicisation, in the German Bundestag and the frames on which political parties relied in their debates on crisis-induced institutional innovations in the German Bundestag. To account for these patterns, the paper relies on institutional theories and theories of party competition. Empirically, it draws on written protocols of debates and parliamentary questions in the Bundestag. A case study of Germany and the Bundestag does not lend itself to broad generalisations. Yet, as argued in the article, it is an unlikely case for politicisation and a politically important case.

Perspectives on EU governance: an empirical assessment of the political attitudes of EU agency professionals

European Union (EU)-level agencies have emerged as important actors on the EUs policy-making scene. To date, we know relatively little about the personnel working in EU agencies: what attitudes do EU agency staff members hold on issue-dimensions relevant for the EU integration process? How do they perceive of their role in EU policy-making? Moreover, we know little about the cohesiveness of attitudes of agency staff within and between different EU agencies. The aim of this contribution is conceptually and empirically descriptive. It draws on original data from an online survey of professionals working in EU agencies to gain insights into the attitudes held by EU agency staff on three substantive attitudinal dimensions: conceptions relating to legitimate and accountable EU governance, conceptions about the preferred level of centralization of political authority in the EU, as well as views on economic governance in the EU. While the conceptual focus of this paper is on attitudes and not on behaviour, the attitudes held by EU agency staff and their relative homo- or heterogeneity is likely to affect perceptions and evaluations of the political environment and interpretations of the challenges agency staff members face in their substantive area of work. The findings of the survey will enable us to draw broader conclusions about the type and quality of accountability relationships as well as of the EUs democratic legitimacy. Moreover, the data will permit to inform arguments about the actor quality of EU agencies, which are often conceived as efficient institutional solutions to overcome credibility problems.

The Ties that Bind? Intra-party Information Exchanges of German MPs in EU Multi-level Politics

As political authority is successively transferred from the national to the EU level, national parliaments are often considered to lose control over the domestic political agenda. Yet recent studies suggest that national parliaments cannot simply be labelled ‘losers’ of European integration. National parliaments have institutionally adapted to the EU in order to better scrutinise and control their governments in EU affairs. While existing research shows how parliaments employ their institutional opportunities to exercise scrutiny in the national arena, this paper suggests that MPs also employ informal strategies to obtain information on EU affairs to control and influence their governments. It argues that MPs primarily act through political parties, which are viewed here as multi-level organisations, and make use of their partisan ties to regional, transnational and supranational party actors to obtain information on EU issues. The article probes this argument by drawing on original data obtained through a survey of German MPs in 2009.

Europeanized Convergence? British and German Business Associations’ European Lobbying Strategies in the Formulation of REACH

In February 2001 the European Commission published the White Paper on the Strategy for a Future Chemicals Policy (European Commission, 2001b), in which it outlined its plans for REACH (Registration Evaluation Authorization of Chemicals), the future regulation of chemical substances in the EU.2 The publication provoked a shocked outcry among Europe’s chemical industry business community, which saw its international competitiveness decline and predicted a large-scale loss of jobs if the Chemicals White Paper were to be translated into EU law. As a consequence, firms as well as business associations took action to influence the EU’s future chemicals policy. In this chapter I will comparatively analyze how British and German chemical industry business associations organized their strategic lobbying activities from the publication of the Chemicals White Paper until the publication of the European Commission’s legislative proposal.

Increasing the Relevance of Research Questions: Considerations on Theoretical and Social Relevance in Political Science

Most introductions to the methodology of social inquiry start somewhere in the middle of the research process. They do not, however, shed light on the first stage of a research project (e.g., Brady and Collier, 2004; George and Bennett, 2005; Pennings, Keman and Kleinnijenhuis, 1999). Others touch upon the issue — but in some rather vague way (Geddes, 2003; Gerring, 2001; King, Keohane and Verba, 1994). Most importantly, such companions do not say anything about how to find appropriate research questions. Experience tells us that determining the question one sets out to answer is by no means an easy task. In this chapter, we offer some guidance in this respect. The concept of relevance which we use builds on three pillars: methodological appropriateness, theoretical relevance and social relevance. Methodological appropriateness is the subject of the chapters which follow in this book. We will therefore only briefly discuss it here. Theoretical relevance refers to the analytical value a research question adds to the scientific discourse of the subdiscipline — such as international relations, comparative political science, political sociology — it addresses. Socially relevant research furthers the understanding of social and political phenomena which affect people and make a difference with regard to an explicitly specified evaluative standard.

The political salience of EU policies

ABSTRACT This research agenda starts from the observation that, in most political science research, the salience which citizens, interest groups, policymakers and the media attach to policymaking processes on specific policies is usually measured for just one actor type. As a consequence, it is difficult to assess the extent to which the salience attributions of citizens, interest groups, the media and/or policymakers are interrelated. We thus undertake an explorative analysis of the salience attributions of these actors for a sample of 125 European Union legislative policies. We find considerable differences but also some interdependencies across actor types in the salience that they attach to specific policies. Based on these findings, we suggest a research agenda that investigates different actor types’ salience attributions synchronically and dynamically. Research along these routes has the potential to shed light on varying levels of European Union-level political mobilization and the conditions that lead to unequal policy influence.