Daniel Naurin

Transparency is not Enough: Making Transparency Effective in Reducing Corruption

We test the commonly stated, but rarely investigated, assertion that making political institutions more transparent is an effective method for combating corruption. This assertion is confirmed with cross-national data, but also specified and qualified in several respects. Most importantly, we find that looking only at average effects gives a misleading picture of the significance of transparency for corruption. Just making information available will not prevent corruption if such conditions for publicity and accountability as education, media circulation and free and fair elections are weak. Furthermore, we find that transparency requirements that are implemented by the agent itself are less effective compared to non-agent controlled transparency institutions, such as a free press. One important implication of these findings is that reforms focusing on increasing transparency should be accompanied by measures for strengthening citizens’ capacity to act upon the available information if we are to see positive effects on corruption.

Most Common When Least Important: Deliberation in the European Union Council of Ministers

This article contributes to the empirical turn in deliberative democratic theory, by studying the presence of arguing (discussion on the merits) and bargaining in the working groups of the Council of the European Union. It uses a survey of representatives of member states to analyse to what extent, under what circumstances, and by whom, arguing is used. The results indicate that arguing is indeed common in the Council working groups, but also that there is substantial variation. Most arguing is found in intergovernmental policy areas and by the most powerful and well-connected actors. The findings point to the conclusion that higher stakes and political pressure make actors less willing and able to engage in arguing.

East-North-South: Coalition-Building in the Council before and after Enlargement

Research on coalition patterns in the Council of the EU has taken a leap forward over the last couple of years. A decade ago, Winkler complained that ‘there is surprisingly little clear evidence of coalition formation in the EU’ (Winkler 1998, p. 399). A few years later another group of scholars noted that ‘most of the suggestions [concerning coalitions] made in the literature seem to be based on anecdotal evidence, rather than on structured documentation’ (Elgstrom et al. 2001, p. 121). The closed nature of the Council and the lack of reliable systematic data contributed to this situation. Furthermore, a common view on the topic was that there would be few stable patterns to be found anyway, as coalitions were assumed to ‘shift from issue to issue’ (Spence 1995, p. 380). Such a view also fitted well with the ideal picture of the Council as a rational European problem-solving institution.

Sweden: The twin faces of a euro-outsider

Although recognising that the country experiences a notable division between elite and public perspectives on the benefits of further European integration as evident in the 2003 referendum on the euro, this article argues that a consensus has emerged. Sweden is content as a ‘(euro) outsider on the inside’ of the Union and has developed effective networks so that any detrimental effects accruing from euro-outsider status are relatively minimal. Using a brief evaluation of the 2003 euro referendum, the authors apply Miles’ ‘politics of asymmetry’ model in explaining Swedish perspectives towards the single currency and the EU.

The effect of codecision on Council decision-making: informalization, politicization and power

Little is known about the effects of the inter-institutional linkages created through the establishment of the codecision procedure on decision-making in the Council of the European Union. After a review of the existing literature and theories on this topic, we examine to what extent the codecision procedure leads to more involvement of ministers in Council decision-making and to a more powerful position of the Presidency in the internal negotiation process of the Council. The results show that the initially positive effect of codecision on the politicization of Council decision-making has been offset in recent years by a growing lack of transparency in inter-institutional proceedings caused by the use of informal trialogue negotiations to conclude the procedure early. However, our study also suggests that the country holding the Presidency does not occupy a more privileged position in the Councils internal co-operation network as a result of these developments. Thus, with respect to the Council, informal inter-institutional negotiation practices seem to decrease the transparency of the decision-making process and the accountability of the actors involved, but they may not have as adverse an effect on who gets what in terms of policy as previously thought.

Out in the cold? Flexible integration and the political status of Euro opt-outs

A common argument against flexible integration as a solution to increased preference heterogeneity is that a likely consequence for those member states opting out of the enhanced cooperation is a loss of status and influence generally in the European Union (EU). It has been argued, for example, that the decisions by Denmark, Sweden and the UK not to join the Euro is considered to be free-riding, which leads to a bad reputation and exclusion from informal networks. We test this proposed free-rider effect by comparing the network capital of Euro-outsiders with insiders in the Council of the EU, using survey data of more than 600 member state representatives. The findings speak strongly against the free-rider hypothesis, as the Euro-outsiders are highly ranked in terms of network capital.

Judicial Independence and Political Uncertainty: How the Risk of Override Affects the Court of Justice of the EU

There is broad agreement in the literature that international courts (ICs) make decisions with bounded discretion in relation to state governments. However, the scope of this discretion, and the determinants of its boundaries, are highly contested. In particular, the central mechanism in separation-of-powers models of judicial politics—the possibility of legislative override—has raised controversy. We argue that the uncertainty that judges face regarding the political reactions to their decisions has important and undertheorized implications for their behavior. On the one hand, cautious judges are likely to be attentive to signals that contain information about the probability of an unfavorable override. On the other hand, misjudgments of the political risks are likely to be made. Thus, the possibility of override is a significant factor affecting judicial behavior, but it is also a fairly blunt mechanism for balancing the independence and accountability of courts. The empirical study focuses on the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), which has long been at the center of theory development regarding the legalization of world politics and the rise of international courts. The results demonstrate a strong correlation between the CJEUs rulings and the political signals it receives, in a pattern that goes beyond legal merit, and that fits with the override mechanism. State governments are crucial parts of the broader audience that defines the political boundaries of judicial discretion.

New External Rules, New Internal Games: How the EU Institutions Respond when Inter-institutional Rules Change

Agreements concerning inter-institutional rules in the treaties of the European Union often give rise to reactions and processes of adaptation within the EU institutions. Recent literature on EU legislative politics has increasingly examined decision-making within the EU institutions, but has largely overlooked how these internal processes react and adapt to changes in relations between the EU bodies. To fill this gap the authors present a series of empirical studies that examine how shifts in inter-institutional rules and procedures affect intra-institutional politics. They show that the resulting intra-institutional adaptations may in turn both have distributive consequences and affect the efficiency of the initial inter-institutional reforms. In addition, they provide some stepping stones for theory-building on how treaty reforms affect organisational structure and decision-making within the EU institutions by outlining a series of mediating variables that link these two types of change processes.

Introduction: from Rags to Riches

With its country membership almost doubled after an elapsed time span of less than a half-decade, and facing yet another stage of efforts expended towards reforming its operating rules, the European Union (EU) of presently 27 members is currently undergoing a period of transformation, albeit not for the first time. In recent years, many practitioners and commentators have speculated that the EU was at a risk of ending up trapped in a gridlock in the face of the challenge of incorporating 12 additional members from May 2004 onwards. Such concerns have been at the heart of the discussion surrounding treaty reforms, both in regard to the Constitutional Treaty, which suffered two adverse referenda during 2005 in France and the Netherlands, and to the efforts to rescue this failed ratification through the Treaty of Lisbon, signed in December 2007.

‘Try to see it my way!’ Frame congruence between lobbyists and European Commission officials

ABSTRACT We study how frame congruence – the degree to which key policy-makers’ frames correspond to the frames of lobbyists – is distributed between different types of interest groups. We argue that two contextual factors are particularly important for whether the frames of business interests dominate those of civil society interests in the minds of European Commission officials. First, the broader the scope of the conflict, i.e., the more affected interests active in the process, the more difficult it will be to promote narrow self-regarding frames, a fact that benefits civil society interests. Second, as business dominates the media coverage of European Union legislative proposals, the more publicity the proposals receive the higher the frame congruence of business lobbyists and Commission officials. Our empirical analysis is based on 144 face-to-face interviews with Commission officials and lobbyists in relation to 55 legislative proposals that were put forward by the Commission during 2008–10.