Gerald Schneider

Same menu, seperate tables : the institutionalist turn in political science and the study of European integration

Recent research on European integrationhas largely profited from the institutionalist turn inpolitical science. Theoretical progress has, however,been hampered by the diverse understandings of thisnew research tradition. This paper tries to tackle theconceptual diversity in a positive way. We firstanalyze the neo-institutionalist turn in politicalscience and European studies and then move on to adetailed analysis and comparison of the threecompeting approaches – sociological, historical, andrational choice institutionalism. Next, we will showthat the main differences are as much epistemologicalas theoretical. A convergence towards a unifyinginstitutionalist approach can thus only be possible ifsome sort of a methodological convergence takes place.We sketch how a synthesis between the competingschools might appear.

The contested council : conflict dimensions of an intergovernmental EU institution

Recent research has tried to uncover the political space in which the Council of Ministers of the European Union decides. Rather than the left-right conflict or a cleavage between governments with national and supranational attitudes, this article shows that a redistributive dimension, decisively shapes the interactions in this most important legislative body of the European Union. In contrast to extant studies, we employ ex ante rather than ex post preference data and rely on correspondence analysis as a means to identify the underlying dimensions of contestation. The article concludes with an empirical investigation of how enlargement will affect the emerging political space within the European Union. Our quantitative analysis suggests that the gulf between net-contributors and net-receivers will further deepen.

Who Mediates? : The Political Economy of International Conflict Management

Studies on international mediation have traditionally focused on the effectiveness of international efforts to settle or resolve militarized conflicts. In this article, we start from a different perspective and examine the identity of mediators and the factors determining the choice of mediators. We build an integrative theoretical framework to explain the number of mediation mandates an international actor receives. The hypotheses we derive are subsequently tested in a multivariate event count model using an original dataset on international mediation from 1950 to 1990. The results obtained from Poisson and negative binomial regressions disconfirm the assertion that the effectiveness of a mediator influences the number of mandates it receives. The most important structural force on the international mediation market seems to be the hegemonic status of the USA. The analysis further demonstrates that international conflict management is largely, but not exclusively, restricted to the permanent members of the Security Council of the UN. As the theoretical framework suggests, ideological factors, such as the neutrality of the mediator, play a less significant role on the market for mediation. Democracies equally are not significantly more active than autocracies in the management of international conflicts.

War and the World Economy STOCK MARKET REACTIONS TO INTERNATIONAL CONFLICTS

One of the perennial questions in the scientific study of war is how war affects the economy. The authors examine the influence that the political developments within three war regions had on global financial markets (CAC, Dow Jones, FTSE) from 1990 to 2000. They embed a rational expectation framework within commercial liberalism, a theoretical strand that tries to assess the interrelationship between war and economic exchanges. Time-series analyses account for the effects that the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, the first confrontation of a U.S.-led alliance against Iraq, and the wars fought in Ex-Yugoslavia exerted. Using daily stock market data, the authors show that the conflicts affected the interactions at the core financial markets in the Western world negatively, if they had any systematic influence at all. They argue that these results lend some support to the rational expectations version of commercial liberalism.

The punishment trap : integration referendums as popularity contests

It is widely believed that voters care little about foreign policy, transforming referendums on international agreements into tests of a governments popularity. The authors analyze this notion and present two-level games characterized by asymmetric information. The article demonstrates that the linking of domestic issues to an international treaty does not convert referendums into pure plebiscites. However, the two-level decision creates a severe dilemma for the electorate. Uncertainty regarding whether the possible utility of the treaty offsets the value of domestic policies influences the decisions of voters. The median voter risks punishing a popular government or failing to express discontent with an unpopular administration. Our games explore the conditions under which competing elites try to manipulate the uncertainty of constituents about the outcome of international negotiations. Empirical illustrations are presented in the form of case studies and survey analyses of the ballots in Denmark, France, Ireland, and Switzerland.

Bringing Putnam to the European regions : on the relevance of social capital for economic growth

One of the most influential contributions to the study of political culture of the 1990s was Robert D. Putnam’s book on the positive impact that interpersonal trust supposedly has on economic welfare and the effectiveness of political institutions in Italy. Making Democracy Work showed in bivariate correlations that progress depends largely on the social capital manifest in the Italian regions. We evaluate this hypothesis in a wider sample of regions by analysing quantitatively the role that political culture has on economic growth in the regions of the European Union (EU). We first develop a neoclassical growth model and incorporate political culture variables into this framework. Our cross-sectional regression results cast some doubts on the generalizability of Putnam’s bold claims. The analysis particularly shows, in accordance with standard models of economic growth, that economic rather than cultural factors are the most forceful determinants of growth in the European regions. Only one dimension of political culture, the intensity of social communication, has the expected positive impact.

Bargaining Power in the European Union: An Evaluation of Competing Game-Theoretic Models

This article evaluates, by drawing on Barrys distinction between ‘power’ and ‘luck’, the predictive accuracy of competing bargaining models. We explore whether models that take various facets of political power into account predict legislative outcomes more precisely than purely preference-based models like the Nash Bargaining Solution (NBS). Our empirical examination compares how well different formal models predict the outcome of 66 legislative decisions made within the European Union (EU). A model that considers the saliency actors attach to a contested issue performs best among all the models under examination. Although resource-based models provide less accurate forecasts on average, they offer relatively precise point predictions. The analysis also shows that domestic constraints are not a particularly important bargaining resource in legislative decision making.

Nash versus Schelling? The importance of constraints in legislative bargaining

When the Council of Ministers had to decide on the so-called chocolate directive in 1999, its plan to allow vegetable fat in the production of candy products met with fierce opposition from Belgium, France, and the Netherlands. These three member states objected to the usage of vegetable fats other than cocoa in chocolate. Although they advanced some consumer-friendly arguments, continental manufacturers also tried to avoid competition from the British chocolate industry and to protect some of their traditional trading partners in the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. They particularly protested against the proposed derogations that would have allowed the United Kingdom and Ireland to continue the production of ‘household milk chocolate’, which contains a large amount of milk. While the Belgian government spoke of ‘a la carte harmonisation’ benefiting ‘the industries of only certain

Foreign Economic Liberalization and Peace : the Case of Sub-Saharan Africa

A typical adage of the globalization literature is that foreign economic liberalization undermines the social fabric of developing countries. This article examines this claim for the sub-Saharan African countries and thus the continent that experienced both low economic growth and a high incidence of armed conflict during the 1990s. Our results yield support for the assertion that economic openness durably pacifies countries once the restructuring of the economy is over. We can, however, not reject the possibility that the distributional consequences of foreign economic liberalization increase the risk of civil war during the implementation of the reform measures. We contrast this ‘distributional’ model with alternative explanations such as the role of the International Monetary Fund and the level of democracy. A comparative case study on Guinea and Guinea-Bissau lends some illustrative evidence to the claim that compensating the losers of globalization can pacify intrastate relations.

Evidence with insight: what models contribute to EU research

The Treaties of Maastrict, Amsterdam, and Nice are milestones of European integration. In each case, the negotiation and ratification processes attracted widespread media and popular attention. More recently, the Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe also drew sustained interest from broad sectors of European society until it failed ratification in several member states during 2005. Academics are drawn to stirring events just as the press and public are, and thus many political scientists have written engagingly about the ‘grand bargains’ embodied in the successive EU treaties (e.g. Moravcsik 1998). Day to day, however, the business of the EU does not make front-page headlines. Like any government, the EU spends most of its time deciding routine matters, such as the wording of health warnings on tobacco products or the funding of student exchanges in Europe. Indeed, both tobacco label and student exchange decisions appear in the data set used in this book. The EU’s own organs decide these issues—the Commission, the Council of Ministers, and the European Parliament (EP). Mid-level civil servants and ordinary Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) may play critical roles. Prime ministers and chancellors, who loom so large in the grand bargains, do not. In this volume, we have directed our energies toward the explanation of every-day EU decisions. We make no apology for doing so. Although some legislative acts are merely technical correctives or minor bureaucratic rule-making, the great majority of the decisions examined here