Network Capital and Cooperation Patterns in the Working Groups of the Council of the EU

This working paper presents findings from a study of network capital and cooperation patterns in the working groups of the Council of the European Union. Two successive rounds of telephone interviews with Council working group representatives from all member states were conducted in 2003 and 2006. It is demonstrated that some member states have a consistently higher stock of network capital (having close ties to a large number of powerful cooperation partners) than others, over time and across policy fields. Size explains a lot of this variation, but there is also room for actor-based factors. For small states in particular inter-personal trust seems to have a positive effect. The findings also indicate that cooperation patterns in the Council working groups follow geographical patterns. The dominant North-South dimension is consistent across policy fields. Rather than having one 'core' the EU15 Council revolved around a North (the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK) and a South (France, Italy, Spain) center, connected by Germany. The 2004 enlargement did not change this pattern, but only added new groups of countries to the periphery around the two main centers. There is evidence to suggest that the geographical cooperation patterns are mainly driven by cultural factors, rather than economic interests or political ideologies.political science; COREPER; Council of Ministers; enlargement; power analysis; networks

The Puzzle of Transparency Reforms in the Council of the EU

I argue that the transparency reforms that have been implemented in the Council of the EU in the last decades are unlikely to change the perception of the Council as a non-transparent institution. My argument is based on three distinctions: the distinction between transparency (availability of information) and publicity (spread and reception of information); between transparency in process and transparency in rationale; and between plenary and committee decision-making arenas in legislatures. While national parliaments tend to have all these features, the Council of the EU only has two (transparency in process and committee decision-making). As a consequence, publishing ever more documents and detailed minutes of committee meetings is unlikely to strengthen the descriptive legitimacy of the Council. Furthermore, I argue that the democratic transparency problem is the reverse of what is most often argued: It is not the lack of transparency that causes a democratic deficit, but the (perceived) lack of a democratic infrastructure that makes more serious transparency reforms unthinkable to government representatives

Don't cry for me Britannia : the resilience of the European Union to Brexit

We assess the impact of the United Kingdom’s 2016 decision to leave the European Union on the Council of the European Union, where Brexit is likely to have the clearest observable implications. Using concepts and models from the spatial model of politics and network analysis, we formulate and test expectations regarding the effects of Brexit. We examine two of the most prominent datasets on recent decision-making in the European Union, which include data on cooperation networks among member states before and after the 2016 referendum. Our findings identify some of the political challenges that Brexit will bring, but also highlight the factors that are already helping the European Union’s remaining member states to adapt to Brexit

That's an order! : how the quest for efficiency is transforming judicial cooperation in Europe

Published online: 9 June 2022Effective procedural arrangements allow courts to reconcile conflicting demands of timely justice and sound legal argument. In the context of the European Union, conflict between these demands emerged most acutely in the face of paralyzing delays in the preliminary reference procedure. It was partly solved by Article 99 of the Rules of Procedure. The provision allowed the European Court of Justice to dispose of repetitive and legally undemanding cases with a reasoned order in lieu of a judgment. This article analyses all published orders of the European Court of Justice to examine the use and the implications of Article 99 of the Rules of Procedure. It is the first article to do so. We find that the Court resorts to orders to save time and to halt repeated questions from the courts of a single Member State.This article was published Open Access with the support from the European University Institute Research Council.The article is a published version of iCourts Working Paper 2020/21

A Network Model of Decision Making Applied to the European Union

Network structures constrain and enable political actors. Nonetheless, few models of decision making in international politics take network relations into account. We formulate and test a network model of decision making that incorporates the influence relations among political decision makers. In the first stage of the model, decision makers influence each other’s initial policy positions on controversial issues through their network relations. The extent to which this influence leads to changes in decision makers’ initial policy positions depends on the presence of network ties with other actors and the relative salience of the issue to the decision makers. In the second stage of the model, decision makers take a decision on the basis of their revised policy positions. The dataset we use to test the model combines information on the network relations among the member states’ representations to the EU and decision-making actors’ initial policy positions on controversial issues. The network model generates more accurate predictions of decision outcomes on these issues than does an appropriate baseline model. We draw out the implications of our findings for understanding the role of network relations in international politics

Transparency and Corruption: The Conditional Significance of a Free Press

Is making political institutions more transparent an effective method for combating corruption? Common wisdom in the debate and research on the causes of corruption answers strongly in the affirmative. We argue that this optimistic view is both right and wrong. Transparency may be an important medicine against corruption, but only under certain conditions. In order to capture this conditionality the concept of transparency must be distinguished from the interrelated but qualitatively different concepts of publicity and accountability. Facing increased risks of having information about ones bad behaviour made publicly available (transparency) is not enough to affect elite actors’ behaviour, if the information is not likely to be broadly spread, processed and utilised as a ground for putting sanctions on these actors. The theoretical argument is tested in the paper by analyzing the interaction effects between the degree of freedom of the press (as indicia of transparency), free and fair elections (indicating the presence of an accountability mechanism) and the level of education (a condition for publicity) in a cross-country study of 107 countries. The results demonstrate that the failure of previous research to analyze interaction effects have led scholars to draw inadequate and misleading conclusions about the link between transparency, democracy and corruption. Furthermore, it is argued, these findings will help to solve a puzzle in the previous research on democracy and corruption. Taken one at a time transparency and free and fair elections will not help much to reduce corruption. Taken together, on the other hand, they can be a powerful team

With or without you? Policy impact and networks in the Council of the EU after Brexit

Brexit is likely to be a major chapter in the history of European integration. Clearly, the most important consequences will concern the UK itself, but losing one of its largest members is also a momentous occasion for the EU. What will it mean for the negotiations and outcomes of the intergovernmental Council of the EU – and for the relative influence between the remaining member states – whether the UK is in or out? This analysis shows that the policy impact of Brexit is likely to be relatively modest. The findings indicate that some of the remaining member states will be more negatively affected than others, in terms of policy impact and network centrality during the negotiations in the Council of the EU. In particular, some smaller and medium sized Northern European states – Sweden, Denmark, Ireland and the Netherlands – confront the toughest challenges with respect to defending their influence in the Council. These are the states with the closest network ties to the UK, and with the most similar policy positions. If (or when) the UK leaves, these states will need to increase their efforts in forming alliances with other member states, in order to defend their (often) liberal positions against pressure for higher subsidies and more regulations of the common market. The network positions of the remaining larger member states, on the other hand, and in particular France, Germany and Poland, are likely to be enhanced by Brexit

The evolution of political networks : evidence from the Council of the European Union

This study tests two of the main explanations of the formation of political ties. The first explanation is based on the homophily principle and states that political actors are more likely to form a relationship if they have similar policy preferences. The second explanation, from network theory, predicts that the likelihood of a tie between two actors depends on the presence of certain relationships with other actors. For instance, two actors are more likely to form a tie if they share many transitive linkages with other actors. We examine the evolution of cooperation networks in the Council of the European Union as a testing ground for propositions from these approaches. Our data consist of a unique combination of actors’ policy positions and their network relations over time. We find evidence that both preference similarity and indirect ties affect the development of network relations throughout the Council's committees, although there appears to be significant variation in the extent to which preference similarity affects network evolution. We consider the implications of these findings for the stock of social capital held in the Council and for understanding the consensual mode decision-making highlighted by previous studies of the Council. These issues are highly pertinent given the challenges posed by the prospect of Brexit