Continuing politics by other means: Defence policy under the French fifth republic

This article examines French defence policy making. It has two aims: first to examine how far the sector is characterised by the forms of ‘heroic’ leadership usually associated with it, and second to place these empirical findings within the context of the literature that deals with the analysis of policy processes and public policy. The article shows how, contrary to the received wisdom, Mitterrand in particular has found it increasingly difficult to impose his personal preferences on defence policy. That this is so is a function partly of the nature of the policy process itself, and partly of the legacy — both institutional and in terms of policy — of de Gaulle. In illustrating shifting models of policy making and policy output, it reveals both the specific nature of the defence sector as well as the factors which influence the policy‐making processes over time.     

The 2004 Greek Election: PASOK's Monopoly Ends

What determines a government's position inside the Council of the European Union? This article takes up recent arguments according to which Council decision-making is driven not only by ‘objective’ national interests but also by the ideological preferences of the member states' representatives. On the basis of a study of Germany, Austria and Sweden and their positions with regard to the Services Directive, it seeks to advance the debate by specifying the conditions under which ideological preferences are more likely to dominate. Applying a principal–agent model it is argued that the relative impact of ideological preferences crucially depends on the relationship between the ministers sitting in the Council and the governing parties at the national level: the less a minister is exposed to parliamentary and intra-governmental control, the more a country's position is susceptible to the ideological preferences of the minister.     

An alternative route of European integration: The community's railways policy

The process of European integration and policy‐making is sometimes rather puzzling. On the one hand, it is well documented that with respect to the implementation of European legislation member states tend to do less than they are supposed to do. On the other hand, it is striking that with respect to the implementation of the Council Directive 91/440 on the development of the Community's railways many member states went far beyond the minimum required by the European legislation. We argue that these differing evaluations of implementation success can be traced to different implementation approaches, which may be termed the ‘compliance approach’ and the ‘support‐building approach’. While the first is directed at prescribing domestic reforms from above’, the latter aims at triggering European integration within the existing political context at the national level. Here, successful implementation refers to the extent to which European legislation triggers domestic changes by stimulating and strengthening support for European reform ideas at the national level. In this respect, European legislation can influence the domestic arenas in basically three ways: by providing legitimisation for political leadership, concepts for the solution of national problems, and strategic constraints for domestic actors opposing domestic reforms.     

Game Changing – Tracing the Positions,Strategies and Interaction Modes of the German Länder towards the (Ever Expanding?) European Union

This article investigates how the positions, strategies and modes of interaction of the German Länder have changed over time in response to the process of Europeanization. By applying the method of process tracing within a theoretical framework of rational choice institutionalism, the article concentrates on the Länder's responses to (1) the transfer of policy competences to the European level and (2) the enlargement of the European polity. Thereby, the article sheds new light on the Europeanization of the German federal system. It is shown that the transfer of policy competences to the European level have had the greatest impact on the Länder, which have reacted increasingly strategically by successfully demanding more power in the national coordination mechanism. However, the European Union enlargements have also had an effect as together with the transfer of policy competences they have resulted in a more sceptical attitude of the Länder towards (the perceived ever expanding) European Union.     

Case Studies and EU Politics: A Reply to Miklin

A recent article in West European Politics by Eric Miklin attempted to shed light on the decision-making process in the European Union. The argument presented was that individual ministerial ideological preferences can affect a government's bargaining position in the Council of the European Union. Miklin proposes that under certain conditions national ministers may enjoy substantial freedom. This brief reply identifies three main problems with Miklin's approach: a case selection bias, ministerial autonomy, and an examination of where decisions are made.     

Wholesaling in Electricity: Inching Along

This article discusses the incremental but increasingly assertive efforts by federal policy makers toward encouraging deregulation of the electric utility industry. Focusing on the efforts of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), we conclude that the federal government is involved in a sort of two‐sided experiment. On the one hand, efforts to deregulate the electric power industry attempt to establish a competitive market pose the question: Can government provide rational guidance in the formation of markets in a complex industry? On the other hand, it asks whether the democratic process can permit agencies such as FERC to impose and implement an economically rational design on a self‐interested pubic that is mostly interested in cheap, reliable power. In a sense, FERC is auditioning for a new role for regulatory agencies—as designers and overseers of markets. This is a dramatic shift from the traditional role of “regulator as policeman.” Whether regulators are up to the task remains to be seen.     

The Limits of Europeanization: Regulatory Reforms in the Spanish and Portuguese Telecommunications and Electricity Sectors

The creation of a European Union‐level regulatory regime for telecommunications and electricity was a highly successful political initiative of the European Commission. However, this article argues that the causal link between European initiatives and national policy change is weak. Building on an emerging tradition of cross‐sector research of these two sectors, and considering two most similar European countries, the article applies a series of comparisons, including a stepwise comparative analysis of two countries (one a reluctant liberalizer, the other an enthusiastic one), of two sectors (a pacesetter and a footdragger), and of two time periods (before and after the regulatory reforms). We suggest that Spain and Portugal were able to shape their sectors according to the preferences of their national policy communities and in a context of a global shift in the way countries both within Europe and outside it defined their interests.     

Managing the Process of Decentralization: Transforming Old Public Entities into New Agencies in the Agricultural Sector

ABSTRACT

In an effort to reconfigure the system for the delivery of agricultural services, the Regional Government of Sardinia in Italy decided, in 2006, to suppress five public entities, and to establish three regional agencies in their place. Based on interviews conducted with managers and staff within these agencies, this article narrates the episode of implementing the organizational restructuring of this part of the regional government's agricultural policy. Drawing on this case, this article then presents an explanation of the process of carrying out organizational transformations (namely, mergers and demergers) within sub-national governments' administrative systems. The study finds that policy process features and context conditions figure prominently as explanatory factors for the path and outcome of the implementation of the organizational restructuring. On the whole, the research argument made in this article suggests some qualifications of existing generalizing arguments about the management of organizational transformations in the public sector.     

Assumptions,behavioral findings,and policy analysis

Recent empirical studies indicate that many standard economic assumptions used in policy analyses do not reflect people's preferences and choices as well as modifications based on behavioral findings. Differences in the areas of time preferences and the large disparity between valuations of gains and losses illustrate the issues and the distortions that present analyses likely impose.     

The construction of urgency discourse around mega-projects: the Israeli case

Various studies have pointed to urgency in decision-making as a major catalyst for policy change. Urgency evokes a crisis frame in which emotions and cognitive and institutional biases are more likely to be mobilised in support of the policy preferences of powerful actors. As a result, decision-makers tend to be driven by emotions and opportunity, often with detrimental results for the quality of the planning process. Although urgency has such a profound influence on the quality of decision-making, little is known about how, when and by whom urgency is constructed in the planning process of public infrastructure. By means of a discourse analysis, this study traces the timing, motives and ways actors discursively construct a sense of urgency in decision-making on the building of terminals for the reception and treatment of the natural gas that was recently found off the coast of Israel. The results of this study indicate that government regulators, but also private sector actors, deliberately constructed an urgency discourse at critical moments during the planning process. By evoking terms that resonated with the target audience, regulators employed urgency as an instrument to legitimise unorthodox planning practices whilst precluding the consideration of alternative planning solutions. Thus, urgency framing is a means of controlling both the discourse and the agenda—and is therefore an exercise in power maintenance—by entrenched interest groups.     

The electoral roots of unequal representation. A spatial modelling approach to party systems and voting in Western Europe

For a number of Western democracies, it has been observed that the preferences of poor and rich citizens are unequally represented in political institutions and outcomes. Yet, the causes of this phenomenon are still under debate. We focus on the role of elections in this process, by disentangling biases towards different income groups that stem from the party system and from voters’ behaviour. Our aim is to uncover whether elections as selection mechanisms contribute to unequal representation by analysing factors of the supply and demand sides of the electoral process. On the supply side, we focus on the congruence of parties’ policy offers and voters’ preference distributions. This shapes citizens’ possibilities to express their policy preferences. On the demand side, we are interested in the extent to which citizens from different income groups base their vote decisions on their policy preferences. The empirical analysis relies on the European Social Survey and the Chapel Hill Expert Survey and covers 13 Western European countries. Our results indicate, first, that the economic and cultural preferences of poor and rich citizens differ significantly, and second, that party systems in the countries under investigation represent the lowest income groups the worst, and the middle income groups the best. This makes it difficult for citizens at both the lower and the higher end of the income distribution to voice their preferences in elections. Additionally, we show that low income citizens tend to take policy less into consideration when making an electoral choice than richer citizens. Thus, while the rich make up for their representation bias by taking policy more into account in their voting behaviour, the electoral stage poses another obstacle for the poor to overcome the representation bias. In summary it can be said that already on the supply side there is an unbalanced disadvantage in terms of representation for the very poor and the very rich, but the pattern leads to an even more asymmetrical misrepresentation of the poor due to the election act.     

Passengers or political actors? Children's participation in transport policy and the micro political geographies of the family

Transport is currently at the forefront of the political agenda. Successive government transport policies have increased the spatial mobility of the majority of the UK population, largely through encouraging car ownership and use. However, transport and children's geographers have highlighted that children are one social group that face increasing restrictions on their independent spatial mobility. These spatial restrictions are caused in part by safety fears originating from traffic generated by other people's mobility. Thus, with the exception of a few local initiatives such as ‘Safer Routes to School’, current transport policy fails to treat children as political citizens, neglecting to represent or respond to their travel needs. As a result of increasing restrictions on their mobility, children are increasingly escorted by adults in cars. Thus, the car is becoming an increasingly significant social space of childhood. However, little is known about the decision-making processes that result in car use. This paper examines, at the micro level, the everyday familial politics concerning the decision-making processes regarding car use and, more specifically, whether children, as political actors, are included in this process. The paper also discusses the possibilities for promoting children as political citizens at the macro level, by examining mechanisms for incorporating the views and transport needs of children into transport policy and planning.     

The politics of Artificial Intelligence regulation and governance reform in the European Union

This paper explores political drivers and policy process of the reform of the framework for Artificial Intelligence regulation and governance in the European Union (EU). Since 2017, the EU has been developing an integrated policy to tighten control and to ensure consumer protection and fundamental rights. This policy reform is theoretically interesting, raising the question of which conceptual approaches better explain it, and it is also empirically relevant, addressing the link between risk regulation and digital market integration in Europe. This paper explores the policy reform mainly by using two case study methods—process tracing and congruence procedure—using a variety of primary and secondary sources. It evaluates the analytical leverage of three theoretical frameworks and a set of derived testable hypotheses concerning the co-evolution of global economic competition, institutional structure, and policy preferences of domestic actors in shaping incremental approach to AI regulation in the EU. It is argued that all three are key drivers shaping the reform and explain the various stages of the policymaking process, namely problem definition, agenda-setting, and decision-making, as well as the main features of the outcome.

     

The EU Fundamental Rights Policy as a Source of Euroscepticism

This article analyzes how the development of the European Union (EU) fundamental rights policy feeds Euroscepticism—and notably political Euroscepticism—within segments of national political elites in EU Member States. More specifically, it argues that this relatively new policy also gives rise to a new form of political Euroscepticism, which has been defined as “value-based Euroscepticism,” e.g., the perception that the EU via its fundamental rights policy, unduly interferes in matters where value systems and core domestic preferences on ethical issues are at stake. This happens in a context where the EU is resented, by some segments of political elites, for allegedly empowering diverse groups (such as ethnic minorities, immigrants' associations, judges, and so on) at the expense of popular sovereignty. This resentment is exacerbated by the fact that national governments are increasingly submitted to the critical assessment of EU-level actors (e.g., the European Parliament or the European Commission) in terms of democratic credentials.     

Policy Preference Formation in Legislative Politics: Structures, Actors, and Focal Points

This article introduces a model of policy preference formation in legislative politics. Emphasizing a dynamic relationship between structure, agent, and decision-making process, it ties the question of policy choice to the dimensionality of the normative and cognitive political space and the strategic actions of parliamentary agenda setters. The model proposes that structural factors, such as ideology, shape policy preferences to the extent that legislative actors successfully link them to specific policy proposals through the strategic provision of focal points. These ideas or images shift attention toward particular aspects of a legislative proposal, thus shaping the dominant interpretation of its content and consequences. This interpretation affects both individual-level policy preferences and policy outcomes. The propositions of the focal-point model are tested empirically in a detailed examination of European Union legislation on cross-border takeover bids, using both qualitative and quantitative methods.     

Recent Evolution of Public Sector Structure in Latin America: Describing and Explaining Shifts in Autonomy Trends in Colombia and Venezuela

This article has two objectives. The first objective is to review and assess the recent evolution of agency design in Colombia and Venezuela. More specifically, we study the agencies' formal autonomy in these two countries since the year 1999 when Venezuela experienced a major change in government policy towards socialism. Thus, we attempt to explore how this policy change is reflected in the formal autonomy of agencies. Our second objective is to test if, despite the differences in policy choices the two countries have taken in the recent years, there are theoretical factors related to the agencies' design that can explain the level of formal autonomy of the agencies. The results show two main elements: first, even though the patterns of formal agency autonomy in Colombia and Venezuela differed before Venezuela's latter policy change, the differences between these two countries have increased since 2000. This indicates that each country's policy preferences may account for the differences. Second, for both countries, we found that, despite the differences, agency level factors such as the primary tasks that are performed by the agencies and the policy sector in which they are active have had an impact on their level of formal autonomy. However, the results indicate that these relationships do not follow the predictions that have been made based on the different theoretical perspectives. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Commentary on Widmalm: A rebuttal

Abstract

This paper examines the public involvement in a particularly sensitive and highly contentious field of EU policy making: the genetically modified organisms (GMOs) sector. It argues for the establishment of a larger public debate in the EU policy field and interactive discourses that involve public voices, rather than just technocrats or scientists, in the GMO sector. In terms of deliberative democracy, an assessment of the EU's GMO regime is mixed: on the one hand, new practices have been introduced, which indicate a shift towards more participatory policy making; on the other, enhanced societal participation does not necessarily support the emergence of a larger engaged public and deliberation in the general public sphere. Thus, after the design of the ‘participatory garden’, the wider European public debate on GMOs has not ‘grown’ due to a lack of horizontal co-ordination among EU initiatives; the preference for institutionalized forms of cooperation with civil society; and the lack of evaluation methods for public involvement in GMO approvals.     

Instrumental political support: bringing policy preferences back into explanations of EU support

There is a joint development towards Europeanisation of public policies and an increasing visibility and politicisation of European issues in EU member states. In this context, the degree of fit between individuals’ policy preferences and European norms could be expected to influence support for the EU: this support might increase when Europeanisation makes the desired policies more likely, and decrease when it hinders these policies. Multilevel analyses of the 2014 wave of the European Election Study confirms the existence of such instrumental support for the EU. The findings demonstrate that this support is shaped by policy preferences on state intervention, immigration, moral issues and environmental protection. The results also show that the impact of these policy preferences is modulated by the level of integration of the designated policy, by the weight of the policy issue in the country and, in some cases, by the level of individual political knowledge.     

Narrative policy analysis and the integration of public involvement in decision making

Public involvement in environmental policy analysis and planning may be in some cases for the purpose of incorporating public values and preferences in decision making. Narrative policy analysis is put forward as a method, which is particularly useful to the practice of public involvement for maintaining a juxtaposition of views throughout the policy development and planning process. It is argued that this process may facilitate the consideration of public preferences in a decision-making process. This can be achieved through the joint development of a meta-narrative.