Reforming the European Union

by Finke, Daniel; Konig, Thomas; Proksch, Sven-oliver; Tsebelis, George

• ISBN13: 9780691153933
• ISBN10: 0691153930
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-07-09
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr

Summary

For decades the European Union tried changing its institutions, but achieved only unsatisfying political compromises and modest, incremental treaty revisions. In late 2009, however, the EU was successfully reformed through the Treaty of Lisbon. Reforming the European Unionexamines how political leaders ratified this treaty against all odds and shows how this victory involved all stages of treaty reform negotiations--from the initial proposal to referendums in several European countries. The authors emphasize the strategic role of political leadership and domestic politics, and they use state-of-the-art methodology, applying a comprehensive data set for actors' reform preferences. They look at how political leaders reacted to apparent failures of the process by recreating or changing the rules of the game. While domestic actors played a significant role in the process, their influence over the outcome was limited as leaders ignored negative referendums and plowed ahead with intended reforms. The book's empirical analyses shed light on critical episodes: strategic agenda setting during the European Convention, the choice of ratification instrument, intergovernmental bargaining dynamics, and the reaction of the German Council presidency to the negative referendums in France, the Netherlands, and Ireland.

Author Biography

Daniel Finke is assistant professor of political science at the University of Heidelberg. Thomas Knig is professor of political science and director of the Research Centre for the Political Economy of Reforms at the University of Mannheim. Sven-Oliver Proksch is a research fellow at the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research. George Tsebelis is the Anatol Rapoport Collegiate Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan.

Table of Contents

List of Figures	p. xi
List of Tables	p. xiii
Acknowledgments	p. xv
Introduction	p. 1
From the European Convention to the Lisbon Agreement and Beyond: A Veto Player Analysis	p. 28
Judges, Bureaucrats, and the Democratic Deficit	p. 32
Veto Players and Their Policy and Institutional Implications	p. 38
A Qualified Majority in the Council: To What Extent Does It Impede Decision Making?	p. 45
Battles over the "Default Solution"	p. 54
Conclusion	p. 60
Revealing Constitutional Preferences in the European Convention	p. 62
Revealing Preferences: Cosponsorship of Amendments in the European Convention	p. 64
Data and Method	p. 68
Results: Giscard's Central Position within the Conflict Space	p. 70
Conclusion	p. 75
The Art of Political Manipulation in the European Convention	p. 76
Limiting the Number of Amendments	p. 78
Shaping Amendments	p. 88
The Absence of Voting	p. 94
Discussion and Conclusion	p. 95
	p. 97
	p. 99
Actors and Positions on the Reform of the Treaty of Nice	p. 103
The Process of Reform: From the Convention to the Ratification Stage	p. 107
The Two-dimensional Space and the Location of the Political Leaders' Positions	p. 111
Other Actors and the Cohesiveness of the Political Leaders' Positions	p. 116
Representing and Delegating the Position of Political Leaders	p. 120
The Ratifiers: Median Voters and Political Parties	p. 125
Summary	p. 127
Why (Unpopular) Leaders Announce Popular Votes	p. 129
Political Leaders and Their Announcements of Referendums	p. 132
Ratification Hurdles in Each Country	p. 134
Decisions along the Ratification Path: A Strategic Consideration	p. 137
The Empirical Analysis of Referendum Announcements	p. 142
From Announcing Referendums to a Reflection Period and Reform Crisis	p. 147
Principals and Agents: From the Convention's Proposal to the Constitutional Treaty	p. 151
The Setup for Intergovernmental Bargaining	p. 154
The Reaction to Failure: Delegating the Negotiation Mandate	p. 158
How Drifting Agents Enabled a Disagreeable Compromise	p. 160
From Compromising Agents to the Defeat by the Vote of the Irish	p. 166
In the Aftermath of the Negative Referendums: The Irish Resistance	p. 170
The Strategy of the German Presidency	p. 173
Moderate but Well-directed Concessions	p. 177
From Treaty Reform to Constitution Building, and Back	p. 184
Conclusion	p. 188
Appendix: Research Design and Methodology	p. 199
References	p. 209
Index	p. 221
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