Theorizing the EU Policy-Making

2020 ◽  
pp. 29-48
Author(s):  
Gönül Oğuz
Keyword(s):  
Policy Making ◽  
Eu Policy ◽  
The Eu

Policy-Making in the European Union

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
National Level ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Eu Policy ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Common ◽  
Key Events ◽  
The Eu

Policy-Making in the European Union explores the link between the modes and mechanisms of EU policy-making and its implementation at the national level. From defining the processes, institutions and modes through which policy-making operates, the text moves on to situate individual policies within these modes, detail their content, and analyse how they are implemented, navigating policy in all its complexities. The first part of the text examines processes, institutions, and the theoretical and analytical underpinnings of policy-making, while the second part considers a wide range of policy areas, from economics to the environment, and security to the single market. Throughout the text, theoretical approaches sit side by side with the reality of key events in the EU, including enlargement, the ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon, and the financial crisis and resulting Eurozone crisis, focusing on what determines how policies are made and implemented. This includes major developments such as the establishment of the European Stability Mechanism, the reform of the common agricultural policy, and new initiatives to promote EU energy security. In the final part, the chapters consider trends in EU policy-making and the challenges facing the EU.

14. Policy-making in the European Union

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralf Drachenberg ◽  
Alex Brianson
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
The European Union ◽  
New Governance ◽  
Policy Decisions ◽  
State Action ◽  
Eu Policy ◽  
Governance Tools ◽  
The Eu

This chapter examines the process of policy-making in the European Union. It first considers how the EU originally made policy decisions before tracing the evolution of the formal balance between the EU institutions over time, with particular emphasis on the increasing legislative power of the European Parliament. It then describes the Community method, which remains the core of the EU policy process but is now complemented with a range of ‘new governance tools’ designed to produce coordinated member state action through iterated processes of standard-setting, best practice identification, and knowledge transfer. One of these processes is the open method of coordination (OMC). The chapter concludes with an analysis of the implementation of EU policy decisions by and in the member states, along with current trends in EU decision-making after the EU enlargements of the 2000s and the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty.

2. Theorizing EU Policy-Making

2020 ◽  
pp. 12-42
Author(s):  
Mark A. Pollack
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
Judicial Politics ◽  
European Union Policy ◽  
Eu Policy ◽  
Liberal Intergovernmentalism ◽  
Union Policy ◽  
Multi Level ◽  
The Eu

This chapter surveys seven decades of theorizing about European Union policy-making and policy processes. It begins with a discussion of theories of European integration, including neo-functionalism, intergovernmentalism, liberal intergovernmentalism, institutionalism, constructivism, and postfunctionalism. It then considers the increasing number of studies that approach the EU through the lenses of comparative politics and comparative public policy, focusing on the federal or quasi-federal aspects of the EU and its legislative, executive, and judicial politics. It finally explores the vertical and horizontal separation of powers in the EU and concludes by looking at the ‘governance approach’ to the EU, with emphasis on multi-level governance and EU policy networks, Europeanization, and the question of the EU’s democratic deficit.

Better Use of Science for Better EU Regulation

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 314-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorna Schrefler ◽  
Jacques Pelkmans
Keyword(s):  
Policy Making ◽  
Swot Analysis ◽  
Regulatory Regime ◽  
Risk Regulation ◽  
Major Task ◽  
Eu Policy ◽  
Eu Regulation ◽  
Near Future ◽  
The Eu

Risk regulation is a major task of the EU. In this context, scientific knowledge and advice is critical to the preparation, formulation, legislation and later revision of EU risk regulation. However and with some notable exceptions (e.g. some EU Agencies, DG SANCO), there seems to be no systematic view, let alone, organisation for the ‘use of science’ for EU policy–making. It is in this light that the new function of Chief Scientific Advisor (CSA) to the President of the European Commission can best be appreciated. The authors first sketch how ‘science’ is used in the EU regulatory regime and what is or has become problematic about it. Subsequently, an informal SWOT analysis of the ‘use of science’ for EU policy is conducted. The contribution ends with an attempt to evaluate the CSA's accomplishments to date and how it can contribute to improving EU regulation. This is followed by a few recommendations on how the role of the CSA could be strengthened in the near future.

1. An Overview

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Wallace ◽  
Mark A. Pollack ◽  
Alasdair R. Young
Keyword(s):  
Policy Making ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Public Authorities ◽  
Sixth Edition ◽  
Eu Policy ◽  
Foreign And Security Policy ◽  
The Common ◽  
Analytical Approaches ◽  
The Eu

This text examines the processes that produce policies in the European Union — that is, the decisions (or non-decisions) by EU public authorities facing choices between alternative courses of public action. It considers the broad contours of the EU policy-making process and relevant analytical approaches for understanding that process. It includes case studies dealing with the main policy domains in which the EU dimension is significant, including competition policy, the common agricultural policy (CAP), the economic and monetary union (EMU), enlargement, common foreign and security policy (CFSP), justice and home affairs (JHA), and energy and social policy. This chapter discusses the significant developments that have impacted EU policy-making since the sixth edition, summarizes the text’s collective approach to understanding policy-making in the EU, and provides an overview of the chapters that follow.

Grexit and Brexit: Incidents, accidents and wake-up calls on the bumpy road of European (dis)integration

2020 ◽  
pp. 096977642097061
Author(s):  
George Petrakos ◽  
Alexandra Sotiriou
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Maastricht Treaty ◽  
Policy Agenda ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Policy Integration ◽  
The Real ◽  
Eu Policy ◽  
Eu Countries ◽  
The Eu

Almost 30 years since the Maastricht Treaty and 20 years since the introduction of the euro, it is clear that the European Union (EU) has lost its appeal to wider constituencies and citizen groups that realize that the promises for convergence and prosperity have not been delivered. Rising dissatisfaction and Euroscepticism (expressed both in the ballot box and in Eurobarometer reports) is evident even in traditional pro-EU countries of the European core. As this long decade comes to an end, incidents (or accidents) like these ones, either in the form of open discontent, or in the form of rising populism, will exert pressure on the EU policy agenda that will either increase the frequency of deadlocks and inefficiency in policy making or will eventually lead to an honest effort to address the roots of these phenomena. This paper examines the drivers behind these two incidents (and the ones that may follow) and the limits of the current market and policy integration arrangements in the EU, arguing that a new policy agenda addressing the real weaknesses of the Union is inevitable if disintegration is to be avoided. Luckily enough, some elements of this new policy agenda may already be here.

Political Agents as Relational Selves

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 493-519 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Dewandre ◽  
Keyword(s):  
European Commission ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Internal Market ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Common Market ◽  
Member States ◽  
Eu Policy ◽  
Eu Policies ◽  
Political Agents ◽  
The Eu

In this article, I argue that Hannah Arendt’s well-known but controversial distinction between labour, work, and action provides, perhaps unexpectedly, a conceptual grounding for transforming politics and policy-making at the EU level. Beyond the analysis and critique of modernity, Arendt brings the conceptual resources needed for the EU to move beyond the modern trap it fell into thirty years ago. At that time, the European Commission shifted its purpose away from enhancing interdependence among Member States with a common market towards achieving an internal market in the name of boosting growth and creating jobs. Arendt provides the conceptual tools to transform the conceptualisation of relations and of agents that fuels the growing dissatisfaction among many Europeans with EU policy-making. This argument is made through stretching and re-articulating Arendt’s labour-work-action distinction and taking seriously both the biological and plural dimensions of the human condition, besides its rational one. By applying this shift in an EU context, EU policies could change their priorities and better address the needs and expectations of plural political agents and of European citizens.

European Union Discourses on Employment

2000 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gilbert Weiss ◽  
Ruth Wodak
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Linguistic Analysis ◽  
Advisory Group ◽  
Political Union ◽  
Eu Policy ◽  
Political Problem ◽  
Eu Policies ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Eu

The fight against unemployment has been declared a top priority of European Union (EU) policies. Indeed, if mass unemployment is the major political problem in Europe, then the legitimacy of the EU as a political union will crucially depend on how this problem is dealt with. In this article we follow precisely the question of how the problem is dealt with in EU policy-making processes. Two forms of political spaces, an advisory group working ‘behind closed doors’ and the European Parliament, are compared. A socio-linguistic analysis of texts produced in the respective bodies reveals the many tensions in the development of supranational employment policies. Particular emphasis is placed on the rhetoric of globalization and competitiveness as being constitutive of the neo-liberal discourse.

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