A priori power measures and the institutions of the European Union

Abstract. The a priori voting powers of member countries in the council of ministers of the European Union have been discussed in the literature mainly from the view–point of Banzhaf and Shapley–Shubik indices. This paper discusses — in the light of these and other more recent (Colomer's, Holler's as well as Deegan and Packel's) power indices — the interaction of the council ministers and the European Parliament (EP) under the assumption that the consent of both bodies is needed to carry a motion or piece of union–wide legislation. Moreover, the double–majority principle is discussed from the view–point of voting power distribution. Finally we consider the voting power distribution in a three–chamber system consisting of Commission, Council and EP.     

A Demos for the European Union?

The European Union's alleged shortage of democratic legitimacy is said to be caused partly by the polity's lack of a demos which makes it unsuitable for majoritarian decision-making. However, this problem is often overshadowed by – sometimes even confused with – the lack of public enthusiasm as regards European integration. But, although clearly related, these are not synonymous. The no-demos thesis focuses on the lack of a transnational political relationship between individuals and is related mainly to the legitimacy of the EU's decision-making processes , whereas the issue of popular support primarily relates to the legitimacy of European integration itself. In this article, I address the former by attempting to answer the following questions. Firstly, what do we mean when we say that the EU has no demos? Secondly, does the EU really need a demos, and if so, how can one be created?     

Information,access, and contributions: A signaling model of lobbying

Interest groups pay monetary contributions to gain access and provide information to a policymaker. If their interests are aligned with those of the policymaker's constituency, they have costless access and report their private information truthfully. If their interests conflict, they are forced to pay a strictly positive contribution in order to enhance the credibility of their reports. The policymaker bases her policy decision on the competing reports and the size of the contributions accompanying these reports. The interest groups' contribution decisions are plagued by a free rider problem. I derive the implications of this problem for the size and pattern of contributions and for the degree of information aggregation.     

Electoral institutions and campaigning in comparative perspective: Electioneering in European Parliament elections

This article develops and tests a number of competing expectations (institutional, party and individual) about what influenced the campaign activity of individual parliamentary candidates for the 2004 European Parliament elections. The principal interest is in the effects of variations in the design of electoral institutions across the Member States of the European Union. Based on the analysis, it is argued that an important distinction needs to be made between campaign effort and campaign goals, with electoral institutional factors having a more significant role over the latter.     

Federalism and the European Union: A constitutional perspective

Constitutional questions have resurfaced in the last few years with regard to the European Union. The Maastricht Treaty is a kind of constitutional reform. The rejection of this treaty by Denmark in its first referendum, and the subsequent debate of the treaty that has taken place, raise questions about both the nature of the European Union, and the process by which its rules (constitution) get revised and approved. Similar questions surround the entry of Austria and the three, additional Scandinavian countries into the Union. Perhaps, no event called the European Union's constitution, or lack thereof, into question more that way in which a new President of the Commission was chosen during the summer of 1994. This paper will reexamine the European Union's structure and procedures from a constitutional perspective. Drawing upon the author's recently completed book, Constitutional Democracy, the paper will review the purpose for the Union's existence, the implications of this purpose for the structure of the Union (federalism versus confederation), the rules for making collective decisions in the Union, citizenship, and in particular, the procedures by which the European Union's “Constitution” is written and revised. The constitutional perspective adopted is taken from public choice. The political institutions of the European Union are examined relative to those rational, self-interested individuals would choose to advance their interests.     

Belgian civil servants in the European Union: A tale of two cultures

This article analyses the performance of Belgian civil servants in the working groups of the European Council of Ministers. If one takes the evaluation by their peers and the success of their networking efforts as criteria, one has to conclude that they perform comparatively well. This is all the more surprising because these ‘Euro‐Belgian’ civil servants have been recruited and socialised into the vertical (bureaucratic) networks of the Belgian civil service before being transferred to the horizontal (negotiation) networks of the working groups. Their professional routines are of little use when making the transition and neither is their political culture, which proves to be ill adapted to their new work setting. In spite of these cultural and organisational handicaps they perform as well, sometimes even better than other civil servants in the working groups. Why? This question might be of some relevance to the functioning of the growing internationalised administration of the European Union.     

Sexual Citizenship in the European Union

This article examines two different uses of the language of citizenship: in the context of the 'sexual citizen', and the transnational 'European citizen' of European Union politics. It begins with an exploration of how the concept of citizenship has been constitutively built on a set of binary constructs of in/exclusion and can prove a disciplining and regulatory concept. Yet, simultaneously, citizenship can have an active and democratic potentiality. The article interrogates these two faces of citizenship by considering the mobilization of lesbians and gay men through the International Lesbian and Gay Association Europe (ILGA Europe), and the engagement of ILGA with the institutions of the European Union. The article concludes that European and sexual citizenship underscores the tension, not only between active and passive citizenship forms, but more generally, between identity and difference. This tension demands, in turn, a reappraisal of identity-based thinking, in favour of a more coalitional, affinity-based politics .     

Targeting the lobbying effort: The importance of local government lobbying

Abstract Local government is subject to extensive lobbying, which is reasonable given the greater importance of the local public sector in large welfare states. Most of the scholarly attention has been focused on lobbying at the national level, often addressing the impact of interest groups on public policies. This article discusses a decision–making model where interest groups optimize their lobbying efforts given the way that different local governments and individual politicians respond to these activities. A number of propositions are tested on the basis of data from Norwegian local government. Contrary to prior theorizing, we do not find that representatives seeking re–election are contacted more frequently by interest groups. Interest groups target their lobbying activities toward politicians who are members of the relevant council committees, and they exert stronger pressure on members of the executive board and active representatives who perceive themselves as influential. Inter–municipal differences are also of importance: The lobbying activities are more intensive where electoral participation is low and in the larger urban municipalities, while the size of legislatures and the strength of the local political leadership affect lobbying efforts negatively. Interest groups tend to be more active in the richer local governments. The demands of the residential population impact weakly on lobbying efforts.     

Targeting the lobbying effort: The importance of local government lobbying

Local government is subject to extensive lobbying, which is reasonable given the greater importance of the local public sector in large welfare states. Most of the scholarly attention has been focused on lobbying at the national level, often addressing the impact of interest groups on public policies. This article discusses a decision–making model where interest groups optimize their lobbying efforts given the way that different local governments and individual politicians respond to these activities. A number of propositions are tested on the basis of data from Norwegian local government. Contrary to prior theorizing, we do not find that representatives seeking re–election are contacted more frequently by interest groups. Interest groups target their lobbying activities toward politicians who are members of the relevant council committees, and they exert stronger pressure on members of the executive board and active representatives who perceive themselves as influential. Inter–municipal differences are also of importance: The lobbying activities are more intensive where electoral participation is low and in the larger urban municipalities, while the size of legislatures and the strength of the local political leadership affect lobbying efforts negatively. Interest groups tend to be more active in the richer local governments. The demands of the residential population impact weakly on lobbying efforts.     

An Alternative Constitutional Treaty for the European Union

We propose an alternativeto the Constitutional Treaty drafted by theEuropean Convention. Our proposaleffectively limits the domain of governmentat the Union level. It takes the incentivesof the European public actors into account.We propose a second chamber of EuropeanParliament composed of delegates of theparliaments of the member states and asecond court composed of delegates of thehighest courts of the member states. Theseinstitutions will be the guardians of thesubsidiarity principle. The principle ofthe separation of powers is implemented byabolishing the Commission's monopoly oflegislative initiative and by curtailingthe Council's legislative role. Treatyamendments will not be drafted by aninter-governmental conference but by aninter-parliamentary conference. We proposeto change the method of financing andintroduce referenda.