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Is the ‘Hard Bargaining’ Image of the Council Misleading? The Committee of Permanent Representatives and the Local Elections Directive

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  • Jeffrey Lewis

Abstract

The quiet evolution of the Committee of Permanent Representatives (Coreper) into a de facto decision‐making body has received surprisingly little attention from integration researchers. Even less attention has been paid to the novel institutional form and underlying rationality of this forum at the interface between the national and Community levels. This article argues that Coreper maintains the performance of the Council through the production of a distinct culture of compromise and community‐method. The result, empirically demonstrated in a case study of the 1994 local elections directive, is a shared commitment to finding solutions, where membership in the collective decision‐making process has become part of the rational calculus of defining and defending self‐interests. These findings suggest the need to modify the ‘hard bargaining’ image of EU decision‐making.

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  • Jeffrey Lewis, 1998. "Is the ‘Hard Bargaining’ Image of the Council Misleading? The Committee of Permanent Representatives and the Local Elections Directive," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(4), pages 479-504, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jcmkts:v:36:y:1998:i:4:p:479-504
    DOI: 10.1111/1468-5965.00136
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    Cited by:

    1. Stéphanie Novak, 2013. "The Silence of Ministers: Consensus and Blame Avoidance in the Council of the European Union," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(6), pages 1091-1107, November.
    2. Arnold, Christine, Eliyahu V. Sapir and Galina Zapryanova, 2012. "Trust in the institutions of the European Union: A cross-country examination," European Integration online Papers (EIoP), European Community Studies Association Austria (ECSA-A), vol. 16, February.
    3. James P. Cross, 2012. "Interventions and negotiation in the Council of Ministers of the European Union," European Union Politics, , vol. 13(1), pages 47-69, March.
    4. Frank M. Häge, 2007. "Committee Decision-making in the Council of the European Union," European Union Politics, , vol. 8(3), pages 299-328, September.
    5. Andreas Dür & Gemma Mateo, 2010. "Bargaining Power and Negotiation Tactics: The Negotiations on the EU's Financial Perspective, 2007-13," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48, pages 557-578, June.
    6. Daniel Naurin & Rutger Lindahl, 2010. "Out in the cold? Flexible integration and the political status of Euro opt-outs," European Union Politics, , vol. 11(4), pages 485-509, December.
    7. Vanhoonacker, Sophie & Dijkstra, Hylke & Maurer Heidi, 2010. "Understanding the Role of Bureaucracy in the European Security and Defence Policy: The State of the Art," European Integration online Papers (EIoP), European Community Studies Association Austria (ECSA-A), vol. 14, August.
    8. Thomas Winzen, 2013. "European integration and national parliamentary oversight institutions," European Union Politics, , vol. 14(2), pages 297-323, June.
    9. Jürgen Neyer, 2002. "Discourse and Order in the EU. A Deliberative Approach to European Governance," EUI-RSCAS Working Papers 57, European University Institute (EUI), Robert Schuman Centre of Advanced Studies (RSCAS).
    10. Arne Niemann, 2006. "Explaining visa, asylum and immigration policy Treaty revision: insights from a revised neofunctionalist framework," The Constitutionalism Web-Papers p0005, University of Hamburg, Faculty for Economics and Social Sciences, Department of Social Sciences, Institute of Political Science.
    11. Eric Tremolada & Carlos Tassara & Olivier Costa, 2019. "Colombia y la Unión Europea. Una asociación cada vez más estrecha," Books, Universidad Externado de Colombia, Facultad de Derecho, number 1101, October.
    12. John A. Scherpereel & Lauren K. Perez, 2015. "Turnover in the Council of the European Union: What It is and Why It Matters," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(3), pages 658-673, May.
    13. Bürgin, Alexander, 2013. "Salience, path dependency and the coalition between the European Commission and the Danish Council Presidency: Why the EU opened a visa liberalisation process with Turkey," European Integration online Papers (EIoP), European Community Studies Association Austria (ECSA-A), vol. 17, August.
    14. Scharpf, Fritz W., 2003. "Problem-solving effectiveness and democratic accountability in the EU," MPIfG Working Paper 03/1, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    15. Jens Blom-Hansen & Gijs Jan Brandsma, 2009. "The EU Comitology System: Intergovernmental Bargaining "and" Deliberative Supranationalism?," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47, pages 719-740, September.
    16. Diana Panke & Gurur Polat & Franziska Hohlstein, 2021. "Satisfied or not? Exploring the interplay of individual, country and international organization characteristics for negotiation success," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 403-429, April.
    17. Mikko Mattila & Jan-Erik Lane, 2001. "Why Unanimity in the Council?," European Union Politics, , vol. 2(1), pages 31-52, February.
    18. Scharpf, Fritz W., 2001. "What have we learned? Problem-solving capacity of the multilevel European polity," MPIfG Working Paper 01/4, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    19. Jens Blom‐Hansen & Gijs Jan Brandsma, 2009. "The EU Comitology System: Intergovernmental Bargaining and Deliberative Supranationalism?," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(4), pages 719-740, September.
    20. Andreas Dür & Gemma Mateo, 2010. "Bargaining Power and Negotiation Tactics: The Negotiations on the EU's Financial Perspective, 2007–13," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(3), pages 557-578, June.
    21. Rebecca Adler-Nissen, 2016. "Towards a Practice Turn in EU Studies: The Everyday of European Integration," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(1), pages 87-103, January.
    22. Liesbet Hooghe, 2003. "Europe Divided?," European Union Politics, , vol. 4(3), pages 281-304, September.

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