IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/eeupol/v1y2000i1p63-92.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Control of the Commission's Executive Functions

Author

Listed:
  • Fabio Franchino

    (London School of Economics and Political Science, UK)

Abstract

The literature on implementation committees predominantly emphasizes their informational role and relies on a sui generis characterization of the European Union. This article reasserts their control function and locates these committees within the core tenets of rational choice and agency theory. It takes McCubbins and Page's (1987) propositions about the determinants of legislators' control of executive functions and applies these to the control that the member states exert on the Commission's executive powers. The likelihood of establishing control procedures and the stringency of control are positively correlated with 1) the uncertainty facing legislators about the optimum policy actions, 2) the level of conflict among legislators and 3) the need of unanimous agreement in the Council of Ministers. Using logistic regressions and a cumulative logit model applied to a stratified sample of non-amending secondary legislation adopted between 1987 and 1998, the article concludes that unanimity, level of conflict and uncertainty significantly increase the likelihood of procedural control of the Commission's activities. Level of conflict and uncertainty are also significant factors affecting the stringency of control. The article concludes by relating these results to the literature on European integration and on political control of the bureaucracy.

Suggested Citation

  • Fabio Franchino, 2000. "Control of the Commission's Executive Functions," European Union Politics, , vol. 1(1), pages 63-92, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:eeupol:v:1:y:2000:i:1:p:63-92
    DOI: 10.1177/1465116500001001004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1465116500001001004
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1465116500001001004?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Crombez, Christophe, 1996. "Legislative Procedures in the European Community," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 26(2), pages 199-228, April.
    2. Bawn, Kathleen, 1995. "Political Control Versus Expertise: Congressional Choices about Administrative Procedures," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 89(1), pages 62-73, March.
    3. Lohmann, Susanne & O'Halloran, Sharyn, 1994. "Divided government and U.S. trade policy: theory and evidence," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 48(4), pages 595-632, October.
    4. Steunenberg, Bernard, 1996. "Agent Discretion, Regulatory Policymaking, and Different Institutional Arrangements," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 86(3-4), pages 309-339, March.
    5. Steunenberg, Bernard & Koboldt, Christian & Schmidtchen, Dieter, 1996. "Policymaking, comitology, and the balance of power in the European Union," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 329-344, September.
    6. Bawn, Kathleen, 1997. "Choosing Strategies to Control the Bureaucracy: Statutory Constraints, Oversight, and the Committee System," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 13(1), pages 101-126, April.
    7. Pollack, Mark A., 1997. "Delegation, agency, and agenda setting in the European Community," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 51(1), pages 99-134, January.
    8. Burley, Anne-Marie & Mattli, Walter, 1993. "Europe Before the Court: A Political Theory of Legal Integration," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 47(1), pages 41-76, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fabio Franchino, 2000. "The Commission's Executive Discretion, Information and Comitology," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 12(2), pages 155-181, April.
    2. Moser, Peter, 1999. "The impact of legislative institutions on public policy: a survey," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 1-33, March.
    3. Bernard Steunenberg & Dieter Schmidtchen & Christian Koboldt, 1999. "Strategic Power in the European Union," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 11(3), pages 339-366, July.
    4. Steunenberg, Bernard & Schmidtchen, Dieter, 2000. "The Comitology Game: European Policymaking with Parliamentary Involvement," CSLE Discussion Paper Series 2000-05, Saarland University, CSLE - Center for the Study of Law and Economics.
    5. Thomas Doleys, 2009. "Incomplete Contracting, Commission Discretion and the Origins of EU Merger Control," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47, pages 483-506, June.
    6. Trofimov, Ivan D., 2017. "Political economy of trade protection and liberalization: in search of agency-based and holistic framework of policy change," MPRA Paper 79504, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Thomas Braendle & Alois Stutzer, 2013. "Political selection of public servants and parliamentary oversight," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 45-76, February.
    8. Cyril Benoît, 2021. "Politicians, regulators, and regulatory governance: The neglected sides of the story," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(S1), pages 8-22, November.
    9. Wim Van Gestel & Christophe Crombez, 2014. "The role of oversight committees in closed rule legislation," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 26(4), pages 521-547, October.
    10. Dieter Schmidtchen & Bernard Steunenberg, "undated". "European Policymaking: An Agency-Theoretic Analysis of the Issue," German Working Papers in Law and Economics 2002-1-1040, Berkeley Electronic Press.
    11. Ian R Turner, 2017. "Working smart and hard? Agency effort, judicial review, and policy precision," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 29(1), pages 69-96, January.
    12. Keith Dowding, 2000. "Institutionalist Research on the European Union," European Union Politics, , vol. 1(1), pages 125-144, February.
    13. James P Cross & Henrik Hermansson, 2017. "Legislative amendments and informal politics in the European Union: A text reuse approach," European Union Politics, , vol. 18(4), pages 581-602, December.
    14. Clifford J. Carrubba & Matthew Gabel, 2005. "Do Governments Sway European Court of Justice Decision-making?: Evidence from Government Court Briefs," Working Papers 2005-06, University of Kentucky, Institute for Federalism and Intergovernmental Relations.
    15. Holger Döring, 2007. "The Composition of the College of Commissioners," European Union Politics, , vol. 8(2), pages 207-228, June.
    16. Andreas Grimmel, 2011. "Integration and the Context of Law: Why the European Court of Justice is not a Political Actor," Les Cahiers européens de Sciences Po 3, Centre d'études européennes (CEE) at Sciences Po, Paris.
    17. Ellen Mastenbroek & Tim Veen, 2008. "Last Words on Delegation?," European Union Politics, , vol. 9(2), pages 295-311, June.
    18. Susanne K. Schmidt, 2000. "Only an Agenda Setter?," European Union Politics, , vol. 1(1), pages 37-61, February.
    19. Mark A. Pollack, 2007. "The New Institutionalisms and European Integration," The Constitutionalism Web-Papers p0031, University of Hamburg, Faculty for Economics and Social Sciences, Department of Social Sciences, Institute of Political Science.
    20. Frank M. Häge, 2007. "Committee Decision-making in the Council of the European Union," European Union Politics, , vol. 8(3), pages 299-328, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:eeupol:v:1:y:2000:i:1:p:63-92. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.