The use and non-use of policy appraisal tools in public policy making: an analysis of three European countries and the European Union

The increasing complexity of policy problems, coupled with the political desire to base new policies on the foundation of firm evidence, has accelerated the development of policy assessment tools. These range from complex computer models and cost benefit analysis through simple checklists and decision trees. In the last decade, many governments have established formal policy assessment systems to harness these tools in order to facilitate more evidence-based policy making. These tools are potentially widely available, but to what extent are they used by policy makers and what becomes of the evidence that they generate? This paper addresses these questions by studying the empirical patterns of tool use across 37 cases in three European countries and the European Commission. It uses a simple classification of tools into advanced, formal and simple types. It finds that even when tools are embedded in policy assessment systems, their use is differentiated and on the whole very limited, in particular when it comes to more advanced tools. It then explores these patterns from contrasting theoretical perspectives to shed light on why, when and how different policy assessment tools are used in the policy process.     

Representing the compromise: How institutions serve government support coalitions in European Union policy making

This article presents an original model of policy making by multiparty coalitions at the international level. Specifically, it analyses how domestic institutions serve parties in enforcing policy compromises onto national ministers negotiating legislation in the European Union (EU). In contrast to existing research on coalition politics, the model accounts for the benefits of not only legislative but also executive institutions and incorporates opposition parties as pivotal actors under minority governments. Ministers propose policy positions at the EU level that represent domestic coalition compromises when cabinet participation, executive coordination and parliamentary oversight of EU affairs make it cheap for coalition partners to challenge the minister's position and when ideological divisiveness increases the incentive to do so. Statistical analyses of 1,694 policy positions taken by ministers from 22 member states in the Council of the EU provide strong empirical evidence for the model. The results support the claim of executive dominance in EU policy making but also highlight that, where institutions are strong, ministers represent domestic coalition compromises rather than their own positions.     

The first supranational policy in the European Union: Competition policy

Abstract. Competition policy has become a salient issue in the last decade. The purpose of this article is to widen discussion amongst political scientists of an issue that has been dominated by the disciplines of economics and law. The concept of a competition policy is the foundation stone of the entire European Union. It lies at the very heart of efforts to establish a common market and within the EU competition policy arena the decision making powers have laid firmly with the supranational institutions. This article provides an overview of the issue; it traces the constitutive foundations of policy and discusses the functions of the core EU competition policy actors. It is primarily concerned with the European Commission, in particular, DGIV. The paper accounts for DGIV's metamorphosis in the 1980s and the myriad of problems now confronting its procedures and efficiency in the 1990s. Whether these defects can be resolved will ultimately determine the fate of DGIV. Arguments for institutional reform are raging through the European institutions and DGIV provides no exception. The paper concludes with a discussion on the plausibility of the creation of an independent European Competition Office, modelled on the role of the German Federal Cartel Office.     

Reconceptualizing European Union regulatory networks: A response to Blauberger and Rittberger

This article responds to Michael Blauberger and Berthold Rittberger's article “Conceptualizing and theorizing EU regulatory networks,” published in Regulation & Governance in 2015. Blauberger and Rittberger challenged our previous work on the politics of Eurocracy, disputing our argument that political considerations, not functional ones, explain the choice of bureaucratic structure in the European Union (EU). Blauberger and Rittberger suggest that functional considerations do indeed explain why policymakers sometimes prefer governance through European Regulatory Networks rather than through more centralized EU agencies, and argue that we have misunderstood the preferences of EU legislative principals. In this article, we argue that there are significant flaws in Blauberger and Rittberger's analysis on both theoretical and empirical grounds. We show that a proper interpretation of developments in both telecoms and competition lends support to our theoretical claims and not those offered by Blauberger and Rittberger.     

Interest group networks in the European Union

Interest group networks are crucial for understanding European Union (EU) integration, policymaking and interest representation. Yet, comparative analysis of interest organisation networks across EU policy areas is limited. This study provides the first large-scale investigation of interest group information networks across all EU policy domains. We argue that interest groups prioritise access to trustworthy and high-quality information coming from partners with shared policy goals. Thus, interest organisations form network ties with other organisations if the latter are from the same country, represent the same type of interest, or are policy insiders. The effect of these three factors varies across policy domains depending on the extent to which the institutional setting assures equal and broad organisational access to decision-making. Our empirical analysis operationalises information ties as Twitter-follower relationships among 7,388 interest organisations. In the first step of the analysis, we use Exponential Random Graph Models to examine tie formation in the full network and across 40 policy domains. We find strong but variable effects of country and interest type homophily and policy insiderness on the creation of network ties. In the second step, we examine how the effect of these three variables on tie formation varies with policy domain characteristics. We find that shared interest type and policy insiderness are less relevant for tie formation in (re-)distributive and especially regulatory policy domains characterised by more supranational decision-making. Sharing an interest type and being a policy insider matters more for tie formation in foreign and interior policies where decision-making is more intergovernmental. The effect of country homophily is less clearly related to policy type and decision-making mode. Our findings emphasise the importance of institutional and policy context in shaping interest group networks in the EU.     

欧盟环境政策实施初探

经过30多年的努力,欧盟环境政策从产生到发展,不断拓展了环境保护的领域和视野。其广泛细致的环境立法、持续有效的环境行动计划和多元灵活的政策实施手段,是政策体系完善和政策实施效果的有力保证。本文简要介绍了欧盟环境政策的概念和发展历程,并试图从多方面分析欧盟环境政策得以成功实施的原因,着重介绍和分析了欧盟环境政策的多元化实施机制,以期为我国环境法的实施提供借鉴经验。     

The national impact of European Union regulatory policy: Three Europeanization mechanisms

Abstract. While much has been written about the impact of European Union (EU) regulatory policy, most of the scholarly work is concerned with developments at the European level. Only recently have attempts been made to fill this gap. Although there is a growing number of studies explicitly concerned with the Europeanization of domestic institutions, we still lack consistent and systematic concepts to account for the varying patterns of institutional adjustment across countries and policy sectors. The aim of this article is to provide a more comprehensive framework for explaining the domestic impact of European policy making. We make an analytical distinction between three mechanisms of Europeanization – institutional compliance, changing domestic opportunity structures, and framing domestic beliefs and expectations – each of which requires a distinctive approach in order to explain its domestic impact. We argue that it is the particular type of Europeanization mechanism involved rather than the policy area itself that is the most important factor to be considered when investigating the domestic impact of varying European policies.     

Central and Eastern European business interest associations and EU policy making

The interactions between Central and Eastern European (CEE) business interest associations (BIAs) and their EU trade associations have not yet attracted much attention in academic research. This paper has two main objectives. The first is to assess quantitatively the participation level of CEE BIAs in EU trade associations. The second is to assess qualitatively the nature of the relationships between them by surveying Bulgarian BIAs as a case study. This article stresses the fact that EU enlargement has decreased the representativeness of EU trade associations due to the weak level of membership of CEE BIAs. It also highlights the importance of membership in EU trade associations in terms of both Europeanization and socialization, even though CEE national BIAs, such as Bulgarian ones, are still very much anchored in their domestic interactions and lobbying.     

Travelling Fast to Get Nowhere: Transport Policy in the European Union

The Common Transport Policy of the EU is one of the three common policies mentioned in the Treaty of Rome. However, this policy area has seen few achievements. It was not until the 1980s that any real attempt to develop a CTP began. The drive to complete the internal market has given this task a new urgency. However, the legacy of its past approach makes it difficult for the EU now to develop a successful transport policy. Varying explanations exist for this failing. Furthermore, the EU has failed to take account of the wider significance of transport policy, especially for regional development and for the environment.     

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.     

Recent trends in the European Union trade and investment policy towards China

The last decades＇ trend towards the creation of a world market of goods and services and the upsurge of China as a global competitor ought to be considered as an important challenge for the European Union. In contrast to this interpretation, the European Union policy towards China has suffered from an absence from a long run view. European institutional behaviour has been based on applying measures that were solely reactions to the policies launched by the United States. Finally, the difficulty of finding common interests among all member countries has been a constant in the relationship with China. The European Union has recently shown a clear concern about the unavoidable need of improving European firms＇ competitiveness, especially in order to overcome the Chinese access to the internationalised division of labour. Nevertheless, it is still difficult to observe a thorough treatment for the economic challenge of emergent economies as a whole in many European policy measures.     

The Common Fisheries Policy of the European Union – A Lesson in How Not to Make Policy

This article considers some salient theoretical contributions which bear upon our understanding of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) of the European Union (EU). It outlines the fundamental dilemma highlighted in game theory known as 'the tragedy of the commons' and goes on to examine whether the CFP can be construed as a 'policy fiasco'. The article considers how the fisheries of the EU could be more effectively managed and underlines the urgent need for international collective action. With the mismatch between the CFP and the scale of the problem it is intended to address firmly in sight, the article concludes with an evaluation and some policy suggestions.