Roger Scully

The European parliament and the co-decision procedure: A reassessment

In this paper, I reassess the co‐decision legislative procedure introduced by the Maastricht Treaty on European Union. Specifically, I examine the dispute as to whether co‐decision enhanced or diminished the European Parliaments influence over EU law making. Employing a combination of formal analysis of the different stages of the procedure and evidence from its actual operation, I argue that Garrett and Tsebelis’ claim that co‐decision reduces Parliaments legislative powers is both theoretically and empirically unsupported. The implications for the Parliaments position within European politics are evaluated in the conclusion.

Fifty Years on: Research on the European Parliament*

This introductory article reviews our current state of knowledge about the European Parliament (EP). First, we review the major accomplishments of previous studies of the EP, highlighting four principal areas of work: general studies of the chamber, work on EP elections, studies of the internal politics of the Parliament, and research on the EPs institutional relations with the Council and Commission. Second, we consider what has yet to be learnt: what are the major unanswered questions about the EP, and how do the articles in this special issue respond to this agenda?

Executive Heads and the Role of Intergovernmental Organizations: Expansionist Leadership in the United Nations and the European Union

Despite considerable advances in methods to examine leaders’ personal characteristics using at–a–distance assessment, few studies have applied such techniques outside of the national level. This study reveals that such approaches can provide analytical leverage for examining executive heads of intergovernmental organizations (IGOs). The personal characteristics of six United Nations Secretaries–General and four European Union Commission Presidents were measured via content analysis of their responses to questions. Separately, their behavior in office was measured via historical accounts and analyses. In general, executive heads with higher expansionist leadership style scores displayed a greater willingness to try to enhance the status of their organizations.

Explaining the ‘quiet earthquake’: voting behaviour in the first election to the National Assembly for Wales

This paper examines voting behaviour in the inaugural election to the National Assembly for Wales (NAW), held in May 1999. We address two questions: (i) why did the election produce a ‘quiet earthquake’ in Welsh electoral politics, with the nationalist Plaid Cymru denying the Labour party their expected majority in the Assembly?; and (ii) what broader lessons does this case-study offer for the study of elections in the UK under devolution? Drawing on data from the Welsh National Assembly Election Study, we find that while some features of second-order election theories, such as lower turnout and a lower vote share for the governing party were manifest, contrary to the predictions of such theories the surge in electoral support for Plaid was largely prompted by Welsh-specific factors rather than UK-wide ones. The findings are argued to indicate limits to the applicability of second-order approaches to the study of devolved elections in the UK.

The European Parliament: one parliament, several modes of political representation on the ground?

In this article we explore the potential for electoral systems to influence the attitudes and behaviour of elected representatives. Focusing on what we term ‘geographical representation’, or representation on the ground, we consider how variation in electoral systems may be expected to relate to different forms of, and priorities in, political representation. We then explain how – European Union (EU) legislation on ‘uniform electoral procedures’ notwithstanding – the European Parliament (EP) offers a uniquely powerful research site for investigating these questions. Finally, we explore recent survey evidence on Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) which suggests that, in several respects, electoral system variation does shape how they understand, and seek to carry out, their role as elected representatives.

Electing the European Parliament: How Uniform are 'Uniform' Electoral Systems?

In 2002 agreement was reached on new uniform electoral procedures for European Parliament elections. This article does two things. First, it provides a comprehensive account of the rules under which the EP was elected in 2004, revealing a high degree of continuing variability in the existing electoral systems across all 25 Member States. Second, it addresses the question: if the electoral systems vary in form, do they also differ significantly in their effects?

England, Englishness and Brexit

In the 1975 referendum England provided the strongest support for European integration, with a much smaller margin for membership in Scotland and Northern Ireland. By 2015 the rank order of ‘national’ attitudes to European integration had reversed. Now, England is the UKs most eurosceptic nation and may vote ‘Leave’, while Scotland seems set to generate a clear margin for ‘Remain’. The UK as a whole is a Brexit marginal. To understand the campaign, we need to make sense of the dynamics of public attitudes in each nation. We take an ‘archaeological’ approach to a limited evidence-base, to trace the development of attitudes to Europe in England since 1975. We find evidence of a link between English nationalism and euroscepticism. Whatever the result in 2016, contrasting outcomes in England and Scotland will exacerbate tensions in the UKs territorial constitution and could lead to the break-up of Britain.

Turnout, Participation and Legitimacy in Post-Devolution Wales

Low levels of voter turnout in the first election to the National Assembly for Wales in May 1999 brought into question both the ability of devolution to revitalize representative democracy and the legitimacy of the Assembly itself. But drawing wider implications from turnout requires that we understand why electoral abstention was so widespread. We examine three hypotheses about voter turnout in 1999: that non-participation simply reflected a general apathy towards politics; that it was based on a specific apathy towards the new Assembly; or that low voter turnout reflected antipathy towards an unwanted political institution. We find support for the first two hypotheses, but little evidence for the third. Devolution has failed to engage the interest and support of many in Wales, but low turnout has not been prompted by fundamental antagonism to the devolved institution among the Welsh electorate.

Accounting for Change in Free Vote Outcomes in the House of Commons

Parliamentary decision making is a growth area in the study of the British House of Commons. This is a facet of the behaviour of Members of Parliament (MPs) that tended to be ignored as long as the Commons was seen as a legislature that, cravenly subject to party discipline, simply rubber-stamped policy decisions made by the party leadership. By the 1960s, cohesive party voting had reached the point where ‘it was so close to 100 per cent that there was no longer any point in measuring it’. But more recently, this image of the Commons and its members has worn at the edges. While party loyalty remains very much the norm, MPs have shown themselves more willing than in the past to assert themselves against their partys leadership in order to exercise greater policy influence. One prominent example is the select committee system set up in 1979 to improve parliamentary scrutiny of the executive. Another is the higher incidence of backbench rebellion and dissent in the division lobbies after the mid-1960s.

Mapping legislative socialisation

Legislative socialisation has long been an important force for political deradicalisation in capitalist democracies worldwide. It remains barely explored, however, in large part because it is a process very difficult to track by conventional observational or survey methods. We circumvent these problems by taking advantage of an unusually propitious vote on televising the proceedings of the British House of Commons to chart the institutional deradicalisation of its Labour members. Socialisation effects are shown to be non-linear and, while the difference is not statistically significant, to be marginally stronger among Members of Parliament (MPs) with frontbench experience. The somewhat greater conservatism of frontbenchers, however, cannot be explained by anticipatory socialisation. Rather, it seems to be a function of doing well under ‘rules of the parliamentary game’ threatened by proposals for institutional reform.