Democratic Politics in the European Parliament

by Simon Hix , Abdul G. Noury , Gérard Roland

• ISBN13: 9780521872881
• ISBN10: 052187288X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-05-14
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

With the European Parliament comprising politicians from many different countries, cultures, languages, national parties and institutional backgrounds, one might expect politics in the Parliament to be highly-fragmented and unpredictable. By studying more than 12,000 recorded votes between 1979 and 2004 this book establishes that the opposite is in fact true: transnational parties in the European Parliament are highly cohesive and the classic 'left-right' dimension dominates voting behaviour. Furthermore, the cohesion of parties in the European Parliament has increased as the powers of the Parliament have increased. The authors suggest that the main reason for these developments is that like-minded MEPs have incentives to form stable transnational party organizations and to use these organizations to compete over European Union policies. They suggest that this is a positive development for the future of democratic accountability in the European Union.

Author Biography

Gerard Roland is Professor in the Departments of Economics and Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley.

Table of Contents

List of figures	p. xi
List of tables	p. xii
List of boxes	p. xiv
Acknowledgements	p. xv
Introduction	p. 1
Summary of the argument and the main findings	p. 3
Outline of the book	p. 6
Lessons for political science and European politics	p. 8
Development of the European Parliament	p. 12
Powers of the European Parliament	p. 12
Power to control the executive: a hybrid model	p. 13
Power to make legislation: from a lobbyist to a co-legislator	p. 18
Political parties in the European Parliament: a 'two-plus-several' party system	p. 21
The electoral disconnection	p. 26
The dataset: roll-call votes in the European Parliament	p. 29
Conclusion	p. 31
Democracy, transaction costs and political parties	p. 32
Citizen-delegate democracy	p. 33
Party-based democracy	p. 37
Parties in legislative politics and the making of public policy	p. 39
Parties and electoral politics	p. 46
Parliaments without strong parties: a history of failure	p. 49
Implications for the European Parliament	p. 50
Conclusion	p. 53
Ideological not territorial politics	p. 54
Political conflict, indivisibilities, externalities and redistribution	p. 55
Solving political conflicts	p. 57
The cleavage theory of democratic politics	p. 63
Implications for the European Parliament	p. 66
Conclusion	p. 68
Decentralised governance to territorial entities and sectors	p. 69
Participation	p. 72
Participation in the European Parliament: The costs and benefits of voting	p. 74
Variations in participation rates across time, political group and country	p. 77
Explaining the patterns	p. 79
Conclusion: politics determines participation	p. 85
Trends in party cohesion	p. 87
Theories of party cohesion	p. 88
Measuring cohesion in the European Parliament	p. 91
Main trends: growing party voting and declining national voting	p. 93
Determinants of party cohesion in the European Parliament	p. 95
Variables	p. 95
Results	p. 99
Conclusion: Growing policy-making power leads to growing party cohesion	p. 104
Agenda-setting and cohesion	p. 105
Agenda-setting and political parties	p. 108
The agenda cartel theory of parties	p. 108
Agenda-setting in the European Parliament: external and internal 'cartels'	p. 111
Propositions about agenda-setting and party cohesion in the European Parliament	p. 115
Descriptive evidence of agenda-setting and policy influence	p. 118
Statistical analysis	p. 121
Variables	p. 122
Results	p. 123
Conclusion: agenda control alone cannot explain party discipline	p. 130
Who controls the MEPs?	p. 132
MEPs: agents with two principals	p. 133
Voting with and against the European and national parties	p. 136
Analysis of MEP voting defection in the Fifth Parliament	p. 139
Variables	p. 139
Results	p. 142
Relative importance of European and national parties in all five parliaments	p. 143
Conclusion: European parties from national party actions	p. 145
Competition and coalition formation	p. 147
Theories of party competition and coalition formation	p. 148
Patterns of coalitions in the European Parliament	p. 150
Determinants of coalition formation	p. 152
Variables	p. 152
Results	p. 157
Conclusion: an increasingly competitive party system	p. 158
Dimensions of politics	p. 161
Dimensions of conflict in EU politics	p. 162
Estimating MEPs' ideal points from roll-call votes	p. 165
Spatial maps of the five elected European Parliaments	p. 168
Interpretation of the meaning of the dimensions	p. 172
Variables	p. 172
Results	p. 175
Conclusion: Normal politics in a territorially divided polity	p. 180
Investiture and censure of the Santer Commission	p. 182
Formation and termination of governments and the case of the EU	p. 183
The Santer Commission: from nomination to resignation	p. 186
Analysis: MEP behaviour in the investiture and censure of the Commission	p. 192
Variables	p. 192
Results	p. 195
Conclusion: Government-opposition politics arrives in the European Parliament	p. 198
The Takeover Directive	p. 200
A short history of the Takeover Directive	p. 201
Explaining MEP voting on the Takeover Directive: nationality or party?	p. 205
Analysis of MEP behaviour on the Takeover Directive	p. 208
Variables	p. 208
Results	p. 211
Conclusion: parties and ideology matter, even when national interests interfere	p. 214
Conclusion	p. 216
Bibliography	p. 221
Index	p. 235
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