Mika Widgrén

The Inter-Institutional Distribution of Power in EU Codecision

This paper analyzes the a priori influence of the European Parliament (EP) and the Council of Ministers (CM) on legislation of the European Union adopted under its codecision procedure. In contrast to studies which use conventional power indices, both institutions are assumed to act strategically. Predicted bargaining outcomes of the crucial Conciliation stage of codecision are shown to be strongly biased towards the legislative status quo. Making symmetric preference assumptions for members of CM and EP, CM is on an average much more conservative because of its internal qualified majority rule. This makes CM by an order of magnitude more influential than EP, in contrast to a seeming formal parity between the two ‘co-legislators’.

Power Measurement as Sensitivity Analysis - A Unified Approach ⁄

This paper proposes a unified framework that integrates the traditional index-based approach and the competing non-cooperative approach to power analysis. It rests on a quantifiable notion of ex post power as the (counter-factual) sensitivity of the expected or observed outcome to individual players. Thus, it formalizes players’ marginal impact on outcomes in both cooperative and non-cooperative games, for both strategic interaction as well as purely random behavior. By taking expectations with respect to preferences, actions, and procedures, one obtains meaningful measures of ex ante power. Established power indices turn out to be special cases.

Why Power Indices for Assessing European Union Decision-Making?

In this paper we argue that spatial voting games and power index models are not necessarily exclusive ways to analyse EU decision-making. We find that the two main criticisms pointed out by scholars of spatial voting games, namely that power indices do not take into account preferences or the role of the agenda-setter, are not fully valid as spatial voting games deal with complete whereas power indices deal with incomplete contracts. Ideas for combining the two so far very opposite views are then discussed.

The Possibility of a Preference-Based Power Index

This article replies to the claim that preference-based power indices are impossible and that preferences should be ignored when assessing actors’ influence in different interactions (Braham and Holler [2005] ‘The Impossibility of a Preference-based Power Index’, Journal of Theoretical Politics 17: 137-57). The article argues that preferences are an important determinant of potential and actual outcomes of social interaction and thereby a valuable ingredient of power analysis.

Inferior players in simple games

Abstract. Power indices like those of Shapley and Shubik (1954) or Banzhaf (1965) measure the distribution of power in simple games. This paper points at a deficiency shared by all established indices: players who are inferior in the sense of having to accept (almost) no share of the spoils in return for being part of a winning coalition are assigned substantial amounts of power. A strengthened version of the dummy axiom based on a formalized notion of inferior players is a possible remedy. The axiom is illustrated first in a deterministic and then a probabilistic setting. With three axioms from the Banzhaf index, it uniquely characterizes the Strict Power Index (SPI). The SPI is shown to be a special instance of a more general family of power indices based on the inferior player axiom.

The Power of a Spatially Inferior Player

Traditional power indices are not suited to take account of explicit preferences, strategic interaction, and particular decision procedures. This paper studies a new way to measure decision power, based on fully specified spatial preferences and strategic interaction in an explicit voting game with agenda setting. We extend the notion of inferior players to this context, and introduce a power index which - like the traditional ones - defines powers as the ability to have pivotal influence on outcomes, not as the (often just lucky) occurrence of outcomes close to a players ideal policy. Though, at the present state, formal analysis is based on restrictive assumptions, our general approach opens an avenue for a new type of power measurement

Strategic versus non-strategic voting power in the EU Council of Ministers: the consultation procedure

This article evaluates the distribution of power within the Council of the European Union from the a priori perspective of constitutional design using two distinct approaches: (1) applying traditional voting power indices; (2) carrying out strategic equilibrium analysis of the EU’s consultation procedure. It clarifies why both approaches lead to different power indications, and investigates the determinants of the differences’ magnitudes. Depending on one’s assumptions about behavior of the consultation procedure’s agenda setter, the European Commission, traditional indices turn out to deliver a good approximation also of relative strategic power in the Council.

Shapley-Shubik vs. Strategic Power: Live from the UN Security Council

The United Nations Security Council is the dominant political organ of the United Nations (UN). It is in charge of deciding upon the ‘effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace ...’ which are mentioned by the Charter of the United Nations after defining the UN’s prime purpose: ‘to maintain international peace and security’ (Art. 1(1)). The Security Council consists of 15 members altogether. Britain, China, France, Russia, and the US are permanent members, i.e. belong to the Council at any point in time. The remaining ten seats are filled by non-permanent members that, at the time of writing, were: Argentina, Congo, Denmark, Ghana, Greece, Japan, Peru, Qatar, Slovakia, and Tanzania. They are elected by the UN General Assembly according to regional quotas for a term of two years, with five members replaced each year, and no possibility of a direct re-election.

A Note on Matthias Sutter

In the paper by Matthias Sutter a discrepancy between his results and earlier results on fair allocation of voting weights in the EU Council was found. In this paper, we explain the source of this discrepancy.

Finland in the European Community — The Economic Impacts

The co-operation between the EC and EFTA began to increase appreciably in 1984, when the so-called the Luxembourg process was proclaimed by them. Its aim was to form a Western European economic area which would fulfil the objectives regarding free mobility of goods as set out by the Single European Act of the EC. The Luxembourg proclamation was the broad starting point for the European Economic Area (EEA) negotiations. It was felt that as a united negotiator the EFTA countries, which constitute a significant trading companion for the EC, would be better able to influence the course of the process.