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Applying Ideal Point Estimation Methods to the Council of Ministers

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  • Sara Hagemann

    (European Policy Centre, Brussels, Belgium, s.hagemann@epc.eu)

Abstract

This research note addresses an increasingly popular topic in the EU literature, namely the measurement of policy preferences in the Council of Ministers. It aims to provide conclusions on three issues: (1) what data are in fact available from the Council, (2) how preferences are measured in other legislatures, and (3) whether these methods would be suitable for analyses of Council members' preference positions given the available data. Applying the popular scaling method NOMINATE and a Bayesian MCMC model to a data set consisting of all legislation adopted by the Council in 1999—2004, it is found that, although the two methods show similar voting patterns at the general level, the failure to report standard errors by NOMINATE in particular proves to be a severe problem when trying to identify individual governments' policy location. Conversely, the Bayesian approach provides a convincing method for analyses of Council decision records and is easily extended to include more advanced empirical information than merely the governments' decisions to support or oppose a proposal.

Suggested Citation

  • Sara Hagemann, 2007. "Applying Ideal Point Estimation Methods to the Council of Ministers," European Union Politics, , vol. 8(2), pages 279-296, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:eeupol:v:8:y:2007:i:2:p:279-296
    DOI: 10.1177/1465116507076433
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    2. Karl-Oskar Lindgren & Thomas Persson, 2008. "The Structure of Conflict over EU Chemicals Policy," European Union Politics, , vol. 9(1), pages 31-58, March.
    3. Tim Veen, 2011. "Positions and salience in European Union politics: Estimation and validation of a new dataset," European Union Politics, , vol. 12(2), pages 267-288, June.
    4. Thomas König & Bernd Luig, 2012. "Party ideology and legislative agendas: Estimating contextual policy positions for the study of EU decision-making," European Union Politics, , vol. 13(4), pages 604-625, December.
    5. Mónica D. Oliveira & Inês Mataloto & Panos Kanavos, 2019. "Multi-criteria decision analysis for health technology assessment: addressing methodological challenges to improve the state of the art," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 20(6), pages 891-918, August.
    6. Běla Plechanovová, 2011. "Coalitions in the EU Council: Pitfalls of Multidimensional Analysis," Czech Economic Review, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, vol. 5(3), pages 249-266, November.
    7. Michal Ovádek, 2021. "Supranationalism, constrained? Locating the Court of Justice on the EU integration dimension," European Union Politics, , vol. 22(1), pages 46-69, March.
    8. Badinger, Harald & Mühlböck, Monika & Nindl, Elisabeth & Reuter, Wolf Heinrich, 2014. "Theoretical vs. empirical power indices: Do preferences matter?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 158-176.
    9. Enrico Borghetto & Lars Mäder, 2014. "EU law revisions and legislative drift," European Union Politics, , vol. 15(2), pages 171-191, June.
    10. Běla Plechanovová, 2011. "The EU Council enlarged: North-South-East or core-periphery?," European Union Politics, , vol. 12(1), pages 87-106, March.
    11. Brigitte Pircher & Mike Farjam, 2021. "Oppositional voting in the Council of the EU between 2010 and 2019: Evidence for differentiated politicisation," European Union Politics, , vol. 22(3), pages 472-494, September.
    12. Tim Veen, 2011. "The dimensionality and nature of conflict in European Union politics: On the characteristics of intergovernmental decision-making," European Union Politics, , vol. 12(1), pages 65-86, March.
    13. Stefanie Bailer & Mikko Mattila & Gerald Schneider, 2015. "Money Makes the EU Go Round: The Objective Foundations of Conflict in the Council of Ministers," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(3), pages 437-456, May.
    14. Sara Hagemann & Bjørn Høyland, 2010. "Bicameral Politics in the European Union," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(4), pages 811-833, September.
    15. Sara Hagemann & Bjørn Høyland, 2010. "Bicameral Politics in the European Union," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48, pages 811-833, September.
    16. Christopher Wratil & Sara B Hobolt, 2019. "Public deliberations in the Council of the European Union: Introducing and validating DICEU," European Union Politics, , vol. 20(3), pages 511-531, September.

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